Ragnarok: Inspiration is a fickle thing.
No kidding there. I recently received some rather upsetting news about one of my friends, so my spirit has been somewhat dampened of late. After a temporary revival for the last chapter, my muse seems to be dancing a hornpipe with my spelling abilities (FELD! Not FIELD! **wacks self in head**) somewhere atop of Cape Smokey, and in general I've been fretting over my Rider Tests and when I can find the time to snatch up my drivers license. And we have a drama production at the end of the week. STRESS!
**Runs off to hide in a corner, shuddering and whispering** Charle controls the weather.
Ragnarok's POV:
The remainder of the trip back to Ulara was taken in several stages. After a short stay in Fletz, we hired out a small fishing vessel with a rather desperate seeming captain to ferry us to the coast of the Death Frontier. After three or four days spent in the cramped, fish-smelling cabins of the boat we made landfall on a rocky beach several miles south of the desolate barrens that covered the bulk of this part of the continent. We skirted the edges of the wasteland for several days or so, reluctant to leave behind the wind and water of the coast that was so scarce in the heart of the desert. When one night we finally did make the last leg of the journey across the shifting sands to Ulara it was a quick but strenuous one, composed mostly of a hurried pace over the dunes and taking full advantage of Garren's teleportation abilities at the same time. When Dart and Garren finally dragged their exhausted bodies up the weathered stone steps leading to the tower that housed the warp pad into Ulara, it had been nearly three weeks since our flight from Lohan.
Rubbing grit out of his eyes, Dart paused at the top of the stair and turned to stare with blurred vision out at the sun rising on the horizon, waves of heat already rising from the red sands to lick at the edges of the orb. /It's been a while/
//Mmmm// I agreed as Garren brushed past us, hurrying into the shaded walls of the fallen tower. //For someone who was so eager to leave, that kid seems anxious to get back home// I noted.
"C'mon, Dart! What's keeping you?" Garren actually seemed to squirm as Dart followed him into the ruins. "At the rate you're moving, it'll be noon before you even rev this thing up!" He kicked at the sand-covered pad, which was glowing softly in the shadows.
"You know, maybe I should leave you out here for a couple more hours. The heat might teach you some patience." Dart muttered as he stepped onto the warp pad. "I could, you know."
Garren grinned as the hum of magic began to fill the air. "You could, but Nova would probably gut you for making her wait to scold me. That girl loves to yell at me, for some reason. Y'know-" further opportunity for conversation was cut short as the hum turned to a roar as the teleport kicked into life, enveloping the two within a sheet of green light. I suddenly had the feeling that I we were moving at a great speed, although I could see nothing through the veil of magic surrounding us. I could feel Dart flinching back from the magic's brief touch on his mind as we passed through; idly I wondered what caused his reactions to the wingly magic. The pain he felt was understandable after his harsh experience in Aglis, but that he would still feel the aftereffects of it now, more than an hundred years after the fact? I made a brief mental note to look into this later on when I found the leisure.
Abruptly the ride ended. As the green globe surrounding us evaporated, it became replaced with the cool air and lush verdancy of Ulara. Stepping off of the warp pad, Garren hooked his thumbs in the waistline of his pants and looked around, still grinning broadly. "I can't believe that I'm saying this, but it's good to be back in boring old Ulara." He watched as the simulated sunrise slowly stained the sky a pale shade of purple. "Looks like Charle's tampering with the weather. Wonder if she knows we're back yet?"
I was willing to bet that she was. As we watched, the sky slowly changed from a pale mauve to pink, the color slowly deepening into a rose. After a moment the sky seemed to flicker, then sank into a deep, sooty red. Somewhere in the 'distance' thunder began to rumble sullenly and heavy black clouds began to form upon the horizon.
//You know what? I think the old bat knows we're back//
/No kidding. Think she'll be happy to see us?/
//Us? Sure. Him?// I paused as I caught sight of a familiar figure stalking down the walkways towards us. //We may have to sew him back together again once they've finished with him. Hold on: I think that the furies are about to descend upon us//
One fury, to be precise. Nova Alahana sprinted across the last few meters of walkway and caught Garren with a flying embrace, sending them both to the ground in a tangled heap. For a moment she just clung to him, head buried into his shoulder, making little sobbing sounds that I assumed related somehow to happiness. Humans and winglies are strange creatures. When they're pushed to the limits in terms of fear and anger they laugh, yet when they're exceedingly happy or amused, they cry. Garren returned the embrace, stroking her hair softly and muttering to her quietly with a strange expression on his face.
