Russell just made a new discovery— Arron tends to disobey the laws of physics whenever he's shocked.

When they came to their group Russell's eyes first moved to Lupa too. He didn't need to be a admirer of art to decide that Lupa was a magnificent wolf.

Most of the camp fires had died down to smoldering embers as almost the entire camp was sleeping. The mellow light from the moon was the only light available. In that light, Lupa's whitish grey fur looked snow white. Her eyes glowed a flickering icy blue. The ears were relaxed back, her tail down. Vivi stood by her neck, slowly running her hand through the fur. Orpheus stood crouched near the head, examining something in her jaw. There was also a figure crouched down near her feet, possibly an elf.

Russell would've admired her for a while longer, but Arron's reaction was even more interesting to look at.

He let out sub-human shriek and almost toppled over backwards.

Almost.

Instead of actually falling to the ground, he stopped himself at an impossible angle. He stayed like that for an entire second, before defying gravity and jumping back up and fumbling to bring out his sword.

"Who.. what..why is there a wolf there?" He stammered.

Everyone turned their heads. Lupa's blue eyes lit up as she looked at them. Russell got a look at Lupa's mouth. Her teeth were blunt, tips covered with glowing green slime. The figure crouched near Lupa's feet looked up and Russell saw who it was. It was Len.

"Stand down Arron," Elli said in an assuring tone," this is Lupa."

"That is Lupa!?" Arron looked even more baffled.

"She! Not that!" Vivi snarled, still affectionately running her hand through that fur.

"What happened to her teeth?" Russell  mustered the courage to ask.

Len rose up from the ground, "her previous owner sawed them off. Probably so that she can't bite him in her wolf form," then Len looked at the paw and said " a common practice in enslaving werewolves and vampires."

"Is-is she gonna be okay?" Russell couldn't even imagine how that felt. It was too painful to even imagine.

"Well, I put some iaekansher on her teeth. Elf magic usually takes a few hours to work only on flesh, but since this is to the bones, it can take a couple days," Len said as he scratched his head. Then he pointed down at her toe and said, "but you gotta remove that when she's back to human size."

The toe looked absolutely normal to Russell.

"Remove what?" Russell asked.

"There's two root iron ring around both her index finger. When she turns they go inside her flesh and wraps around her bone. Luckily, it's not silver. If it was..." Len didn't finish that.

"But, why?" Russell was even more baffled, "Why'd he give her a ring?"

"To stop her from using her ice," Len scratched his head, "I think."

Oh, Russell thought. Root iron shrinks radically when cooled. And if it's as tight as the elf says, cooled down, it can snap her finger off.

"I think I can take care of that." Russell had almost forgotten that Gloir was with them.

"And who are you?" Orpheus raised an eyebrow as he looked at Gloir.

Before Gloir could reply, Vivi squealed, "Gloir!"

Gloir looked at Vivi and smiled through his ragged beard, "Hey Shorty!"

"Hey, you troll!"

"He's my boss," Russell explained, "he's a really good blacksmith."

"I wouldn't call myself a really good blacksmith," Gloir said giddily, "just  the best."

"Oh, nice to meet you, then" Orpheus said with half a heart and other half awkwardness, then he seemed to remember something, "oh, I promised you an explanation, didn't I?"

"Yes," Elli said, expelling the tiredness in her voice with enthusiasm.

"Hold on," Orpheus said as he fumbled in his pockets. In a moment, he produced a little transparent crystal from his pant pocket. He held it up like the beautiful gem it was. It was pretty, but it didn't talk, or offer them any explanation.

Then it flared into light, white and bright like Blaze Iron. After looking at the dark for so long, Russell's eyes hurt to look at it.

All around them, the Outlines of transparent objects became visible. The white light partially reflected off the surface of things that weren't there. The image started to became clearer. Soon a new flickering transparent world was overlain on the real world. Only the surfaces that faced towards the light were visible. The picture was colorful though.

The image in front of them showed a tiled floor with a Pillar in one corner. The tiles were golden and the Pillar was white. The small patch of room that they saw held a sense of elegancy.

In the center of it, stood the image of a little kid. He had the same raw gold eyes of Orpheus. They flickered brighter or dimmer spontaneously. The light rippled on his blue robe, making it look like water. His hair was white with black stripes, His buttery complexion highlighted by the transparency. He looked about three.

"Ooncle?" He asked, adorable even more in confusion.

"Heeey, buddy. How're you doing?" Orpheus sounded like that sneezy uncle you should never trust with money, "Can you bring your mom?"

Who knows what he understood, but he ran off, screaming something that Russell couldn't catch. As he ran off, Russell caught the sight of a pair of small wings on his back.

A few moments later, a woman appeared on scene. Nobody needed to tell him, but Russell immediately understood this woman and Mr Orpheus are siblings. Twins to be exact. They had the same eyes. The same nose. The same white streaked brown hair. Even their postures were similar. Wings tucked up in a way that's not too spacious nor too cramped. Standing straight, equal weight on both legs, she looked like a really proud pigeon, with falcon wings.

"Hey," the woman regarded Orpheus, "you're not dead."

