The sun was just beginning to set on the horizon, and a strong wind was blowing the waves back and forth violently. The coast was almost completely submerged beneath the waves crashing against the shores and sending spray into the sky.

Winter stood on a large outcrop of rock looking over the ocean, almost like a miniature cliff, with a large collection of trees behind her. The waves flew high enough to soak her from head to foot if they hit and the wind was throwing her hair out behind her like a flag, not that there was much to throw. She stood there alone and uncaring. Her right arm had the sleeve rolled up and a series of bandages extended from over her shoulder down to near her elbow, a wound from a recent battle that she would never forget. It had nearly been a week since her fight with Will and she was still recovering from it, she had begun to twitch at small things and she seemed more aware of her surroundings than ever.

She stared out at the ocean as it continued its angry wrath over the coast; a wave drew up beside her, big enough to throw her off, and collapsed down again with an almighty splash. Winter ignored it as the rush of water and power caused a slight wind to blow past her, she just stood there. She didn't really know what else to do right now, with her arm in a bandage she probably wouldn't be able to fight for a while so she thought she'd better take it easy for the time being. She put one hand on the bandage covering the large hole in her shoulder, the air rushing through the bandage was somehow relaxing and she could feel it getting slowly better. Suddenly her eyes widened and she span round, reaching up with her good arm to one of the katanas slung over her back. Her eyes narrowed again, she could see something moving about behind her.

Ethari was soaring over the coast, letting the waves spray him with foam and water. The sun was setting and the first stars began to peak over the horizon. He normally cared if people saw him with his wings spread open but in the ocean at night with the stars beginning to gleam overhead, he no longer cared about life.

His element was the stars so every time at night he would lose himself in the sky letting the wind over come him and the darkness envelope him. To him the stars made a perfect combination with light and dark. It was his goal to make his body the perfect combination of light and dark.

He glided over the waves. He gazed upwards to spot Cataraza, his dove flying overhead. She preferred to avoid the waves and water so she stayed a good distance overhead to avoid the splash of the waves. Ethari decided he would set up camp. He would still soar in the stars, just it would be a good idea to set up his bedroll and start a fire.

He did a sharp turn, letting his eye length silver hair whip across his face. His light blue garments and his white cape whipped with the wind and his belt flung around his sword hitting the side of his leg. His bow also flew behind him beating against his back and thumping rhythmical against the wind.

He landed on a small cliff and began to rub two small sticks together. Once he had a spark he collected a few branches and built up his fire. Then he unrolled his bedroll and laid under the stars. For about a half an hour he sat there gazing at the starlit void of the night sky. He made no attempt to conceal his identity, not pulling up his hood to cover his sparkling blue angel eyes, or folding his wings. Instead he flapped his wings occasional in the darkness of the night. Cataraza laid next to him, asleep.

Whatever it was darted back into the trees rapidly, like a rat or a squirrel. Winter, however, didn't let it off so easy. She followed whatever it was just in case, she had been growing steadily more paranoid. She stopped when the trees cut off most of the wind and looked about for any signs of something to cause a disturbance. But the thing had dissapeared altogether. She looked up at the nearest tree and grabbed the lowest branch, it was strong enough to hold her weight and she pulled herself up. It was hard climbing a tree with one arm, and extremely exhausting. Once she reached the top she looked out across the ground for the creature but it had vanished completely.

She scanned around a bit more and gave up, she looked around and saw in the distance a fire dancing on the edge of a cliff nearby, she looked closer and made out a figure lying next to it. She looked down to the ground and slowly began to descend, she dropped carefully onto the next branch and slid off. She grabbed it with her right arm and immediatly cried out in pain again clutching her shoulder, a faint blotch of red grew visible just beneath the bandage and she dropped to the ground hard and kept her hand on her shoulder, trying to stop it hurting.
"Damned vampire," she spat.
She remembered the figure on the cliff and wondered what he was doing out there, most likely star gazing.

She wandered about between the trees, still clutching her shoulder, and was walking in more or less the direction of the cliff where she'd spotted the stranger. He doubted he'd be threatening, after all there was nothing threatening about a star gazer, but she at least wanted to know exactly who he was and what he was doing.

Ethari laid on his bedroll in a different world. He had become so consumed in the stars in front of him that he wasn't paying attention to the girl that was approaching him, Cataraza did however. She began to chirp and squeal at the site of the newcomer.

Ethari awoke from his daze and stood to greet his new guest. She had vibrant blue hair and cold icy eyes. He also couldn't but notice the gash on her right arm. His mind wandered for about thirty seconds. His mind drifted so easily, his friends got used to gaps of thinking periods. They usually had these breaks as well so they didn't mind that much.

