Tainted Wings

Chapter Three: The Chapal of Dalaree

XXX

Daisuke sat up drowsily and blinked his eyes a few times to get the blurriness out. Thats when he became aware of the sound. The rusaling of leaves and snapping of twig alerted him that someone was coming. Mind already through into a panic looked around franticly to see if he could spot who was coming. He could not.

A flash of color and the muttering of a voice came from the right. Daisuke jumped abit, surprised and watched for the person. Someone set their hand on his left shoulder making him almost literally jump out of his skin. "Whoa! Sorry, Daisuke, didn't mean to scare you." Dark's voice rang in Daisuke's ear making him calm down a bit.

He looked behind him, over his shoulder at Dark who had removed his hand from his shoulder and straighted up. "didn't think you'd run out this far. Don't worry you only needed to leave the room." Daisuke nodded and asked,

"Who was that?"

"That, does like to be refured to as 'that'." A new voice came from in front of him. Daisuke snapped his head around so fast Dark almost thought it would fall off. Daisuke's eyes widdened as they fall onto the person into front of him. The very same person that had attacked him not to much earlier that day. "What, kid? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"He might as well have, ya bleater(1). You did attack him earlier." Akai blinked and seemed to think about it.

"Ah, yes. That was him? My bad. Sorry kid, I've got strange moments, but they don't happen often so don't worry! I won't go randomly attacking you again!" The man smiled cherrfully, closing his eyes in the process. Dark just snorted.

"Even if he did, which is unlikely," Dark assured Daisuke at the look on his face. "I'd sense his magic spike. I'm usually that one that has to deal with him. It's a surprise I let him stay." It took a minute for Daisuke to register what he'd said then,

"HE LIVE'S THERE?!" Both Dark and Akai winced at the volume of his voice. Dark nodded feebly, Akai sighed.

"Che cosa è con il capretto?(2)" He asked, looking at Dark. Dark shrugged and Daisuke looked at them both, confused. Dark, seeing this, says,

"He's Italian... Or he just learned to speak it..." Dark seemed to think it over while Akai just rolled his eyes. Daisuke, forgetting the earlier days events, took a look at Akai for once.

He had bright grey green eyes, with a brown reddish hair color. His hair was slightly curly and came into his face, but was otherwise short. His outfit was strange indeed. Or to him anyway. Of course, he didn't get out much anyways. He wore a black sleeveless vest with the left shoulder of the vest going slightly over his shoulder. The vest had a large collar that came up and covered a bit of his chin, spreeding out wide. The vest had one gold buckle on the first of many straps that held the two sides together. Under the vest was a dark green shirt, that was apparently only visible at the end of the vest where it came out almost two inches. He had on one long black glove on his left that came up to mid-tricep, and showed the tips of his fingers. Another black glove on his right, but smaller with only two inches past his wrist and fanned out, also showing his finger tips. He had a red swirling tattoo the had someparts pointing from it on his exposted right shoulder. More swirling red tatto with jagged ends and seperate parts decorated the rest of both his arms. His pants were a simple black, with two straps around the top left leg, and one on the bottom part of the right. He also had boots, steel lined boots that is.

Also there was a brown worn strap slung over his shoulder that was attached to a huge sheath, without a sword. Ignoring that he started to pay attention to what they were saying only to not understand.

"Che seguente? Un anello del ghiaccio?" Akai said with a roll of his eyes.

"No! Why would I need one of those? The lakes freeze well enough here for that!"

"E sapreste."

"Of course! At least I ain't like you!"

"Naturalmente. Qualcuno che difettasse di in tale talento non potrebbe possibile essere."

"Hey! I resent that! I do so have talent!"

"Mmm, naturalmente fratello. Sì, qualunque dite, fratello." Akai said sweetly, crossing his arms.

"Don't mock me!" Dark pouted. "I so to have talent..." He muttered the last part to himself, but Daisuke caught it. Was that what they were talking about? Daisuke thought. He mentally shrugged it off.

Tentatively Daisuke asked in a soft voice, "Dark? Can we head back now? My arm hurts..." Dark instantly forgot about the argument he and Akai were just having and helped Daisuke up.

"Yes! Yes! How could I forget! Let's hurry back and get that treated, hmm?" Daisuke nodded as Dark pulled him along. Akai muttered something under his breathe as he followed along behind them.

XXX

Later, Daisuke was laying on a couch. It was very fluffy and warm and he sank pretty far into it, more so then he thought possible. He had eaten earlier as had his cut been treated. Akai had left to some other part of the house as soon as they got back, muttering something he couldn't understand.

He wondered how Dark was able to understand him. Did he know that language as well?

He blinked his eyes sleepily, the couch was really comfy. Dark re-entered the room, after having only left a couple minutes before. "Sleepy? Don't fall asleep on the couch, it might swallow you up." Dark teased. Daisuke's eyebrows knitted together in annoyance, but he didn't give a response.

