The deeply toned scream was that of a tormented soul. Root dashed through the orchard, his light feline frame allowing him to slip through the thick bushes like no human could. This place was large enough to hide many things, but such a painful outcry would echo across the farming community.

After finally clearing the distance of the apple orchard and berry bushes, Root found Gnarl knelt down on all fours as he stared into the dirt. Memories of the past flicking before his eyes, so vivid and powerful that the reality before him no longer existed. Gnarl's mind was trapped in another memory caused by the deja vu sensation as he worked on the farm.

"Gnarl, it's not real. Focus. Gnarloc. Focus on me." Root tried to peer into his eyes, but they looked right through him as they panicked and cried before him. Root wished such a memory would not affect Gnarl anymore, but while the nightmares still halted his sleep, the day dreams still haunted his life. "Gnarloc, listen to my voice, look at the earth around you, the brown of the soil, the green of the leaves, the red of the fallen apples."

Gnarl's lips trembled as tears of sorrow fell from his face and no words could escape from his mouth. His home, a farming community once like this, destroyed, crushed and murdered under the foot of a higher power. Every time he felt like he had moved forward, another memory surfaced as he tried to continue with life.

"Gnarloc... You're in Bradbury. You're not there again." Root continued to usher him back to normality as he pushed up into his face. Rubbing his whiskers and then his tail along his cheeks and jaw in an attempt to halt the flashback.

"Root?" Gnarl suddenly sat back as he checked his surroundings with his sore blue eyes. Peering back down to his hands, he stared as if still able to picture his dead wife in his caring arms.

"I hate to ask the obvious question... But, are you okay?" Root felt great sorrow for his friend, and every time this happened he could feel the hurt inside himself as if to share his pain to keep him alive.

"I could see her Root. I could see what that witch did to her... What I could not stop." Gnarl referred to the past that only they knew. A woman that they had been tracking for years, but had fallen short of every time. "I wish I knew it was her when I first met her Root."

"That's not your fault Gnarloc." Root shook his head. "If I had known myself, we'd have killed her and been done with everything by now. I don't blame us for not knowing. I blame everything entirely on her soul. She will suffer in time."

Gnarloc slumped backwards as he wiped his face with his forearm, then stared up into the blue shade of the clear sky above. "We'll never find her Root. She could be anywhere."

"Not if we stay here." Root looked out from the Orchard, their point of view able of the see a clear landscape of the vast barony, the lake and the town that sat in the middle. "It's a beautiful place, but it is nothing but an illusion from our own pain. It deters us from our path."

"I don't want to leave. I like this place, I like the people, I like Letti and Ghel..."

"So you'll stay forever?" Root interrupted.

"Yes. I'm not making you stay." Gnarl stood up and took a deep breath as Root peered back, surprised by his answer.

"You're the only friend I've got Gnarl." Root's face frowned. "I can't leave without you."

"Okay. Well, I'm sorry." Gnarl apologised as he began to calm, he always appreciated in Root's friendship and loyalty. It's what made them such good friends in the first place.

"But so you understand what you're saying. And I'll do whatever you decide." Root wanted it to be clear, but he meant every word. He would stay with Gnarl until the end regardless of the outcome. "You're giving up on getting revenge for our lives? Our families and murdered friends? You're leaving that magic rock of yours, the one you said was a gift from the gods, you'll leave it shut up in that box in the corner of your room forever? Forever?"

"Yes. I'd rather die in happiness here than chase the past that gives me only pain." Gnarl watched for Root's reaction to his answer. It wasn't the one he truly desired, but what else would they do? They knew nothing of this woman or where she could be. Only her name was known, but even that was unclear. Gnarl knew her as Telana, while Root had known her as the Destroyer of Worlds.

"Alright then. I guess I'll eat mice and purr at my new owners." Root replied a little sarcastically as he turned away to leave.

"I'm sorry, Root. Look at me, look at how I am. I cannot leave here until I feel strong again. Until I can hold a tool or a weapon and not feel like a useless fool who makes no difference in this world. I am weak, I am nothing. Maybe we can be happy."

"Maybe Gnarloc. Maybe. I'm just not sure where a man with a talking Cat and talking rock fit within this world. You said the God's would lead us to find this woman and then avenge everything. To stop her from destroyed more lives. It got us this far, I had hoped it would take us further."