Prologue
Light green eyes scanned the surrounding woods, confusion soaked in to them. Short light brown hair was ruffled by a light breeze. A small boy stood in the center of a forested path oblivious to his lack of direction. The breeze gently nipped at his loose white short tunic shirt. He wore plain doe hide breeches with a matching vest and black leather boots that came up half way to his knee. He stood at a stature of three feet and nine inches.
"Syren, are you sure we're going the right way?" the young boy's harmonious voice questioned his slightly older looking friend. As he glanced over his shoulder his wise green eyes searching her with worry. His friend, Syren, started to chuckle, now he fully turned around to face her. She was dressed in golden yellow capris with a matching sleeveless top. Around her waist was an orange sash belt with each half of the yin-yang sign stitched at the ends, and on her back were a pair of gently folded wings scarcely 12 feet in wingspan, they were the color of the autumn sunset depending on how the sun touched them their color ranged from golden yellow to blood red. Slung carefully around her wings was her quiver of swan fletched arrows. Down along her left upper arm was a gold dragon bracelet wrapped around six times, while on her opposite forearm she wore the standardly worn leather padded archer arm and wrist guards. Syren stopped chuckling to say kindly,
"Yes, I am sure master Sean. I saw the waterfall just beyond those trees. If you really want me to I could flutter up there again and look for you, once more." Her voice as melodic as his was giving him a submissively teasing tone, a tone that a friend indebted with their life to the other has carefully learned to use after quite a few years of being with each other, as well as a calming motherly tone underneath that only he could hear. Her own short apple red hair gently wisped in the breeze as the sun hit it in a way that made it seemed like the heart of a fire. Her bangs, a contrast though seeing as they are black, swayed in the breeze, the glimpse of the darkest night to come. Her innocent royal blue eyes danced with amusement towards her happy little friend.
"No, it okay Syren, I trust you. Alright then! Forward March!" the ten year old Sean stiffly walked on in front of his Enterian guard as he pretended to be a soldier. Again he glanced over his shoulder and smiled with all his heart, then started marching on.
A soft unnatural vibration in the wind's movement caught in Syren's ultra sensitive ears immediately. Her innocent eyes disipitated as she gave a deadly glare to the surrounding woods. She tensed up her right arm which held her hand carved long bow. She walked on cautiously quiet behind her merrily unaware charge marched on not knowing of the possible danger.
The breeze came back ruffling her hair. While her lightly feathered ears interpreted the song of the birds; and whisper from the trees. They told her the cost was clear.
'Damn it, it was just a scout! Which means there's more of who knows what out there' she thought sourly to herself.
Her young ward turned around to investigate the absence of his friend's always vigilant presence over him and flashed a huge happy-go lucky grin for her. Syren stole a glance over to Sean and flashed him her own smile of white. She jogged lightly to where he had stopped and started following him again into the forest.
A while after Sean sat on a large flat tree stump, in the middle of a clearing, clearly exasperated by the morning's trek deeper into the center of a wooded nowhere. Syren sat easygoing and carefree in a low tree branch just above him. She was trying to snooze, but he kept muttering annoyingly to himself about a surprise and so on. Finally after five minutes worth of Sean mumbling to himself she offered,
"Sir, I could just go and fly up again. Obviously we must have made a wrong turn or I have misjudged the distance. It would really be no bother." She smiled a little as his head snapped up with a sudden lightning bolt of inspiration hit him.
"Hey Syren, will you really mind doing that?" he asked turning around to watch Syren's lazy face.
"Well of course… on one condition…"
"Yes?"
"… You tell me why you need this hot spring's 'special powers'?"
"Well... it's actually a surprise for you…." One of her lazy eyebrows shot up and her eyes started sparking with interest. "… it's actually the waterfall were our great-great-great-grandfathers first met and befriended each other. I just thought it'd be cool to vi-"
"You are so sweet! You're my best friend!" she exclaimed while interrupting his sentence as she hugged him tightly. "I'll be back and we'll find that spring no problamo! Okay? Be back in a jiffy!" Syren said with a giddily excited voice. She jumped back to the branch she had been laying on and grabbed a higher branch just above that one and easily hauled herself up to it. She sped up the process; soon she was climbing the old tall oak with great speed and stealth, as if the tree was bringing its branches to her helping her along. When she got to the top of the oak she waited a while until just beyond some more green treetops she saw the mists of the swirling water rising on the breeze. She smiled and jumped off to the sky. While in mid air she floated and felt truly free of everything but as the earth started to pull her down and claim her as it's own again she snapped open her wings crisply and denied the ground such the pleasure of bringing her down.
When Syren was out of sight Sean sighed airily and just looked at the last place he had seen her wings. They had been the color of blood. He smiled as he said something he would never have the courage to say to her face.
"my dearest Syren, I love you with all my heart…" he sighed again as passion of the deepest most eternal kind overflowed his heart and spilled into his eyes turning them to the lightest most transparent green possible. He thought of how much she meant to him and some of the things they had done together. So distracted by these treasured thoughts he didn't notice the shadow that loomed from behind him and turned his world black.
Syren, unaware of what was happening in the little clearing behind her, over looked the ocean of emerald green tree tops and gazed contentedly on the misty rise of hot water before her. She started to flap her wings faster she felt uneasy and this time wanted to make sure it was actually there. As she neared it the mist moved away from her. Surprised she reached her hand out as if to grab it and started to flap harder. Like that for what felt like forever she stopped in mid air and switched her eye sight to that of an eagle's precise and truthful. Her brow furrowed and she quickly turned around and flew straight for the clearing that held her most precious treasure. Sean.
The group of scruffy bandits had searched through the kids pockets and only found a few coins and a bit of candy. Other than that he was broke. He lay on the ground at their feet unconscious. Their leader the blood thirsty Sarkaroka was not with them today, which was lucky for the kid least wise he'd be dead. They were walking off when a furious wind knocked them to their feet. Looking up one of the bandits, a scout that had spotted the boy earlier, gasped in fear. Coming down into the clearing was the boy's Enterian guard who had sensed him behind them. He swallowed noisily as her blood wings flapped and she came to a light landing on her feet. Her bow was notched and ready to kill Jive, the closest bandit to her. The young Enterian's voice sounded the deadliest sweet you've ever heard.
"And you bustards are doing WHAT, here?"
"P-p-please s-s-spare us-s-s" Jive pleaded piteously under the arrow's aim.
"And I should do that because?" she said just as dangerously before.
"Least wise we don't kill THIS child, you Runt" a deep baritone voice of powerful death threatened from behind the fallen bandits. A very burly Enterian man with gold tawny eyes and a slicked fox tail turned around and held a dagger of the bluntest kind up to the upraised Sean's throat.
Jive exclaimed happily. As the burly Enterian grunted a reply, Syren instantly dropped her weapons with huge eyes of caution and fear. Sarkaroka smiled an evil smile of triumph as he pressed the knife the child's throat regardless of Syren's actions.
As blood flowed like a waterfall to the ground Syren's worst night mare came to life before her very eyes.
