Tales Reunion anybody?

[Arynielle]

[No applications, just go for it. Original Tales characters preferred but not required.]

"You know, I was hoping that you'd actually know where we were going."

A scoff. "It's Ari. Of course she doesn't know where we're going."

"Hey!" the half-elf replied defiantly. "I know exactly where we're going!" She sighed sheepishly. "I just don't know how to get there... at least, not anymore."

An array of sweatdrops appeared on everyone's foreheads. "Well, at least you're being honest," the emerald-eyed Remede said with a sigh of her own. "It's more than I can say for Tempest who's always in utter denial when he's lost."

"At least I find my destination eventually!" the brown-haired swordsman countered, obviously irritated at his friend.

"Hours and hours later," Remede continued. "Having a man stop and ask for directions is a serious blow to their egos."

"And having a woman admit that they're wrong stops the world from spinning."

She flashed Tempest a glare, opening her mouth to reply when someone else cut into the conversation.

"My apologies for interrupting your conversation, but may we continue searching for this temple?" Zaunithe, the white-haired warrior, had spoken, and it was usually his wisdom which governed the action of the group. "Ari-san, what do you know about this temple of which you speak?"

Ari stared frustratedly into the distance. There were leaves, trees, vines and more leaves, trees and vines wherever they turned. She had been here once before, and she knew that the temple was around here somewhere. "Well, around the temple was a tree which bore blue fruit and white flowers. It wasn't like anything I had ever seen..."

"I'd imagine not," Tempest said. "Blue fruit and white flowers is an odd combination."

As the group conversed among itself, Zaunithe looked past them all. There was something in this jungle, something that hid its power well, for even he could not sense exactly what it was. He would have to wait for it to leave its hiding spot and come to him.

[Arynielle]

((Can I bump this to encourage some activity? ^^))

[Aleu]

"Aleu, aren't we going the wrong way?" Serene slowed a little, pointing in a direction slightly to their left. "Ozy said it was north of the falls. We've been heading north-by-northeast for an hour now." Aleu leaned backwards a little bit, throwing her sister an nonchalant look.

"I doubt it makes a difference, sis. Directions from a client are usually no good anyway, so I've found that it's usually more productive to follow your intuition." Aleu shrugged. "In any case, it's rare that landmarks are so neatly arranged -- 'due north' doesn't have much meaning in the real world."

Flashing her sister a grin, Aleu lifted her arm to show a rainbow-colored mana-thread looped around her wrist. "But, then again, if you don't feel like dealing with that, you could cheat. I found the temple last night, with the Stars." She pointed a finger at one of the two brightly colored lights that hummed about her body. "Freedom is waiting at the temple, so I'm just walking more or less in its general direction. We'll get there, don't worry."

Serene was taken aback, and stared at the ground. "O-oh... Sorry, I didn't mean to waste your time. I didn't know you'd done that."

"Nah, I'm glad you're paying attention -- not letting your mind wander is a very good habit to develop. Keeps you alive and relatively unharmed."

Silence fell again as the two continued walking, the only sound being the squelch of wet vegetation beneath their feet, the buzzing of the myriad local insects, and the occasional yelp from Serene as she got her wings tangled in branches or brambles. The two of them were on their first official mission together -- Kapu was investigating some of Silver's old crime leads, so Ozymandias (their clan's leader) had assigned the sisters to a simple search and retrieval mission that had come in some time ago, as a chance for Serene to get some field experience. The girl had classic training but little opportunity for application, which of rather some concern to both her parents and Ozy. The temple search trip was supposed to be a chance for her to see how things "really" worked out.

Aleu stopped for a second, shaking out her dark blue jacket and turning to one side. She was wearing something less bright than the standard white-and-blue clan uniform -- a deep, navy jacket speckled with small, dim white stars, and forest-green slacks, with a brown, tassled hat perched at a jaunty angle atop her head. She was trying to go for darker colors this time around, for camo. Serene, on a similar tack, had had her uniformed dyed black and crimson red and had a little red and orange put over some of her feathers to mask the bright white.

Aleu looked amused. "That... there's someone over there... she feels familiar, in a kind of nostalgic way." She continued to stare off in the distance, rubbing her knuckles thoughtfully. Serene tapped her from behind, and Aleu seemed to snap out of it. "Weh?"

