Althea sat inside the tavern, trying not to feel self conscious as the Animus walked in and out, staring at her in shock before Xicro signaled that she was fine to be there. They must really hate humans... though she couldn't really blame them with what had happened before. What she didn't know was why they were blaming her for something that had happened before she was even born.

"So, you must be the human Xicro was telling me about." a lynx Animus in a long silvery dress stood in front of her, a happy grin on her face. "I'll admit, I've never met a human before that wasn't trying to kill me. I'm Radica." She held out her hand to shake.

"My name is Althea." She smiled back up at the animus. "I'll do what I can to help you guys, though I don't know what good I'll be for your cause."

"You'd be surprised." Radica sat down on the stool next to her, crossing her legs politely, but letting the top leg bounce up and down as if it was hard for her to stay still. "There were many times when it would be useful for a human to help negotiate supplies or passage through an area. Maybe we can even get our little band through this part of the country easier with you around." She shrugged.

Althea smiled happily at the idea of being so useful. "I'll help wherever you guys need me. I've always felt a bond toward animus- and there's no reason for humans to have destroyed your kingdoms like we did."

Radica blinked in surprise but smiled gratefully. "It's not your fault, but it is nice to hear that, thank you. Many animus have been through a lot, some more than others."

"I imagine." Althea glanced out the door where Toran was still practicing his sword skills. She knew exactly what the tiger animus had gone through... had even felt the emotions he had felt. "Do you know what he's planning?"

"Who, Toran? I know he has a general idea of what he wants to do, but I'm not sure how much detail he has figured out yet." Radica shook her head. "He's very good on big ideas, just not on specifics. He wants to go to the wolf kingdom, Varso, to ask the pack for help against the humans." Radica paused for a moment, glancing over to Althea. "Fighting against humans won't be a problem for you, will it?"

"If they're trying to kill you, then no. Obviously I don't want to be part of a slaughter of my kind, but I figure if it's self defense then I'll understand."

Radica sighed with relief. "That's good, I hadn't thought about what it would be like to fight against your kind. Animus haven't fought since we established the kingdoms. Once we decided on a heirarchy, it was easy for things to fall into place. Some species are more dominant than others, though of course there is always infighting between factions."

Althea looked over to her in interest. "How so? I always wondered how your governing system works."

"Well obviously a single species is chosen to be royal- in our kingdom's case, the tigers. For the Avians it was the peacocks, and for the canines the wolves. Each species rules in their own particular way. The tigers are a hereditary rule family. The peacocks did collective voting among the flock before they were killed. The wolves rule by right of combat- the strongest wolf rules the pack, though there are a few exceptions for sons of alphas. They must be ready to accept challenges, though. If a wolf wins a challenge, he becomes the new king. However if he's a tyrant, then the pack turns against him and drives him out. They are actually quite ruthless now that I think about it." Radica tapped a finger on her chin thoughtfully. "You can be king one day, and chased off with your tail between your legs the next."

"They may be ruthless, but we'll need their help." Toran said from the doorway, wiping sweat from his brow with his shirt in his hand. Althea couldn't help but stare for a moment that his chest was white fur, surrounded by the orange and tiger stripes around his shoulders. She had never seen an animus in person before today, and it was interesting how the animal characteristics melded with the human ones.

"The wolf pack is massive- over a hundred strong. If we can appeal to their alpha and have him send soldiers to help us, we'll have a chance of gaining ground back in the Taria kingdom. Maybe after we establish ourselves again we can even start to help out the Kisa kingdom." Toran walked over to the stairs that led to rooms above, stopping at the bottom of the staircase. "With you with us, Althea, you can buy food at human markets so we don't have to live off the land around these parts. That will help us a lot, considering we have to cross the human peninsula in order to get to the wolves." Toran sighed. "I didn't think it would take this long already, so I'd really like to get going as quickly as possible."

