Her intrigue momentarily gave him pause, tempting him to play a card he often played when the game included a girl quite so pretty as this one. Her higher status didn't bother him, and wouldn't keep him. However... to play that card, i.e. to endeavour to manipulate her interest in a manner that might ultimately steal him a kiss, did not seem to suit this particular game. Nor this particular gamer. Not as they squelched along the bank of the Black Lake, Porphyria Dempsey being a companion of more wit and rarity than most people Arven knew. As attractive as he found her, the thought of playing her was therefore fleeting, and the goal (if there was one at all) instead became an odd, satisfying friendship.

"Mongolia, Persia, Siberia... wherever the horizon seems most alluring, I chase it. It started in my youth, and of course I was quick to discover adventure is not a recreation that pays for itself, so I found I had a vague talent for regaling tales of my adventures for publication in travel journals and papers. Sometimes the Prophet.

Foolishly, as a child I never considered that a person can traverse jungles and mountains simply by reading about them. But having profited from those who yearn for such tales, I know now that a truly insatiable reader has set foot in more wild countries than I ever will."