"Should we go check it out?" she asked.

"No reason to, really. We'll run into them soon enough, knowing her. There's no point in going out of our way." She lifted the hat and set it at a slightly different tilt. "Come on, we're only an hour away now. We can have an early lunch and take a look around for the rest of the day."

"I'm cooking."

"No you--"

"I'm cooking."

"...fine."

[Arynielle]

"Zaunithe?" Remede asked. "Is something wrong?"

The white-haired warrior shook his head. "It was merely an animal," he replied, not wanting to worry any of his companions. He didn't think that what he sensed was much of a threat to the group anyway; its aura had a strong tug to it, but it wasn't ill-intentioned or anything of the sort. Zaunithe decided to ignore it in the hopes of actually finding what he and the others were searching for.

"I suggest we split up," Tempest cut in. "We'll cover more ground that way." He was always the practical one, the one who cut directly to the solution.

...however, he did not necessarily think of what was to happen after the solution was to come. He didn't consider what more problems might arise. Remede, on the other hand, was a strategist. She rolled her eyes. "And how do you suggest that we find one another after the temple is found?"

"We'll meet back here," he defended. "Ari's the only one who has no sense of navigation, and we'll be in pairs so that's not a problem."

"And what if something happens out there?" Remede pressed; Tempest wasn't on her list of favorite people right now, but such arguments between them weren't uncommon. "There's a reason why we came in a group of four to begin with."

Ari, who hated seeing her friends argue, piped up, "We could use magic." Neither Tempest nor Remede could find anything wrong with that idea so they both agreed. "It's a simple charm," the half-elf explained as she cast the spell. "It won't actually provide clear navigation, but it allows two individuals to stay in contact at all times." She murmured an incantation, two silver orbs the size of a clementine appearing from her hand. "Zaunithe's the only other magic-user in the group so this one will follow him--" One of the two orbs swirled once in the air before darting toward its respective charge. "--and this one'll stick with me."

"Simple enough," Tempest said. "I'll go with you to make sure you don't go tripping all over the place, Ari."

Arynielle made a face at him, but didn't argue. "Then Remede and Zaunithe will travel together. Why don't you guys head south, and Tempest and I'll cover northern ground?"

Zaunithe nodded. "Take care, Ari-san, Tempest. Contact us shall you find anything curious."

"Of course!" she replied enthusiastically before dashing off with Tempest.

---

"We've seen this boulder before," the warrior sighed. "I didn't expect to be wandering aimlessly around for so long, despite being with you."

Ari laughed lightheartedly. "Come on now," she reassured, in an almost mocking voice. "This is me you're talking about. Are you sure you don't want to take that back? Don't I always get you lost?"

Tempest rubbed his temples, not pleased at having been teased. "I'm contemplating leaving, if that's what you mean."

"Have some optimism," she replied. "We've gotten out of ever hole we've fallen into."

"Literally and metaphorically. Don't remind me."

Ari could only spare a sheepish smile. However, that expression was wiped from her face as she sensed something. No, it was not something that could be felt by anybody, for it, in fact, had absolutely to do with any of the regular six senses. She felt as though... there were someone here, someone who she was familiar with. And said person was nearby, very nearby.

"Ari..?" Tempest questioned, noticing the strange expression on her face. "Are you..?"

The half-elf raised her hand in an effort to cut him off. "Wait. There's someone out there." She spun around, pointing in this new direction. "I have a feeling that he's over here! Come on, Tempest!" She then took off in a full sprint.

Now, what Ari lacks in strength and defense, she will make up tenfold in speed and stamina. She is as fleet as a deer, and can cover very long distances in a short period of time. And thanks to her slim build, she is able to escape most people without even trying to.

She dodged through the think growth of the trees, successfully losing the awed Tempest. "Dammit." He didn't even try to catch up to her.

Ari raced through the jungle, the small orb of communication tiredly following her as she dodged vines and ducked underneath branches. She finally came to a small clearing, where two people seemed to be enjoying a good meal. "Hello there!" she said, very possibly startling the strangers had they not been paying attention. "I'm sorry to intrude, but I wanted to see who you were." Oh, Ari. It must have been a sin to be so direct.

