A pair of footsteps echoed through the Deserted Tomb. Ordinarily, those footsteps should have been accompanied by the clicking of talons, belonging to two Eyries.
The sheer absence of those two Eyries was the first sign Something Was Wrong.
Meanwhile...
Adie was annoyed. Granted, it didn't take much to annoy the poor electric Eyrie, but considering how much her temper was frizzed at the moment, she was acting much better than expected.
The annoyance came in the shape of her younger brother, a blue Eyrie whose ego was so enlarged, it was a miracle he could fit it through the dank hallways of the Deserted Tomb.
"I am NOT staying. You can look for Vulpis yourself," he was saying, not noticing Adie's rising ire.
"Hey! You lost our owner, you find her!"Adie retorted, not even bothering to rephrase the argument she had already used three times in a row.
"This humidity is bad for my fur!" Sander replied, showing an amazing inventivity by excusing himself in a different way every time Adie openned her mouth.
She was about to repeat one of her few arguments in favor of searching for Vulpis when a thought suddenly struck her.
"Okay," she shrugged, looking terribly aloof for someone that mere seconds ago was ready to strangle her sibling. "Let's go and play the Tombola."
Sander found it a little disturbing. He knew his sister well enough to recognize the blunt lack of subtlety, meaning she knew something HE didn't (not that it happened often, he'd say. But yes, it DID happen often).
"Really? You're okay with this? We can go and let her find her way out by herself?" the younger Eyrie asked cautiously.
"Suuure, we can even tell her how her auction turned out!" Adie laughed lightheartedly.
"Auction?" There was something decidedly ominous in Adie's tone and Sander was afraid he'd find out.
"Suuure, the one for that Paint Brush you've been drooling after for months. I do believe she found a great bargain," Sander's eyes bulged, "but, y'know, I think we can wait some months until she can scrape the money for another one."
'Darn', Sander thought. He'd been outsmarted by his sister. How could this happen! He was the one that usually outsmarted HER. Well, just goes to show spending quality time with the owner was a nice replacement for actual intellect, his mind added huffily. Yes, that was it, she simply got lucky.
Somewhere in the Deserted Tomb...
"Ummm... hello?" The shaky voice echoed throughout the tomb. "Adie? Sander? I'm kinda lost. Help? It's cold and kinda drafty and I think I stepped in some green goo... Anybody here? Huh... Guess not. Hey, a door! Wonder what's being i-eaaaaahhhh!"
THUD!
Back where they were...
"Okay," Adie said with a superiority in her voice not only unfit, but unjustified. "We go left now."
"We can't go left," Sander groaned, a headache impending.
"Why not?" Adie screeched, her feathers obviously ruffled.
"Because we took left last time and it got us right back here."
"It did?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure? I could swear we weren't here before."
"I'm pretty sure. See the ugly statue? I remember passing it before and asking myself what the decorator was thinking. Techo statues were out thousand of years ago!"
"Sander, this tomb IS thousand of years old."
"See my point?"
There was a heartfelt sigh. But getting into pointless arguments with one's sibling is the all-time source of great misfortune, as that one Acara poet wrote, and indeed, doom was impending none too subtlely.
Click!
"Sander, what did you--"
Before Adie could screech in a panicked manner, spike started shooting from the walls and the two Eyries scrurried to safety.
Deeper in the Deserted Tomb...
"Woah! That was some fall! They don't make floors like they used to! Oh, well, what else could possibly happen now?"
"Hiisssssss..."
Famous last words.
Adie stood perfectly still on the floor. Sander was somewhere in front of her, dusting himself off and chuckling.
Adie refused to move. As long as she stood prefectly still on the floor, nothing worse could happen. Yes, what a marvelous idea! She won't move for the rest of her life and she'll avoid unnecessary pain!
"That wasn't so bad!" Her brother commented.
"I hate you," Adie stated calmly. "I hate you, I hate you. You antagonize every aspect of my existence. You're Jhudora to my Illusen, you're Lupe to my Chia, you're CHEESE CAKE TO MY ASPARAGUS!"
Sander scoffed. "That's a bit harsh, isn't it? Besides, we're alive."
"No thanks to you."
"And we might still find Vulpis in time for the auction."
Adie was just about to convince herself that Vulpis was lost forever and permanently on her own and going home while all limbs were still attached to her body would have been a much better plan, but alas, a sharp shrieking broke that train of thoughts.
That shrieking was several octaves above human capacity, therefore could only belong to Vulpis. Their owner. Their owner with a very good set of lungs, though a highly annoying voice.
And just on cue, the aforementioned girl sprinted down the halls towards her two Eyries. She stopped running and screaming like a lunatic for just enough time to look from Adie to Sander and yell in a panicked frenzy, "RUN!", then continued sprinting towards what she obviously thought was the exit.
Adie and Sander stood in numb shock and looked one at the other, slightly bemused, slightly startled and having no idea what they should do.
Just as Sander was about to say something, however, a distinct hissing sound could be heard.
The two Eyries were eager to follow their owner out of the tomb once the monstrous Ghost Hissi caught up with them, however.
The End