/Looks like he might escape that scolding he was talking about/
*SMACK*
//Not likely//
Garren tumbled backwards, one hand clapped to his reddened cheek. Nova, displaying yet again her amazing tendency towards instantaneous mood swings, climbed to her feet with her eyes blazing. "You!" She screeched, pointing one threatening finger at the wingly on the stones before her. "Do you have any idea of what you've just put us through, you idiot?!"
"Hello to you too, Nova," Garren winced, rubbing his cheek and climbing back to his feet.
"Don't you give me that! Where were you?!"
"I got bored, so I decided to go hang with Dart for a while." He replied, dusting himself off and straightening his clothes.
Garren's calm answer, however placating it may have sounded to the untrained ear, only served to spur the raging wingly on to new hights. "You got bored? BORED?!" Nova's voice, already in the upper ranges of human hearing, jumped up an octave. "Do you want me to tell you what bored is? 'BORED' is sitting around on my ass for fifty years, wondering what to do without you around! 'BORED' is living in a constant fit because you don't know if your idiot best friend is alive or dead! 'BORED' is having to try to convince the elders that that same idiotic friend, assuming that he DOES return alive, doesn't deserve to be banished to Zenebatos for the rest of his life, keeping an eye on those damned laptos!" Here Nova paused for a breather, letting some of the color drain back out of her beet-red face. Still shooting glares in the direction of her cringing friend, she pushed a strand of platinum hair out of her eyes and turned to face us.
Involuntarily Dart took a few steps back, safely out of range of her hands.
"Dart. Ragnarok. I hope this idiot didn't cause too many problems for you." She greeted us, her voice once again returning to its normal husky tones. As Garren slipped up behind her she kicked out viciously to the back without looking, catching him just below the kneecap.
"He behaved himself quite well, actually," Dart replied, struggling not to laugh as Garren hopped about on one foot in the background, clutching his knee to his chest and swearing through gritted teeth.
//He did?//
/Did he get arrested more than once?/
//No//
/Then that's good enough for me/ Dart started to edge back as Nova turned about to face Garren once more. The wingly drew back to the wall of the platform, keeping a wary eye on Nova's feet while she looked him over, silently appraising him.
"You've aged." She said accusingly.
Garren sighed. "That usually happens in the real world. So now I look twenty-five rather than twenty. Big deal. Why are you so mad about this? It's not exactly your place to scold me like this."
For a moment Nova looked as though she might kick him again, but somehow she managed to restrain herself. "Very well," she muttered, keeping her voice level with great effort. She glanced over her shoulder past Dart and down the walkway. A radiant smile suddenly lit up her face. "Well, you're right. Maybe it's not my place to scold you." She gave a mocking little bow. "So I guess I'll have to leave that job to someone more qualified, then, won't I?"
//Oh crap// I muttered, suddenly catching hold of her meaning. Brushing past Dart, I grabbed control and spun around.
Charle was stalking down the white stone pathway, followed closely by a tall wingly woman dressed in a simple white dress. While the tall woman wore an expression of relief mingled with annoyance, Charle was frowning, an expression that seemed somehow too small for her face. I took a step back as the two women passed by, then hurried down the walkway towards the main buildings. However entertaining it might have been, I didn't really want to be around Charle when she was annoyed. I will attest to the fact that anger is a much more natural emotion than that state of dreamy bliss which she usually floats about in, but for some reason the thought of what that woman might be like annoyed--- The image of Garren bound up in pink ribbons and being fed slowly to her mandrakes jumped to mind.
Still musing over Garren's fate, I paused to glance up at the sky. After its initial blaze of violent colors, it had reverted back to its softer tones once again and was now proceeding with the natural order of the sunrise. If anything in Ulara could be called natural.
/So what now?/
//What do you mean, "What now"?//
/I mean are you going to let me catch some sleep, or are you planning on doing anything?/
Now that he mentioned it- //Tygris. I want to talk to him//
/Fine. Just don't keep me up too long, okay? Sleep in a real bed is something that I'm looking forward to after sleeping on the ground for the past couple of weeks/
//Stop fussing// I murmured, continuing on towards the buildings. //You know as well as I do that you won't be able to sleep in those beds. They're too plush to be comfortable after sleeping on stones//
Dart grumbled, but he knew I was right. He never was able to sleep inside upon his immediate return to Ulara. Even Garren would probably find himself sleeping outside by the fountains at some point or another.
