((This chap is much less eventfull, and kind of depressing, but IT'S CALLED CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT PEOPLE!!!!!))The light of the moon shone softly into Ayna’s room, she saw her bare walls glow, their emptiness seemed to resonate. She thought of the emptiness of her life, her day to day pointless existence that dragged her behind it. It was times like this she lost the will to live. Of course killing herself was out of the question. The Gods no doubt looked unfavorably on cowards. And one who would take their life for such a small amount of unhappiness would be damned surely. She did not wish to die, she merely wished she was enough of a coward to wish it. Dumb enough to believe there was solace in death. Her bed was alien, the soft silken sheets seemed cold, distant. . . . Her dinner tray lay untouched and when she turned the moon would outline every feature, the reflected light showing the otherwise hidden scratches in pitchers and cups.The dark thoughts that disturbed Ayna’s sleep were more passionate that night, her anger at Tylius, her hatred for her father. Everything was worse. Tears fell, as they often did. That night they streamed like a river, the cold wind from somewhere down the hall made her shudder. She pressed her face into the pillow and prayed that, just this once, sleep would come. It did.Followed by a knock at the door.A familiar voice called out to her, and in her dreary state she almost did not recognize it, but there were no male servants. “Lady Terras, may I enter?” the voice struck her like a sandstorm, it was Tylius, maybe he truly regretted what he said. More thoughts came through Ayna’s head, thoughts of marriage, thoughts of happiness forever. Ayna’s heart beat faster, she readied herself to presentability quickly and called a polite “Enter.” Tylius opened the door slowly, he continued his infuriating habit of staring at the ground when talking to her. His voice was as formal as ever. Ayna felt like jumping out of a window.“Lady Terras. . .”“Yes!?!” Ayna replied irritably, she regretted yelling at him a bit. He deserved it however, he had no right to get her hopes up. He had no right to come calling for no reason after the discussion they had earlier. Anger boiled to the surface again. Tylius jumped at the tone of Ayna’s voice then calmed down and finally said. “It is The Duke’s request that you join him, on a journey to the mountains.” he finished defensively he seemed to be waiting for her to snap again.“Tell The Duke that Lady Terras requires sleep.” she replied almost haughtily, she hadn’t noticed the hour, it must have been minutes after she had finally fallen asleep that Tylius had knocked on her door. “Your father is not in the best of moods.” Tylius said thinking back to his mood in the throne room. Tylius had never seen the Duke happier than he was after that small burts of fury. But for some reason this was incredibly disturbing. “I would do as he says.” it had come out much harder than Tylius had intended, he had wanted to seem like a friend when he warned her. Ayna only seemed madder now. “I’ll be down soon.” she said in a stingingly cold voice. She shut the door before Tylius could bow to her again. She shook her head looking for what to wear, she knew the mountains would be cold, she had plenty of coats but whoever was going to see her on this journey was going to be impressed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The saddle was cold and hard under Ayna. This had turned out to be worse than being kept in the palace, a long cold through the waste at night, into the even colder mountains, the only people who had seen her were beggars, and the Duke had the guard deal with them roughly.Ayna shuddered. The Duke was cold, she could not forget the screams as the beggars who had hoped she would be more kind than the Duke, had been dragged away. She tried not to think about it. Mira was one of the more even-tempered horses, she was often the one chosen for the more delicate dignitaries that came to visit the palace, though truthfully she hadn’t gotten much use recently, The Duke had been turning dignitaries away ever since he had started inviting the mercenaries into the palace. Back when there were visitors Ayna had hope, hope that a mother of a kind, young, handsome earl would see the shy young girl and have thoughts of their poor son in the arms of a strong woman. She could imagine the wedding, every time an older woman would pass Ayna would hear wedding bells. Mira reared, nearly tossing Ayna from her back, in the middle of the road lay the corpse of a large cow. In the distance a small farm could be seen, it was in a state of complete disrepair. Ayna turned her eyes to the marred animal lying in the road, she had heard the Guard talking as they rode forward. They spoke of tales of wolves tearing men apart, of ice cold winters, but mostly they talked about the shadow. She had been scared the first time she heard the tale, tried to put it out of her mind. But as the ride went on she found her mind wandering to thoughts of bodies lying in pieces on the mountain trail. A distant shadow standing on a ledge, then she felt something very unexpected. Compassion. Compassion for the poor lonely shadow, it seemed to her that whatever it was would be very lonely, no one would dare approach it. She felt like a kindred spirit. “It will be gone soon Lady Terras.” Tylius had pulled his horse beside Ayna’s and was speaking in tones her probably thought were comforting. Her far-off looks must have made him think she was worried about the cow in some way. She shook her head, Tylius was such a fool. Yet as she looked into his eyes to deliver some crushing words she saw that he was truly sorry. She decided she would try again.“It’s a cold night isn’t it?” She just wanted him to be warm, to be loving, to care at all. Tylius nodded, he wanted more than anything to offer her his cloak, to talk to her at all, but not only was she out of his station, but her father would explode if he ever came so close to his daughter, so he settled with nodding.((That's two pages in word. Wow.))