[Aleu]

"So, Serene, how's being back home treating you? Do you like it?" Aleu gestured with her bowl towards the fowl set above the fire. "Something wrong? You're not eating." Serene started, as if coming out of a trance, and stared at Aleu blankly.

"Home? Uhm..." She trailed off, staring into the distance again. "Home... I guess... yeah, I guess so..." She stuck another piece of bird (I wonder what kind of bird this is...) and chewed on it thoughtfully, staring somewhere past her sister and into the bush. It was nice, just sisters together in the middle of nowhere on a wild hunt for a lost, magic temple... it was like a fairy tale. A kind of gritty fairy tale,with all the nasty little details that most stories left out (sitting on grass was much pokier than they made it out to be), but the spirit of it was the same. If only the birds would start singing, like they did yesterday...

"...Serene, you okay?" She'd closed her eyes and started swaying from side to side, humming to herself and whispering a tune under her breath. Aleu snapped her fingers a few times at her, jolting the poor girl back to reality again. Aleu sighed. "Sorry to keep doing that, but you're spacing out every few minutes. Are you sure you're okay? Those mushrooms back there, you didn't eat them did you?"

Serene smiled dreamily at her sister, shaking her head with a little flutter of the wings. "I'm fine, thank you... I'm just happy to be here... it's nice, just the two of us..." She drifted off again, her attention turned now to the weather, the way the gentle breezes lifted her feathers, the way her hair reached for the winds and leapt free, painting the air with roiling waves of silver. The way the sun warmed her exposed shoulders, the way the fire hugged her close to its blazing heart, that line between the brisk air and comforting flame upon which she so comfortably lay nestled...

Aleu sighed, pushed the bird a little closer to the fire so that it would stay warm longer, and settled down to her meal. That girl... where was her head? She seemed to float whenever there was a bit of a lull in activity, but sometimes she had such an intense focus that it was difficult to believe that she made such a regular habit of airheadedness. "Sis, there's someone here."

Aleu snapped her gaze back at Serene, suddenly alert. Now that she had mentioned it, it was clear -- there definitely was another's presence somewhere close, behind Aleu and closer than half a kilometer away. She grabbed her sword hilt with one hand, starting to turn... ahh, nevermind, it was just her. Aleu relaxed and returned to her meal. "It's nothing, Serene, don't worry about it." Serene looked at her quizzically.

"It's the same person I mentioned earlier... an old friend. Nothing to worry about, go ahead and keep eating." Serene nodded slowly, fishing another piece of meat from her bowl and popping it between her lips as she resumed gazing intently at a tree trunk. Aleu just stared at her. Wonder how she beat me to it... was I thinking too hard...? Doesn't matter I guess, but still...

It was about a minute longer before there was a crash from the underbush. "That'll be her," Aleu said, leaning backwards and looking towards the tree line. "Annnyyy..." Crash! "Hey Ari."

[Arynielle]

ooc; I'm going to make the assumption that Ari has never met Serene... mostly because I can't remember whether she actually has or not. ^^;

ic; "Aleu! Long time, no see!" Ari cried, running up to the girl and embracing her in the tight hug. Upon releasing her from her arms, she asked, "Where have you been all this time?" It was difficult for her to contain her excitement. She and Aleu had been companions on various missions and adventures, though they parted for a while along the way. It was difficult to part from one another, but Ari had a feeling that they would one day meet each other again-- and here they were!

Then the third presence caught her eye. "Who's this?" she made a friendly gesture toward the other girl who sat not too far off with a bowl in her hand. It seemed like Ari had crashed in during meal time, which was quite unfortunate for the two who were enjoying food. All the same, Ari couldn't help having perpetually terrible timing.

"Arynielle Fallyce!" Her name came from a voice a short distance away, echoing in the lush vegetation of the jungle. "I'll have your head for sprinting away like that, goddammit!" His tone was irritated.

The half-elf giggled as she tilted her head in its direction. "That's Tempest," she introduced even though he had not made his appearance yet. "He seems aloof and unkind, but he's really not. I daresay that he's one of my favorite people to travel with."