He actually only had one friend. One friend that he had seen recently. There was his mentor and his sister. Of course he hadn't seen them in a couple of years. He also thought of what was this girl doing her. Were her motives good or evil. She looked like she had no intentions of killing or stealing but just to be sure he sensed to see if she was evil. He had no response, so she was either a strong evil magician or just plain good.

Normally before greeting someone Ethari would pull his hood to cover his angelic eyes and fold his wings to his back and cover them with his pure white cloak. She already knew he was a angel so he made no attempt to cover his wings and stretched them lazily in the cool ocean breeze.

Ethari said to the girl " Excuse me, but may I ask your name." He said this as if this was a normal meeting in the city, except they were in a empty coast and almost no one else was nearby. As he said this he kept his hand close to his sword, just in case of a emergency.

Winter stopped and leant against a tree, grabbing her shoulder again, it began to hurt like hell once more. She carfully slid the bandage that covered it off so that she could see underneath; he attempt to stop herself falling had caused to skin to tear diagonally upwards towards the left and it was bleeding again. Winter placed the bandage back over it and walked on trying to ignore the pain that the wound was giving her. She took her hand off her shoulder as soon as it began to calm down again and noticed that her palm had been stained red again, she was almost surprised that she hadn't passed out by now.

She looked up and noticed that she was fairly near to the cliff where the figure was sitting, from here she could make out a pair of wings, larger than her own, protruding from his back. She narrowed her eyes again, feeling a tiny bit jealous, those wings were definatly large enough to fly with. The small dove lying next to him looked up and then saw Winter, it began chirruping loudly and woke the stranger up. He stood up and looked around, Winter fixed him with the usual cold glare, although she couldn't sense any evil in his heart.

He seemed to lapse out for a bit before waking up and realizing that she was there, so he was a hardly master evil vampire of the underworld was he. She lowered her head slightly but kept her gaze on the stranger.
"Winter," she replied simply "hi, what's yours?"

Her eyes. They were stone cold as if her life had no meaning. Ethari couldn't bear those kind of eyes. Cataraza had a similar kind of eyes but more compassionate golden color and a pale gleam to them. At this Ethari eyes dulled. His eyes changed frequently. When he dreamed they were distance, and they sparkled. When he was frenzied they were focused and they sparkled similarly. And when he was bored or mad they dulled.

This normally happened because Ethari would try to cool himself down. He would suppress the sparkle that instinctively would react to anger. Ethari wasn't angered at Winter though. Her look upset him and he had to mentally calm and suppress himself.

" My name is Ethari Xilophent." He said this coolly and without emotion " and soon to be celestial paladin of the Istari." His last words rang with a mood of giddiness. His partner and himself had begun to plan a guild in which they would seek the advancement of the stars and cosmos. They also wanted to have real justice, not other forms of justice.

A cold breeze ran through the cliff top. His hair swirled to the left towards the wind. His wing feathers also shifted in the breeze. He whistled suddenly and his dove Cataraza landed in his arm. He created a lee with his arm and cradled his small dove for the cold weakened her small body. Even though she was small and couldn't do much in a physical fight, she still shared her energy and the energy from the family star.

He gestured to his bed roll. "Feel free to rest, that seems like a pretty bad wound on your arm there." When he finished saying this he walked and sat down near the fire and said " How did you get such a horrible wound. It seems like it would hurt a lot."

Well, right now he didn't seem to be any form of threat to her, in fact he seemed more overly laid back and didn't seem to care at all. Although at most he seemed to zone out at random intnervals for reason's completely unknown to her. This however caused her to narrow her eyes a bit more and keep a close eye on him, however she could tell that he wasn't evil at all and if he thought about attacking her she'd know before he did it.
Paladin maybe, but I shouldn't think too highly of yourself if I were you, Winter thought in reply to his comment.

She looked over at the dove perched on Ethari's arm, from what she could see it held almost the same expression she usually wore. For a moment she wondered what he was doing out here, although if she did ask that then she'd probably have to explain herself too, and she wasn't in the mood for sharing it with anybody at the moment. She walked over to pretty near the edge of the cliff, taking him up on his offer and sat down so that she could see just over the edge and out over the ocean, she didn;t bother looking back as the wind caught her hair again and threw it around over her head.