"Well just let me know when you'd like me to get some things and I can get them. I just need the money for it and I can bring back what we need." She hadn't counted that many animus with them... just Toran, Xicro, Radica, Brutus and herself. Xicro had even mentioned that Brutus wasn't going to travel with them, but was instead staying behind. It wouldn't be that hard for four people to sneak through enemy territory, right?

Toran smiled at her offering. "Then I'll let you know tomorrow what we need. For now, we rest in preparation. This next leg of the journey is going to get rather close to some unsettling territory. I want to us to be alert for dangers as we're traveling." The tiger walked up the stairs to his room, leaving Althea alone with Radica.

"I'm a bit nervous about going through some of this territory to be honest." Radica confessed, her hands bunching her skirt uneasily. "I've heard they have... prisons in here. I know Toran and Xicro, and they'll want to free whoever is in those prisons... I just don't want to get caught in one myself."

"Well, I know a little magic." Althea smiled reassuringly. "I don't know many offensive spells, but I'll try and keep any guards or whatever away from you guys. Who knows, maybe we'll free some animus who will join us."

Radica smiled back and nodded. "Well, we'd best get some rest." Radica stood and walked over to the stairs. "I'll show you to your room. It's not much, but it's good sleeping for now." Radica walked up with Althea, opening the door to a simple room with a bed, chair and table. "Sleep tight, tomorrow will be a lot of walking." Radica teased before closing the door to the room behind her, leaving Althea alone with her thoughts.

Althea sat on the bed and looked out the small window of the room, seeing the sun setting against the hills of the countryside. Today she had gone from trapped in her cousin's castle facing a life of boredom and thankless marriage to a stranger to traveling with the animus on an adventure to help better lives. It still amazed her that her dreams had been real all those years, and even more shocking was the fact that Toran had shared the connection and had dreamed about her as well.

She sighed and laid down on the bed, which was slightly lumpy and hard, but otherwise quite pleasant. Rolling on her side she closed her eyes, wondering what would happen as they traveled through the 'enemy' territory.

"Alright!" Toran grinned happily at the bag of food Althea brought back from a market in a small village they had come across. It hadn't taken long before the animus had descended on her, giving her what little human money they had in order to get much needed supplies for the journey. The market had been small, filled mostly with fruit, vegetables, bread and the much requested dried meat the animus had hoped for. Each of them munched on a piece of it as they continued walking, and Althea couldn't help but chuckle at the sight.

"What?" Toran glanced over to her curiously at her chuckle.

"You're all carnivores, aren't you? You're so happy to have meat." She bit into her own piece as they continued onward. "I just think it's funny, since you're all cats that you'd love dried meat so much."

"We can eat fruits and vegetables, but nothing tastes better than meat to us." Xicro explained, already finishing off the last bite of his piece. "We prefer it more than anything. Other animus can only digest fruits or vegetables, though. Some are herbivores but most carnivores were changed to omnivores."

"I'm surprised you guys haven't done this before, then." Althea glanced over to the tiger. "I mean yeah it's a human village, but I can't imagine all of them would hate animus. Some humans must be allies to you."

"Very few." Xicro added in, catching up to walk on the other side of her. "There are a couple that I know of, but they would never fight with us with other humans like you are."

Althea shrugged, not believing that it would be a big deal. Of course she would help those who are being killed just because they're different it was wrong... why was it so hard to imagine?

"Besides, there's always the risk of those who would tell the kingdom nobles about where we are." Toran looked down to her. "I can't take that risk. We stand out too much in a crowd- it would be asking for trouble if someone were to follow us back to where we were camped."

Althea couldn't help but glance around nervously, wondering if she had attracted the same attention. "You don't think anyone followed me, do you?" She whispered, as if someone was already listening.

"I doubt it. You are human, after all. There's much less reason to suspect you of being an enemy than one of us." Xicro chuckled. "So there's no need to be nervous. Besides even if someone does come along who wants to pick a fight, you know magic and Toran knows sword fighting. Radica and I can hold our own pretty well too, you know. I think we'd be able to fend them off."

