"Morning, mistresses," James bowed his head gently.

     Damien took in the surroundings he would have to grow accustom to. Behind the front entrance to the fortress of the furies stood a small plain of flat dried up land, cut into a perfect square thanks to a makeshift fence. The man they called James stood up at their arrival, shovel in hand, looking burnt and tired from days spent involuntarily sunbathing.

     "We have a new none," Tara pointed out Damien standing beside her, still shirtless and covered in the grim from his travels.

"Ah, where's this one from?" James asked.

"Lethra," Erin replied.

James brought an arm up to wipe the sweat from his forehead,"makes two of us then," he added.

The wind blew hard through the boneyard, throwing up pieces of earth that spiraled through the air, and landed in no distinct pattern along the bit of rock they stood on.

     The worn fingers of James wrapped tightly around the handle of the old shovel. He looked to be at least in his sixties, but his stance and well built upper arms didn't make him appear more than forty at first glance. The hat covering his head gave the impression that no hair laid beneath it, and the wrinkles in his eyes dug deep enough in different directions to show the many expressions he had repeatedly performed over the years.

     "I'm assuming he's got boneyard duty with me?" James asked.

     "Yea, we're gonna leave him here with you for a while, but don't keep him too long today he needs to clean up some," Erin said to James kindly.

     "No kidding," James smirked, looking at the mess of a young man standing before him.

     Damien watched as Tara and Erin walked slowly back towards the gate, capes fluttering against a cool morning breeze. Erin had stopped briefly and turned to look at Damien with a sadness in her eyes before resuming her journey back into the mountain. Damien's thoughts brought him nothing but confusion. The girl who had been the cause of all this was nothing more than just a girl who had been doing what she was told, and Damien could relate to that. Instead of anger over his situation; anger directed towards Erin, he felt empathy and turned to embrace his fate.

"Excuse me sir?" James had begun digging a small hole in the nearly solid earth. He stopped and looked over at Damien confused.

"Are you sure you're from Lethra?" James asked with his foot resting against the shovel.

"I'm actually from Dockside, but they picked me up in Lethra."

"How long you been in Lethra?" James resumed his hole digging and Damien watched the muscles in his arms twitch with every thrust.

"About a day?" Damien scratched his head, feeling the caked dirt in his hair that had made running his fingers through it difficult.

James paused again and looked at Damien bewildered,"well ain't that some rotten luck."

"I've never been very lucky nor very good at much," Damien held his head down and kicked at the dirt beneath his feet, listening to the sound of metal hitting against the ground.

"Seems you're stuck with me doing boneyard duty."

"What exactly is boneyard duty?" Damien asked. James walked over and grabbed a seat on the ground.

"Have a seat," James patted the coarse earth beside him and Damien obliged.

"When the furies bring back the ones they um," James made a hand motion by bringing his fingers across his neck,"we have to bury them in the boneyard."

Damien's jaw dropped,"you mean I have to bury dead bodies?!" Damien's breaths grew shorter and he struggled not to tip over. James watched as the kid started gasping for air.

"Hey hey don't worry it won't be so bad," he brought a chaffed hand to rest upon his shoulder in comfort,"I know you're just starting so all I need you to do is dig the holes for now, ok?"

Damien still continued gasping but slowed his breaths down to a near steady pace. He looked at James and nodded, who in turn offered a kind smile and a pouch filled with water. Damien grabbed on feeling the skin and the water wiggling beneath his grasp. He opened it and drank deeply, careful not to finish it off.

     "You gotta be thirsty, kid. Go ahead and drink up. Can always get more," James brought his arms behind him to rest on against the cold nearly wet ground.

"Can I ask you something James?"

     "What's that?"

     "What is a none?"

     Damien took another sip of water, his body finally starting to relax ever so slightly. James repositioned himself to sit up and took a deep breath.

     "When normal folk run into one of the furies, and most of them done it by mistake," he clarified,"the furies believe their secrets won't be kept," he leaned closer to Damien as if to whisper,"if you ask me I think it's because they don't want anyone knowing it's a bunch of little females running around slicing and dicing."

     James held his hand out for the water and Damien passed it along, looking expectantly at the older man.

  "Slicing and dicing?" Damien looked at James confused.

     "Do you live under a rock?"

     "Might as well have, considering the upbringing," Damien replied.

     "Out in these parts we don't have the same courts like you rich folk out east. The furies are the ones who handle all that junk," James wiped water from his chin and rested back down against the rock,"anyone who kills anyone gets killed, anyone who steals something loses their hand, and all that nonsense."

     "But I thought you said that people who see them get taken up here. Wouldn't that mean that--"

     "Ah, you catch on quick. Those people who only lose a limb don't get taken up here, but their tongues are cut out so they can't say nothing."

     Damien looked at James, appalled.

     "Are you a none too?" Damien asked. He watched James take a deep breath, followed by another small swig of water.

     "For the past 10 years or so, yup."

     "Can I ask--" Damien looked at James unsure.

     "You see over there?" James sat up and pointed off into a far corner of the boneyard. Most of the earth lay bare with an occasional bump of freshly piled on dirt, save for one small stone, looking to be carved into a makeshift tombstone. Damien spotted it and turned his head back to James nodding.

     "Ten years ago the furies took my wife from me."

     "Did she um?" Damien didn't want to offend the poor man.

     "No, was the neighbor's wife, but she did a good job covering up her old man's death. So good in fact that my wife was branded that night," James looked longingly into the distance at the grave marker.

     "My wife locked me out of the house so that I wouldn't be around when it happened. I kept banging on the door when I got finished at the market, but there was no answer. So I looked up toward to mountains east and spotted a couple cloaked figures in the distance carrying a big sack. So I knew at that point."

     Damien adjusted his sitting position and faced himself closer to James,"so then how did you wind up here?"

     "I loved my wife...and I needed to be with her, or even just be able to visit her once in awhile, so I snuck up here. I followed the black cloaks in the distance."

     "Why would you do that? Especially if you knew you'd be stuck up here the rest of your life?"

     "My wife was the reason I kept on living, kid," James stood up and brushed the dirt from the back of his pants,"This was the only way I'd get to be with her everyday."