Celia eyed the gates. "Well, here goes nothing." Celia took a breath and went throught the gates, dissapearing. As far as she knew she made it safly to the other side and looked around for the others.

Jerrriiiiiii! Were you go? Yeesh, you were the fastest person to post for a while there... don't make me bring in a baddie, now! (since that usually seems to work..)

((Sorry. I've been really busy.))


Lizzia sighed as she looked at the wolf impatiently. “Alright, that’s it!” She gave a glace at Tamara, and Tamara knew what she had to do. They advanced on the wolf. Wyndstorm shrank back helplessly. In moments, Lizzia and Tamara dragged the screaming and kicking wolf across the portal. They dropped him with a loud “thump” as soon as they were across, and when Tamara turned to look at the land they were in now, it was completely different than anything she had thought.

-------------------------------------------------


A graveyard land the gates had opened upon, a land in it’s mourning, a realm that was dying, a sky that was as bleak as despair with an unnatural sienna glaze over the heavens. Slight bumps on the surface of the grounds were bits of roots, tilting upwards but now without their hearts and arms, they were abnormally eroded by the harsh winds in diminutive time whilst their roots had been safe, but nevertheless they died. The ground had nothing to hold it’s soil down, and now all that was left of it was dust. Soil depleted into a yellow color, they flew when the wind came upon them, and they were as frail as powder. It was only the bits of roots protruding from the ground that signaled a forest had once been here. Now these dead roots served as grave markers for those who were lost. The empty horizon held the promise of a sea somewhere far beyond which led to the mainland part of the realm, it was an island after all. But the sea, though their eyes could not reach, was as deathlike as the landscape and so was the wretched mainland. Something had happened thousands of years ago, and it was only now taking its toll, it left its magic but a thin trickle. This was worst beyond what Tamara could’ve predicted, this wasn’t right.

The grounds trembled sullenly, and as subtlety as they came they left. Magic held scarce by the senses in which Tamara bore, it was long drained, dry from it’s ground, and there was only the aftermath of man’s greed and sins. The land hungered from what was robbed from them, magic. Their grounds were parched from it and ready to crack. The spirits were mad to the point of insanity. Cries of tortured nonsense shrilled from nowhere, yet it was a dim gurgle of rants.

“Come to us!” They called; the seemly faint shrills, which the others heard, then leap into crescendo in Tamara’s ears, and only Tamara’s ears.

“We are dying! Do not forsake us! Come to us!” The voices rang and vibrated all the way to her bones. Tamara gasped as her legs lost all strength, and in one second she fell on her knees and hands, eyes watering. Her palms turned face down at the soil as her arms supported her trembling body.

“Who are you?” She asked weakly in her mind.

A thousand voices rang back in reply, all at the same time, all meaning the same but worded differently. It was a tangle of words and messages that only made sense to Tamara.

“We were there when you were first here. But we are- nothing...we are nothing...we are nothing...We are hungry, we are sad, sorrow, filthy, dead, tired...nothing. Give us! Who you are.. Your purpose- purpose, give us-your purpose!”

The cries stopped abruptly.

She wrapped her arms around herself; her head still held somewhat low, it was more of to avoid the revelation of the fear and anxiety in her eyes than that of the side effect of the message.

Tamara could still feel a their tortured rambling in her bones. She could feel the expectation of a thousand eyes, non-existent, but unparalleled to hers, she could feel heartbeats, yearning for her choices. She was the Guardian, and this was the ultimate trial. She knew it was, without clarifying. Tamara knew this would come, she knew it like she knew her death would come someday. The answer was right in front of her, all she needed was the dreaded signal to solve the problem.

She placed up a front, and made a quick attempt to appear as if she had regained her composure. Her back straightened and she lifted her head up high once more. The young sorceress pretended to be strong; she wasn’t going to let anyone see her troubled. There were worst things at the moment; she had to remain unemotional now. But there WAS something eating away inside of her immediately. There was a suppressed pain derived from a concealed knowledge, a knowledge she realized now must be placed into action.

The starved aviary beasts flew overhead, scavenging, when they had once hunted. Their shadows drew invisible lines onto the desolate land.

Silhouette looked around and observed the dying landscape; she seemed indifferent to its appearance. When the voices came, her ears flicked and she tried to pick up their words, to no avail- it seemed the voices were pleading in tone.

Fantom muttered something and flattened his huge ears, then stood silently, surveying the land.

"What exactly are we doing here, anyway? Whatever it is, let's be done with it..." Sil snorts flatly.

