Light and Dark

"No! I refuse to wear it. I flat out refuse! I don't even want to be here!" Aura said, pushing her hands out in front of her and turning away in disgust at the dress. Mrs. Ferguson gave Aura a stern look. "I will not have anyone in my house dressing in common street cloths like you think you can wear now. You need to have better clothing now that you will be having a better life." She said, to the chimera. Aura stuck out her tongue in a 'bleh' expression, still holing out her hands and turning away from the clothing. "No, never, absolutely not! And if you don't like it, just let me go back home where you got me! I would rather be home t the orphanage than here! I hate it here already! And I absolutely am not wearing anything but pants and shirt! No dresses, no skirts, no flowers, no pink, not frills, none of that stuff. I'm not wearing it!" She declared, crossing her arms defiantly. The loud argument continued, neither wanting to give in.

Plush sized Kero rolled his eyes and looked back down at his book. It was a comic he had found stowed in another room. Apparently Aura had another person living in the house to deal with. She hadn't been upstairs long enough to catch the scent yet, but he could just imagine the snarling and complaining h would have to listen to when she did. He buried his nose back in the comic, trying to ignore the commotion on the floor below him.

Kero looked up and cringed as he saw Aura walk in with something that could be called nothing else, but an extremely evil, psychotic grin. Kero shivered. "Oh no, what did you do?" He asked as she looked around her room smirking. Aura licked her chops, as if anticipating a kill in a hunt. "Weeeeeeellllllll… She tried to get me to change into that dumb dress, so I took off with it and hid it up a tree about a black and a half away before she could catch me. Wanna wager on how long it will take for her to get it back?" She grinned a little less evil at him. Kero looked out the window. He could see the bright red fabric fluttering in the breeze on a tall, tall, tree.

"Five bucks says she'll leave it there." He said, holding out his paw for a handshake. Aura grinned. "Close enough. Five buck, I say she gets it loose again." The two shook on it and stared out the window, waiting to see who would win.

Later Aura was lying on the floor beside the window, staring at the ceiling, humming to herself. Kero was floating idly in the air, giving the tree out the window the occasional glance. Aura raised a claw in the air, hooking a floating cobweb with it, and rolling it into a ball before flicking it back in the air again. Kero looked down and snatched it, fluttering up to a corner and wrapping the cobwebs in more cobwebs until he had a ball of it in his paw. Aura looked up as he dropped it back to her. She smiled, flicking the ball back in the air. Kero floated left to bb it back. And so, for roughly an hour the two played a game that was a mix of tennis and catch.

"Hey, look!" Kero said, pointing out the window. Aura got up, peering as the tree shook in the wind and the dress fell out of its branches. Soon, Mrs. Ferguson walked out and picked it up, storming back into the house. Kero and aura looked at each other. "She went to get it."

"But she didn't get it herself, didn't even get it loose." The two glared, and Kero decided to be the mature one for once. "Let's just say we both won and call it even, I don't want a fight right now." He said. Aura smiled. "K."

Aura was roused again at a knock on her door. She rolled to her paws, standing up, and walked to the door. Opening it, Mrs. Ferguson stood in the doorway. "It's time for dinner, and time for you to meet your brother. He was also adopted out of that mud hole of an orphanage." She said. Aura's tail, now disguised as a belt, twitched slightly in irritation. "Whatever." She said, putting Kero in the corner. She walked out the door and followed Mrs. Ferguson to the dining room, and looked around. There was a dark wood table with a tablecloth over it, and lots of little ornaments and centerpieces, and matching chairs. She noticed the fancy lights, and fancy food set out, but not as much as she noticed the boy sitting in one of the chairs at the table. She felt her hands twitch as they clenched and unclenched, sprouting claws and itching to rake them down his face.

She narrowed her eyes, her face bunching into a fierce snarl, and brown eyes getting tinges of red. Her teeth almost grew into fangs as her pelt bristled over her spine. She almost started growling, but glancing at Ferguson's turned back, choked it down, and stuck with a snarl.

