"I'll stay with Moneybags while you three get the last part we need. I have to study Cairo's docket anyway." Nehi'nihil shooed us away from the boat.

"Adventuring all across the land too much for you?" Spyro smirked at her.

"Of course not! But I hate Cloud Market anyway . . .  bunch of thieves for shopkeepers. Better off taking my chances with a roulette wheel. Now go on and get that rudder— I'll be here waiting with your lunch."

We nodded, and walked over to the Cloud Market portal, which was just past the food court where Spyro had been shot earlier. Most of it was roped off with police tape, but we could still go through the portal to reach Cloud Market. We were just flying into the market when the first sign of trouble occurred.

"What the?!" I remarked as shrieks suddenly erupted from the market. They were similar to ones I'd heard just after Spyro Prime was shot in the airport. Had that green-cloaked fiend Koleil spoke of struck again?

We landed a few moments later, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. "Stores look okay. Nobody's running to an exit."

Maybe we should just walk over to a security guard and see what went WOAH!" I walked off the floating island, and had to pump my wings to get back up. "The bridges are out! That's why everyone screamed." I flew over to the remains of one bridge. "The pathway just come undone. I pity whoever was unlucky enough to be on this . . ."

The shopkeeper shook her head. "I saw that bridge give out. It beeped plenty before the cables snapped, so everybody was just waiting at the last moment for them to come loose. I haven't seen anybody fall yet, except you."

Spyro Prime shrugged. "So it's only an inconvenience."

"No. There are quite a few wingless hybrids and marians around here, and a lot of them are stranded without those bridges. It would be very nice of you to help them around."

I climbed onto the grass. "We don't have time. We need to get a rudder for our boat."

He shrugged. "All the more reason to help your fellow creature. Ever since that incident in the airport this morning, prices for boat parts have gone sky-high. Last time I checked, a rudder cost 20K gems."

"That's not sky high. I see a rudder behind your counter, and here's the twenty gems." I tossed two ten-gems onto the counter.

"That's good. May I ask when you're going to pay the other 19,980 gems?" The shopkeeper smiled sweetly. "20K gems does not mean twenty gems, it means twenty thousand gems."

"TWENTY THOUSAND GEMS?!" We both yelled, and then calmed down. I stared down the greedy faerie. "That's skyway robbery!"

"That's business." He picked up an emery board and began sanding away at some minor imperfection on his nails. Spyro Prime looked like he wanted to throttle the keeper, but I kept my calm and pulled a yellow handkerchief with red trim out of my coat— a piece of temple property Mai'ko gave me as a small wedding gift.

"What are you doing?" Spyro Prime looked at me strangely as I began wiping away at my face.

"You'll see . . ." I whispered, and fell to my knees, pretending to sob. The handkerchief obscured my eyes, helping to sell the angst. "My husband is in jail . . . It's supposed to be our honeymoon, and he's in jail . . . if I cannot repair my boat so I can be present at his trial, he'll be imprisoned forever!"

"Madam, I—"

"You don't care!" I snarled at him. "You just want some measly little gems for an item which is worth far less than your price! I've already lost my virgin seal, and if my husband is convicted, I'll be ruined forever! No happy moonlit nights . . . no clutch of hatchlings . . . no romantic evenings at home with nothing on our minds except wild, carnal pleasure . . . and you would deprive me of such joy only to satisfy your greed? Bastard shopkeeper, I spit on your apron!"

"Madam, I didn't mean to—. Wait a minute! Couldn't you just remarry with someone of your occupation?" The shopkeeper glared at me.

I glared back. "I'm a servant of Tahla. The only available male is High Priest Koleil, and I refuse to marry him; he already has a daughter my age."

"Well, too bad to you; I didn't get where I am by falling for sob stories. Shame on your husband, but the price stands." The shopkeeper gave a smug grin at our predicament until Sparx flew over and started shocking him.

Sparx shocked him over and over with each word he said. "You dirty, twisted, cruel, predatory, uncaring child of harpies who frequently coupled over eggshells and—"

 "Does he write professional curses?" I blinked, astonished.

Spyro Prime shrugged. "He DOES live with Artisan dragons . . ." We waited until Sparx was through with the now more amicable shopkeeper.

"Okay, maybe we can work a deal. The original price for a rudder before the incident was 500 gems. I'll sell it to you if you can get me those gems and help  fix the five bridges. I have some extra cable to repair the bridges, so all you have to do is get the repairman over to where he needs to go."

I nodded.  "Where is the repairman?"

"Down here!" The little marian repairman held a bundle of cable up, scaled the store counter, and put the cable back on top of his head. "I can fix those bridges nice and quick!" The marian grinned, but Spyro Prime just turned away from him. I extended my hand out to the repairman, and helped him sit up on my neck. Spyro Prime still refused to look at him. The repair man smacked him across the back. "It's the way I am — Get used to it."

