WAAAAAAAAAAA. I had SUCH a bad day! You want to know what happened? 1) my pants ripped within the first ten minutes of school, and I had to hold them together with duct tape the whole rest of the day. 2) I spilled stuff on my shirt all through the day, including but not limited to: pen, juice, lettuce, chocolate chip cookies, glue. 3) I got a C- on my algebra test. Review a whole lot and cheer me up!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. My day just wasn't bad — my whole WEEK was bad!!!! I got smacked in the head during soccer practice, and on the leg, and it was so hard that it left a ball mark on my leg, and I just kept tripping over things, and I forgot my textbook and got marked down for it, and my friend whacked me on the head . . . boooooohoooooooo.

I'm sad! My story is almost over! My baby! What will I do when it's done? My life will be empty of purpose! *wails in sadness for five minutes* What? Story? *sniffles* oh, you want the story? *huffs* fine. Just forget the qualms (I love that word) of the author. Here's the story. *brightens up* It's quite good, if I do say so myself. And it's extremely long – longer, I think, than any of my previous chapters, and there's no author's note at the end because I didn't want to ruin the mood, or whatever. So don't forget to review! Your beloved author lives for reviews!

Old Friends Reunite

Kel and Neal plummeted toward the breakers.

"Dive!" Neal shouted. Luckily, he was in front of her, so the force of the air blew his words past her.

"What?" Kel shrieked, sick with fear.

"Tuck your head! Dive! Or you'll die!" Neal shouted back. He tucked his head to his chest and raised his arms in front of his head, immediately pulling ahead of her as they fell. He plunged into the ocean. Kel had just raised her arms when she hit the water.

The shock of the frigid temperature of the water went straight to her bones, making them ache. She plunged down in the icy seawater, ignoring the smarting of her wound as it was submerged in saltwater. She closed her eyes, and was tumbled over and over before she stopped turning, but she struggled in a panic. Which was is up? she thought frenziedly.

Kel stopped moving. Her stomach was pulled upwards – that meant she was on her back, facing the surface of the water – and the air at the surface. She flailed, getting in the right position to swim. Finally, she got control of her limbs and shot to the surface.

She broke the surface and gasped, inhaling great gulps of air. Her teeth started chattering. "Neal!" she called, looking for him. "Neal!" she cried again, feeling the first traces of panic. She shoved them down, distracted for a minute. What is it with me and panicking? she thought furiously. I've never done it before, and it seems to be all I've done today!

Her train of thought was interrupted when Neal rose, gasping, to the surface, about twenty feet away from her. She swam over to him.

"L-Let's get out of t-the water," she chattered. Neal nodded. She turned to the right, where just the tips of some evergreen tips were visible. They both started to swim, moving frozen limbs in the heavy water.

They swam, but their strength was fading fast. Neal, already tired from holding off the spells in order to heal Kel, was swimming increasingly slowly. Kel was just dead tired, and her wound didn't help. While it wasn't bleeding, the pain dulled her senses as well as her mind.

Just as Kel was about to give up and let the sea claim her forever, she heard a piercing whistle. Startled, she looked around.

A red speck was hurtling towards the two Tortallans from the line of dry land. As the speck got closer, Kel saw that it was trailing flames.

Byrn halted above them and hovered. She trilled furiously. Kel and Neal were yanked out of the water and held dripping above it. With a last fierce cry, the two Tortallans were launched towards land, wind whistling in their ears.

In next to no time, they came to a jerking halt above what appeared to be a boat. Byrn trilled a high pitched noise, and they were dropped, from ten feet in the air, onto the deck.

"Ow!" Neal cried.

The immortal ignored him. She rose up in the air, making all kinds of noises with an obviously scolding tone to them. Byrn spread her wings and, without flapping them, rose higher, until she was fifteen feet off the ground. She gave one last decisive whistle and surged higher into the air. She floated serenely down, and the scolding was over.

"Sounds like my mother," said Kel with a grin.

Neal yawned. "I think . . . I think I'll . . ."

"Me too," she agreed. They curled up together, right on the deck, and fell immediately asleep. Byrn shook her head – a very human gesture – and cooed a note, calling a blanket of fire into life. The blanket settled over them, and she chirped to break the spell. Kel and Neal vanished. The immortal could still see them, but they were shielded, and she had made sure that the blanket contained actual warmth.

***

"Urgh," Kel groaned, rolling over as she woke up. Rubbing her eyes, she realized that Neal wasn't awake yet. She glanced to her left side, and raised her eyebrows in amusement: Neal's head was nestled between her head and her shoulder, and his arm lay across her waist.

He's clutching me like a teddy bear! she thought. The mental picture of Neal clutching a raggedy teddy bear was so entertaining that she actually laughed out loud, causing him to wake up.

"You look a lot less sarcastic when you sleep," she told him, and extracted herself and stood up while he rubbed his eyes and tried to figure out whether that was a compliment. Byrn chortled in amusement.