The boy looked up from the book he was doing homework from, and froze as her saw Aura standing near the doorway. His eyes widened and he gave a startled gasp. She twitched her hands and sneered a snarl right at him. She remembered what he did just perfectly.

--------------------

"You say this guy can pick any lock, how long does it take?"

--------

I could sense a lingering trace of someone else's magic on the other guy. To linger around that strongly, this lock picker, if it's his magic, might get through.

--------

" Lock?"

-------

The door opened and Devon strode in.

-------

Kero rushed and slammed the door shut, using his weight to hold it that way as the scumbag tried to barge back in.

------

Aura panted and cringed as her keen tiger ears picked up a string of cussing.

--------------------- -

She could clearly remember the chubby frightened face of the lock picker now. She could feel the magic sliding off him, and smell the fear as he recognized the girl whose room lock he had picked, and who had the giant lion in it, and how they had seemingly vanished without a trace into the foggy sky. Worst of all, Aura made it quite clear she recognized him, and was still seething over what he had done.

"Aura, meet your adopted brother Ralph. Ralph, this is your new sister Aura, who just got adopted out this morning." She said, cheerfully oblivious for a moment. She saw Ralph's fearful expression and looked back at Aura. Aura had her hands behind her and was standing casually next to her, an 'I'm -just -as -confused -as -you -are' look on her face. She looked back at Ralph, and the moment Ferguson turned her back, glared and snarled at him. She took a seat at the table, crossing her arms and leaning over casually, but never breaking her increasingly unnerving gaze. Ralph shuddered as she slowly turned away and used her claws to reach over the table and pluck a slice of the plainest smelling meat off a tray in the center of the table.

"Aura, don't use your hands to eat your food, and get your elbows off the table!" She said, aghast. Aura rolled her eyes and dropped the slice of meat into her mouth, sucking it down in one he gulp, with plenty of smacking, slurping sound effects. Her elbows, also, remained right where they were on the table.

"Aura, dinners over all ready?" Kero wondered as he floated over. Aura grinned and reached into her mouth, plucking out a chunk of meat about as bi as her fist from somewhere in her mouth. She held it out to Kero. "Leftovers?" She asked, not joking. After all the squabbles and claws unsheathed over half eaten prey in the woods, he gnawed at it, and noted it wasn't even real wet. "I got sent up to my room for bad table manners." She said with an even wider grin.

Aura walked over to the window and looked out at he midnight sky, as Kero snoozed away on her bed. She gazed out, fingering her key. "How am I going to catch the last four cards from here?" She wondered. Here eyes drooped as she sat down in front of the sill, gazing out into the gathering night. She closed her eyes, burying her face in her arms with a sigh. "No, I can do this. I won't justify her calling me trash, even if she doesn't know it. Even if something goes wrong. Even though Kero seems so worried about this. Even though…" She trailed off and began to gasp quietly for breath as she looked up to gaze at the comforting moon. Her shoulders tensed as she looked around into seemingly infinite black, inky, darkness. She growled, hearing, as it never echoed back to her. She fell to the ground, lashing her tail and standing ready for a fight. Her ridge of fur bristled as she began to panic. There was no feel, no sound, no smell, or sight here. She couldn't even feel any ground beneath her paws. She tried to summon her wings when she thought of this but to her dismay they wouldn't come.

"Okay, that stinks, but nothing but to try and fid where 'out' is." She said to herself. She took off at a steady trot forward. She swiveled her ears to try and catch any sounds, but there was nothing, for on and on, so she soon came to a halt. "I wander just where I am. I was at the window worrying, then I shut my eyes and opened them in here. I must be asleep then." She said cheerfully to herself as she continued to walk forward. She sand to herself as she trotted, grinning and holding her tail high in the air, curling over her head. She hummed a song as she went, but soon began to glance around in the dark. She shivered and stopped. "This is a real long dream." She growled.