Upon looking at the state of the land, Celia could have fallen over. How empty and ignored it was, she had never seen anything like it.
Inside she felt empty. More so than she had ever felt before. No magic...what happened here?
She let out a sigh and she looked across the barren land. Something tugged at her momently as the voices were heard by Tamara. Celia couldn't place what the feeling was or what it meant.

One of the aviary beasts peered down at the small group as they circled like vultures. The beast then looked briefly at his companion. The other one seemed to give an acknowledgement, and they circled closer. Tamara’s brow rose. Was it just her eyes, or were they coming closer? One of them was black, with streaks of white upon his chest. They came closer. The other one was gray with blue wings. Both creatures’ wings were feathered of course, but they had beaks of birds, and bodies the wiry built of famished wild cats. Gryphons. They descended somewhat clumsily due to lack of energy. Their broad wings caught the air and swept up dust at the small group as they landed. Tamara coughed and rubbed her eyes as the air around them clouded in an opaque yellow. Wyndstorm started grumbling about the sun and the condition everything was in. Not only was this place a bit creepy for him after he heard those voices, he didn’t like the land’s loose soil, which now floated just about everywhere. Lizzia studied the two gryphons as they spoke.

“There is magic in that girl...” The black one spoke coarsely in observation as his intelligent eyes pierced right into Tamara’s.

“A daughter of the elements...a daughter of worlds,” the black one continued in a weary speech.

Tamara took a step back. She had been called many things, but never those, especially the last one.

“The child has Therathka’s mark.” the gray one joined in, as if to explain. Larissa looked at Lizzia in question.

“Tamara has Thera’s eyes. Therathka is the formal name for my patron goddess, Thera.”

The gray one looked at Lizzia and cocked his head in Tamara’s direction, “so that is Tamara, Guardian of the Amethreal? I expected someone more impressive.”

“Amethreal?” Larissa repeated in that same perplexed expression as before.

“The original name for the stone,” Lizzia replied. “See that stone Tamara carries?” She said looking towards Tamara. “Amethyst is the equivalent form of Amethreal in our tongue.

Tamara finally walked forward. “Who are you?” she asked, her eyes still watering from the dust.

“I am Istyr,” the black one replied then gestured his wing toward the gray one, “and he is my brother, Astyr.”

Tamara nodded in acknowledgement. “Blessings of the light.” she greeted as she was taught to do years ago. But the sad irony of it all was that the light hadn’t blessed them or the realm. It was dying, and so were they. Her eyes studied their thin bodies, their ribcage showed through their fur, they were almost skin and bones. She felt slightly disgusted.

“How long has this lasted?”

“What lasted?” the gryphons asked weakly in unison. “This!” She gestured at their bodies, “why-how long has the land been like this?”

Istyr looked up at the bleak sky. “We grew up scavenging, but we haven’t been able to find anything lately, so we starve.”
Tamara opened her ring and pulled out a large ham. She handed it out to the brothers. Astyr took the ham in his mouth and started tearing pieces of the meat apart. Istyr took the chunks in which his brother had divided up and Tamara looked at both of them in amazement. Even in starvation, they cared for each other.

“The realm’s always been dying, for as long as we can remember.” Astyr started between bites, “The phoenix pauses the dying of the realm, but eventually, even she cannot bar the way of what happens logically.”

Istyr spoke once more after he had swallowed the meat, “It’s only been like this recently. But it won’t last for long. It will only get worst. I don’t know in what way, but it will only get worst.”

The phoenix. There was a reason to why the firebird existed. How could she have overlooked that? Maybe she didn’t think it was important to wonder why. A phoenix was a phoenix; she existed just like the drakes existed, except there was always only one.

Tamara looked up at the maroon sky. The phoenix was elsewhere. The firebird’s presence obviously had given the realm life, but for how long?

“An inviskit!” Istyr exclaimed in a tired manner after both of them had finished the snack in mere seconds. He had spotted Sil and his ears perked up. “I’d never thought I see one out of slavery.”

Tamara’s jaw fell slightly apart, “you know them? But they’re from another world-“

“They’re here.” Astyr stated, looking a bit more alive after the food. “Well, some of them are. The humans here keep them to tend to their plants.”

Silhouette remained silent as the gryphons landed and spoke to Tamara. She was far less impressed by their presence than that of the pegasi earlier- she'd battled the gryphonkin many times, as they were an enemy of the inviskets' captors. And these two were starved- they were no threat.