Spyro Prime

A few minutes passed, and I ran along the newly-repaired bridges as Reena flew with the repair man to each of the five sites. Reena got along better with that thief than he did with me; maybe I was a little too harsh with him.

"Hah! You're getting better already." Sparx grinned as he watched my expression change. "Your empathy is improving. With a little more practice, you'll think ahead so well that you won't act like a dickhead unless it's REALLY on purpose."

I gave him a fish-eye look. "I am NOT a dickhead!"

"Yes you are! When you hit Shadow in the face, I could understand that it was provoked . . .  but the repairman did nothing to you except being a marian. And he can't help that anymore than you could help being a dragon." Sparx buzzed at me.

"He's a thief!" I retorted, speeding up to head Reena off.

Sparx shocked me in response. "He's a member of a racial group which you have associated with thievery— there's a difference. That faerie shopkeeper was quite the thief, too . . . and what about those Rhynocs a while back? They weren't Marians!"

I snarled. "I hate being on the losing end of an argument."

"I also hate it when you're on the losing end of an argument. You're supposed to be growing up now— the rules have changed ever since you noticed protecting your slit was a good idea. Learning a little tact (among other concepts) would be a really good idea right about now." Sparx snapped, and fell back in line behind me.

"Nice work, guys!" I shouted down to both of them.

Reena nodded. "That should be the last bridge. Let's go back to the shopkeeper and get that rudder."

"No deal!"

"What?!?!" Reena glared at him. "YOU said the rudder would only cost 500 gems if we fixed the bridges!"

"I said I'd sell it to you; I never said at what price."" The salesman grinned. "20,000 gems, please. Please choose your form of payment— I also accept Credit Cards."

"How about LightCards?" Reena casually pulled out the cardlike gun and held it to his head. "It's set to stun, so you better charge us a fair price, and I mean NOW . . ."

I blinked. "Reena, put that away!"

"I'm not moving a muscle until this bastard shopkeeper sells me the rudder for a fair price!"

"Reena, you don't want to—" I shut up as soon as the security guards swarmed the stall. One was guarding me, and two others glared at Reena.

She put the gun away. "You people make it so difficult for me to finish a sting operation! I was just about to arrest this shopkeeper for price gouging—"

"You mean the fact the rudders were made of counterfeit teak wood wasn't enough to get him arrested?" The repairman spoke up, and the shopkeeper glared at him. "Don't give me that look! You tried to sell me the same rudder, and I demanded to inspect it, remember?" The security guards promptly took their gaze off of Reena and dragged off the shopkeeper, along with his counterfeit rudders. The repairman stayed with us, and shook Reena's hand — her finger, actually. "Name's South."

"South's an odd name . . ." I noted.

"Actually, my name's Dixie; South doesn't sound quite so much like a girl's name. Now, if you'll excuse me, maybe we can go find rudders together. West is going to be more than just a little annoyed if she can't get herself a new rudder . . . it's the only thing on the boat that doesn't work." He hopped past us and walked on his merry way past several stores until he found a place that sold rudders at a fair price. "This guy'll sell you the rudder for 750 gems— still more expensive than before, but it's as cheap as they'll go!"

"Fair enough." Reena replied as she walked up to the counter. We paid the salesman for his rudder, and then walked together to the whirlwind portal. Reena walked into it, but I stayed behind for a moment.

"Thanks, South. I had a bad feeling Reena would've been arrested instead of that crook if you hadn't spoken up." I shook hands with him.

He nodded. "My pleasure, dragon. But if your concern was just that your friend wouldn't get arrested, you may want to stop her before the guards at the airport get a hold of her."

"Explain."

"Well, she's still armed with that LightCard, isn't she? Who knows what weapons restrictions they have at the airport . . ." South explained, and I quickly picked him up and carried him through the whirlwind.

As we flew back to the airport, the sky around me grew dark and foreboding. South cringed and crawled onto my back, his arms around my neck. "I don't like the looks of this at all . . ."

"It's just a little squall. They pop up sometimes like that." I tried to reassure him. "Nothing to get in a knot about."

"Do harpies in green cloaks pop up suddenly too?" He whimpered. I looked up, and dove down quickly to narrowly dodge the dive of that harpie South mentioned.

I stared hard at it. It was a harpie, all right... couldn't see its skin, but I could see its large, broad wings. "Didn't believe they existed . . . how is that possible?"

"Whatever it is, it's coming back for a second try!" South exclaimed as I dodged the harpie again.  After this attempt, it just hovered ahead of us, not moving. I saw it had its feathery wings attached to its arms, clutching a hoop in both hands. His shirt was very short — just enough to reveal a very watchful set of eyes embedded in its belly.