I stopped only long enough in the living quarters to deposit our gear onto an empty bed before continuing on. Out back of the courtyard behind the living quarters there is a place where the platform itself touches up against the stone cliffs which border the western edge of the city. For whatever reason six or seven narrow waterfalls pour over the lip of these cliffs into various rocky pools in the forested areas below. The broadest of these lay a short distance from the courtyard, so close that the spray from the falls dampened the stone wall of the platform, collecting in small water droplets and running down the stones to form puddles against the wall. Somewhere up in behind that waterfall was the cave that Tygris used as his den. Cupping both hands to my mouth, I glared up at the falls.
"TYGRIS! Get out here!"
/You couldn't be any louder, could you?/ Dart grumbled. /Some people were probably trying to sleep/
//Too much sleep is bad for them//
From above came a rumble of protest, followed a few minutes later by an explosion of spray and water droplets as the Bird-Dragon lunged through the screen of water covering the cave's mouth. After flying in a couple of dizzyingly tight circles, he alighted on the wall of the platform in front of us. "Welcome back." He growled sarcastically. "Ever think that some of us may be trying to sleep?"
/Ha/
Ignoring Dart, I watched Tygris impassively. "Too much sleep is bad for you. Now would you give us a lift up?"
Grumbling a reply, the Bird-Dragon dipped his head and wings low enough that I could climb aboard his narrow back without difficulty. When I was settled, Tygris turned around and launched himself into empty space, spreading his wings and angling in a slow dive towards the treetops below. After a moment he began a slow spiral upwards, his wings beating laboriously in the dead air of dawn. It took three or four loops for him to regain his previous altitude, and then he dove quite deliberately through the very center of the waterfall.
When we emerged spluttering and dripping wet on the other side of the curtain I reached forward and smacked the idiot in the side of his head with my fist. "Why the hell did you just do that?" I demanded. Tygris, although he gets along fine with Dart, has a way of getting on my nerves very easily.
"You said to give you a lift. You didn't give me a route." The dragon said smugly as I slid off his back, being very careful to pull out a sizeable number of feathers from his neck as I did so. Satisfied by his yelp of pain and surprise, I pushed past him and headed for the back of the cave, casually tossing my fistful of feathers onto the mossy stones. "The mouth to the cave is only half covered by water, you dolt. I would have thought that you were smart enough to guess the route, but I guess I was wrong." Seeking the ledge where Dart customarily slept while he was in here, I found it and sat down. "So what has been going on here since we left?"
Flopping down onto the ground, Tygris yawned. "Not a whole lot, if you're referring to the cygnet. It's still sealed up safely." Twisting his head around on his long neck, he nuzzled his wings. "There was a birth a couple of months ago, though. Everyone was pretty excited about that."
I nodded. Births are a rare occurrence in Ulara, mostly because the would-be parents have no wish to bring a child into a life where there is no death. It sounds strange to someone who has never experienced the feeling, but according to Dart more than one wingly in Ulara agrees that while there is a reason for their agelessness, it corrodes the soul. Winglies, while their life spans are much longer than that of humans, are still mortal, so even this prolonged life was unnatural to them. "Was it a male or female?"
"A little girl. I think that they called her Asalla or something like that. Anyhow, about all Charle and the other woman have been doing for the last few months is fussing over the mother and the kid."
"Anything odd about her?" I asked absently. The spell of timelessness surrounding Ulara could have strange effects on births I had thought, but so far, not counting Garren's mentality, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. At least, not strictly in Ulara. After Garren had left it had seemed as though his magic had come under faster development once in the outside world. This could have been something or nothing; there was no way to be sure, so I hadn't mentioned it. But this child-
"Only her eyes," Tygris rested his head atop a moss covered stone. "One's the normal pinkish red, but the other's a sort of pretty silver color."
/Silver?/ Dart repeated, surprised. /What does that mean?/
//How should I know?// Aloud I asked, "What did Charle and the other Elders think of it?"
