Chapter 1- Beirzie

Miyu just stood there for another brief moment, scarcely daring to breathe- she had barely escaped death mere minutes before and she wasn't about to let that particular miracle go to waste. Her situation didn't seem to have improved any, though. She'd never even heard of this 'Beirzie' but the natives didn't seem terribly friendly. She swore she could feel the fire angel's gaze boring a hole through her.

"Y-you're all going to kill me, too, aren't you?" she jabbered in Skiriit, suddenly overcome with panic.

The ice angel's cloudy blue eyes widened and she stepped forward in an attempt to reassure Miyu, but the already frightened sk'kirrim took this as a sign of aggression.

Without thinking, Miyu fled.

*****

"Firehawk?" Lucia queried.

The snowy-haired old Red Wizard glanced up from the small pool of water at the sound of her old alias, smiling slightly. "I've been expecting you would show up," she replied, her voice strong and clear- not weak as might have been expected of a woman her age. Despite being well over two hundred years old, which was nearly unheard of for a human, her senses had hardly dimmed at all, and there was the same purposefulness to her movements that there always had been.

Her dark amber eyes surveyed her visitors thoughtfully from behind a pair of oval spectacles. "I know that this is no pleasure visit, though," Firehawk said softly. "What brings you to visit an old battleaxe like me?"

"That you've stuck around for this long is quite an achievement," Cloud returned, deflecting the Red Wizard's question. Neither he nor Lucia wanted to discuss business quite yet.

Firehawk saw what Cloud was doing, but she humored him anyway. She smiled wryly. "I've outlived my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren and now I'm working on my great-great-grandchildren. I suppose losing one's close family is the cost of an unnaturally prolonged life." The old Mage frowned. "Most of them don't even know I'm still around…"

"You did stop being Arden after you stepped down from the throne of Delfia," said Lucia.

"I thought my old alias was more appropriate," the Red Wizard replied, smiling enigmatically. Lucia was about to say something else, but Firehawk gave the sk'kirrim a severe look. "But enough waffling," she added sternly. "Why are you really here?"

*****

The three winged girls stared after the strange newcomer as she suddenly turned tail and ran, each of them wondering what had possessed her to do that. The hawk-winged girl wasn't long in figuring that one out, and she glared at the fire angel.

"Ooooh! Now you've done it, Miuki!" she burst out. "You've gone and scared her off with that stupid death glare of yours!"

The fire angel, Miuki, gave the speaker a haughty glower back. "What do ye mean, 'death glare'? All I did was look at her and the idiot ran off!" She snorted contemptuously. "Sheesh, Suki. Some higher power that was!"

Suki continued to glare. "But you always manage to do that!"

The ice angel stared at Suki in surprise- usually the earth angel was much quieter. It wasn't typical for her to vent her anger. "Um, Miuki-"

"Oh, really?" Miuki interrupted. "Jest like ye always manage to attract the most useless bunch of morons I've ever seen accompany an earth angel?"

"Miuki… Suki…"

"It would help to not look like you want to strangle something, Miuki!" the earth angel retorted. "Try being a little friendlier!"

"Ahem… Fiery… Rockhead…"

"Friendlier?" Miuki hissed, her wings ruffling. "That's just a little bit difficult!"

"Why, because you're a…"

"Are either of you even listening?!" the ice angel blurted out.

"What is it, Nuri?" Miuki muttered, and Suki became her usual quiet self.

Nuri smirked, now that she'd finally gotten the attention of the other two angels. "How about we actually go and look for her instead of standing here and arguing all year?"

Suki nodded agreement, but Miuki continued to glower. "Why should we waste our time looking for that nincompoop?" she grumbled. "If she gets herself into trouble it's her own bloody fault! I don't even know what in Hades she was."

"Chances are she's never even heard of Beirzie. She can't be blamed for that," Nuri said sensibly. "Someone needs to help her, and since we called her, that someone should be us."

Miuki considered this and reluctantly conceded. "Fine. We'll chase after the brat."

*****

Miyu sprinted as fast as she possibly could, becoming a black and maroon blur as she darted between trees and doubled back on her own tracks like a hunted rabbit. Her mind reeled with questions that she shoved aside in the interests of getting as far away from her starting point as possible. Fervently, she wished that Lucia were around- the prophetess would know what was going on, why she'd ended up here in a country she'd never heard of. Or would she?

"Yaaargh!" the young sk'kirrim hissed as she stumbled over a fallen branch and wrenched her ankle. She sat down heavily, her breath coming in ragged gasps, and nursed her sore ankle. That hadn't been very smart, letting her mind wander off like that.

Only then did she begin to question her own rationale. Just why in blue hell had she gone and done that? The 'angels' would find her anyway if they really wanted to- Miyu had very little aptitude for flying as of yet, especially in such dense forest.

She willed a little bit of healing into her ankle, and that helped somewhat. There was nothing she could do about her overall situation, though… she was still stuck here in Beirzie, which she was beginning to dislike more every second.

"I never thought I would miss Citthaskiir," she muttered to herself, remembering the ruined sk'kirrim capital. It had been a warren of corruption, at least, according to Lucia, and all those smug, self-righteous priests and Clerics had incurred the Sky Lord's wrath. The same priests and Clerics who had undoubtedly wanted Meiyuda and her family dead.

"Rotten bastards," Miyu gritted out, her anger rising. The wind suddenly picked up and tossed a few leaves about, seeming to swirl about the sk'kirrim girl.

"That wasn't a very nice thing to say at all, stranger," a voice drawled. "You'd best mind your manners."

Miyu's danger sense screamed a warning at her. "Who are you?" she demanded, leaping to her feet. She'd forgotten about her ankle entirely.

"Well, aren't you quite the curiosity?" the voice muttered speculatively. "You'll bring in a handsome price."

Miyu glanced wildly around and saw that she was suddenly outnumbered quite heavily- and everyone in the group carried some sort of weapon. She patted her side and found only her old dirk- just lovely. That wasn't going to work at all against so many people. This just wasn't her day at all.

*****

"Why are you here?" Firehawk asked again, her face giving no hint as to how she felt about her visitors. Cloud and Lucia were rarely good news, and all three of them knew it.

"We're looking for someone," Lucia finally answered, her mouth suddenly dry.

"Who?"

Lucia forced herself to say it. "It's—it's Meiyuda. She just—disappeared."

Firehawk smiled cynically. "Oh, you mean the little pain in the arse who's been tagging along behind you for the past several years?"

"Hey! She's not a—" Lucia started, then paused for a moment. "Well… actually, she kind of is…"

"Remind you of anyone?" Cloud commented, with a significant look at both Firehawk and Lucia.

"Well… some horrible combination of Lucia and me," said Firehawk. "It's good that you came here—we'd better find the little varlet before she gets into even more trouble than she's probably in already."

"Do you think you can do it, though?" Cloud inquired.

The Wizard nodded. "I certainly can. Unfortunately, the spell will take a while to prepare, and it will probably be an imprecise location at best unless she happens to be in an area we know well. The actual scrying process itself will take even longer." She sighed and rubbed at her glasses with a corner of her robe. "Here. Give me a mental image of her and I will prepare the spell. I will need help from both of you to find her, though. God only knows where she could be."

"I thought you didn't believe in any kind of religion," Lucia commented.

"I don't," the Mage said flatly. "I've always hated religion. But your Sky Lord is not a religion, as I've come to realize. He is our god."

*****