Dark walked over and sat down non-to-gracefully in a chair beside the couch that Daisuke sat on. "Well, what do you think?"

Daisuke blinked, confused. "Think... Of what?"

"This place!"

"Oh... e-eto, well, it's nice?"

"What kinda response is that?" Daisuke winced at the tone.

"Sorry." Dark shrugged it off.

"It's fine. Who could expect you to give a decent response with where you've been?" Daisuke rolled his eyes. He was teasing him. Again. What doesn't this account for? He couldn't remember how many times by now. "Hey! I saw that! Don't roll your eyes!!" Daisuke shrugged. Dark huffed, but passed it off. "So, anyway, how did you even entertain yourself in that place?"

"I don't know, mostly just layed around, thinking."

"Well, today's your lucky day! I'll show you the pleasures of the outside world!" (A/N: Not that way you perverts.)

An uneasy feeling came over Daisuke right then, but he didn't know what for. He sat up and shifted alittle uneasily. "Y-you sure? I mean if your not too busy..."

"Of course not! I've got all the time in ther world!"

"No you don't." A voice said from behind Dark. Both Dark and Daisuke looked over to see a boy about a year or so older then Daisuke. He had light blue hair and blue eyes. His outfit was plain with brown bottoms and a white shirt. The only thing that stood out in the plain outfit was the blue stone on a black worn choker.

"Eh? Creepy boy? Oh no! Your back from your payed vacation!" Dark said in (fake) horror. Daisuke lifted an eyebrow at him, but he didn't see it.

"Payed? Vacation? I went to the store to buy some supplies."

"...Hotoni?"

"Hai."

"Darn it."

"You've work to do." Dark glared at the boy.

"You know, if it wasn't for Krad, you wouldn't be here."

"You know, if it wasn't for Krad, I would've left by now." A glaring contest started between the two making Daisuke sweatdrop and scoot away.

"Ohh look! Daisuke! W-" Daisuke looked over to see Akai pause in the doorway, looking at the other two. "Ah, oh... There at it again? Sheesh, always like this, these two." He turned to Daisuke saying, "Don't worry! They do this all the time. Just leave them, they'll stop eventually. In the mean time would you like to come with me?" He jestered to the door with is hand.

Daisuke nodded as he stood up. Walking up to Akai he took one last look back at the two, who were still glaring at each other, and shrugged. "Sure, where are we headed?"

XXX

"So... This is where again?" Daisuke asked as he looked up at the high ceiling.

"The Chapal of Dalaree." Akai said as he leaned back on a wall. Daisuke looked around in awe. The place looked big on the outside, but inside it was small, with lots of pillar spread out about the room. The was even a second floor the was placed in the upper back of the room, where you entered, and stretched out on either side, but didn't go in the front. The was rows of benches to either side, down one isle. There was large stain glass window on both sides of the room the looked to of seen better days. In the front was a large statue. It was of a girl, with long flowing hair. Her arms were spread out to either side, head tilted upwards. She was in a long billowing gown, her eyes were closed.

"Who is that?"

"That is Maria(3). She has a very interesting history, but no one knows for she if its true or not, considering how blown it is. Quite unbelievable, but the only story of her." Daisuke turned his head back to the Statue of Maria. He noticed something glint and saw a necklace that he could've sworn wasn't around her neck before. Stranger again, was that it didn't look apart of the statue, more like someone threw it there.

The necklace made of white and black Onyx, the white a feathery wing attached to a black bat wing. In the middle of both wings was a stone, but he couldn't make out its color.

"Whats that?" Daisuke asked, taking a step closer. Akai looked up at the statue to see nothing out of place.

"What's what?"

"That..." Daisuke reached up the statue in an attemped to grabe it, but was too short. He climbed onto the statues stand and reached for it again. He ended up have to climb the statue itself a bit to reach it.

Once he felt his finger rap around it his foot slipped. He started to fall backwards, with the necklace still in his hands. "Daisuke!"

XXX

Wow, nice chap, eh? I cliffed you guys again! HAHAHAHAHA! Blame Chiyo-nee, (New name for my twin, yin-san), for giving me the idea. Hope you all like it. I know I do. -smirks-

Oh, I might be putting up profiles at the end of the next chapter, to give you people ideas of everyones rolls in here. Oh, and I plan on bringing in Keiji, I like him! He's so much fun!

Review please! Or I'l make you wait long! (Not really)

(1): Got from one of Tamora Pierce books. Its Briars slang word for stupid person. I like it.

(2): This is Italian, if you can't tell. Ask me for translations and give me a reply email and I'll send them to you.

(3): Maria is just a name from the top of my head. Don't ask me about it. I was thinking of using Mana, but Maria came out as the choice.

(I will be re-osting it, when I get it back from Loki! heheh, It's just taking to long, and I'm not normally known to be all that patient. So don't pay to much attention to miss spelling, if you wanna help with that, just tell me and I'll fix it.)