Elven Troubles
Xina was fuming. The good news was that she was not capable of destroying small countries in a fit of pique. This was only small consolation for her traveling companions, none of whom had ever seen magic of the magnitude that Lina Inverse had used in the prime of her magical power. The only individual that was even remotely cheerful at the moment was Tinuviel. Well, Tinuviel was more than remotely cheerful. Okay...Tinuviel was a walking sugar high, but that's Tinuviel.
"All that work for nothing," Xina grumbled.
"Its not that bad," Amethyst suggested. "Its not like we found out its impossible or anything."
"No, we started with that knowledge," Jol noted. Val and Xalan refrained from saying anything, past experience with Xina proved that she would go from fuming to shouting if you tried to cheer her up. Xina shouting while angry was an ear splitting event that they both wished to avoid.
"But didn't you get a chance to read through the book, Xina-san," Tinuviel asked cheerfully. "It is such a wonderful art!"
Xina halted in the middle of the road and growled, as she considered the cause of her current ill humor.
"Xina-san, we have to give that book back to Chindra-san," Amethyst lectured as she caught the fox-girl flipping through the book. The chimera didn't bother to ask how it had gotten out of Xal's pack.
"I'm just taking a peek," she insisted. "She said that anybody could learn this magic....look it even says right here...'Walter Gibson's Big Book of Magic for all Ages.'"
"But you know we have to return it..."
"Hey this shouldn't take long," Xina insisted. "Didn't you say my mother used to be one of the greatest sorceresses ever?"
"Yeah, but..."
"Okay, chapter one, 'How to create a simple yet challenging act.'" Xina scanned a few lines and slumped. Amethyst sweatdropped. "Chapter two, 'the performance,' 'dinner-table magic', 'tricks with cards'. What is this?!?"
"Oh you recovered my book of magic tricks!" the robbed magician called out as they topped the rise. The entire group face faulted, except for Xina who just stared as the woman took back her book and examined it. "I'm so grateful, I still haven't learned everything in it."
"Magic...TRICKS?" Xina blinked.
"We were fighting orcs and knife-throwing maniacs for a book of magic TRICKS!?" Val added.
"You aren't a sorceress?" Amethyst blinked.
"What was all the fuss about then?" Xalan asked.
"I never realized entertaining was such a cutthroat business," Jol said.
"Val-kun, Chindra-san has been teaching me some tricks!" Tinuviel ran towards her target, almost bouncing. She was stopped by an arm snagging her and lifting her off the ground.
"Where are you going?" Xina wasn't shocked THAT senseless.
"I'm going to go show Val-kun what Chindra taught me," Tinuviel blinked at her. "Why?" Xina's temper had gone downhill from there.
"I don't believe we went through all that fighting for nothing," Xina growled again.
"When we get back to Sailoon you can talk to my father," Amethyst suggested. "And I'll bet your mother could help as well."
"Yeah, right," Xina muttered. ~If she knew anything that would help, she'd still be casting magic.~ "Well I'm going to find some way around this moon junk you all say means I can't cast real magic!"
The forest was quiet, as if it also was holding back from aggravating the fox girl. Jol blinked, the forest was way too quiet, especially to someone who had grown up among elves. He glanced at Xalan, the kage-kitsune was already watching the trees, so he wasn't imagining things. He cast about and felt a presence, something hidden from casual senses, magical and otherwise. Val and Amethyst also started glancing about nervously as the tension spread. Only the infinitely annoyed Xina and the generally unaware Tinuviel seemed to be ignorant of the situation.
"It feels like an..." Jol started, as figures leaped down from the trees around them. "Ambush!"
"DIE FIENDS!" somebody shouted angrily.
"I'M NOT IN THE MOOD FOR THIS!!!! The battle ground was temporarily whited out in shimmering flash. As it cleared the ambushers glanced about looking for their targets.
"Uh...where did they go?" one of the cloaked figures asked someone next to him. The ten or so attackers looked around the path confused. A couple of them went so far as to circle the tree growing in the middle of the road, as if all six of their targets could have disappeared around it. They didn't check the shadows in the tree's hollows, after all, they were too small to hide anyone in.
"Wow," they turned to face the rather unenthused voice. "A perfectly implimented hunter's ambush manuever, right down to the attack formation." They found Jol levitating ten feet off the ground behind them.
"Your attempts at flattery will not save you, rebel!"
"You attack us unprovoked, and you call US fiends?" A magically levitating Amethyst glared down at them as she drifted into their sight range opposite Jolrael, on the other side of the tree. "Perhaps you need a lesson in justice!"
"Maybe just practicality," Val added, also levitating, forming a third front. "Fifteen fighters without magician support, against us?"
"We are knights of Beleriand," one of the cloaked men shouted. "We have our own powers...ATTACK!!" All the ambushers had their backs to the tree. Xina and Xalan spilled out of the tree's shadows and took their rear. Smashed from both sides the "knights" had no chance. The fight lasted less than two seconds. Tinuviel stepped out of the shadow looking confused at the scattered unconscious fighters.
"The knights of Beleriand are revived?" she asked, confused and moderately worried. On Tinuviel this expression was terrifying. The idea of an event that could make Tinuviel treat it seriously was mind-numbing.
"The last time they were active was the last civil war," Jol noted. Tinuviel shook her head, she knew Beleriand history up and down.
"EVERY time they were active was during a civil war," she said. "And immediately before." She stared off towards her home.
"Oh," Xina was surprised that she actually felt sorry for the girl. "Sorry..."
"WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY!!!" Everybody facefaulted.
"Tinu, our homeland seems to be on the verge of a self-destructive war and you're happy?" She nodded cheerfully, eyes closed.
"I get to chronicle a civil war!"
"Why am I not surprised," Xalan asked.
"I can't believe we lost her," Sherra mumbled between bites.
~Yes, odd that there would be so many taverns right along the road in one spot like that.~
"Now I'm way out here, half way to Sailoon," she growled. "With no idea where anybody else is, and no way to prove to Xalan how much I..."
~Oh please don't say it. You're supposed to be a mazoku!~
"Stow it, sword," Sherra growled. "I can act human for a little longer yet."
"You there!" she blinked and turned to look at a tall man in simple garb, armed with a sword and a bow strapped to his back. "It is illegal to hunt deer here! This land belongs to the house of Meiron!"
"But this isn't deer," Sherra said irritably, not really interested in fighting at the moment.
"It's not?" the man blinked, surprised.
"Ruby-Eye, NO!" Sherra hmphed. "Not enough meat for my tastes."
"Uh, what is this then?" Sherra pointed towards the bushes behind her, where the huntsman saw what appeared to be a pair of dead bears. He glanced nervously at the girl in front of him and back to the pile of bones already accumulated. Sherra arched an eyebrow at his now hesitant behavior.
"What?" She asked. The huntsman ran screaming away. "What was that about?"
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