It isn't the qliphoth tree. It isn't Red Grave City. It isn't a city of any kind. V lands on one knee in soft snow and looks around him. He's still exhausted and weak, in no state to trudge through the snow for unknown time to reach a place of real warmth. He stands and takes in the surroundings. He's near mountains with little in sight.

Fortunately, one direction promises warmth. A tunnel. V walks toward the tunnel, breathing harder by the time he reaches it. He breathes harder as it carries on and pauses somewhere in the middle where neither end is distinctly seen. He leans back against the wall and considers his hand. It's no worse than before, but it's no better either. Cracks remain as they were, and V is exhausted, so exhausted. Even if the end of the tunnel is close, he's not sure he can make it.

Pathetic. Weak. But alive. That counts for something.

While others turn into dragons and fly across the skies or learn mathematics from a scaled if attentive teacher or explore the limits to discover the horrors of math homework, V sits in the gardened area where the flowers are something else. He stares at them for long stretches and looks up only when someone comes by.

Sometimes, it's a dragon selling or giving away something made of dragon. V's hoard grows over time. A discarded dragon horn. A bag of scales. A miniature dragon building kit made of dragon bone (promised to breath real fire, matches included). A set of dice. A coat of dragon skin leather from a dragon who took pity on him (he felt the pity and hasn't touched the coat).

So when he hears footsteps again, he doesn't look up from the intricate flower in his hand. V simply says, "Yes?"

It's unsettling to be jolted to and fro. The first trip, the one to this land, V agreed to and walked without tiring. Yet to be moved without his choice in the matter a second time in so short a period brings him out of exhaustion into clear and present readiness. Yes, someone else is there, but a cursory glance suggests that they too have not chosen to be present. Instead a voice speaks, one without body or clearest direction.

“Do you think the Trials are wrong?”

"The Trials," V muses, "I take this to be one of them. I have no means to judge, not having been in one before. I've only heard some little tell of them, and that would be to judge a book by its cover."

He glances toward the other Star Child for their opinion. Have they been here longer, or are they as clueless as him?