The sun had set, and the moon was high in the sky. Ira and Setter carried a tanned leather blanket. Phoenix's lifeless body lay on the blanket, strewn with garlands of feverfews and gentians. Eliot looked up at the full moon, and then down at his little daughter's face. There was a look of peace on her face. Eliot suddenly changed his mind.

"Don't bury her," he answered Setter's question.

Setter, probably due to his prophetic abilities, instantly realized what Eliot was going to ask. "Yeah, I'll ask Mom," he said. "I'm sure she'd agree." He and Ira lay the leather down, and Setter headed off to look for Tiha. Eliot looked at Ira in amazement.

"How'd he know I was gonna ask if we could keep Phoenix's body in stasis?"

"He's a prophet, remember that," Ira said. A few minutes later, Setter came back, with Tiha.

"Yeah, you can," he informed his friend. "Come on."

Eliot nodded numbly and picked up his daughter's body, following Setter and Tiha to the cellars.

-

Sassy looked up the the stars from the watchtower. She was beyond tears now, which was a familiar feeling for her. After the deaths of her two best friends in the world, Annie and Sam, she had been beyond tears. For a while, she had been afraid she'd lost part of her soul.

This time, she was almost sure she had. Phoenix had been her first daughter, and had been more than Sassy could comprehend at times. From the moment of her hatching, when she had asked what her name was, to her breathless, wide-eyed account of her encounter with Methka, to Methka speaking through the young child and telling the story of Albia, to saving Albia when the newcomers had been stranded there, to her discovery of her telepathic powers, Phoenix had been a marvel. Sassy sighed. Her daughter's final act had been one of self-sacrifice, to save a creature she hardly even knew. It seemed a strangely appropriate end for her.

Sassy sighed again. Appropriate, maybe. Depressing, definitely. Suddenly weary, Sassy got up and stepped into the left, sending it down. From there she trudged, head down, towards her home near the beehives. She was almost there when she bumped into someone. She looked up, and saw that it was Karr.

"Sorry, Karr," she apologized dimly.

"It's okay," Karr said in the same sad, only-half-there tone of voice. "I was just coming to check on you. Tiha's got Phoenix's body in stasis, I thought you might want to know."

"That's nice," Sassy said sadly, looking away.

"Sassy, I know how you feel. Really, I do."

"You can't possibly."

"I do. I don't know what it's like to lose a daughter as wonderful as Phoenix, but I do know what it's like to lose a loved one. Remember when Karen died? Remember what I was like?"

"Yeah," Sassy whispered. "You were a shell, only alive enough to eat and sleep. And only then just barely."

"I can see you heading that way now. For the sake of you and everyone who loves you, don't give in to *that* depression. It could kill you - listen to me, I know what I'm talking about. I know you're sad for Phoenix, I am too. I think all Albia is. Hell, Hand was telling me earlier how much Cappie misses Phoenix - and Cappie doesn't even live here!"

"I know," Sassy said miserably.

"Sass, think a moment here, and listen to your old teacher. What do you think Phoenix would have wanted? If I know your daughter, she would have wanted you to go on with life. Am I right?"

"Yeah," Sassy said. "You're right." Sassy sighed. "I'll try to go on."

"No. Do or do not, there is no try."

"Where'd you get that?"

"A movie Hand likes to watch. A little funny green guy said it - with some fur and bigger eyes, he'd make a decent Norn." Karr gave a twisted, halfhearted smile, and clapped Sassy gently on the back. "Come on, Eliot's probably wondering where you are."

Sassy followed Karr, now more thoughtful than sad.

-

Nathan stared into the amethyst in his hands, and wondered why Kerra wasn't chasing him. She usually did whenever he snitched her amethyst. Confused, he started to meander back to the kitchen, when suddenly he tripped and fell into a lift. It started down - apparently he had hit the 'down' button when he fell. He squirmed in the lift, and the amethyst fell out and bounced to the dock, landing on the raft. When the lift got all the way down, Nathan got to his feet and toddled towards it. The raft started floating across the river just as he got into it and got the amethyst in his hands. Suddenly tired, she sat down and took a short snooze which ended when the raft docked. He wandered forward, and tilted his head on seeing a young girl Norn standing upright, eyes closed, in a misty-looking column. Nathan recognized the girl as Phoenix, Kerra's best friend.

Unbeknownst to the innocent boy, Phoenix was dead. Curious, Nathan stepped toward the column, but tripped again. The amethyst clipped the column, and it disappeared. Phoenix fell forward and landed in a heap on the floor. Nathan wondered why she didn't move, and gave her a scritch. She still didn't move. Nathan shivered - some instinct told him that the norn before him was dead. He crawled over the cold corpse and retrieved the amethyst, and was just about to go back home when he stopped. Something was talking to him. Startled, he looked down. The amethyst in his hand was glowing dimly, and had somehow adjusted its position to point to Phoenix's body. With a shrug, Nathan took it at face value and touched the body with the amethyst. There was a nanosecond pause, and the dead norn took in a deep breath. Her eyes flickered open.

"Mmmmnhuh?" she slurred. "Whappenme?" She sat up, and seemed to be listening to something. "Oh yeah," she said quietly. "That's right. I died getting Fahr's life support working again. But how am I alive now?"

This was all going way over Nathan's head. "Bibble?" he asked, confused. Phoenix looked at him, noticed the amethyst in his hand.

"Nathan!" she exclaimed. "You touched me with the amethyst, didn't you?" Confused, Nathan nodded. Phoenix grinned and hugged him.

"I'm glad you did," she said quietly. "C'mon, let's go back home."

-

"Kewwa!"

Nathan's high-pitched voice cut into Kerra's ears. She groaned to herself and turned in his direction. "What?"

The little boy ran towards her and gave her a big hug. "Kewwa! Fee-nix back!"

Kerra's mouth dropped open. "Phoenix is *back?*"

"That's right," Phoenix said, as she walked into the kitchen. "I'm back."

Kerra's mouth would have dropped open, if it wasn't already open. "PHOENIX! But - you were dead!"

"Nathan somehow got down into the cellars and touched me with your amethyst." She handed the purple jewel to Kerra. Kerra accepted it, numbly, and stared at her resurrected friend. She had seen her father be made pure Norn once again, had seen Ira be restored to full Grendel, and had seen Setter and Ira resurrected. But somehow, this was different. To see her best friend in the world, thought dead, standing well and alive in front of her, was too much for Kerra to take. She took the action she had put off since Phoenix first walked in the door.

She fainted.

-

Tiha smiled to herself, as the last words finished scribing themselves in the book. She put the book on a shelf, which contained eight other books. She took down another book from a different shelf, took a quill, and began to write in a liquid, flowing script.

'And thus draws to a close the ninth chapter of the saga of the Albians,' she wrote. 'Hand only knows what will happen to us next. Perhaps even she does not know, perhaps it is only the business of the gods. But come what may, I shall always be here to watch our story unfold, and to keep the lore of our world. Perhaps one day I shall pass it on to my son Setter. But the sun is setting now, it's time for old Norns like me to get some rest.' She signed her name to the page, and closed the book, setting it back on the shelf. She then damped down the lights in the cellar, and went to sleep.