(revised)

So, here's to the ones who wanted another chapter, and for the ones who didn't…^_^ oops.  Beware the muffin man. 

Chapter 7: Ways of the Shadow

"Gone? Just like that?"

Emille's blond head bobbed in a gentle 'yes.'  The queen lifted her gaze from the cherry wood table to meet Dart's questioning look.  "It took him."

Miranda's head shot up sharply, pinning Emille with a hard dark blue stare.  In the corner, Kongol shifted heavily on a low backed reading couch, his rough features unreadable in the light of this news. 

"It?" the Sacred Sister repeated, rising to prowl the length of the library, the only room large enough to accommodate those who had gathered.  "Did you happen to see it?"  A rather evasive retelling of her own encounter on the warship had left her feeling edgy, as if merely speaking of the beast would call it back to her. 

"I couldn't see anything but shadows-" Meru began to shake her head when Miranda slammed her fisted hand down on the table that dominated the room. 

"It is shadows!" she ground out through gritted teeth.  On a silver chain tucked under her shirt, the white-silver dragoon spirit shimmered a burst of calming warmth, a reassurance to its less than tranquil partner.  "Damned thing was in Deningrad! In my BEDROOM!"

"Must be real desperate then," Haschel observed dryly.  Miranda wheeled on him but the aging fighter held up his hands and eased them down as if to lower the blond woman's flaring temper.  "I'm not cracking jokes, Miranda.  Calm down." 

"Calm down? Albert's out there." The blond dragoon plunked down on a chair and glared at the table top till Meru was positive she saw smoke curling up from the wood under the heated stare. 

It was Shana, surprisingly, that stood next, giving her friends a half-smile of reassurance.  "There is another matter…"  Of the dark dragoon spirit.  Those words were left unspoken, for all eyes went to the darkly glimmering sphere sitting quite innocently on the table.

"Hell." Miranda's soft comment reached their ears solely because no one else dared to breath.  "Now I'm NOT going to believe that some…GHOST—"

"It's TRUE Miranda!" Meru leapt to her feet, leaning over the table.  "I saw—"

"A Wingly that just GAVE you both the rock—"

"It was Ti'shadizar!" The Wingly girl shot back,  "I KNOW it was! She's a legend Miranda! She only comes when—"

"Stop it both of you!" Emille's cry brought a ragged halt to a escalating.  The disheveled queen rose, shaking from exhaustion and grief, tears glistening in salty rivers on her flushed cheeks.  "I will not have you two fighting…not YOU! Not NOW!"

The white-silver dragoon sank back down, growling inarticulate apologies, having the grace to at least look abashed at her actions.  Meru sat with a huff and cast a guilty look in Emille's direction.  "Sorry."   

Emille placed a finger on the scintillating orb to keep it from rolling and gestured with her free hand at the door.  "Asha is retrieving the…jade spirit."  There was a reason beyond that of keeping the jade orb in sight, away from that creature that had violated the sanctuary of her home and taken away with it the man she held in her heart, a reason that just refused to reveal itself.  She swallowed hard and looked back down.

Dart, oddly silent, rainbow anti-light playing across his face from the darkness stone, finally spoke, "This does not make sense, but we have to at least TRY and accept what is being thrown at us."  Sapphire eyes not unlike the hue of the blue-sea stone flitted to each of those gathered.  A lean jaw worked, wrestling with the words that were to be spoken.  "A 'ghost'" Meru's mouth turned into a frown at this.  "Somehow delivered a dragoon spirit to Meru…right BEFORE Albert was taken, which was also after Miranda was attacked by a similar creature."  He tossed a pointed look at the dark orb, then to Miranda.  "I know it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but try."

The Sacred Sister gave a angry snort, a toss of the head sent blond flipping wildly.  "I'd say it was trying to kill off dragoons, if not for that (a heated look at the dragoon spirit Emille held) and I'm thinking that it might be trying for another pass."

