Silence

The hallways had filled with a black smoke that almost seemed to spill in from the walls and the ceiling, leaving almost a pool of it on the floor. While Stella trudged through the smoke with the feeling the flames reaching out to her.

The hallway seemed to go on forever with doorways entering from the darkness and leaving sight in the same manner. Stella had thought of going down one of the passages but knew that none of them led to where she need to go. So she just kept running down the hallway never looking back, never wavering in her determination. With every step the flames seemed to grow more vicious to her presence, never wishing to let her go.

Even with the hellish landscape that Stella had to deal with she persevered with only the destination mattering to her. While the darkness never seemed to let up all that Stella could see was the darkness never moving, never-ending.

But as soon as the realization of events started to set in from just running down the hallway a small piece hope shone through. An end to hallway had just come into sight but with that hope finally insight a more daunting choice lay in front of her. For with this end two paths begun their journey down their own hallways, one lead to an exit with a bright light at the end of it. However, down the other hallway, the darkness engulfed the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. With the flames dancing in the shadows, shining the only light that the shadow would allow.

The lapping flames devouring anything within its reach, not caring what was once in its grasp. However the destination of both paths was known to her; one path led Stella to her teammates, the other path led Stella to her friends.

"Hey," came a tired but familiar voice over her scroll, "Can you do me a favor?"

Before Stella could answer the voice over her scroll, her eyes shot open with an almost a jolt to her body. Stella had moved with such a velocity that it startled some of the other people in the lobby causing many heads to turn towards her. As she composed herself with many deep, sharp breaths Stella looked around at the people around her. After the initial shock wore off people started to return to their business forgetting what had caused it in the first place.

When she finally calmed down all Stella could do was to look down into her hands with cold beads of sweat rolling around in her hands. "It's alright. Calm yourself down," Stella told herself trying to make herself believe her own words. After that one last reassurance, she could finally feel her breathing beginning to become normal. She sat up straight give one last sharp breath to calm ever nerve in her body.

With Stella finally calmed down she took out her scroll to see what time it was in the day. When Stella saw the time she internally freaked out not realizing how late in the day it had become so she got up grabbed Autem placing it on her back. With Iuris being secured to her hip so left and went to the nearest board. There she searched for Minojent transport trying to figure if it had arrived yet. After Stella had found it she looked over at the arrival time see if it had landed yet. To her shock, it had not landed yet but instead was delayed by what the board described as an unforeseen circumstance.

The new arrival time had been pushed back by almost half an hour. With that little bit of knowledge, she left the now crowding board to try to occupy her time.

With that Stella went over to the food court looking for something small to nibble on not wanting to eat too much. Soon after finding something to dine on Stella left the court on a way to find something else to keep her occupied. But as soon as she was leaving the court a child ran up to her with almost stars in his eyes. "Excuse me, are you a huntress?" He asked still with stars in his eyes. With that, she kneeled down to be more on his level.

"Yes I am a Huntress," she told him with a certain satisfaction in her voice.

"Are those your weapons that you are carrying?" he asked pointing to Autem on her back and Iuris on her left hip.

"They sure are," she stated as she took down Autem in her left hand with it fully extend out so he could touch it.

"Wow" as he reached touching Autem with his jaw hanging down in pure amazement.

"Come along now Ray, can't keep the Huntress distracted," the Boy's mother called out to him from across the room

"But Mom!" the boy cried out to his mother in disappointment.

"Come on Ray we will be late for the transport," the boy's mother stated.

"It's alright, just listen to your mother, you can't be late," Stella told the kid as she was putting away her shield.

"Fine," He said just before he ran back to his mother gripping her hand, with a smile that reached from ear to ear. Bouncing around as if the floors had just been replaced by a bouncy castle.

This brought back many memories not of that day but of her family and the times she spent with her sisters and brother. Stella always enjoyed the time she spent with her siblings, they would always play games with them. However Mother would always call them back to the house before the moon would rise just over the horizon. Always having six cups of hot chocolate ready for them; one cup with extra marshmallows for her eldest brother; two cups with extra chocolate for the twin older sisters; one cup with extra milk for her younger sister; one normal cup for Stella; and finally one cup with no marshmallows for their mother. With all of them sitting around the fireplace of the Scuti family house. Drinking their hot chocolate laughing at old stories of their grandfather's father and their grandmother's mother.

With those memories floating to the forefront of her mind caused a small smile to creep across her face. So as the boy and his mother left Stella's sight, she got up still with that smile on her face. With that she once again looked at her scroll to see that she managed to kill twenty minutes of her time. So with one last look around almost looking for the boy and his mother to bring back those memories. She turned around and headed back to the gates to meet Minojent so they two could meet once again.

Shortly before Stella had arrived to the gate they had already started to disembark from the transport. So Stella started to scan through the crowds to try to find her friend and teammate in the thick crowd.

After looking around for a couple seconds Stella heard a familiar sound that caused her to look straight up into the air. There circling around over her head was the familiar sight of Talon flying near the ceiling.

"Long time no see isn't that right Stella?" came Minojent's voice from the crowd.

Stella then looked down at where she had heard Minojent's voice and there she came out of the crowd. Still wearing her normal blue shirt underneath her cropped brown leather jacket with her blue scarf wrapped around her neck. With a pair of gray skin tight jeans with a tear just over the knee with a handkerchief wrapped just above it with a knee pad on the other knee. With her favorite pair of combat boots that rise just about halfway over her lower leg laced all the way up. Minojent's hair was in its usual curly brown mess with her goggles pressing down on the front of her hair with the band wrapping around her head allowing her green eyes to shine. With Skycreast resting just on her shoulder with a couple of arrows missing from the quiver on her hip and back.

"Great to see you again there Minojent, How was your trip?" Stella asked as the two managed to get closer together through the crowd.

"Oh you know cramped seats, a little bag of crackers for a snack, and a terrible in-flight movie," Minojent retorted in a kind manner.

"And the unforeseen circumstance?" Stella asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Nothing too big just a small pack of Gryphons, no more than… 20 of them. maybe 25 at the most," with that both of them just burst out laughing.

"But seriously there weren't too many of them and I wasn't the only Huntress on the transport. There were two other huntsman that helped clear out the Gryphons too." After saying that Talon flew down and landed on Minojent's shoulder giving a loud cry. "And Talon to he got a couple swipes in," Minojent acknowledge as she brushed under his beak.

"That's what they call an 'unforeseen circumstance' I would have called it an 'eventual circumstance' " Stella joked with a slight snicker from Stella.

"So how much do you want to bet that he's going to be late? Again," Minojent asked still in a joking manner.

"Oh I give him thirty minutes to an hour the real question is, does he still remember where we are meeting up?" Stella retorted still joking of course.

"Guess we just have to wait to find out" Stella stated as the two of them left the terminal, with Talon flying above them.