Kel looked around. Chills ran up and down her back. What she had thought was a hallucination was real – she was on a ship. And what was even stranger, the ship was fully functioning, sails billowing, heading straight – but there was no one in sight.

Shaking herself, Kel walked over to where Byrn was perched on an extra beam. "Well?" she said, sticking her hands on her hips. "What do you have to say for yourself?" The immortal burbled happily, fluffing up her feathers and making a lick of flame jump off her wings.

Neal joined her, looking around in amazement. "What is going on?"

"I couldn't tell you. We're apparently on a ship, but I have no idea how we got here, and since the only living being who does can't communicate with us, we're in somewhat of a dilemma."

Neal shrugged. "Works for me. Just as long as we're not on the Isle of Dementia any more." Kel rolled her eyes.

The two Tortallans located the galley and started a fire. They also found sufficient supplies to last for a two-week journey – exactly the amount they'd need for the trip from the Copper Isles to Tortall.

"This is just too weird," said Kel.

"I can accept it," Neal said with a grin, leaning back in his chair and putting his arms behind his head. "I think the real problem is, 'What do we do now?'"

"Well, we have Five. There's only one more left!" Kel said excitedly.

"Yeah, but even Sir Myles had no clue about where the Sixth is," Neal said, being the usual killjoy.

Kel whacked him lightly on the side, and Neal grabbed her hand. "Kel, I—" he broke off. "I'm glad that you didn't die."

Kel laughed. "What, even with you pushing me out a window into the ocean? Well, I am too."

He hadn't let go of her hand. "No, I mean . . . I don't know what I would do, if—" he couldn't finish.

Surprised and touched at his show of emotion, Kel answered in kind. "I know. I don't know how I'd live if you were gone." Neal leaned over and kissed her slowly. They fell into the kiss, and the feeling of each other.

Kel pulled back with a businesslike air. "All right, now that that's out of the way — what does it say?

It took him a few seconds to think of what she meant. Neal closed his eyes, reciting the words from memory. "Six: at the center of three homes."

Kel thought for a second, then made a lets-just-go-for-it face. "It's easy enough to figure out where to go. I don't know about having three homes, but the one home I do have is in Tortall. We need to get back on home soil. And apparently," she said, continuing, "We're already on our way there. I say we just hold on."

Neal nodded his head, but his eyes were suddenly preoccupied.

"What's wrong?" Kel asked, worried. Her friend and lover turned to her, biting his lip as he obviously tried to think of the best way to phrase whatever it was he wanted to say. "Just spit it out," Kel prodded.

Neal shrugged doubtfully, but obeyed. "Kel — Mindelan is on the very border of Tortall and Scanra. We haven't heard anything about it since Carthak. It's possible— It's probable—" Kel's heart began to hurt. "Kel, Mindelan has probably been captured."

Her throat closed up. This was a truth she had been avoiding. It would creep into her thoughts at night, and she had learned to shove it to the back again, avoiding the implications. But now, with a homecoming so close for them, Kel finally adjusted her idea of what Tortall would be like.

"But Queenscove— Queenscove is—" she began, sick at heart.

"Right by Carthak, I know," Neal finished miserably. "I doubt it's still unconquered." He let out a sound that could have been a cough or a sob, and pulled her close against his chest in a tight embrace. Byrn flapped her wings, looking displaced.

Kel allowed one tear to fall before she shut out her feelings again. This is no time to break down! she told herself fiercely. Not after you've come this far – when it's all over, then you can cry." She shoved her feelings back in that place in her mind that she dared not leave open for very long, and smoothed her heart and her face over as she had been taught.

"Let's go," she said, pulling away from him. "We have to get there soon. I don't know if I can stand this much longer." Neal nodded his silent agreement, but he stopped mid-nod and grabbed her arm.

"Kel!" he said, eyes wide. "Our horses – we forgot them!"

Before Kel could reply, Byrn interrupted from her perch on Kel's shoulder. She let out a short chirp and drew herself up proudly. "Wha–" Kel began, but then the immortal took off, flying up the stairs. They followed her.

Peachblossom and Topaz stood on the deck, fully saddled, groomed as though they had been staying in the Palace stables, and looking extremely pleased with themselves.

"Peachblossom?!" Kel cried, running to her mount. "How in the Great Gods names did you get here?" Neal did the same, murmuring soft words in her ear once he reached her.

Byrn launched into what was obviously supposed to serve for an explanation. Peachblossom and Topaz pricked their ears up and seemed to listen, and they neighed or whickered occasionally. Byrn finally broke off as she realized she was completely incoherent to the two humans standing in front of her.

"I wish Daine was here," Neal said wistfully, shaking his head. "Maybe she'd be able to tell us how our horses made it onto an unmanned ship fully saddled and looking none the worse for wear."

"So, do we have to actually do anything?" Kel asked Byrn skeptically. The phoenix shook her head smugly.

