Welcome back. Sorry this took so long- Chap. 3 is already done, so it's not going to take as long to get it up- I just need to edit it a bit. This one is mostly old, like the first chapter, so wait until the end before the writing improves. A bit of the plot is revealed.

My first ever commenter made reference the Storm Rising and that trilogy, and, believe it or not, Ember has read these books and did not pretend that the end, which may have been a problem, didn't happen- she evaded the problem on her own! This is getting remarkably close to being able to right fanfics that don't contradict the original stuffs! Yay for me!

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/It slowly felt the pull to conciousness, as well as a stirring in it's mind. It? Was it a man, or a sword? It felt nothing, but a weight in an imaginary hand, and then it opened it's eyes./

And then it opened it's eyes!

/:What the Hell is this?:/ Need, the lady-turned sword, croaked in her new bearer's mind. The girl almost dropped her, her surprise freezing her mind. But Need stopped her, using her hand as if that had been all she had done in her sleep.

"Are... are you talking to /me/?" asked the girl- Lynx- as she looked around furiously.

/:I ain't out there,:/ said Need with humor in her gravelly mind-voice. /:The sword, kitten. I'm the sword.:/

"Great joke," muttered Lynx, but as though she didn't want anyone to hear her.

/:Kitten, who's around to joke?:/

"My brother's friends," she retorted (to the /sword/, she thought bitterly,) "And a whole other pack of imbecils."

There was a mental silence from the sword. Then, /:Child, who are you?:/

"That's what I should be asking you."

/:Tell me who you are and where- and when- this is. I think I've been asleep for longer than I intended.:/

Need's new bearer did not look at the sword, calling tonelessly out to the rest of world and the player of this supposed joke. "I'm Lynn Carol Tiercel, but you will call me Lynx. It's my name now, and I'm not bothering with all the other shit. You are in the town of Talisburg, June fourteenth, 2034."

/:What was that year?:/

"2034."

That made no sence. 2034 after what? It was merely 700 years since the founding of Valdemar, and she hadn't even mentioned the kingdom... No. There was no way. She could not have slept that long. /:What do you know of the Kingdom of Valdemar?:/

"Valdemar?" There was silence, like the moment's after a cougar's strike, before Lynx continued. "Never heard of it."

/:Karse?:/

"No."

/:Rethwellan?:/

Lynx looked down at the sword. "Rethwellan? The ruins?"

There was mental blankness from the sword. Then, /:Ruins?:/

"They're... huge with tourists. They say that they're over four thousand years old." Lynx looked to the East. "Many, many miles away, though, in another continent. There's a huge lake there, and a few mountains to the South."

The sword had been silent. /:Four thousand years?:/

"Yes."

:Too long.: She cursed with such vehelocity that Lynx blanked. Too long! /That/ was what had woken her! Too long!

/:Lynx, tell me this, please. Tell me what a gryphon is.:/

"What? I don't know."

/:What about Wyrsa? Ice-drakes? Basalisks?:/

The last she answered. "They're mythical beasts. Half bird, half snake."

That wasn't what Need wanted.

/:Do the White Winds schools still run?:/

"What? No."

/:Any mage-schools?:/

"Mage school?" Lynx's forgotten doubt crept back into her voice. "Magic?"

The sword blanked. It fell silent, and, after a time, Lynx poked in the dirt until a considerably younger sheild sprang up. This, at least, was encrusted in jewels, and if Lynx's eye was correct, real ones.

/:I shouldn't have slept this long,:/ Need said at last. /:It's all gone. I've slept too long.:/

_ _

Too long. She had slept for too long.

Need wracked her brain for a way out of this, a way out. The world around them deteriorated, falling apart in front of their eyes. She simply walked, walked the girl called Lynx like one would ride a horse, and wondered what had become of her world.

Impulses were Need's specialty, and Lynx had wanted to leave for as long as she had lived here. It only took a slight push, a bit of fear, to get her to leave the city, instinctively travelling to the east, where she felt home should be. What had happened to her?

