Tendrils of sunlight slowly crept across the quiet, sleepy land surrounding Zaphias, illuminating the grasses and trees in their morning brilliance. Yet, somehow, as Duke watched the light pour over the landscape, there was an absence of the inner peace he normally felt upon slowly watching Terca Lumireis stir. It was an unsettling, dull vacancy, one he couldn't place in any rational means of reasoning. A squirrel scuttled past into a nearby bush, reminding Duke of his own flawed, fleeting human emotions; human intuition, perhaps, one 'gut feeling' of an impending chance of something unpleasant.
He looked down to his feet, boots pressing the small seedlings of grass onto their sides, thrusting each growth's young life into the dirt below. The larger being crushing those less powerful, either by choice or by merely existing - it was sad, he thought, that even such tiny, significant lives could not be protected from the workings of the world. It did so dawn upon Duke at this point that perhaps the source of his apprehension towards the rising sun stemmed from an existence much higher than his own, possibly the shadow cast by a metaphorical boot of Terca Lumireis, hovering over the grasses of humanity. The concept of their change for the better had indeed worked itself into the entangling workings of Duke's mind, and the foreboding premonition of a darkening sky did, to some extent, bother him, seeing as the lengths gone to previously to save their tiny existence had surprisingly won the battle against the Adephagos.
In an odd rush of nostalgic memories, Duke bent down to rip a handful of grass from the soil. A remembrance of his friend, Elucifer, gently wrapping the blades of grass into a small shape. It was foolish, really; even at the time he had remarked so - and yet he found his fingers looping the grass into the same shape, for no particular reason he could place, the smell of fresh greenery pervading the air. He gazed upon the small creation, lying in the palm of his hand; a protection charm, he recalled, to allay his worries of approaching disaster - or, moreso, of a tragedy lying on the horizon. Yes; the day before Elucifer was killed. Perhaps it was that same feeling now, the unreasonable perturbedness settling in his stomach, not displaceable by any form of logical thought, that put Duke so on edge.
He began walking. It was not so much a conscious decision as one prompted by a feeling of entrapment, a man held hostage by his own festering worries; the feral need of movement finding its way into his muscles, propelling him forward without much of a thought. He soon found his direction to be that of Zaphias, the Lower Quarter lying before him; it was with a grain of salt that perhaps, he thought, were some disaster to befall the world, that Yuri Lowell would be the single person he would entrust with preventing such an occurrence from fully exacting the extent of its full potential. He had never once envisioned himself going to the man in a flurry of apprehensive emotions, and suddenly felt quite ashamed of himself for doing so in such a hurry. Yet he had already arrived, the man in question sitting on an empty flight of stairs. It was too late to turn back, and it became a question of what intentions he truly came planning to express.
Something was off about Yuri Lowell. Something misplaced, the way the sunlight did not warm his skin the way it should have; it set a ticking clock in motion, the pretense of his own calmness beginning to leave him. He approached, quietly, his left hand still clutching the small grass charm in its grip. He held it out, then, silently, a strange gesture he himself did not comprehend the meaning of. A sign of protection, perhaps, was needed more by Yuri than by himself, the same way darkness befalls those even unaware of the passing daylight.
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