"Not letting you throw my funeral party, just yet." Orpheus returned the joke, "you wanted to talk to them before they come."

"Yes, I did. Where are they?"

Elli pushed forward first, stepping into the overlain world.

The woman's gaze softened as it fell on Elli, "you must be Elizabeth Forthfire. Pleasure to meet you. I am Festi Thunderbird. You can say," Festi gestured all around her by spreading her hand, "I rule this place."

"Excuse my sister," Orpheus turned to the rest of the crowd, "She has a god syndrome."

Festi rolled her eyes. In the transparent light, it looked like her eyes going all white.

"Well, it's nice to meet you too. I'm me," Elli put a hand to her chest, and then pointed towards the rest, "The idiot standing outside this, thing, is Arron. The boy standing next to him is Russell. The wolf is Lupa. The one right next to the wolf is Vivi. We've been waiting for an explanation since yesterday. Can you give it to us?"

Festi smiled a little, "Straight to the point, I see. That is good. Very authoritarian."

"Explanation," Elli demanded.

Festi chuckled, "okay, let's get started."

Then her smile vanished.

"We call it the Blindness," Festi started, "Although, it's mostly happening to humans, there are others too. Vampires, we think, always had a little bit of it inside them."

"Why is it called the Blindness?" Elli asked.

"But that is what it does," Festi's wings quivered a little, "It blinds people. Sometimes to sorrow. Sometimes to joy. Sometimes to reality, making them live in a world dreams and nightmares while it controls their bodies. The last is what we suspect is happening at the moment."

Russell recalled, for a moment, the anguished expression on the soldier's face.

Dreams.

And nightmares.

"Why humans, then?" Elli asked, "why not any else? Humans are not that capable puppets."

Festi shook her head, "We honestly do not know why."

"Because we destroy, slaughter and enslave everything?" Vivi supplied, with a downward smirk.

Festi turned towards her and smiled, "Everyone does that."

"Probably not as much as we do," Vivi began sitting on the ground. Elli shot her a fleeting glance, perhaps a little annoyed of the wasting time.

Festi, still a smile on her face, said, "Pray you never end up in a Lycanthrope feeding pit."

Russell shivered. Vivi said nothing.

"So, what does it want?" Elli took back the conversation.

"We don't know that either," Festi shook her head again.

"You don't know what it wants, you don't know why it's doing what it's doing," Arron crossed his arms, "What do you know?"

"Very little, honestly. We've been searching the Olden Scriptures rigorously. Infact, the mentions of the Blindness is everywhere, only..." Festi moved a hand through her hair, "it seems as if Everytime there's an encounter, only a shadow of the actual entity passing over our own reality. Never the actual thing."

There was silence for a few moments as everyone digested what the heard.

"Is this also it's shadow?" Elli finally asked.

"No," Festi looked down, "This appears to be the Blindness itself."

"So, what's the plan?" Arron asked, "What do we do?"

"The plan is to get you two to safety in  our kingdom," Festi looked up to look at them, "And when the war is over we put one of you on that throne."

"This is something I don't understand," Arron said, "Why do you need us? You could just take over the kingdom."

"And who will inherit the land from humans? Us? The Elves? The Fairies?" Festi looked straight at Arron, "there will undoubtedly be unnecessary war and bloodshed."

"So we do nothing?" Elli asked.

"Not nothing. You still have to convince all the leaders," Festi took a deep breath, "and my husband. I must warn you, my husband is particularly stubborn regarding these matters."

"He is," Orpheus added from beside.

"So, what do we do right now?" Arron asked a little impatiently.

Festi eyed him for a moment, then said, "tommorow you shall travel to aquapolis and convince the merman king. He's not coming to the hall because we need him at his post. From there you will shadow to the mirror lake in the palace. But for now," she glanced softly at both of them.

"You rest."

With that, she walked out of the transparent overlay. The image vanished as Orpheus fisted the stone.

"Okay, you heard the boss lady. Go to sleep. chap chap." Orpheus quietly announced, not wanting to disturb the sleeping ones.

Only if it was that easy.

As Russell laid down on the ground with the blanket over his body, thousands of questions veered in and out of his mind. He thought he'd never be able to sleep tonight. He looked over to his right, where the Vivi, Elli and Arron lay. Vivi can sleep, she can sleep through the end of the world.

But Russell was worried about Elli and Arron. They had a lot on their plates and were in shock. It'd be surprising if they kept their sanity after tonight.

A slight snoring noise drew his attention to his left. Lupa was curled up in a white fluffy ball five feet from him. Her large wolf chest rising and falling with her to every breath.

A dog like whimper escaped her mouth. She kicked one of her, her leg. It was facing away from him, fortunately. She was probably having a nightmare.

Gloir, Orpheus or Len were nowhere to be seen. Did the adults crash somewhere else?

Sleep or no sleep, Russell just felt grateful to lie down somewhere solid for the first time in a while. A place not hundreds of feet in the sky.

Looking up, Russell found the silver plate of the moon staring down at him. He tried to place an emotion on that stare, but his vision was getting blurry.

Under a tree, staring at the full moon, Russell fell asleep.