She began to run franticly, snarling around, listening for the dear sweet sound of an echo bouncing off a wall, or an object, or a person. But there was nothing in the darkness. She skidded to a halt and roared to the sky, shaping it into a frantic howl. She shivered at the emptiness of the place, where none of her senses could find a single thing. She stared at her seemingly floating paws and yelped as she saw the dark slithering over them. Her tail bushed out and she reared up on her hind legs, trying to pull away, but darkness darker than her surroundings began to trickle around her, seeping up like water in her fur. She twisted and growled and snapped and even shot flames, but it crawled up her, wrapping around her and trying to choke her. She twisted and withered, panicking for a moment, and then as the fear edged on, she could feel herself going still, frozen in fear. She shivered and crouched down, tail curled around her. 'What is this? I'm fading? Am I dead then?' She thought to herself. She felt her fur stop bristling and her shoulders relax. 'Well, nothing I can do about it.' She thought as she began to completely relax. She dully watched the squirming shadows, and noted as they began to slide off, like water drying. She picked up a paw and flexed it a few times. "Weird. It goes after fear then? If it can think like that, I wonder if it's a card." She said. Sitting up she looked around. "Hmm… I already have a Nothing card… I can't detect a thing though… but I can hear myself speak. Wait…" She began to think to herself. 'If these cards seem so much like things humans would think of, the no wonder its got no smell or feel. I doubt they would think to check. I have hearing, and the only other sense they use a lot is sight. If that's all it's meant to block, then this would be…" She looked around. "Are you a card? Dark I would guess?" The inky blackness wavered and she guessed she had guessed right.

It came back and started to seep around her again as she began to vanish again. She growled and blew out some flame, but only a little angry puff, not even intended to hit anything. She held up a paw. "So, then how come it doesn't work on me if it suppresses my magic. I mean I still see me… let's see, what could a human think of now." She wondered

"Dark, see myself, glowing, light? Is there another card then? There's fire and ice, earth and wind, sword and shield, create and erase… so if it's another opposite set then maybe there is a second card.' She thought. As soon as she formed this in her mind, a glow floated out of her chest and formed into a human shape. She sniffed it, and could smell card again. "So, if this is Dark, the opposite of that is Light. Would you be the light card then?" She asked. Light nodded and began to shine, and the darkness gathered into a second shape like the first. A human shape clad in black.

"Yes, we've been watching you ever since the seal on the book was broken."

Aura blinked and covered herself, mirroring what a human girl might do if they were walked in on while taking a shower. "Gee, please tell me you don't mean that how it could be taken." She joked, and then began to seal the cards, nodding to show she was still listening.

"We do want you to be our master." Light said.

"But it's Yue's decision in the end." Dark added.

Aura's ears perked. "Wait, who the heck is Yue?" She asked, but the cards were sealed and silent now. " She looked around the room and immediately noticed Kero's anxious face peering at her.

"Aura! You're okay! I wasn't sure you could get past Light and Dark like that. They're method of getting caught, I wasn't sure you'd be able to put two and three together there." He joked with relief. She grinned and scuffled the fur on his head with her paw. "Don't worry, I can think like a human when I need to, though I generally try to avoid it." She perked her ears again as she remembered something.

"Who's Yue?" She asked out of the blue. Kero stopped laughing and shivered, though he tried to hide it. "Well, he's… you'll find out soon enough." HE said, looking down and away. Aura got to her feet and raised a paw. "Wait, why can't you tell me now. They said he got to decide if I could be Light and Darks master. Is it that way with all the cards, or just them, or what. And why does he get to decide?" She persisted. Kero looked up helplessly at her, and She sighed. It was obvious he wanted to spill the beans, but couldn't for some reason. "Yeah, whatever. I guess I'll wait." She muttered, curling up to go to bed. Kero hopped onto the real bed and looked put the window.