Tearing through a particularly large leaf with his sword, he seethed. "Ari, don't run off like that again. You give me hell trying to find you. Why do you insist on making my life so difficult?"

"I'm sorry," Ari apologized; she was being absolutely sincere. "But look at it this way-- in a way, I'm actually helping you become stronger and faster. By having to chase me down, you'll gain stamina and become more honed in the fine art of tracking." She shrugged lightly with a smile on her face.

Tempest sighed. "You're much too optimistic for your own good."

---

"Blue flowers and white fruit!" Remede exclaimed. She studied the plant specimen in absolute awe. Naturally, she had never seen anything like this ever before. "Zaunithe, this must have been the tree that Ari was talking about. It appears that she wasn't hallucinating."

The white-haired warrior stood beside her, his eyes focused upon the strange tree. "Indeed." He was a man of few words, but he had plenty of thoughts running through his head. It is strange that I have never seen such a plant species occur in any other parts of the world... perhaps this is to serve a purpose? He blinked, realizing that something was wrong. "If these are the trees... then where is the temple?"

Remede sighed. "Well, looks like we have a bit more searching to do ahead of us."

[Aleu]

OOC: Probably never in any rp that last more than a page xD

"Good to see you again too, Ari," Aleu said, returning the hug and patting the girl on the back. "It's been too long, I've missed you. Sit down, though I don't think there's anything you could eat here..." Calmer than her friend, she still smiled as the two of them took seats on the log. Things had a way of coming around, didn't they?

"Where have I been? I've been working, you bum!" she said, laughing. "I last saw you when I was just turning eighteen. I had to go back home for some family issues." She nodded at Serene. "Than I spent almost a year in training. A lot of being cooped up in my room, really; it's a family thing. I didn't go out at all during that time; I've only been on two missions since I finished, actually. This is the third."

Serene nodded respectfully to the visitor, carefully avoiding eye contact and turning back to her bowl silently. Her feathery wings hunched up a little and curled around herself, partially hiding her from view.

"This is my older sister, Serene. She's a little antisocial to strangers, but she's an airy little chatterbox around me and Kapu. It'll take her some time to get used to you."

Aleu and Serene both winced at Tempest's yell, the former staring off into the distance with a sigh, and the latter burying herself deeper into her feathers. "You have interesting friends," Aleu said nonchalently, rubbing Serene's back soothingly.

Aleu stared at Tempest as he entered, baffled. A leaf. Really? I mean... really? A leaf? She couldn't help but stare confused at the two fallen halves while the two argued. Serene bit her lip, put her bowl down and stared hard at the ground.

"Oy, leaf lad," Aleu said, catching her sister's eye. She drew her katana and waved it lazily at Tempest, motion easy but gaze suddenly steel. "Aloof, unkind, friend, whatever. I don't care. Stop whining or I'll cut you open. You're scaring her."

---

Some distance away, Freedom floated in lazy circles, sensing someone approaching (but going the wrong way).

[Arynielle]

"Tempest!" Ari exclaimed, upon seeing the frightened state that poor Serene was in. "Quiet down, you're being too loud." She proceeded to take a seat next to the others on a small log. Although she was a strict vegetarian, it didn't bother her with her friends consumed meat; it was a walk of life after all, and even in the natural world, carnivores existed.

She did introduce them shortly after, however. "Nice to meet you, Serene," she said. "I'm Ari and this is Tempest, the seemingly aloof and unkind one." She laughed. "Tempest, this is Aleu, an old friend of mine, and this is her sister, Serene."

Her introduction caused Tempest to roll his eyes, and with the threat of the newcomer, he wasn't feeling like a perky camper himself. Not that he ever was. In his earlier days, when he was a commanding officer, he would have talked back, but it wasn't worth it, especially not if these were Ari's friends. His own threats were usually warded off by the chipper half-elf anyway, who knew him better than the rest of the world with the exception of Zaunithe and Remede, perhaps. But neither could tame him like Ari could.

Really, he was a decent person... he just typically didn't like showing that side of him. Tempest did, however, have a soft spot for animals. Any sort of animal. That was actually how Ari had started teasing him because she so determinedly believed that she could judge any person's heart by how he treated animals, the creatures who couldn't defend themselves.

