Jinwoo stood atop the flat, rocky outcropping, the winds blowing at his ropal as he spied through the looking glass. Amber crouched at his feet, unwilling to suffer the winds when she couldn't see without the looking glass: they only had the one to share. Besides, she was the one who had seen it first.

The desert had grown rocky this far south, with less loose sands and more hard surface under their feet. She was glad for the fact that they had a comfortable bed to share each night instead of having to camp on the hard ground! Jinwoo had theorized that they were nearing the center of the winds, the place where everything blew in many different directions and left nothing to cover the ground with. Whatever the reason, she was about tired of it. One of the wagon horses had come up lame two days before from the unbearably hard ground, and if it weren't due to Jinwoo's healing, they would have been stuck in place until the animal could walk again! As it was, the Magician had to heal the beast each evening just to keep it from hurting at all.

It had been six days since they left the oasis, and six nights that she and Jinwoo shared a bed. It wasn't love, she would be the first to admit that, but she didn't think he was foolish enough to believe it was. They both knew tha it was physical and that was it, though she was beginning to think that she might have been able to have feelings for him. In a different time and a different place, she thought.

This morning they had come to the edge of a small cliff, circling around a giant crater in the middle of the desert. Down in the center of that crater, Amber had seen a strange reflection in the morning sun: when looking through the spy-glass, she found what appeared to be a massive geode embedded in the earth. She had called Jinwoo to see it and now awaited his opinion.

Blast, but the winds had been harsh this day, though it probably had something to do with the fact that they stood at the edge of a crater. She hadn't realized it as they were traveling, but looking behind them she could see that the land sloped ever so slightly downward. They had been climbing all this while, and toward what?

Jinwoo finally lowered the spy-glass and hunkered down beside her, wrapping his arms about his knees as he gazed off toward the odd blue mark in the desert floor. "So what do you think?" she asked, having to pitch her voice a bit louder to be heard over the winds.

The Magician handed her the spy-glass, watching as she tucked it back into it's case for safe-keeping. "I'm not sure," he finaly admitted, his dark eyes meeting her's for a brief moment before the wind forced him to look down again. "It's in the right spot for An'Farli cal'Carnin, but nothing I read has ever described it like this."

Amber shrugged, standing and moving down the sharp incline to jump off of the outcropping and back down to the wagon side. "Yes, but when was the last actual sighting of it? Thousands of years ago?" At his nod, she motioned toward the now-hiddem crater. "Then that's your Depths of Reason, just... aged."

His lips tweaked in a small smile at her choice of words, though the mirth didn't last. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, glancing over his shoulder as if he could still see the strange blue mark on the land. "Well. Then I guess this is where we say go-"

"Don't you even," she warned him immediately. "I came wiith you to see this to an end, and that means going down there with you. Besides, you can't expect to infiltrate a place all on your own, even if you are 'of the third'."

He watched her for a long moment before shaking his head in defeat. "Did I ever have a chance?" he asked softly, and Amber didn't think that was a question meant for her.

They both readied themselves, picketing their horses with food and water to last... and ties that they could break easily if the worst came about. Both humans packed water and a bit of food into bags they meant to carry on their own backs, then waited for night to fall. It didn't take too long to decide how to pass the time, and when they finally lay together, recovering from what they had done, Amber asked, "If you fail today, then what?"

Jinwoo chewed on his lower lip, a habit that Amber shared in, and stared at the ceiling of the wagon before he finally answered. "Then another Magician will have to do it. I have to cast the spell to ensure that no dragons can live, and that means finding the only place they can hatch. I don't know how they broke the seal in the first place, but I suppose we will find out when we get there. It's a hatchery, I'm not expecting an army down there, but regardless..."

"I've got your back," Amber told him softly, letting her fingers linger on his chest for a long moment.

When night fell, they crept down the side of the crater and toward the strange landmark in the center. They were terribly visible, with no coverage for hundreds of feet, but as they jogged toward the center Amber realized that he was right. There were no guards to be seen, no one to challenge them, and instead of settling her nerves, it gave her a bad feeling. She thought abut warning him but decided agains