Her ears perked forward and yellow eyes went wide in surprise as Astyr spoke of her kin being on this world. She shook of the shock, then stepped forward and scowled menacingly at the two before her. "Which humans?" She snarls, her tone threatening. More slavers? They would pay too, then.

Fantom also looks surprised, but seems content to let Sil deal with the gryphons.

The black one looked at Sil with an interest. "The 'econonmy' as the humans put it depends on a certain product. Your kind tends to that product. This place isn't inhabited my humans anymore. They're all gone. What's left is the money making asset."

Astyr chuckled bitterly, "The King is becoming senile. He rules over nothing..."

"But the people are buying the plant," Istyr picked up, "which gives him and the nobles here money to use in places elsewhere other than this realm. The throne is becoming more attractive since whoever becomes the next king, is also in charge of the plants and will inherit the profit.”

Tamara shook her head, “Wait-...what are you talking about? What plants? “ For two starving gryphons, they were talkative. Or maybe they wanted to tell Tamara for a reason? Never the matter, Tamara wanted to know more. She quickly took out more food and they ate it up as quickly they had eaten the ham.

“The humans call it Mirthweed.” Istyr explained after swallowing, “They take the plant to other places to sell them, but they grow them here. They’re making a lot of money off of it. Inviskits are used to tend to these plants since they need a lot of care, and they don’t need to pay the workers.”

“But they can’t seem to make enough of that plant.” Astyr spoke after the last bit of the food was gone, “So they need more land. But the majority of the land belongs to the gryphons. Many of our kind is gone now, they’ve either left or have died of starvation. We chose to stay, this is the land we belong to and no where else.”

Istyr picked up where his brother left off, “it’s still our land, they can’t have it, they never will and the treaty prevents that.”

Tamara crinkled her brow in confusion, “What treaty?”

“The one that you signed, it prevents our land from being used without our chieftain’s permission,” Istyr answered. “The plants are in high demand. We won’t give them our land to grow more Mirthweed so what they do is get more inviskits. The plants grow faster when they are tended to more often.”

Silhouette snarls and takes another threatening step towards the two gryphons. "I don't care about the blasted economy! Where are my kin being kept?" She demands, her voice on the edge of a snarl. She'd battled the gryphonkin for years, and she had developed little tolerance for them.

Fantom sighs. Sil could have such a short fuse, sometimes.. but what could he expect? He remains silent- she was handling things alright for the time, and he din't want her any more mad at him than she already was...

They were neither threatened nor angry about the Inviskits reactions. Instead, they seemed completely indifferent to Sil. “You don’t care about the economy? Good, neither do we,” Astyr said passively. “We play no part in their profit, and we don’t care about it either.”

“The inviskits are located at the Mirthweed domes." Istyr explained, "They’re domes made out of glass and metal framed.”

She was hoping for directions on how to get there.. but the information she was given was good as well.. She flicks an ear at the description of the domes. "Glass? Good. Should be easy, then. Where are the Mirthweed domes?" She demands, then adds "In relation to here... how do I get there?"

"Just walk north." Astyr stated simply. "You're bound to see it."

"Or..." Istyr cut in, "we can lead you. That is..if you have anymore food?" The hungry gryphon looked at Tamara pleadingly.

"We don't have any meat left... I'm sorry."

Astyr smiled sadly, "Ah well..we'll do it anyways, since you are the guardian and this here..." Astyr glanced at Sil, "Is...I guess your friend."

Istyr seemed dissapointed at the lack of pay for their offered service, but agreed with his brother.

Tamara laughed in a surprisingly sardonic manner when Astyr mentioned Sil being a "friend."

"Let's go and investagate this matter." She gestured at the others, and the gryphons started leading.

Silhouette seems pleased with the offer and follows the brothers. She walks swiftly, then slows when she almost passes the gryphons.. then walks swiftly again, repeating the pattern. Obviously she'd like to be moving faster, but she says nothing.

Fantom sighs and follows, staying behind the rest of the group. Maybe this will give me a chance to slip away.. then I won't have to go back.. He shakes his head. No. I do have to go back. I shouldn't be so selfish, the others deserve freedom too.. Moreso than I, for sure.. Bah. She's right when she says I'm a coward....

Celia follows with out saying anything. She decides that she will help out just about anyway she can, if she needs too.

((Eeee..sorry for the shortness..and simpliness? oddness? erm, whatever...
But I needed to post to keep Celia with everyone...next posts will be better. ^_^ *runs off and hides until another posts pops up* ))