Haschel paced, unusually fidgety.  "She's probably right, you know."

A smirking oceanic glance.  "Damn right I am."

In a soft motion, the former moonchild leaned forward, gesturing to Meru.  "You said her name was Ti..Ti'shadizar?" The foreign named flowed off her tongue with a roll.  Ruby eyes distant, Meru nodded. 

"Yup, Ti'shadizar of the Pri Dura, the wilders."

"Wilders?" Emille paid scant attention to little else now, her focus on the Wingly complete.

"Err…yeah.  Winglies who didn't follow Frahma, they lived in the forests…the Ancestor would know more…I (a sheepish shrug) didn't really pay attention."

"Then w're going to see the Ancestor." Was the queen's announcement as she stood.

"We are, you're not." Dart intoned, gesturing for her to retake her seat.  "Sorry Emille, but Serdio needs you."

"Albert needs—"

Miranda cut her short with a abrupt wave.  "Hey, we'll drag one back for you to kick, but you're staying put."

And Emille glowered, frowned, and sat with a wistful gaze at the dark stone.         

Asha Rai was hardly one to be afraid of the dark, and had spent the better part of her service to the crown on night guard for the solitude it had offered.  In Indels now, the dawning sun that colored the surrounding sky vivid red and orange also sent shadows fleeing for the darker recesses of nooks and crannies. 

Superstitious fear, long handed down from her foremothers from those rolling hills of Seilnder, nagged at the corners of her mind.  Shadows to life? It sounded too much like the tales her mother used to tell her in order to keep a curious child inside after curfew.  Just the thought of some of those stories actually being true was enough to chill her blood. 

Aye, the Lord of the Night and the Black Ghost just decided to pop into Indels for a chat.   Keep telling yourself that.  Bloody hell, now I'm talking to myself!

The kings chambers were unlocked (unsurprising) and a good deal of the surfaces were piled with papers and books (again, unsurprising.)   With a half-snarl at the sudden twinge in her shoulder, the red haired knight began the quick scan for the jade spirit.  Felt wrong to be searching for something that should have been in Albert's possession. 

Emille said it would be here, she thought with a frown, nudging aside a thick, many-paged book.  Nothing.  No telltale wink of green in the dusky light of the room.  

The rise of a presence directly behind her brought the woman around in a startled flash.  Defined only by a half-shadow and the faint light coming in from the windows, it leaned back in surprise as well.  She caught a flash of green clutched in its hand—the jade spirit!—and threw herself backwards till her back crashed against the wall. 

The Black Ghost indeed!  The shadowed figure stepped forward, raising a hand in a beseeching gesture—or attack. 

One curved blade ripped free of its sheath and swiped forward, nicking along where the cheekbone should have been.  Nothing that suggested a hit came away on the blade, but the figure reeled back.  There was a garbled cry, inarticulate speech.

The sister blade join its twin and flashed in deadly intent.   

"W—a—it" The single word was forced out in a choked voice, but it wasn't the word that stopped her.  It was the voice.  Asha pulled back, the blades coming up defensively.  The last time she had heard that voice was before the war ended, before—

"As—h."

Another step backward, disbelief, distrust and all consuming hope warring on her face.  In the pale light of dawn, the jade orb pulsed in the resonance of acceptance and greeting for an old master returned.  The burning line of the sun began to glare in heatedly even as the steeldancer watched the half-formed specter begin to take the shape she knew from the past.  Lending its power to this transformation, the dragoon spirit was unbelievably radiant to the point that it hurt to watch, but she could no more look away than the sun not rise. 

The light ebbed to a gentle wash of emerald cascades; tinting everything in the room a soft green, then with a sudden trill, it died.  Hands flexed, still holding the now dormant orb tightly.  A blue green gaze like that of the summer sea met her own wide stare.  "It's me, Asha."

And for the first time in her life, Asha Rai fainted. 

Keeday! Revised!