Guessing her thoughts, Temken placed a hand upon her arm and gently squeezed.

"We can never have what was Before," he offered, "but we can build again. The Survivors are building again."

The warmth of his hand, even through her damp tunic, allowed Gwenna to feel Temken's belief, if but for a second. In that moment she wanted to believe him, to believe in him. Then the shadow loomed at the side of the path, chilling her. What could Temken offer that Titania had been unable to give? Nothing. More false promises, that was all he brought.

"Titania is dead," she said, feeling the void inside and wanting to-needing to-share it. She swallowed against a coppery taste, her throat raw and constricted. "Gaea has abandoned us."

"But she hasn't," Temken insisted. Taking Gwenna by the elbow, he pulled her to a halt there on the path. "Wounded these many decades, she has still found a way to speak to us. She brought us the gift of knowledge by which we have found ways to find each other and to protect ourselves in the After."

He stepped off the trail into a patch of sparse, wet grass that bordered a small puddle of muddy, insect-choked water. Laying a hand on the ground, right where a beam of gray light had worked its way past the dense growth above, he half closed his eyes in concentration.

A sense of foreboding washed over Gwenna, warning her. The bayou dimmed, drawing out the darker shadows and teasing them into a shroud that discolored the land. Her head swam, and something deep within her mind spoke of danger.

"Don't," she said, reaching out to shake Temken by the shoulder.

Gwenna's warning went no further. Beyond her fingers, she suddenly saw a green glow radiating from within Temken, bleeding down his arm into the ruined land. In the recesses of her mind-which usually held the sin of her mercy on Argoth and the consequences it reaped- she instead saw visions of dense forests and snowy taiga. Temken raised his hand, and beneath it a new shoot of vibrant green had broken earth. It grew, blossomed, and flowered in mere seconds; an orchid with petals of jade and lavender pistils.

Already, though, the dark force that had been stalking them since Temken entered the shadows rallied to the challenge. The darkness danced at the edge of Gwenna's vision, and she saw the flower begin to whither and die, as Titania had done. Gwenna felt the elven mage tense beneath her touch, bending in closer to the stricken flower. He now appeared to share some kind of special relationship with his creation, drawing from it to strengthen his own aura, which flowed back into the jade orchid and resurrected it.

Gwenna's mind clouded. She felt the need to destroy this thing of beauty-this threat to the shadow-that marred the bayou's perfection. She caught herself in mid-reach. Only her physical contact with Temken, and therefore an association with the magic he commanded, intervened and left her hanging in the balance. She knew that to resist was futile and would mean punishment. One did not defy the shadow, especially her. But Gwenna was also a child of Gaea, and to intentionally mar such beauty as the orchid was not easily accomplished. She pulled back, daring to believe Temken for even the briefest moment.

The punishment came swiftly.

Darkness broke over and around them both in a wash of despair. Gwenna fell away to the muddy trail, physically sick. She watched as Temken glanced up in confusion, his concentration obviously broken, tears rolling down his cheeks as the orchid first lost its coloring then rotted on its stem. He tried to speak, but no words issued from his mouth. Gwenna shook her head.

"No building again," she said, voice laden with the tears her eyes no longer cried. "We can none of us leave. It will never let us." Then the shadow passed again.

Temken's eyes rolled back, and he pitched forward, collapsing into the muck.

Calling the collection of ramshackle huts and utility buildings a village was optimistic to Temken's way of thinking. The clearing looked up to a gray, moisture-laden sky, but the poorly thatched roofs could not possibly keep out anything stronger than a morning dew. Walls were full of holes. No one thought of or bothered to make a mud and straw mortar to fill the irregularities between branches. Certainly mud would not be hard to come by here. Doors were commonly a piece of hide stretched over a light frame and leaned into place over one of the larger openings. The huts sketched out a crude circle, which might have been considered a rough tribute to nature's cycle except for the large opening that framed a path leading deeper into the bayou. At least the ground here appeared drier, though Temken wondered if that might simply be relative to his own muddied and sodden state.

It was not quite the way he had intended to make his entrance, he and Gwenna leaning against each other for mutual support as they hobbled into the encampment. His head throbbed, and he could only imagine his appearance-disheveled and feeling the worse for whatever had come over him. Even so, he had expected something more than the indifferent looks the other elves gave him.

Nothing.

No words of welcome, no questions after kinfolk who might have been part of Temken's enclave. He read their harsh lifestyle in the gaunt and drawn faces as much as in the poverty of their living. Resignation and defeat shadowed their features, even the young ones who were obviously born in the After. Not for the first time since entering this forsaken land, he wondered why they remained here. The plains to the north were dying as the climate turned worse every year, but certainly there were more hospitable stretches of forestland nearby or the coastal regions to the nearby south. If the ocean reminded them too much of what they had lost, at least it would provide nourishment until a suitable refuge could be located. Why did they stay here? Another question answered him, swimming up from the depths of his mind, teased up by the shadow dancing at the edge of his consciousness. Why not? That was not an answer, though. He refused to accept it, and the shadow retreated.

What had happened to him back along the trail?

Gwenna slowed to a halt, tested her own balance, and then stepped away from Temken to let him stand on his own.

"This is Temken," Gwenna introduced him for the benefit of those who did not remember him as a youth. "He will be staying."

There were nods all around.

"Only as long as necessary," he amended Gwenna's remark.

More nods, though to Temken they still seemed to be agreeing with Gwenna. A day, maybe two. Just to rest, he told himself, though earlier he had not planned on remaining one night in the bayou.

"There are other Survivors. They are heading west- to warmer forests, we hope. But we'll be together," he finished weakly.

"We're already together," Gwenna said, though she did not sound certain of herself. Quick nods bolstered her confidence.

She stepped over to a large pot simmering over an open fire, a community cooking area, the charred ground showing the remnants of other fires. Someone handed her an implement, and she dipped out a ladle of broth, shocking Temken by not offering it to him first as a guest. Instead she drank deeply. He covered his surprise by wiping mud from the long braids hanging before his left ear, then tucked them back over his shoulder. Gwenna drank again, then handed Temken the ladle. As their hands touched she blinked in sudden confusion, as if suddenly at odds with her own violation of custom, but she shrugged it off.

Temken reminded himself of how long these Survivors had been cut off from others, of the conditions under which they currently lived. He nodded thanks to Gwenna, to the person tending the fire, and then pulled a deep ladle from the pot. He noticed the grisly meat swimming in the brown broth and decided that if he questioned its source he might not get a comforting answer. He slopped a bit over the ladle's rim, splashing it to the ground in an offering to Gaea, and sipped the rest cautiously. Over the ladle's rim he saw reactions to his libation-the briefest touch of surprise and even anger for his waste of good broth. To a forest people, he thought his ritual offering to the nature goddess should still be known if not commonplace.