Lin scanned her surroundings very slowly, everything was out of focus and blurry. She could hear two men talking, though their words sounded muffled and distorted. Lin blinked and shook her head to clear it. In front of her was a beautiful field of flowers. The sun had sunk below the horizon and the stars were beginning to twinkle.

"-a few days ago? That don't mean anythin', it's probably gone by now."

Lin blinked again, that strange accented voice. Lin knew she had heard it before. She twirled around and smacked right into someone.

"Ah G-R-E-A-T! She's fully awake now! A walker...great..." Lin glanced up and saw Izhmayel rubbing his jaw. "Just what are yeh?"

Lin looked at the young man confused. "What?"

"Yeh seem human enough for a Traveller...or I should say Walker...And maybe that horde of Shadows attackin' and that huge battle that ensued was just a coincidence, but I've never met one that knew 'bout the land here."

"What?" Lin glanced around even more confused. "What's going on? How did I get here? WHERE am I?"

Izhmayel scoffed and shook his head, "Figures...Well, whatever. Let's go." He started walking down the dirt road again then turned around. "I s'pose yeh can come too, just don't get in the way."

Lin turned to see who he was talking to and noticed the man with the blue hooded cloak for the first time. He averted his gaze when she looked at him. There was something oddly familiar about him, though she could not pin point what exactly.

"Hey! Let's go!"

Lin and the man both turned to look at Izhmayel. The man gestured for her to go and Lin started walking. When she caught up to Izhmayel she asked, "So, where are we going?"

Izhmayel almost stopped in his tracks. "Seriously?"

"What?"

"North, we are goin' north."

"Right..." Lin paused and skimmed the horizon. The moon and stars softly lit the path in front of them. To either side of them were fields of flowers and off in the distance Lin could barely make out a line of trees. "So, where am I?"

Lin heard Izhmayel draw a sharp breath. "Shh...no more of those questions."

Lin lowered her voice, "What is it? Are we in danger?" She glanced back and saw that the hooded man was following them a little ways away. "Who is he, anyways?"

Izhmayel shrugged, "Beats me. He wanted teh tag along, so I thought why not. Besides, he looks like he can put up a good fight."

Lin nodded and looked back at the man again. His dark blue cloak made it difficult to spot him. Lin was positive that if he wasn't walking right behind them, she would not have noticed him at all in the dark.

They walked in silence for what seemed like several hours. The moonlight barely trickled down through the trees that surrounded them now. They had reached the distant tree line Lin had spotted earlier and were now deep within the forest. Izhmayel suddenly put his hand out in front of Lin to stop her.

"Wha–" Lin started, but Izhmayel ran his hand over her mouth. He crouched down behind a bush and motioned for her to do the same. She glanced around and wondered what was happening, as she tried to find the hooded man.

A small dancing light fluttered around some bushes not too far away from them. More of the strange lights appeared, and then suddenly there were hundreds of them swirling in, out, and around three massive skeleton creatures as they walked. The creatures looked almost like giant horse skeletons with horns and a bit of a spiked spine. Walking in between the three skeleton creatures were two figures. Both of them were wearing tribal looking furs and were decorated with fanged and feathered necklaces. On the tops of their heads they each wore a ram-like skull. Parts of the ram's spines were woven through the two figures hair. One of the humanoid figures had two curling white horns coming out of the sides of his head and they both had slightly pointed ears. Lin stared at the two male figures in awe. They walked with such elegance and grace that it looked as if they were a gentle breeze passing through the forest.

Izhmayel touched Lin on the shoulder and motioned for her to go in the opposite direction of the procession of lights. She nodded and waited for Izhmayel to lead the way. Just before she got up to follow him, she glanced back. Most of the parade had traveled farther into the forest, but the older looking male with the curling horns had stopped and was staring in her direction. She held her breath as the man turned back around and started to walk off towards the rest of his group. He had those same platinum-amber-gold eyes and coppery-purplish mahogany hair that Izhmayel had. "What was that?" Lin asked quietly when she had caught up to him.

"What was what?" He asked with a bit of an edge to his tone.

Lin bit back her questions and shook her head. "Umm...nothing."

They walked in silence for a few minutes before Izhmayel sighed and said, "They are called Galas. Animal spirits gather 'round 'em and they guide 'em..."

Lin's eyes light up. "Isn't that a sort of party?"

Izhmayel cocked his head to the side. "Is it?"

Lin nodded. "Anyways, where do they take them and what do they do with them?!"

Izhmayel hesitated. "I...can't say..."

"Can't, or won't?" Lin asked a bit disappointed.

Izhmayel took in a sharp breath and held out his hand to silence Lin. "Sshh..."

Lin looked around straining her eyes and ears to sense whatever Izhmayel had.

"What is it?" Lin whispered, as quietly as she could.

"The insects..."

"Huh?"

Suddenly Izhmayel shoved Lin's head and body down to a crouching position then sniffed the air. "Dark essence ...lots of it. We need to proceed with caution," Izhmayel said with a disgusted look on his face. "Why is it so strong?"

"Why? What's going on?" Lin asked quietly.

Izhmayel glanced back in the direction they had just come from with a somewhat worried look on his face.

"Are they in trouble?" Lin asked when she saw his face.

"What? Who are ya talkin' 'bout?" Izhmayel snapped his attention back to Lin.

"Oh, come on! You don't think I'm stupid, do you?"

"What?"

"Those two guys with the huge creepy skeletons! They looked exactly like you!"

"No they don't! And they can handle themselves just fine."

"How do you know?"

"Because they were guardians long before I was born!"

"So...you do know them."

Izhmayel huffed angrily, "Enough of this, we need teh be travelin' with caution, not arguin' so loud the whole forest can hear...Come on."

Lin nodded and walked up next to him. "So...what is this dark essence stuff? And what about the insects?"

Izhmayel took a deep breath and sighed. "Well, for starters, usually when yer in a forest an' ya notice that yeh don't hear no bugs, or birds, it's a sign that somethin' big and bad is near...or somethin' big and bad is happenin'."