As I flew past it, a voice arose from the harpie, calm and deliberate. "Warrior-beyond-his-years . . ."

Nehi'Nihil

I gasped out of my sleep. Moneybags quickly turned his head to me. "I thought you were working on those dockets."

"I'm sorry . . . I don't normally doze off like this. Mai'ko woke me up earlier than I normally do because of this trial. I'm still missing a good hour or two of sleep." I rubbed the crud out of my eyes. "Have you ever had a dream that seemed to predict the future?"

"There was that one dream where my prize koi exploded and spawned off a hundred guppies . . . but that never came true. Why?" He shrugged, tidying up the mess of documents.

"I think I did. Have a dream, I mean — not explode and spawn off or anything." I stood up. "The green-cloaked fiend was there; I saw harpie wings on him. Spy— I mean, Prima was there, too. Not by choice. I don't remember the exact nature of his prison . . ."

He shrugged. "This is all rather interesting, but—"

"I'm not finished yet!" I hissed. "There were others there too, all wearing white cloaks; they could barely be seen. Hyksos was there— I didn't see him, but I could feel his presence there, like a poison in my system. The fiend—"

"Nehi, if you're so damned sure it's a prophecy, why don't you go tell it to a priest or a soothsayer or something? Telling me isn't going to do any good!" He grabbed my arm and helped me out of the boat. "I'll stay here and guard the boat. You go to the temple, tell the reverend or priest or whatever they're called here, and bring back lunch while you're at it!"

I walked into the large glass dome, past a few cursory plants, and I noticed the high priest sitting there. I began to walk over to him, but before I could speak about the dream, he swatted me away.

"What was that for?" I cried out, surprised.

His head turned up me, apparently distracted from his little scroll. "As if you have to ask, Sahki?"

"I'm not a Sahki; not anymore, at least. My name is Nehi'nihil, and I— HEY!" I shouted as he swatted at me again. 

"Once a Sahki, always a Sahki. I won't tolerate any of your lies! Get out of my sight!"

I stepped forward, trying not to lose my appetite or my head. "I had a dream that I think you would be very—"

"GET OUT! NOW!" He roared, flaming at me. I flew out of the temple, narrowly escaping his wrath.  The entryway crackled with flame, and embers glowed for a few minutes while I caught my breath (well out of range).

"Testy racist bastard . . ." I muttered under my breath as I went to go get lunch. 

After I'd picked up the typical "Sack o' Dogs", I walked back over to the security office. Nola was still there, and just as I'd thought, his old hoop rings were hanging on the wall. I walked over to them and picked them up off of their display case, laying them on the table.

Nola took his eyes off the monitors for a moment. "What do you think you're doing?"

"My wand was destroyed earlier this morning. It's really not good to go around without a magic amplifier, and you never use these old things . . ." I tried to reason with him, but his eyes just narrowed.

He stood up and glared at me. "There's a reason I never use those, Nehi. Sahkmet is as much a religion as it is a house of magic. When I converted with you, I gave up that house!"

"You didn't convert, Nola; neither did I. We simply renounced Sahkmet as a religion and took up Tahla as our house of magic. That doesn't automatically make us converts."

He shrugged. "News to me. You still shouldn't be able to use those rings, though. Even if you were still a Sahki in magic and not faith, those rings only work for men. Your chances of—"

Whirrrrr....

"My chances of what, Nola?" I spoke as I honed one fifteen inch gold hoop ring in one hand. It glowed and spun in my presence. "We never 'gave up' the Sahkmet house, we just stopped practicing it. And as for these only working for men, I long assumed— obviously correctly— that it was some preposterous notion Hyksos had. These are working perfectly."

Nola stared at the rings for a moment, and then his chest began to shake from the laughter. "Tha-hah-hah-at's great! I just need you show you a few somatic drills before I let you leave with those. Once you get these drills down, you'll be able to perform almost all spells with those hoops. I just need to teach you the few motions for area spells, target spells, the increases and the extremes . . . you'll have it down in no time."

By the time I finished learning the drills and was back at the boat, Reena had almost finished aligning the rudder into place. I handed everyone their not-so-hot-anymore dogs. "We need to get to Upper Prisma immediately if we want to make good time. The next few places won't be as easy as the ones down here."

"It's only noon. We've got plenty of time." Spyro sat on the bench of the boat, relaxed.

"It may be plenty of time for some of us!" I hissed, fastened my hoops around a belt on my hip, and than sat down, not trying to meet his eyes. If my dream really was a prophecy, I didn't want to let the others know— especially Spyro. To hear of his own death might rattle him too much.