"They were a little worried at first, but I think that they decided that it must be a birthmark of some sort, I guess."
"Hmmm." //Birthmark my ass//
/What do you mean?/
//I'm not sure. Fate's marked her out for something, though//
/Something good or bad, though/ Dart sounded less then enthusiastic about this.
//I have no idea. All we can do is sit back and watch//
/So there's nothing we can do?/
//Nothing//
From somewhere below came the familiar wail of a child crying. Tygris winced at the sound, then raised his head. "Speak of the devil,"
Getting to my feet, I walked swiftly to the mouth of the cave and slipped out onto the ridge of stone that wound its way along the rock face. Partially hidden behind the screen of falling water, I watched as a wingly woman sat on a marble bench next to the fountains, rocking a child back and forth in her arms and crooning softly to her. //Who is that?//
/I think that it might be Yellen, but I'm not sure/ Dart would have frowned, had he been in control at the moment. /I wouldn't have thought that she would have been the mother/ We stood in silence for a few minutes, listening to the wingly's song, a sweet little melody that soared above the sound of the falling water. Pulling back the hood that protected the child's head; she lifted the baby to her breast and let her nurse, not hesitating her song for an instant.
As we watched I couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding. Involuntarily, I shivered. It was as though an invisible shadow had fallen across the sun, momentarily blocking out the heat from the sun. The feeling passed quickly, hardly remaining for even a minute, but when my eyes fell on the child again it was as though a weight had settled on the back of my mind. Fate had marked this child; oh yes. I may not know the reason, but I knew one thing.
Nothing good would come of her.
Shade: **Swishing a blunted fencing saber about her head, giggling madly**
Garren: **lifting a tranquilizer gun to his shoulder** Do you think this will work? She's been into the sugar again.
Dart: If it doesn't we're in for a rough time next chapter.
Shade: PH34R MY M4D 54B3R 5KILLZ! **gets shot in the neck with the dart** Ack!
Actually, don't. "Point and laugh" would be the better option. I get to be in a sword fight and kill someone in our drama production, and they're letting us use proper fencing sabers. Needless to say, I'm on cloud nine. Now, if you don't mind- **tries to perform Demon's Dance and cracks herself upside the head** Blindin'!
No kidding there. I recently received some rather upsetting news about one of my friends, so my spirit has been somewhat dampened of late. After a temporary revival for the last chapter, my muse seems to be dancing a hornpipe with my spelling abilities (FELD! Not FIELD! **wacks self in head**) somewhere atop of Cape Smokey, and in general I've been fretting over my Rider Tests and when I can find the time to snatch up my drivers license. And we have a drama production at the end of the week. STRESS!
**Runs off to hide in a corner, shuddering and whispering** Charle controls the weather.
Ragnarok's POV:
The remainder of the trip back to Ulara was taken in several stages. After a short stay in Fletz, we hired out a small fishing vessel with a rather desperate seeming captain to ferry us to the coast of the Death Frontier. After three or four days spent in the cramped, fish-smelling cabins of the boat we made landfall on a rocky beach several miles south of the desolate barrens that covered the bulk of this part of the continent. We skirted the edges of the wasteland for several days or so, reluctant to leave behind the wind and water of the coast that was so scarce in the heart of the desert. When one night we finally did make the last leg of the journey across the shifting sands to Ulara it was a quick but strenuous one, composed mostly of a hurried pace over the dunes and taking full advantage of Garren's teleportation abilities at the same time. When Dart and Garren finally dragged their exhausted bodies up the weathered stone steps leading to the tower that housed the warp pad into Ulara, it had been nearly three weeks since our flight from Lohan.
Rubbing grit out of his eyes, Dart paused at the top of the stair and turned to stare with blurred vision out at the sun rising on the horizon, waves of heat already rising from the red sands to lick at the edges of the orb. /It's been a while/
//Mmmm// I agreed as Garren brushed past us, hurrying into the shaded walls of the fallen tower. //For someone who was so eager to leave, that kid seems anxious to get back home// I noted.
"C'mon, Dart! What's keeping you?" Garren actually seemed to squirm as Dart followed him into the ruins. "At the rate you're moving, it'll be noon before you even rev this thing up!" He kicked at the sand-covered pad, which was glowing softly in the shadows.
"You know, maybe I should leave you out here for a couple more hours. The heat might teach you some patience." Dart muttered as he stepped onto the warp pad. "I could, you know."