Althea bit her lip uneasily, wondering if she should tell Xicro about her lack of magic skills. She could only heal- and even then not very well. Mostly what she had been able to do as far as spells go was to help those with headaches and make small illusions around objects. She hadn't been trained very well because any magic considered 'useless' was cast aside. If it couldn't be used in a war, what was the point of it? She didn't much like the mentality of most people now that she thought about it. When had humans become so obsessed with controlling everyone and fighting those who didn't agree with them?

Toran glanced over to her knowingly, and she could feel her cheeks darken with embarrassment. That's right, through their link he probably had seen what a failure she was with magic when she was younger...

Althea stayed silent for the rest of the day, walking endlessly forward until she felt like her feet were blistering in her shoes. She was walking at the back of the group by the time the sun started setting, her legs feeling sore and aching from the traveling. She hadn't known how much it would hurt to walk this much in a day. Now she wished she had taken more strolls along the country like her cousin.

"We'll stop here for the night." Toran said, motioning toward a clearing among a tree grove. "Tomorrow we'll travel deeper into the hostile territory, so make sure to get some rest."

Xicro sat on the ground with a groan, stretching the toes on his feet and rubbing the paws. Althea sat down beside him, taking off her shoes to do the same.

"At least I know I'm not the only one with aching feet." She sighed with relief as her feet finally got a break.

"My feet always hurt after these long walks." Xicro glanced over to her feet, staring for a moment. "I always wonder how humans can walk on such tiny feet, though."

Althea looked down at her feet before looking over to Xicro's paws to see the difference. Like a normal animal, his legs ended in paws but much larger than the average panther's. She wondered if they ever wore shoes, or if they just walked on their pads like normal animals.

"Well, if you don't have a blanket for tonight, you can borrow one of mine." Xicro rummaged through the pack he had brought with him, pulling out a blanket for himself and handing Althea the other.

"Thank you. I hadn't even thought to get one." Althea chuckled at her own unpreparedness. "I guess I still have to get used to traveling on my own."

Xicro smiled to her reasuringly. "Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it. Good night." He curled up in his own blanket, a few yards away from her. Althea looked down at the blanket in her hands, wrapping it around herself so that she was cocooned in the soft wool. It wasn't comfortable... but it would do. With how exhausted she was after today, it wouldn't take much to fall asleep.

Althea felt something jostle her, abruptly waking her up from her sleep. "Wake up, Althea."

She groaned and sat up, looking up to see a man beside her, his hard eyes judging as he watched her every move. She knew those eyes- she had fought against their piercing gaze since she had been a little girl.

"Raoul, what are you doing here?!" Althea whispered in shock.

"I'm here to take you from these beasts. I heard you were kidnapped, and the villagers said you had been there recently- so I figured you had to be nearby. Now come on, before they wake up." He held out a hand to help her up.

"They didn't kidnap me, I went with them." Althea hissed. It wasn't entirely the truth, but she had volunteered to travel with them. "Now leave. I have no intention of deserting them. You have no idea what the animus have been through."

"Nothing that they haven't done in return!" Raoul growled. "You mean to tell me you're betraying your own kind? Have you no decency?"

"I have plenty of decency." Althea snapped back. "Leave- now!"

Raoul frowned, looking down at her with that judging look she hated so much. "You may be related to me by blood, cousin... but I will uphold my duty to my king if you are truly fighting with these beasts."

"If you're to fight someone, fight me." Toran walked up behind the man, sword drawn. "There is no honor in fighting an unarmed opponent in the night."

Raoul turned and shouted, drawing his own sword and meeting the tiger prince's with a metallic ring that woke Radica and Xicro from their sleep. Xicro immediately scrambled over to Althea, grabbing her by the shoulders and dragging her back away from the battle as swords clashed and swung.

"The tiger prince?" Raoul shouted in triumph. "I'll slay you and bring your hide back to the king!"

"Go ahead and try." Toran growled back, baring his fangs to the man menacingly.