Ethari asked a question, one about the large wound on her arm. She'd been half expecting this, as it was earning her several curious stares, even so her hand absently wandered over to her shoulder and rested lightly on it.
"This, I got it from a vampire attack," she explained calmly "so I came here, to cool off a bit."
She stared out at the waves crashing over the coast and against the cliff, she had told him half the truth though, what she really wanted was to think of a way to get reveange.

Ethari knew her back was turn, so he smirked at what she said. There was definitely more to her story. There was more to every ones story. He had told her that he was going to be a paladin, when really he didn't even know for sure what was going on. Things were getting mixed up in his life, but he didn't want to go spilling his whole life to this girl that he had just meet minutes ago.

She sat down close to the edge of the cliff, to close. She seemed to be uncaring and rather cold. Then again her whole appearance of her was cold. Ethari normally didn't mind him sitting close to the edge, because his wings could save him just in case he fell.

The sun began to begin to set. He peered in the sky, seeing the bright stars illuminating the dark night, making a comfortable peace with the nights darkness and their own brightness. Three of the stars stood out to him. Cataraza, Elebreth, Istari. He picked out a star a while ago, meaning some thing very special to him and his family.

A few clouds began to blot some of the stars. " Excuse me" Ethari said. Without waiting for a response he rocketed himself into the sky. He made strong pumps with his wings. He moved a rapid speed, trying to make himself seem stronger than he normally was. His average speed was somewhat slower than that speed.

His cloak rippled loudly behind him as he flew, and his hair did similarly. He shot through the cloud. There was a lot of moisture inside the cloud, meaning it would rain sometime tonight or the next day. Ethari made a sharp turn and began to plummet down. When he was about 20 meters from the ground he turned sharply up and hovered down to the ground.

" It's going to rain tonight." Ethari said. He walked down to the edge of the cliff and sat down next to Winter, gasping for breath from the laborious task. In about 30 seconds, he would regain his breath. Ethari peered in the clouds, which now covered some of the stars.

Winter looked up and saw Ethari fly into the air on the pair of wings sprouting from his back. She gazed up at him with a small hint of longing in her eyes before she looked back down again, although she did have a pair of wings on her back, she was unable to fly with them. She glanced at the one on the right and moved it experimentally, however nothing else happened. She looked up again and noticed that Ethari had vanished into the clouds that had just begun to creep across the sky as the sun vanished below the horizen.

She watched the sea for a while longer, watching the seperate waves form and then break against the edge of the cliff or the bank of the coast. She sighed and rolled over onto her back with her hand behind her head, she noticed Ethari coming back down from the cloud and wondered what he'd been doing up there. Although her question was almost instantly answered once he'd landed and mentioned that it would be raining soon. Winter just made a soft noise in her throat signifying that she understood. She sat up again her turned her attention back to her shoulder, she rolled the bandage off that was covering her wound to examine it again.

It had stopped bleeding and was beginning to heal again, if Winter had any magic she would have used it there and then but she had almost nothing apart from her own natural abilities. She put the bandage back over her shoulder and tightened it slightly, wincing at the material brushed past the sensative area. Once she finished she lay back down, letting out a long breath.
"Any reason why you're trying to become a Paladin?" She asked out of interest, and for the simple matter of talking and not sitting in silence the whole time.

Ethari smiled a half smile. He chortled a little. " Ah, but first let me help that wound a little." He approached her and removed her bandage gingerly. The wound looked grisly. He made the ball of blue energy and put it about 4 centimeters from her wound. The ball disassembled itself into a small wave of blue energy. It spread over the wound.

" That will have almost no effect on you." Ethari said " it's only a minor version of a heal spell. At most you will feel a little less pain. I wish I could do more but I can't." He picked himself up and sat down by the fire.

" Why do I want to be a paladin? Hmm, lets see. Why is it okay to murder? Why is it okay to steal? How come a paladin can kill someone in the name of justice? What is justice? Who's job is it to decide if its worth killing someone or something for their actions." He stood and raised his voice a little.

" Why is a dark paladin different from a light paladin? They fight for goals. No, they strive for them, kill for them." He made his last word have a edge to it. " I am not going to be a ordinary paladin, but a paladin who will question justice. Who will make sure that the mummy who saved two children from a horde of zombies doesn't get killed for what he is. I am going to redefine justice, good and evil, right and wrong!"

He was panting by the end of his mini speech. " So that's why I want to be a paladin, and more." Cataraza flew to his shoulder and began to playfully nip at his ear. " Okay okay" he whispered. He picked her up and held her in his arms, making a small lee from the wind. She was getting cold and he couldn't risk her getting sick.