Garren grinned as the hum of magic began to fill the air. "You could, but Nova would probably gut you for making her wait to scold me. That girl loves to yell at me, for some reason. Y'know-" further opportunity for conversation was cut short as the hum turned to a roar as the teleport kicked into life, enveloping the two within a sheet of green light. I suddenly had the feeling that I we were moving at a great speed, although I could see nothing through the veil of magic surrounding us. I could feel Dart flinching back from the magic's brief touch on his mind as we passed through; idly I wondered what caused his reactions to the wingly magic. The pain he felt was understandable after his harsh experience in Aglis, but that he would still feel the aftereffects of it now, more than an hundred years after the fact? I made a brief mental note to look into this later on when I found the leisure.
Abruptly the ride ended. As the green globe surrounding us evaporated, it became replaced with the cool air and lush verdancy of Ulara. Stepping off of the warp pad, Garren hooked his thumbs in the waistline of his pants and looked around, still grinning broadly. "I can't believe that I'm saying this, but it's good to be back in boring old Ulara." He watched as the simulated sunrise slowly stained the sky a pale shade of purple. "Looks like Charle's tampering with the weather. Wonder if she knows we're back yet?"
I was willing to bet that she was. As we watched, the sky slowly changed from a pale mauve to pink, the color slowly deepening into a rose. After a moment the sky seemed to flicker, then sank into a deep, sooty red. Somewhere in the 'distance' thunder began to rumble sullenly and heavy black clouds began to form upon the horizon.
//You know what? I think the old bat knows we're back//
/No kidding. Think she'll be happy to see us?/
//Us? Sure. Him?// I paused as I caught sight of a familiar figure stalking down the walkways towards us. //We may have to sew him back together again once they've finished with him. Hold on: I think that the furies are about to descend upon us//
One fury, to be precise. Nova Alahana sprinted across the last few meters of walkway and caught Garren with a flying embrace, sending them both to the ground in a tangled heap. For a moment she just clung to him, head buried into his shoulder, making little sobbing sounds that I assumed related somehow to happiness. Humans and winglies are strange creatures. When they're pushed to the limits in terms of fear and anger they laugh, yet when they're exceedingly happy or amused, they cry. Garren returned the embrace, stroking her hair softly and muttering to her quietly with a strange expression on his face.
/Looks like he might escape that scolding he was talking about/
*SMACK*
//Not likely//
Garren tumbled backwards, one hand clapped to his reddened cheek. Nova, displaying yet again her amazing tendency towards instantaneous mood swings, climbed to her feet with her eyes blazing. "You!" She screeched, pointing one threatening finger at the wingly on the stones before her. "Do you have any idea of what you've just put us through, you idiot?!"
"Hello to you too, Nova," Garren winced, rubbing his cheek and climbing back to his feet.
"Don't you give me that! Where were you?!"
"I got bored, so I decided to go hang with Dart for a while." He replied, dusting himself off and straightening his clothes.
Garren's calm answer, however placating it may have sounded to the untrained ear, only served to spur the raging wingly on to new hights. "You got bored? BORED?!" Nova's voice, already in the upper ranges of human hearing, jumped up an octave. "Do you want me to tell you what bored is? 'BORED' is sitting around on my ass for fifty years, wondering what to do without you around! 'BORED' is living in a constant fit because you don't know if your idiot best friend is alive or dead! 'BORED' is having to try to convince the elders that that same idiotic friend, assuming that he DOES return alive, doesn't deserve to be banished to Zenebatos for the rest of his life, keeping an eye on those damned laptos!" Here Nova paused for a breather, letting some of the color drain back out of her beet-red face. Still shooting glares in the direction of her cringing friend, she pushed a strand of platinum hair out of her eyes and turned to face us.
Involuntarily Dart took a few steps back, safely out of range of her hands.
"Dart. Ragnarok. I hope this idiot didn't cause too many problems for you." She greeted us, her voice once again returning to its normal husky tones. As Garren slipped up behind her she kicked out viciously to the back without looking, catching him just below the kneecap.
"He behaved himself quite well, actually," Dart replied, struggling not to laugh as Garren hopped about on one foot in the background, clutching his knee to his chest and swearing through gritted teeth.