Tempest waved the extended katana away with a cold look on his face. He wasn't happy about it, but why argue with Ari over this? She was absolutely impossible in her own roundabout, bubbly manner. Absolutely impossible. She never did have to make a threat or narrow her eyebrows to make others feel guilty. Nope, never.

I give up, he said to himself irritably. The chocolate-haired warrior wandered away from the group, figuring that he would do better some place else. He didn't stray too far, wanting to keep an eye on the half-elf, the only one in the group who had entirely no sense of direction.

Arynielle noticed his departure, but waved it off. "He's just being antisocial again." A sigh. "I wish he would be more open sometimes, but... it's the only way he knows how to act." Now, back to some older topics. "So what're you two doing out here, Aleu? I guess you could say that I'm on a self-directed mission with some friends, but what're you looking for?"

[Aleu]

Glaring a little in Tempest's direction, Aleu slowly lowered her blade, picking up the sheath and shoving her sword back in with a hint of a growl. "Sorry about that, Ari, but you know how it is," she said lowly, setting her blade to the side and picking up her bowl, all the while staring pointedly at Tempest's back. "I don't care if he's antisocial, but I won't have him messing with Serene... I won't have her deal with more than she already has."

Hearing this, Serene's wings relaxed slightly, and she edged closer to Aleu, leaning against her with a smile on her face. Aleu put her hand on top of her head and patted Serene lightly, ruffling the silver-blue hair. "Thanks... sis..." Serene whispered, closing her eyes. Aleu rubbed her again with a half smile on her face, then lifted her head above Serene to look at Ari again.

"Nothing out of the ordinary. We're a mercenary clan, so this is just another regular mission... I'm sure you've heard of the temple in here, right? There's some stuff in there that we need to retrieve for a client. Mostly documents and esoterica -- I guess this place might've been a library or something at one point. What are you here for?"

[Arynielle]

Ari cringed slightly at Aleu's words. As much as she understood how Tempest's behavior might have bothered Serene, it was more of her fault than his, seeing as his words were originally directed at her. She didn't want Tempest to take the blame for something that he didn't mean to happen; besides, he was off in some other part of the jungle at this point. He hadn't intentionally made any offense to poor Serene at all, and had even left before he had a chance to redeem himself. "No need to worry about him," Ari comforted. "Tempest wasn't trying to scare you, Serene. He was just a tad irritated and me running off, you see. His words weren't directed at you." She smiled lightly.

Off to a bad start as always, Ari thought. She spared a glance at her companion who had already seemed to have vanished. Tempest made enemies wherever he went, and if not enemies, he rarely found himself on the favorable side of people. It wasn't even that he was unkind; he just tended to say things that easily offended others. Not the soft-spoke type at all, Tempest would easily voice his feelings in front of strangers. Because of this, he usually found himself in situations that he had a difficult time digging himself out of, and since he had a bit of an ego... well, things didn't turn out well for him. Never the type to apologize, never the type to admit he was wrong-- only those who could understand his subtle mannerisms would be able to understand him.

The half-elf laughed. "Funny you should say that 'cause we're here on the same mission you are, apparently. Well, at least finding the temple part. We don't know what's going to be in it, and I none of us are searching for anything in particular; I just happened to stumble across it one day so I called everyone out here to investigate." A sweatdrop formed on her head. "But, unfortunately, I can't seem to retrace my steps."

Meanwhile, Remede stooped to the ground as she studied a tablet of hieroglyphs that she had recently found. "What is this?" she asked herself, smoothing away the dust and sand with her hand. The words were written in an ancient language of a tribe native to this area. She had studied the culture and history of the tribe while she still attended an academy back in the day. Of course, this group was long thought to have disappeared. "Zaunithe..." her voice trailed off as she interpreted the hieroglyphs.

"I see Lady Luck favors you." Zaunithe appeared from behind as silently as an assassin might have. "Can you read it, Remede-san?"

She nodded in response, but she hesitated to translate it at first. Eventually, she sighed and said, "This temple we're searching for... it's not just a mere temple. It's a tomb."