Well, she remembered Firesong, and the wall that kept away the cataclysm. She remembered the Pit, the light, the heat, the Light. She remembered watching Florian be torn apart by fire and Light, and heard Altra's screech of pain. How could she remember all of this?

The two tevardi had lived. The two gryphons had lived. She remembered feeling Firesong drop her... No. The Tayledras had not dropped her, that she knew.

She had exploded. She felt herself burn through Firesong's face, felt herself fall as ashes to the earth. Felt something drop, felt the Tayledras' horrible mental scream of pain and anguish and guilt, but he had not let go of his end of the spell. She heard a cry from- what was his name? Falconsbane, or was it something else, something softer? The memories ended after that, descending into nothingness again. She could remember nothing before that, nothing but faces and purpose.

She had a purpose here. What was it?

How had she returned to life?

She had been sparks on the earth, before. Never to save another woman, but her spirit had not been released. She had yet more purpose on the earth, for she had become more sword than woman. She had become more of a part of the world itself than a spirit, than a human. And now, Need had been called again. Need had once more returned.

With the human's mind held tight in hand, Need moved steadily forward. _ _

Well, she couldn't rightly sell it. The sword that called herself Need did not stop talking to her, asking Lynx stupid questions without answers and riddles only she knew. But she couldn't sell it- her- to some pawn shop where she would be melted down and made into talking wineglasses. She found a sheath, still in remarkable condition for four thousand years, and put Need back into it.

/:Companions, kid. Do you know-:/

"No!" she snapped back to the sword at her waist, and if there was anyone around to hear they would be staring at her. "Shut up! I don't know about your world!"

Need had been doing contemplation, lately. Loud contemplation. She supposed she had been toted around by males for a few milinea, then lost and forgotten when "these awful concoctions you call guns" were invented. Perhaps overseas, she had said. Perhaps far, far from home.

/Well,/ Lynx thought, /that makes two of us./

For now she was far from home. Outside city limits were a few empty roads, then another depressing mob of civilization, then roads, then empty city, then roads...

It was hours that she walked, without even realizing she was walking. It wasn't unusual, now, for people to suddenly, inexplicably, leave their homes. Especially not people who had nothing to lose. Especially not teenagers. Like her.

Especially people who couldn't go home, because there were people there waiting for her. Waiting to- waiting for her.

But.. she had expected something to happen. Okay, finding a talking sword was something, but some concious decision, some flurry of anger, something besides turning around and walking. She lived off what she had made for a meal she had packed, some lunch that she made linger until the sun decided to retire to her western bed, and she came across a living, pulsing city. She kept Need at her side, to the sword's obvious relief, but bartered off the jewel-encrusted sheild. According to the 'expert' the jewels were glass, but he gave her a handful of money; barely enough to scrape by an existance.

The blade at her side made her victim to no few glances, chortles or open stares, but then, a little girl all alone would do that all the same, no matter the pistol she openly bought new bullets for. She slipped the bullets into a pocket, held the gun discreetly in her hand, and walked to the nearest motel, determined to get a room and have a long, intricate discussion with an inanimate object.

"Room for da night, then, girl?" asked the manager, his thoughts obvious as his eyes trailed from her sword, to her gun, to her breasts, and then to her face. "Ten bucks, little girl."

"For one rat's quarters and some roach-infested breatfast?" spat Lynx, turning on her heel. "I'll find another place."

"Five-fifty!" called the man after her. "But we don't serve breakfast here."

"Five-fifty," snarled Lynx, her back still to the manager, listening to the desperation in his voice and knowing nothing from it, as that was how everyone talked, "would hardly buy the room without the meal. Three."

"Four fifty."

"Two fifty."

"Four."

Lynx made a barely-audible sound, and passed over the hard-earned money. The man tossed her keys. "Third door on the left. And if you get lonely-"

She left without waiting for him to finish the sentence. _

/:What is it you want to say?:/

"Well. I came in here alone, and there's still a voice in my head. That confirms it; I'm mad."

