[Lyra Greenleaf]

Shouts roused Lara for a moment, long enough to see Farien run out with her children. Running out, she was escaping…Lara’s head rolled. “Lara…Laila?” Lara’s face cracked with a wide smile.“Daddy’s home!” she whispered to Laila. Scooping her daughter up she went to the top of the stairs and looked down.
“There you are!” said Ered with a grin, and he rushed up two steps at a time, grabbing them both into a hug. “I thought perhaps you had run away”
Lara giggled. “I tried, but couldn’t find my shoes”
”Aha! So I was right to hide them then, wasn’t I Laila?”
Laila gurgled happily as Ered tickled her chin.
“You are not allowed to leave me”
“No, I won’t leave you”
Lara shook her head firmly, eyes closed. Slowly she opened them. Ered’s smiling face was gone, and so was her house. Her smile faded. A woman was looking at her with worry in her eyes.
“Laila?” she asked faintly. She couldn’t see the baby anywhere. “L-Laila? Laila?”
Lara tried to get up, but she felt very weak. And empty. It wasn’t only hunger, although that was a part of it. “Ered?” she said slowly. A memory came to her. Blood… Lara retched, but there was nothing in her stomach. Silently she began to weep.

Darkness fell in her head again.
“Lara” The well known voice called her name again.
“Ered?” Slowly his face came to her, smiling. This time they weren’t at home, though, and Lara knew he was dead. Perhaps I’m dead too, she thought. Somehow the idea wasn’t as comforting as she had thought a few minutes earlier.
“Lara, where is Laila?”
“In the other room. Ered, you…you died. I’m going insane”
“Well, you’ve certainly changed from the woman I knew. She wouldn’t just sit there while Laila was in another room. You can get her back. Or anyway, you can try.”
“I have tried. The Orcs…” Lara whimpered in memory.
“Then try something different. Something that the Orcs won’t catch you doing”
“What Ered?”
“I know you can do it. Who persuaded your father to let us marry? I think I would rather face Orcs!”
Lara smiled, and Ered’s face faded.
“Ered…Ered!”
All Lara could see was Georelelia. Ered was gone, forever. Somehow though, her emptiness had been filled up, with white-hot anger and cold determination.
“If Farien got out, so can we” she said to Georelelia.
Shakily she got to her feet.
“We just have to decide what to do.”