They sat around the table darkly. There had been storms today, and there still were tonight. Shen sat silently drinking some kind of tea, exhausted by the day, and occupied with the tenuous fronts forming in the air, as a strange chasm between he and the humans began to show itself.

What lives had these people seen, he wondered. What hardships have they suffered that brought on this odd and sudden distrust? They'd travelled worlds together and baited demons, a prospect Shen considered simply unthinkable, but now suddenly there were doubts amidst them, running threateningly like rushing trickles of black washes between islands to be. The gathering sat in disposition as if it were a stretch of cracked and rocky desert ground, one in its arrid solitude, but quickly divided if the rains come.

And they were coming. The mythical winds of destruction, the krhe rheari, were real, it seemed. The breath had come out of nowhere that day, charging through their return path to Blythe, and literally hurling them and their mechanical beasts from their route, and into other worlds. The humans called it a shadow storm, and it was quite fearful. Shen had asked the lingering question: if the entire place from which they had been cast was now simply gone. The answer he'd received was vague and open ended, but not in any reassuring way.

Even less reassuring was the state to which the winds had blown them. Each car had landed in a different shadow entirely, and by the time the group was reunited, things had changed. There had been revelations from the mysterious and oracle-like Lekisis, allusions to items of great power, discoveries of intriguing artifacts, and, suddenly, with it all, the manifestation of self-interests.

To Shen, it looked as if the storms were eroding more than the fabric of worlds. They were beginning to unravel the tangle of questions, unweave the veils over things, and let glimpses of meaning leak through. The first drops of answers were falling, and the true nature of the others' thirst was becoming revealed as they rushed to place themselves on the ground that promised to collect rain.

The room was quiet, and the currency with which everyone hoped to someday claim soothing clarity lay prepared, tightly held in the tiny fragments of truth they each kept hidden in words, images and items they didn't even understand, but dare not offer until they did.

Cecily anxiously looked through the new deck of elusively meaningful cards that Fletcher had found that day, and the group peered across the table, the air charged with suspicious questions. Griffin, feeling the direction things were taking, seemed to take the first step toward disarmament. He openly produced the unique sword and gem that they had found, and explained that he felt they might very well be the last heirlooms of his father, somehow left for him. As Fletcher coldly watched Cecily's handling of the deck, and Stark simply listened, endeavoring to understand it all, Shen sniffed at the last scented whisp of warmth from an empty cup.

The conversation stopped as Cecily froze with a start.

"Grayson," she asked slowly, pulling her eyes up to meet his, "why is there a picture of you on this card?"

Grayson paused for a moment in the heat of ten eyes. He calmly rose from the table and left the room.

A similar pause followed. The time required for the decision not to accept this as an answer was short. Cecily rose and gently strode after him. Griffin and Fletcher followed.

Shen put down his cup and looked at Stark. Her fragile human form, still marked in places from torrents of glass and shards of worlds, now defined the table. He couldn't tell if her face spoke of exhaustion, contemplation, or apathy. He quietly pulled his frame from his chair, and moved to the doorway, where he lingered, his attention half left with Stark, and half turning to the glow of Grayson's cigarette, now framed by the silhouettes of the others.

Grayson sighed out a breath of cold smoke.

"I have no memory before five years ago..."

In the short moment of stammering silence that followed, Shen thought on the storms. He began to see as he believed Griffin, and perhaps even the others, did. Things from here would either be an alliance of trust or an economy of trade. He had played his small part in bringing it to this, and he knew it.

"Your kea is as you choose it," Lekisis had said.

Shenrakari straightened himself and, giving a short concern to Stark's well-being, stepped outside. Now was a turning time, another chance, and he would not merely let it pass.