"Stop!" Althea shouted, standing and trying to rush toward them, only to be stopped by Xicro's grip. "They're going to kill each other!"

"There's nothing you can do, Althea." Xicro said, looking toward the fight with wide fearful eyes. "We'd only get in the way and put them in danger if we distract them. Do you know this human?"

"He's my cousin. I'm not too fond of him, but... he's still family." The only family she had known for years. The oldest of the two cousins she had lived with, Raoul had trained to be a knight as was expected as the oldest son of a nobleman.

"I'm sorry Althea, but if you travel with us like this, this will happen more often than not. You have to come to the reality that other humans will hate you just for being associated with us. I'm sorry."

Althea gritted his teeth and cried out in alarm as Toran got a shallow slice to an arm, Raoul sporting the same across a leg. These two were going to slice each other to pieces! It was obvious they were an even match for each other, Raoul's slow powerful strokes smashing against Toran's more agile but weaker ones. What could she do?

Althea gasped as she realized there was something she could do to stop this- She raised her hands, the silvery mist of her magic glowing from her palms. Gathering the mist into a thick ball of swirling smoke, she shot it forward toward Raoul and Toran, the mist traveling toward their heads to surround them.

Both cried out in pain, dropping their swords as they grabbed their heads, Toran backing away quickly and the magic releasing him from his pain. Raoul on the other hand, stubbornly tried reaching for his sword to continue battling.

Xicro released Althea as she started moving forward, one hand still raised to control the magic as she stood in front of her cousin.

"This is my choice, Raoul." She said in a low tone. "I'm going to help the prince regain his kingdom, because what uncle did was wrong. It was terrible- so many people died for no reason." She shook her head at the memory that had been burned into her mind from those dreams. "I have to try and right this wrong. If that means betraying my family to do it, so be it. We shouldn't kill someone just because they're different from us."

Raoul gritted his teeth, glaring up at her through the pain as his head throbbed. "You idiot bitch." He hissed. "I always knew you were weak. You'll die like the rest of them, then!" He lunged for his sword, swinging wildly toward Althea, who gasped and darted back, increasing the pain coursing through him. She looked up to see Toran striding toward him, raising a leg to kick the man in the chest, sending him flying against a tree behind him.

"Consider yourself for a moment, fool." Toran growled. "She's letting you go with your pathetic life. If it were me, I wouldn't be so merciful." He leaned down to pick up his own sword, sheathing it again and turning away.

"Leave, Raoul." Althea said darkly, releasing him from the pain. "If you come back, I'll let Toran kill you."

Raoul glared at her with hatred, grabbing his sword and sheathing it as his headache disappeared. "Someday I'll kill you, Althea. Remember that when your animal friends are all dead around you. You have no family now."

The words hit their mark, Althea letting out a small breath of shock but rose her chin higher in defiance. She wouldn't let Raoul see how his words had effected her. She waited until he had completely left her sight before letting her shoulders sag. What had she just done?

She looked up as Xicro put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly before turning back toward the camp and sitting down on the ground with a loud sigh of relief.

"Althea." Toran stood in front of her, his face a stern mask of frustration. "Next time let me fight my own battles. Leave that damn magic out of it." He growled before walking away.

Althea watched him leave, her eyes wide with surprise before she turned away. She had only been trying to help... she hadn't wanted to make Toran angry.

Xicro glared at Toran as he wandered off to clean his sword, walking over to Althea. "Are you alright?"

"I don't know. I think I just need some time alone." Althea said softly, walking out of the camp and through the trees of the forest, away from the animus.

She had lost her family... Raoul had made that clear. She knew better than to think she could just go home after helping Toran and the others, but somehow it hadn't really sunk in as reality. She was homeless, without a kingdom to call her own. Her fate was now tied to that of Toran and the animus. She knew it had been the right thing to do, but the consequence had been terrible.

She had been walking for quite some time before she realized she had wandered too far from the camp. She looked around the trees and sighed with relief when she saw the path she had taken. At least she hadn't gotten lost.