Need was caught between giving her the most goddamned huge headache the disrespectful girl had ever had, and bursting out laughing. Here or Valdemar, no one can hear a sword talk into their heads and still be assured of their sanity. /:If it makes you uneasy, you don't have to talk aloud. I can read your thoughts, if only you didn't sheild them so tightly...:/

"Shield?" asked Lynx, still talking aloud. "What does that mean?"

Need was silent for a moment. Then, /:This is going to take a while.:/

Lynx hesitated. Then, she thought, /Can you hear this?/

/:Yes.:/

/Seriously?/

/:No. I'm kidding, you idiotic little girl. Think for a second before you speak.:/

Lynx fumed for a second, then burst out laughing. Taking the sword off her belt, she threw it onto the bed and flopped down beside it. Her. /So you can read my thoughts. I always assumed that if I were schitzophrinic, I'd be more wierded out by it all. But somehow, when it's a sword, it's not that bad./

/:I asked if we could have a serious discussion, Lynx. I believe you found me for a reason.:/ Who ever knew a sword would be so sober? Well, it would be wierder if she had a sense of humor, come to think of it. /:I have a purpose.:/

/What, like godsent?/ This type of discussion was easy, Lynx found- and she was braver in what she thought than what she said. /So, Need, what's your purpose? Woman's need?/

There was a long pause from the steel blade. /:When you picked me up, you felt the pain that pulled you somewhere. Everywhere. I felt it, too. That was trying to get you to save women.:/ Another pause, this one almost sad, if a sword could feel emotion. /:Women are in danger everywhere. So are men. I think that our purpose is more than that.:/

Lynx paused, and ran her fingers over the cold steel blade. The words were still there, engraved in english. Apparently, they reformed into the language of the person reading them; magic. More magic. Magic that didn't exist, wasn't real. And now this two-foot length of steel was telling her they had a purpose; a purpose outside living in the god-forsaken world.

/:We will find it in the ruins you spoke of. We will find our purpose in Rethwellan.:/

"Bullshit." Lynx was talking aloud, again, and damn anyone who could hear. "There's nothing in the ruins of Rethwellan but a few rocks and some overweight tourists. We can't afford the plane tickets, either. What do you suggest, that we build a magic portal?"

The sword's reply was serious. /:You don't have mage-potential. We can't.:/

Need was once a woman. Need had been the sword of women and the friend of women for longer than she could remember, and she was used to turns in demeanor. But Lynx's was so sudden, so violent, that it startled even the experienced sword.

"There is no magic!" The girl's eyes burned with fire, burned with fury. "There is no magic! I once damned believed in it, but you didn't appear then, Need! Now, when everything's damned gone and everyone's dead and everything's GONE, now you come and say, oops, it DOES exist, now you have to believe me and help me when I've done nothing to help you. Now, it DOES exist, and now I won't bring back anything but-"

/:Quiet!:/ Need's own violence had suddenly choked her- and she didn't even have a throat. /:Be quiet, you stupid little girl! Stop whining and listen to what I have to say. I had no control over when I slept and when I awoke. I cannot go back to when the people I care about exist; I have to go on and on and on until there is no more use for me, whether or not I like it. There IS magic in this world. There was. It can't all be gone.:/ This was what both sword and girl had wanted to say all along, this argument, this branching storm. /:It can't all be gone.:/

"If it wasn't gone, then the world wouldn't be like this." Lynx bent over the sword, unaware that Need's sight was her own eyes, and looking down at herself didn't effect the concious mind at all. "If it ever did exist, it's gone, now. It wouldn't be like this. If magic existed, there wouldn't be murder, or prejudice, or suicide." The last was said bitterly, as if her sister's death was Need's fault.

/:The world had hate, and murder, and suicide with magic, as well.:/

"You can see through my eyes! You can see this world! It's run down, it's broken, it's gray! It's all gone; it's ruins, like a new Rethwellan. It's GONE, Need- magic in itself is gone, and it's gone forever, like everything else. All gone, the end." Lynx laughed again, but no longer with the cheer of a girl who accepts her own insanity, no longer a laugh between accqaintances. Now, it was a bitter laugh, a cold laugh. "Maybe, you found me just so you'd have eyes to see the end of the world with."