//He did?//
/Did he get arrested more than once?/
//No//
/Then that's good enough for me/ Dart started to edge back as Nova turned about to face Garren once more. The wingly drew back to the wall of the platform, keeping a wary eye on Nova's feet while she looked him over, silently appraising him.
"You've aged." She said accusingly.
Garren sighed. "That usually happens in the real world. So now I look twenty-five rather than twenty. Big deal. Why are you so mad about this? It's not exactly your place to scold me like this."
For a moment Nova looked as though she might kick him again, but somehow she managed to restrain herself. "Very well," she muttered, keeping her voice level with great effort. She glanced over her shoulder past Dart and down the walkway. A radiant smile suddenly lit up her face. "Well, you're right. Maybe it's not my place to scold you." She gave a mocking little bow. "So I guess I'll have to leave that job to someone more qualified, then, won't I?"
//Oh crap// I muttered, suddenly catching hold of her meaning. Brushing past Dart, I grabbed control and spun around.
Charle was stalking down the white stone pathway, followed closely by a tall wingly woman dressed in a simple white dress. While the tall woman wore an expression of relief mingled with annoyance, Charle was frowning, an expression that seemed somehow too small for her face. I took a step back as the two women passed by, then hurried down the walkway towards the main buildings. However entertaining it might have been, I didn't really want to be around Charle when she was annoyed. I will attest to the fact that anger is a much more natural emotion than that state of dreamy bliss which she usually floats about in, but for some reason the thought of what that woman might be like annoyed--- The image of Garren bound up in pink ribbons and being fed slowly to her mandrakes jumped to mind.
Still musing over Garren's fate, I paused to glance up at the sky. After its initial blaze of violent colors, it had reverted back to its softer tones once again and was now proceeding with the natural order of the sunrise. If anything in Ulara could be called natural.
/So what now?/
//What do you mean, "What now"?//
/I mean are you going to let me catch some sleep, or are you planning on doing anything?/
Now that he mentioned it- //Tygris. I want to talk to him//
/Fine. Just don't keep me up too long, okay? Sleep in a real bed is something that I'm looking forward to after sleeping on the ground for the past couple of weeks/
//Stop fussing// I murmured, continuing on towards the buildings. //You know as well as I do that you won't be able to sleep in those beds. They're too plush to be comfortable after sleeping on stones//
Dart grumbled, but he knew I was right. He never was able to sleep inside upon his immediate return to Ulara. Even Garren would probably find himself sleeping outside by the fountains at some point or another.
I stopped only long enough in the living quarters to deposit our gear onto an empty bed before continuing on. Out back of the courtyard behind the living quarters there is a place where the platform itself touches up against the stone cliffs which border the western edge of the city. For whatever reason six or seven narrow waterfalls pour over the lip of these cliffs into various rocky pools in the forested areas below. The broadest of these lay a short distance from the courtyard, so close that the spray from the falls dampened the stone wall of the platform, collecting in small water droplets and running down the stones to form puddles against the wall. Somewhere up in behind that waterfall was the cave that Tygris used as his den. Cupping both hands to my mouth, I glared up at the falls.
"TYGRIS! Get out here!"
/You couldn't be any louder, could you?/ Dart grumbled. /Some people were probably trying to sleep/
//Too much sleep is bad for them//
From above came a rumble of protest, followed a few minutes later by an explosion of spray and water droplets as the Bird-Dragon lunged through the screen of water covering the cave's mouth. After flying in a couple of dizzyingly tight circles, he alighted on the wall of the platform in front of us. "Welcome back." He growled sarcastically. "Ever think that some of us may be trying to sleep?"
/Ha/
Ignoring Dart, I watched Tygris impassively. "Too much sleep is bad for you. Now would you give us a lift up?"
Grumbling a reply, the Bird-Dragon dipped his head and wings low enough that I could climb aboard his narrow back without difficulty. When I was settled, Tygris turned around and launched himself into empty space, spreading his wings and angling in a slow dive towards the treetops below. After a moment he began a slow spiral upwards, his wings beating laboriously in the dead air of dawn. It took three or four loops for him to regain his previous altitude, and then he dove quite deliberately through the very center of the waterfall.
When we emerged spluttering and dripping wet on the other side of the curtain I reached forward and smacked the idiot in the side of his head with my fist. "Why the hell did you just do that?" I demanded. Tygris, although he gets along fine with Dart, has a way of getting on my nerves very easily.