The blue-eyed Zaunithe appeared unfazed at this new information, although there was a break of silence as he stared at the tablet. He then stood, summoning the white orb to him, the one that Ari had created earlier. "Ari-san."

"Oh!" Ari's ears twitched as Zaunithe's voice echoed through the magical medium. She laughed, reaching behind to coax the orb into her hand. Though she couldn't see anything through it, she recognized his voice. "Zaunithe, I'm here. How're you doing?"

Remede's voice then escalated through the orb. "Ari, I found a tablet with hieroglyphs and directions to find the temple. It's more complicated than it seems because the this temple... well, it's an enchanted tomb. It only appears at certain times of the day. I'll explain the details to you later, but you and Tempest had better catch up to us. We're on the other side of the river. If you head south far enough, you'll know what I'm talking about."

"We'll be right there." Ari shooed the orb away as she stood up, using her silver-tipped bo staff as support. "There's my call. Care to come with?" She stepped over the log, heading off determinedly.

"Ari." Tempest had appeared, seemingly out of thin air. He had a knack of arriving on time when his friends needed him the most. No one knew how he did it so readily, but no one really cared. He jerked his head in the opposite direction. "South is that way."

The half-elf giggled. "That way it is then."

[Aleu]

I'll bet, Serene thought to herself darkly, not meeting Ari's eyes. I don't remember asking you to care about me... Noticing her brooding mood, Aleu squeezed Serene's hand comfortingly, standing up and helping her to her feet. "Come on, now... no need to get huffy. Let's get this all cleaned up and we can move out again, that'll help." She handed her bowl to her sister and pointed off in the distance. "The river's just a little bit down that way."

Aleu sighed, watching Serene pick up her own dishes and leave. "She's... just scared, you know," Aleu said aloud, still staring after her sister. "Scared of people, scared of people getting close to her... doesn't like people trying to enter her life, because she thinks they'll just leave her." She turned around to take the fowl off the fire and snuff the embers with her boot. "She likes people, though... gets lonely very easily when she's on her own, gets more talkative than you'd expect when she's around friends." Aleu scuffed at the dirt with her shoe, rubbing the ashes into the ground to make sure it was truly out. "I guess that's why it's so hard for her."

"..."

"I'm sorry, you were saying something... Hang on, I heard a crack... Serene! You okay?" A quavering affirmative floated back from the distance, saying something about "bowl." Aleu sighed. "I guess she broke the bowls... I didn't know she was that upset..."

"Oh, uhm. Right. Uh, I'll catch up with you." Aleu waved her hand, summoning up an orb of green light, an image of crystallized flame visible within the emerald glow. "Tranquility will follow you guys around; I can track it." With a regretful grin, Aleu saluted and started making her way in the direction of Serene. "And by the way -- south might be that way, but the temple," she jerked her thumb in the direction that Ari had originally been going. "Is that way."

[Arynielle]

"Interesting." Remede was sitting on a particularly large boulder, the ancient tablet in her hands. Her emerald eyes scanned the hieroglyphs and although she had a slight bit of difficulty, she could manage to make some sense of it. "This temple is enchanted so that it relocates, a different location for every phase of the moon." Her eyebrows narrowed slightly, as she skimmed over the hieroglyphs one more time to check for any translation errors she might have made. "Yes... I believe that's what it says."

"Then we were wrong to ask Ari-san and Tempest to come here." Zaunithe's voice fell silent, not in disappointment, not in frustration, but to wait for a confirmation from his companion.

Remede nodded. "I would assume so. What did last night's moon look like? It was in its waxing crescent stage, yes?" Without waiting for a reply, she buried herself into translation again, a dainty finger following the various lines of text. "It seems that we're quite a distance away. Contact Ari and tell her that she should actually head north, not south. From what I've gathered, this tomb should be located... at the end of seven colors."

"A rainbow." Zaunithe beckoned the orb over to him as he spoke, "Ari-san, go north. Search for a rainbow, for that is where Remede expects to find the tomb."

---

"Well, what do you know?" Ari exclaimed. "Looks like you're right, Aleu." Without much of a second's thought, she nodded toward the north. "Then that's where we're headed. We'll meet up with you later."