"Why are you traveling with the tiger prince?" A male voice said from the trees.

Althea gasped and looked around, seeing a pair of golden eyes looking down at her from the trees, glowing with nocturnal light. "W-who are you?"

"Answer my question. Why are you traveling with the tiger prince?" The voice said again.

"I'm traveling with him to help him." Althea answered, looking at the eyes with trepidation. Whoever this was, they seemed to be sided with Toran...

The figure dropped from the tree with a sound of rustling feathers, wings tucking in behind its back. "If you are helping the animus, then you are an ally. My name is Soren." He came into view, a tall barn owl animus with wide wings. He stopped in front of her, looking down at her with a critical eye. "I will be honest, I have never met a human before."

Althea smiled sheepishly feeling a bit uneasy about being alone in the middle of the forest. "I've never met an avian animus before."

Soren nodded, a small smile coming over his face. "I need to talk to the tiger prince. I was sent here on a mission from Umou. It is of the utmost importance."

"Oh." Althea looked back in the direction of the camp. "He should be back there. I was heading back that way anyway." Althea said, motioning for the animus to follow her. Soren walked behind her, tucking his wings tightly against his back so his feathers didn't get caught on any branches.

It didn't take too long to get back, Xicro sighing with relief at the sight of her return. He stood up when he spotted Soren behind her, walking over to greet the avian.

"What can we do for you?" Xicro asked.

"I was sent to scout ahead and find you. We heard you were in this area, so we thought we might get your help in a mission we've heard rumors of. A small avian girl has gone missing and the family thinks she's been taken captive by humans. Since we are near a human settlement, we think that there might be a prison nearby keeping animus."

"That seems likely." Xicro nodded. "Do you have any idea of where it might be?"

"Another scout was sent to look for it- he should be back any time now." Soren glanced toward the tree tops. "I will wait in the canopy to signal to him that you're down here. Will you help us?"

"Of course." Xicro nodded. "I'm sure Toran would agree. Any animus in danger will get help. We'll set out tomorrow to find them."

Soren smiled with relief. "I'm glad to hear it. The girl was only 4 years old- not even able to fly yet. I would hate to see anything bad happen to her." He nodded toward Althea again before jumping up and flapping his wings, sending leaves scattering around as he flew into the tree canopy.

Xicro looked back to Althea, putting a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "You okay?"

Althea looked up at the canopy thoughtfully. "I may have lost my family... but I know I'm doing the right thing." She clenched her teeth as she felt tears burn her eyes, but managed to fight them back. "I guess you guys are my family now." She looked back at him, her voice cracking with emotion.

Xicro let out a small hiss of pity and walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her in a hug. "We'll be here for you, Althea. You've given up so much to help us. Thank you." He held her for a moment, rubbing her back as she couldn't help but cry softly. "This has been a rough night for all of us. We'll have something to work toward tomorrow to distract us. Who knows, maybe we'll save that little girl and give her a happy ending. That would be nice, wouldn't it?" He moved back to look down at her.

"Yeah." Althea nodded, quickly wiping tears from her face. She looked up and saw Toran staring at her from behind Xicro, his expression that of concern. She turned around so he wouldn't see her crying, wiping her cheeks to get the tears off her face, taking deep breaths to calm down.

Xicro looked over his shoulder at Toran, frowning with disappointment at the tiger from his earlier reaction to Althea. He had made a bad situation even worse. He may be grown up, but having grown in solitude he still had a long way to go in learning how to deal with people. He turned back to Althea, rubbing a hand along her back to reassure her. "Try to get some sleep. We'll be walking a lot again tomorrow, so you'll need to get rested."

Althea nodded, walking back over to her blanket silently, and laying down. She wrapped the woolen cloth around her again, hearing Toran and Xicro whispering fiercely at each other, but not able to make out what they were saying. She just needed to focus on sleep... there was a little girl to rescue, after all. She hugged the blanket to her body, slowly drifting off into slumber as she dreamed of playing with her father as a child.