Star Starless

"That's great!" Otto smiled. "You... you don't look to happy. Did something happen?"

Otto embraced Cedar and hugged him tightly. "Did you find them? Did you find your friends?" he asked.

Kamado raised an eyebrow. "Ah, great!" he said. He snapped his fingers and the bars around Vivus slowly began to dissipate. Kamado walked closer to Vivus. "If you try anything funny, I will kill you." he hissed. "Now, follow me. My fleet is this way. I have someone I want to show you."

Meanwhile, Otto jumped off the ship the second it docked. He raced towards the center of town, looking for Cedar. "Cedar?" he said, looking around frantically.

Kamado grinned as he saw his fleet coming into view. "Ah, here we are. Your ticket to prison and my ticket home. Unless, of course, you decide to join me."

"So, I guess all of those years just mean nothing now?" Iris snapped. His eyes were fully gray now. He watched Cedar walk out. Iris sighed and turned towards Lockwood. "God, I feel like an idiot. I just said all those things like he meant nothing!" he exclaimed. Iris passed him the sketchbook and the pencil.

"Run away from your problems like you always do!"

"Fine! Leave! I'm sure your new besties Otto and Kamado would love to have a pathetic kid who can't use his powers on their side!" Iris didn't know what came over him, but he couldn't stop the words from coming out of his mouth.

"Did you ever consider the fact that I just don't want to talk?" Kamado asked.

"You can talk. I just won't answer." Kamado said. "My fleet is on their way to come pick us up anyways."

"We thought you were dead!" Iris exclaimed. "We looked for days! We searched and searched. You can't pull the 'we left you card' because we looked. We thought you died in the fire, and that's why we didn't find your body!"

"You really trust a guy you met 4 days ago more than your lifelong friends?" Iris asked.

"Hmm. Otto's the name of the brat of Kamado's you befriended?" Iris snapped.

(Otto enters dramatically. Sorry Cedar. Not yet. Soon though. Your boyfriend will come save you.)

"First Lockwood, and now you? This is wonderful!" Iris said. "So tell me? Who saved you?"

"Don't try to strike a conversation with me, Vivus. But if you really are wondering, no. I am not hot." Kamado replied.

"Why can't you, Cedar?" Iris's eyes became a gray hue.

Iris raised an eyebrow. A thought crept into his mind, but he pushed it away instantly. No. There's no way he was with Kamado this whole time... Kamado would have killed him the second he found him. However, something about the fact of how Cedar had survived this long could only be explained by Cedar joining Kamado. Iris slowly brought one of his hands behind his back and summoned a small flicker of fire. "Cedar... where were you?"

"Kamado burnt down Clearwater. After Vivus and I escaped, he sent Lockwood to kill us. That... uh... really failed." Iris blushed a little bit. "So he came here himself. Long story short he's here somewhere. I think he caught Vivus, but we have no clue where she is or where to start looking."

Iris sighed. "And Kamado is trying to kill us still." he added.

Iris shrugged. "Lockwood ran off, tried to kill me, I tried to kill him. He joined his evil grandpa for all of 3 days before he found us here and joined us again. I can become possessed by an evil fire lady who kidnapped me from my dad when I was a baby. Oh, which was also millennia ago apparently. My dad's a god, and we all have gods living in our heads or something? Oh! And I pass out on random occasions and have visions, and Kamado wiped my memory when I was 12! So, you know, I'm fine. Just your normal day in the life of Iris."

Iris shrugged. "Okay. Anyways, how have you been?"

"Why would they get caught? I'm not going to rat them out to Kamado or whatnot." Iris insisted.

"Who?" Iris asked. "They must be nice, harboring an elementalist. Especially one that's wanted by Kamado."

Iris looked at Cedar. "It's ok. Did you manage to survive by yourself? Or did someone rescue you from the island?"