Tempest and Ari then headed off north, and this time the half-elf was quite a bit less eager to run off. She knew that she and Tempest were better off sticking together in the event of anything happening. The thought of the temple actually being a tomb was rather disgruntling, and a wee bit creepy.

They journeyed for about half an hour when they came to a large lake, a clear waterfall pouring into it. It was a beautiful one, they couldn't deny, but in order to go around the lake, they would have to travel east or west and then climb up a mountainous region in order to overcome the waterfall.

Ari was considering swimming, when Tempest interrupted her thoughts. "Your rainbow?" He nodded at the waterfall, where there was a faint, but clearly defined rainbow running across its falling waters. Conveniently enough, there seemed to be a trail of stepping stones headed toward the waterfall. The two headed off in that direction, ducking beneath the heavy stream of cool liquid as they noticed an overwhelming darkness.

"A tunnel," Ari noted. Her turquoise eyes went wide. "This is it, isn't it?" She summoned a small beam of light with magic, and led the way in.

"You're not going to wait for Zaunithe and Remede?"

"This is too exciting!" She giggled. Adventure was something that fueled her spirits. "They can catch up to us later."

A warning was ignored at the back of Tempest's brain; he had more of a "danger radar" than Ari did, but he made the mistake of following her since she was much too strong-willed to be convinced otherwise. In reality, yes, it would have been much safer to wait for the others. On the other hand, what kind of an adventure was safe? Danger made things so much more exciting.

In the darkness, where even the magic beams of Ari's light couldn't reach, there lurked a beast. This beast was a clever one, and so it waited, biding its time...

[Aleu]

"Serene," Aleu said quietly, coming up behind her sister and putting an arm around her shoulder. "You okay? Didn't hurt yourself, did you...?" Biting her lip and shaking her head slowly, the winged girl stared at the pieces of shattered ceramic by the riverbed. She nudged at it with her foot, a guilty expression starting to form on her face. Noticing, Aleu was quick to reassure. "Don't worry about them, sis... They aren't worth anything, and it's that much less to carry now. Come on, chin up, we're not done yet

Serene nodded slowly, tightening her wings a little closer around herself and shuffling uncomfortably. That... that was rather stupid... There wasn't anything to get upset about, it just... "Aleu... I..."

Aleu grinned wryly at her sister, shaking her shoulder a little. "Don't even bother. There's nothing you need to say. I understand." Draping herself over her sister's wings, Aleu pointed off in the distance. "Best to just keep moving at this point. Treasure's not getting any younger while we stay here, right sis?"

"....yeah... Thanks, Aleu..."

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

It's a beautiful waterfall, she thought, closing her eyes and taking in the soothing rumble of the cascading water falling into the lake that lay in front of her. A beautiful lake... if only you were here... she thought, nestling herself a little deeper into the recesses of the rocks and breathing deeply of the fresh, crisp air. If only... but it won't be long... Lying back with that happy thought in mind, she dozed in and out of a tranquil sleep, opening an eye from time to time to check for her long-awaited visitor.

...people... not who she was waiting for, though... The two of them seemed to be explorers -- they came, they saw, they dove into the water--- hey. Didn't know you could do that. Filled with curiosity, she stood up and walked around towards the stepping stones, looking hard at the liquid doorway.

Well, no harm in taking a peek, right? With that, Willow ducked her head and plunged into the darkness within...

[omio]

He saw quite a few other ones, and they all looked to be energetic, for the most part, which somewhat baffled him. Here was Avik, some strange guy with hair so dark, you'd swear it was black, but it was surely red. He wore a lot of brown, wanting to blend in with everything, but his hair just made him stick out too much. Like a sore thumb, some said, but he tended to disagree.

He, too, intended to come across this very tomb, and had apparently found it, along with a few other people. How they could manage to be just arriving here as he did and yet not be noticed earlier was something that did baffle him, but he merely dropped it, moving on. He seemed to mostly keep to himself, and was unarmed, but his gloves looked as if to have taken a beating before, along with his boots.

However, when it came to a sixth sense, it only worked on anything behind him, and so he managed to move onward towards the darkness, not saying much, though nodding to the others still outside slightly as he headed into the darkness, being the first to take a risk almost alone. Either I'm stupid, or awesome.