"Okay," Neal said doubtfully. "But you," he pointed at Byrn, "Better know what you're doing."

She ignored him.

***

Two weeks later, Kel and Neal stepped off the boarding ramp of the ship and onto Tortallan soil for the first time in more than three months.

"Ahh," said Neal, elated. "How good it feels to be home."

A rain of arrows erupted from the treeline, zinging towards the two Tortallans. Byrn, flying ahead of them, had to dodge one when it came dangerously close to her wing. Neal instantly reacted, throwing up his hands and creating a wall of green fire between the archers and them. They sprinted around the other side of the ship, leading their horses.

"Gods!" Kel shrieked, exasperated. "Can't anything be easy? Nooooo. We just get home, and we're attacked! Why not just throw an entire company at us, huh?"

"Oh, the irony," Neal moaned, motioning to the other side. Kel ran and looked, and sure enough, a company of Scanrans was headed towards their retreat.

"Do something!" Kel screamed, looking up at the sky and raising her arms. Neal looked at her with worry in his eyes, but his attention was immediately diverted by what happened next.

The air screeched. There was a noiseless explosion, and a voice cried, "Begone!"

And the Scanrans were gone.

And Pitken stood before them.

He looked infinitely tired as he gazed at them. His clothes were wrinkled, and his hair looked unkempt. The feather in his hat drooped.

"So," he said, his deep voice rumbling. "Thee have found thy way home."

Kel stood stunned. Neal, standing beside her, was also frozen. Byrn drifted to Kel's shoulder, her warmth penetrating through the fabric of her tunic. The horses whickered uneasily.

Finally, Kel gathered her wits together enough to speak. "Wha—What happened to . . . to them?" she asked, waving a hand that encompassed where the Scanrans had been scant minutes before.

"I merely sent them back to Scanra, that they might take weeks in getting back." Kel nodded thoughtfully. "But to business!" Pitken cried. Both Kel and Neal jumped backwards.

"What business have we with you?" Neal asked, confused.

"Much. Have thee not thought it strange that thee have had such little competition?" Kel closed her eyes, not liking where the conversation was about to go. "Little ones, thee are not the only ones who wish to find the Six that have been hidden long. I have been working hard to keep them back, but . . . they don't give up. They begin to wear me down."

"Then–" Neal's voice squeaked. He cleared his throat. "Then you're an immortal?"

Pitken inclined his head. "I am the Guardian, sent by the gods nigh on three hundred years ago. My duty is to protect the Six of immense power – I must help the searchers to find them, and keep the wrong ones from doing just that."

"And we're the right ones?" Kel prodded.

"That thou are." Suddenly, Pitken's outline flickered, and an unrecognizable expression crossed his face.

"Wha–" Kel asked, concern in her eyes.

"Don't! Don't speak!" Pitken closed his eyes, concentrating. "They are fighting to break the illusion I placed . . . they fight . . ." he trailed off. Kel and Neal watched his motionless form for a few minutes that seemed to last an eternity.

Suddenly, Pitken's eyes snapped open. His outline solidified. "They have broken it. Thee must fly! Thee must find the Sixth!"

"Who broke your spell?" Neal cried, frustration evident in his voice.

"The forces of Chaos." Pitken said wearily. "Even with their queen imprisoned, they get orders from her still, and will follow those orders to their own deaths. And now, they are all focused on thee." Kel swallowed. "You are closer to finding all Six than any mortals in the four centuries since their creation. If Chaos allows you to complete the prophecy, she and all her servants will be forced from the Mortal Realms for . . . long enough that the story of her going will be forgotten when she returns."

There was a silence. "Does this have to do with why our country is suddenly being attacked, for what seems to be no reason, by practically everyone?" Neal asked flatly.

"Chaos is behind it. Her servants guide your enemies."

"And . . . and they're all after us?" Neal sounded faint.

"After your country, for their power with the gods, and after you, for your purpose with the Six." He flickered again, more severely this time. "Thou must hurry! Thou must solve the riddle, and find the Sixth, and use the Six for the purpose they were created!" He flickered again. "My time with thee grows short. I must away, ere they find me, and by finding me, find thee."

"Wait! How come Chaos hasn't been able to find the Six before us?" Kel cried.

"The last direction – the direction to the Sixth – was written for only the two who were sent on this quest to know. No one in these Realms knows where the Sixth lies, save thee two." Kel heard Neal gulp.

But she had still more to ask. "Can't you give us any help with the clue that leads to the Sixth? It says three homes . . . but I only have one home!"

Pitken looked at her strangely, saying, "And he has one home too." He nodded at Neal as he spoke.

Kel opened her mouth to say something else, but Pitken continued, even as his figure faded away. "Find the Sixth . . . then thee may rest . . ."

He was gone.

So much for the no-author's-note-at-the-end plan. But I have nothing to say, just that I really want to break 300 reviews! Please! that's only nine more, and I know that nine people will read this story . . . so just one little review!