The smoky air seems thicker, anger and fear a palpable cloud in the still room. The white unicorn's challenge hangs in the silence; with his face hidden behind the mask of his helm, he appears as implacable and pitiless as stone, waiting for her reply.

Sylvan looks at the unicorn, dumbstruck. "Haven't … haven't you even listened to anything I've said? Do you even hear me?" she stammers.

The white unicorn turns his helmed visage from her. "I've been listening to you too long," he says, bitterly.

Sylvan blinks, as if something just occurred to her, then blurts out, "No … no you haven't! Please, Corwin – you don't understand. I came from Aeonia the same as you – and I found Koshiro when I came to this place – the same as you. Think about it. We were both children when the Diaspora happened!"

One gloved hand hesitates as it reaches for his other gauntlet, and the helm turns to face her again. "I was not a child," he says, but the words almost slip out, and his voice now holds confusion rather than pure rage. "You were?"

Sylvan nods. "Of course I was. Why … why do you think I kept … " She looks down at the doll she has been absently clutching all this time, and swallows. "… this?"

The helm tilts to allow him to look through its slit eyes at the plaything in Sylvan's hand. "You didn't know them before we were exiled, then. The Dragons."

Sylvan's hands shake. "Of … of course not! I was terrified of the stories I'd been told. And … " She puts her hand to her midsection, wincing in long-remembered pain. "… most of them were true. But not all of them."

The armored unicorn turns away at her pain, staring at the corner of the room with his face in profile to her. "I … I did not understand. Lady Sylvan – " He pauses, and for a moment the black unicorn thinks he is done speaking, then he continues, "I am sorry."

Sylvan looks up from the doll with an expression a mixture of surprise and hopefulness. "You … you are?" She tries to get a look at his eyes through the helmet, to see if he's being genuine, or if somehow Aeonian truthfulness has just been a myth burned away by his anger, and replaced with some sort of cruel trick. "I'm … I'm sorry, too," she blurts out, to fill the space. "I should have told you … ," though she's not exactly certain why she should have thought of it sooner. Or why it occurred to her now.

"I am," Corwin repeats, and his voice seems weary. He turns to sit on the bed, and removes his helm. "I should not have assumed such of you, yet when you said that he – " and in that syllable the same old hatred still rages, " – had taught you … it seemed natural… " He shakes his head. "My behavior was wholly inappropriate and unwarranted. I offer my apologies, as poor a substitute as they are for behaving properly in the first place."

Sylvan's eyes water. "Oh … Corwin … I'd throw my arms around you and give you a hug … " She regards the armor. "But … I … I really wouldn't want to burn myself on the metal. I can't believe you actually wear that safely." She slaps a hand to her muzzle, hiding a smile that wants to form there. "Corwin … you … scared the life out of me. And … " She pauses, blinking, then blurts, "Corwin, what have you done to your face?! Don't move!" She rushes for a cloth to dip in the basin of water.

The unicorn touches the streaks of dirt and mud encrusting his face, and looks wry as a piece crumbles off in his fingers. "It's from Aeonia, Sylvan. It won't burn like the steel of this world. We called it mithril – lighter and stronger than the iron that burns in Sinai. There doesn't seem to be anything like it on this world." Again, bitterness taints his speech.

Sylvan returns with a wet rag, and starts scrubbing at the mess – including the mark of paint absently made on Corwin's forehead much earlier. "Oh … I was afraid you'd gouged yourself. Mithril … I … I think I've heard of that." She gingerly risks touching a fingertip to the metal. "I thought it was a myth."

"It will become one," the unicorn says, submitting patiently to her ministrations. "When I came, I wore a full suit of it. I had hoped it would offer protection from the spell I feared the dragons were working. As you can see, I was wrong." He shrugs. "My battles have taken their toll on my armor, but you can see that too, in these substitutions I've been forced to make." He gestures to the various chitin pieces mixed with the mithril mail.