Winter sat up again, lookig over at Ethari. His reply had been a little over-complicated and souned almost like a riddle but she understood at least. She spared another look at her shoulder, the spell hadn't managed to do a lot but it had managed to clean it and it wasn't hurting so much now.
"I see," she replied "you don't won't people to assume everythings is what they see it as, don't you."
For a moment her expression softened and a proper smile spread across her face, making her features seem strangly warm, but in a few moments it was gone, as though it were nothing but a dream or an illusion.
"Well then, I wish you the best of luck," she said looking up at Ethari, with the dove in his arms.

She turned back around, thinking carefully about what he'd said, it was extremely ambitious though but if he did succeed she'd probably never have to fight anybody again, the trouble was that was all she'd ever been taught to do.

Ethari was glad of her response. He normally didn't gain friends and keep to himself, and tried not to show emotion. But her words did affect him. He was glad, and startled by her brief smile. Her emotionless face had light up and made the world shine. On that not he said " well I'm going to bed, I hope you have a good nights sleep." He layed down on his unrolled bed roll and gazed out at the stars. He pointed out the constellations that were out including Gemini, and Pieces. After he found these stars he found Istari, Cataraza, and Elebreth. He named a star Cataraza and named his dove after this star.

Istari was a star he picked and represented the guild that was being formed and Elebreth was the star his best friend and partner Silvaris had picked for his family star. He finally went to sleep after a hour and fell into a restless sleep. He was a small humming bird and he flew around the world at night. There was a beautiful stars out and the sky shone with a certain friendliness and caring. But then the sky began to crack and the stars fell.

From the shattered rocks that were the stars emerged horrible demons. They looked like orcs, except in flames. They began to destroy the sky and landscape. Ethari could do nothing as a small humming bird. Ethari woke in a cold sweat with a scream. It was dawn and the embers of the fire were black. It had rained as he had predicted. He was cold, since he had no tent. There were not many trees and in those trees there was no branches that were dry. He huddled up with Cataraza to help for warmth. He grabbed a small piece of bread and began to eat small pieces of it, saving some for a return journey.

Winter nodded and lay back, with her arms under her head gazing upwards. Despite needing some sleep she kept her eyes open and watched the stars blink at her before the cloud slowly moved over them and blocked the light cast from them. She didn't care about the cold air and the lack of a blanket to keep her warm, the cold had vitrually no effect on her at all since she was half elemental. Eventually she did close her eyes but didn't fall asleep straight away.

She heard a few small raindrops hit the ground at very spaced out intervals, Ethari hadn't been kidding about the rain at least. Eventually the gaps lessened until the rain began to fall heavier than before, soaking the ground around her. Winter ignored it and finally started to drop off.

"Huh?"
Winter's eyes opened and she sat up and looked around, the cliff had disappeared and she was sitting in a wasteland, everything around her was burning with blue fire except for the small area around her. She stood up and grasped one of her katanas, as soon as she grabbed it however it vanished into air.

Winter's real eyes snapped open and she realised she was back on the cliff, she'd managed to wake up before the dream got a little too intense for her. She sat up and looked around her, it was still raining and was pretty dark now, her clothes and hair were soaking wet and as far as she knew her back was covered with mud, she ignored that and lay back down, trying to convince herself she wasn't going to have another sureal dream.

Ethari turned to Winter and said " oh your up. Come on and sit and eat something." Ethari returned to his own piece of bread and finished it off. It wasn't nearly enough of what he was used to. Ethari said to Winter " I'm going to go fish so I might be gone for a while, two hours at tops. If I'm not back before then, then I'm dead, okay." With out waiting for a response he took off into the sky and pivited near the surface of the sea.

In Ethari's quick departure he had forgotten something important. A fishing pole. Cataraza leaned her head to the side, revealing a small clump of trees. Ethari turned and landed on the beach and walked towards the trees. He found on wispy long branch and decided that it would suffice as a fishing pole. The he reached behind him and cut off a small piece from his cloak. It didn't harm his cloak much considering it was already worn out. He tied the piece on the stick. There he thought to himself a make shift fishing rod.

Now he needed bait. He plucked a larger branch and dug in the ground near the forest. Since he was in area not normally traveled by humans, it didn't take long to find some worms and maggots. He walked towards the edge of the cliff and pierced the worm on the stick. In a half a hour he pulled up a small trout. Ethari was pleased with his efforts, so he did this two more times. In a hour and a half he decided he should return to camp.

A average person would be bored from the hour and a half wait, with only three bites. Ethari was a dreamer so this time near the ocean relaxed him greatly. As Ethari returned he wondered what Winter had done in that time period.