"You said to give you a lift. You didn't give me a route." The dragon said smugly as I slid off his back, being very careful to pull out a sizeable number of feathers from his neck as I did so. Satisfied by his yelp of pain and surprise, I pushed past him and headed for the back of the cave, casually tossing my fistful of feathers onto the mossy stones. "The mouth to the cave is only half covered by water, you dolt. I would have thought that you were smart enough to guess the route, but I guess I was wrong." Seeking the ledge where Dart customarily slept while he was in here, I found it and sat down. "So what has been going on here since we left?"
Flopping down onto the ground, Tygris yawned. "Not a whole lot, if you're referring to the cygnet. It's still sealed up safely." Twisting his head around on his long neck, he nuzzled his wings. "There was a birth a couple of months ago, though. Everyone was pretty excited about that."
I nodded. Births are a rare occurrence in Ulara, mostly because the would-be parents have no wish to bring a child into a life where there is no death. It sounds strange to someone who has never experienced the feeling, but according to Dart more than one wingly in Ulara agrees that while there is a reason for their agelessness, it corrodes the soul. Winglies, while their life spans are much longer than that of humans, are still mortal, so even this prolonged life was unnatural to them. "Was it a male or female?"
"A little girl. I think that they called her Asalla or something like that. Anyhow, about all Charle and the other woman have been doing for the last few months is fussing over the mother and the kid."
"Anything odd about her?" I asked absently. The spell of timelessness surrounding Ulara could have strange effects on births I had thought, but so far, not counting Garren's mentality, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. At least, not strictly in Ulara. After Garren had left it had seemed as though his magic had come under faster development once in the outside world. This could have been something or nothing; there was no way to be sure, so I hadn't mentioned it. But this child-
"Only her eyes," Tygris rested his head atop a moss covered stone. "One's the normal pinkish red, but the other's a sort of pretty silver color."
/Silver?/ Dart repeated, surprised. /What does that mean?/
//How should I know?// Aloud I asked, "What did Charle and the other Elders think of it?"
"They were a little worried at first, but I think that they decided that it must be a birthmark of some sort, I guess."
"Hmmm." //Birthmark my ass//
/What do you mean?/
//I'm not sure. Fate's marked her out for something, though//
/Something good or bad, though/ Dart sounded less then enthusiastic about this.
//I have no idea. All we can do is sit back and watch//
/So there's nothing we can do?/
//Nothing//
From somewhere below came the familiar wail of a child crying. Tygris winced at the sound, then raised his head. "Speak of the devil,"
Getting to my feet, I walked swiftly to the mouth of the cave and slipped out onto the ridge of stone that wound its way along the rock face. Partially hidden behind the screen of falling water, I watched as a wingly woman sat on a marble bench next to the fountains, rocking a child back and forth in her arms and crooning softly to her. //Who is that?//
/I think that it might be Yellen, but I'm not sure/ Dart would have frowned, had he been in control at the moment. /I wouldn't have thought that she would have been the mother/ We stood in silence for a few minutes, listening to the wingly's song, a sweet little melody that soared above the sound of the falling water. Pulling back the hood that protected the child's head; she lifted the baby to her breast and let her nurse, not hesitating her song for an instant.
As we watched I couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding. Involuntarily, I shivered. It was as though an invisible shadow had fallen across the sun, momentarily blocking out the heat from the sun. The feeling passed quickly, hardly remaining for even a minute, but when my eyes fell on the child again it was as though a weight had settled on the back of my mind. Fate had marked this child; oh yes. I may not know the reason, but I knew one thing.
Nothing good would come of her.
Shade: **Swishing a blunted fencing saber about her head, giggling madly**
Garren: **lifting a tranquilizer gun to his shoulder** Do you think this will work? She's been into the sugar again.
Dart: If it doesn't we're in for a rough time next chapter.
Shade: PH34R MY M4D 54B3R 5KILLZ! **gets shot in the neck with the dart** Ack!
Actually, don't. "Point and laugh" would be the better option. I get to be in a sword fight and kill someone in our drama production, and they're letting us use proper fencing sabers. Needless to say, I'm on cloud nine. Now, if you don't mind- **tries to perform Demon's Dance and cracks herself upside the head** Blindin'!