Sylvan nods sadly. "You've done beautiful work with it." She laughs and throws her arms about the unicorn's shoulder, not able to reach much more than that with the bulk of the armor on him. "Corwin, thank you so much!"

Corwin blinks, ears flicking back against his head at the unexpected gesture and words. "My lady?" he says, bemused. "Whatever good I have done, you are certainly more than welcome to – but I cannot conceive what I have done to merit your thanks."

Sylvan laughs. "I don't care! Oh, Corwin, don't you ever frighten me like that again, or I will … well … Oh, I wish I had some sort of pull on you, so that I could threaten you properly!" She pulls back, grinning. "Give me a while, and I'll chastise you properly, but right now I am just so glad you haven't … " Her smile sobers a bit. "I was afraid I'd lost you." Her smile melts, as she gives Corwin a careful regard. "Please … please don't do this again. You're a true knight … I know it. You don't need to prove it to me. You do that every day as it is. I don't want to lose my only friend."

The partially-armored warrior watches her as he speaks, his face holding its own nobility despite the remaining streaks of grime, then he turns away once more, leaving his face silhouetted by the single lamp burning on the stool. He seems on the verge of speaking, but nothing comes out.

Rory clutches the doll up against his cheek, breathing heavily as reality reasserts itself. He pants, wiping at his brow … then looks to the window to see how much longer he has before sunset.

The day still seems quite bright outside the window, as if little if any time had passed since he arrived.

Rory wipes his brow again, this time in relief. "All right … don't want to doze off and waste the day away! Not when I have so many flashbacks to go through!" He reverently puts the doll back in the chest, and before he closes the lid, he says, "What am I supposed to do with you? Do I need to take care of you, too, along with Mister Porky? If I keep adopting dolls, all the apprentices are going to think I'm a sissy!"

One of the doll's button eyes catches the light while he holds it, giving the illusion that the toy is winking at him.

Rory hmphs. "Well, I am not a sissy! But I will take care of you. You just keep here, all right?" He takes one of the folds of cloth in the chest and drapes it over the doll like a blanket … then carefully shuts the lid.

Rory then straightens up, trying to envision himself as a knightly hero - one who, incidentally, doesn't slay dragons – as he marches over to the door leading to the room he has yet to explore … save for flashbacks, in any case.

The door swings open at a tug on the handle, revealing a room which, despite layers of filth and dust, looks a great deal like the one he just … remembered? … as Sylvan.

Rory shudders at the conflicting memories … and the idea of being a girl. He sticks out his tongue at the thought of something even more bizarre than cooties. Then, he looks around sadly at the state of disrepair. Instinctively, he clops over to the shutters, to throw a little more light on the subject.

Clouds of dust stir at his movements, but the light brightens the room considerably, dust motes swirling in the beams. As he turns to re-survey the now-lit room, Rory sees Silhouette, turned to face him, seated on a stool. Behind her on the wall over her shoulder is a portrait of a black unicorn with amethyst eyes and a brown mane.

"Silhouette!" Rory cries out, broadening into a grin. "I missed you! Oh! I … I found a doll in the other room. I think it belongs to you."

Rory then pauses, uncertain. "Or … to … uhm … I think I'm confused."

The shadow-unicorn signs, I missed you, too, Rory. I – She stops after making the gesture pointing to herself, then continues, I'm confused, too.

Rory throws his arms around himself, letting the over-long sleeves flop over his hands as he hugs himself around the ribs. "Uhm … did you see what all happened? I mean, the dreams? I dreamed I was Cory – the knight, who stayed here, I guess. And I dreamed I was … Sylvan … " He nods at the painting. "She looked like you … uhm … you did when we were dancing and … " He chews on his lip. "This is really heavy!"

Silhouette nods, exaggerating the motion for emphasis. "Me too. I had a dream where I was dancing again, by myself, except I was … her." She looks at the picture. "I was casting a spell to keep the grass from growing where that path outside the cottage is. The one that leads to Koshiro's cave." She spells out the letters of the shadow-being's name one by one.

