April 2nd, 2015 - Sunrise.

In the pre-dawn gloom, the Maid of the Mists sits meditating on Goat Island, as she has been since awakening with the spring.

Sometimes she speaks to herself.

"The world is weary. The world is old. "

A precocious butterfly spirits comes and alights on her hand. She regards it.

"So many Summers. So many Autumns.
"So many meetings. So many partings."

"Strife in my home, madness outside."

She laughs quietly.

"And Stone Giants. Of course."

"Once miracles, once terrors. What are they now? To some, just a grinding cataract, grinding everything to dust. Is that the world Lelawalla died for?"

The rose-red sky brightens.

The true sun rises.

And she smiles.

"Nope." Artemis has been keeping close watch on the Maid and the Pathstone, only ceasing her watch to eat and be relieved by another of the Troubleshooters. This dawn, though, sees her sleepless and dark-eyed against a tree close by.

"The world Lelawalla died for is long, long gone, replaced by a noisy, messy, disconnected world full of too many things and nothing connecting them. It's a world of instant gratification and impossible peace. Humans are unfulfilled, animals are sick and the plants suffer."

She shrugs, and watches the sky brighten. She also smiles, watching the Maid's mist catch the soft diffuse orange and scatter it into a million little rainbows.

"Then this happens, my Lady, and for a few scant moments I'm reminded that it's all transitory. The cycle moves, things change, and the world renews itself every morning. We fight for sunrise."

She looks over to the Goddess. "Thanks for the reminder."

The Maid rises, absently brushing non-existent dust from her deer skins.

"Every sunrise is a miracle.  But some more than others. "

"They have taken my moon bridges, child.  The took my husband.  They've turned my Sept against itself. "

She smiles, and in the dawn's light she appears as a girl of perhaps fifteen summers.  She hands the Pathstone back to Quills, leaning close to her as she does.  She whispers sweetly in the Fury's ear.

" Now. Now we're going to kill them all. "

The momentary thrill of Rage that sings through the Fury maiden's blood could make a man a eunuch at 50 paces.

A bird chirps, and a squirrel chatters, and the waterfall rumbles. The raging Amazon stills. She asks a question.

"There's a lot of 'them'. Where do we start?"

"When the men are done measuring their dicks, we might as well wait for them."

She departs.

Artemis laughs, and follows close on the Maid's heels.

Walker can be see out on Luna Island, performing his morning rites and ablutions. Spirits of the wind come to him, and he questions them softly in the tongue of the spirits. The answers, it seems, give him no satisfaction.