Rory nods. "I … so that's what you … er … she was doing. But … " He shudders. "I dreamt I was her, too. It's really … creepy. Did you dream you were him? That would just be so weird!" He walks over to get a better look at the painting … comparing it to Silhouette as surreptitiously as he can manage (which is about as subtle as a stage whisper).

The painting renders Sylvan more beautiful than Rory remembers her from his visions, and yet somehow it seems very accurate, too. Her eyes have the luminosity that Corwin did not quite achieve in painting in Sylvan's bedroom, and her mouth has a lively set to it, half laughing, as if amused by the painter, or maybe by herself. She has the same outline that Silhouette does, though Rory's shadow friend is as featureless as ever. Silhouette signs, when her companion is looking at her again, I dreamed I was him, too. Once.

Rory shudders. "All right … That's creepy … but … I guess that makes me feel less like a sissy. Er … I mean… oh, never mind." He flops his sleeves in frustration. "Silhouette … what do we do now? I still don't know what's going on. Are you Sylvan? Am I Corwin? Are they our mom and dad? Are we supposed to live here?" He sighs. "If I tried explaining this to Kiz and Kell, they'd think we'd both flipped!"

"Maybe … none of the above?" Silhouette signs. She turns to face the painting again, then continues, "Maybe we're a bit of each of them."

Rory shakes his head. "But … Sylvan … she wanted to save Corwin. He got badly wounded. And … and she went to Koshiro for help. But what good is it if she sacrificed herself and him, too, so that we could be born? I mean … that's a real … uhm … bum deal. Right? Not that I don't want to exist. And not that I wouldn't want you to exist! But … am I making any sense here?"

"Yes," the shadow signs, reassuringly. "I don't think we know all the answers yet. What happened in your dreams?"

Words spill out of Rory's mouth like water from a broken dam, as he jabbers through his bizarre adventures, gesticulating wildly to punctuate just how utterly bizarre it all was, if his words fail to underscore that enough on their own. When at last he's finished, he collapses on the wooden chest as a seat. "And … I really hope I don't get any flashbacks about the part where he dies. Or … gets really badly wounded. Or whatever. I … I felt all of it. It really hurt. Now I know why grown-ups are always so grouchy."

Silhouette listens through the entire recitation, patient and attentive. When he finishes, she nods. "I dreamed of Corwin going to fight the shadow-being," she signs. "It wasn't his first time. He was … determined. And resigned. Angry, too, but more determined than anything else. He was so sure that he needed to kill Koshiro so that the Aeonians might go home. Not like it was something he believed. Like it was something he knew. But … he didn't think he could do it. He just had to try."

"He was right."

Rory blinks. "He was right about what? That he just had to try?"

Silhouette seems taken aback, herself. "That … that he couldn't do it. I think. I think that's what I meant." She looks back to the painting for a long moment. "Maybe he did just have to try, though," she signs, the words difficult to make out from the angle at which she forms them. "What do you think?"

Rory shakes his head. "I really don't know. I mean … if we keep poking around, we might get some more flashbacks … but I really don't know how we can get any answers from them. Corwin and Sylvan didn't know about the raiders. Whoever they were. I'm thinking only Koshiro would know … but I don't think he wants to talk to me. And … he scares me." He sighs. "I wish … I wish they were still alive. I wish they were Mom and Dad, and … or … I don't know what I wish." He flops his sleeves around again. "Silhouette, whatever happens, I just want you to know that, no matter what, you're my best friend, okay? And I think Corwin and Sylvan really liked each other, even if they got mad … so if you have some flashback where they're mad at each other, please remember that?"

The shadow-girl nods solemnly. "I will. And you'll always be my best friend, too, Rory." She stands and spreads her arms as if to embrace the solid unicorn.

Rory grins, and puts his sleeves around Silhouette in a well-practiced pretend-hug. "Thanks. And thanks for coming with me here. I'm still scared … but I think we're finally finding out some answers. I just hope we can make some sense of them before we have to leave!"