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Lost... yet again.

Started by Anonymous, May 01, 2008, 05:15:22 PM

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Anonymous

Everything around her seemed to have been laid out in earth tones, even the sunlight seeming to seep through the trees in many different shades of green or gold. The only part of Ardea that didn't stick out from this environment was her amber eyes. Eyes with happiness swimming through them just as noticeably as the green flecks dancing within those large and innocent orbs. Ardea stood out like a sore thumb against such a mellow and tranquil environment. Even from a distance she looked like a rather active red speck dancing through the trees.

Ardea was dressed in a short brown leather skirt with tight orange and white striped leggings underneath. Her shirt was nearly as bright of a red as her hair and the small pack on her back seemed to be the only worn thing about her. Otherwise the girl was a ball of insurmountable energy. Scrambling about the forest much like a squirrel, Skipping or running as she weaved in, out, and between trees occasionally climbing one on her way. Although short, Ardea was athletic and this showed in not only her movements but also in her appearance.

She spent her day much like this. Giddy and at complete peace with herself Ardea only remembered that she was going somewhere as the sun began to set.

"Oh what have I gotten myself into now."

She furrowed her brow in a way much like a confused but determined child and began searching for somewhere to make camp for the night, by now realizing that she was completely lost and would not be able to find her way out of the forest tonight.

Anonymous

The forest. A forest. For two people, the best place ever, for one, the worst place to be. Three brothers on an endless quest, wandering through the forest. Three men wandered through the dense woods. All three of them were young looking, they still had those boyish good looks to them. The men looked rather...similar...sure, their eyes and hair were different, their facial hair were all different. A grey haired man, who didn't look at all like he should have grey hair, at least, hair that matched his flowing grey robe, had no facial hair. Beside him, black hair, with little spots of white, matching his robe, which had a similar pattern. He seemed rather pleased, with a small soul patch under his bottom lip. His eyes however...unlike his grey haired friend who had grey eye, he had black eyes...a frightening look on him. Then came the last individual.

He looked like he was pouting while he walked. His arms crossed over his chest, his robe swirled and danced about him, the pure black colour was offset by a strange pattern, with a fiery pattern that was supposed to make it look like he was immolated by fire at all times. He had a goatee and simple black hair, the only strange thing...besides his robe...was his eyes, which burned like a sun. Fire red. He looked, to say the least, less than pleased.

"I could level it all. Just with a single thought." He muttered out loud as he held a tanned hand up, creating a small flame above his palm. "Oh leave it alone. The forest isn't hurting anyone. We can even have a fire tonight so you don't feel left out." The strange black eyed man seemed to tease him with that talk.

Nightfall came however and the three men were sitting around a rather comfortable looking fire, the smell of cooked meat playing in the air. The grey robed man just seemed to have his plate in hand, but had yet to touch it. "Oi. Gust. It's going to get cold, eat something would ya?" The red eye man reached over and gave his friend a pinch, who blinked a few times and looked down at his plate. "Oh. Food. Thanks Burn."  He picked up the leg of chicken and began to chew on it. "I swear Shade, it's your turn to look after him." The one called Shade, no doubt the black eyed man just stuck his tongue out at him. "Let him starve, he went a few days without eating before. When he wants to eat, he'll  eat. Now pass me that damned wineskin." As the night went on a little bit, the two livier men were laughing and going over stories, while the other man just...

Well he was sleeping...or...no, his eyes were open, he was just...relaxed against a fallen log, just staring up at the sky with a dopey smile on his face.

Anonymous

Ardea was just about to take the space directly in front of her as her camp when she could see flickering firelight in the distance and began traveling towards it. Ardea was a very open and trusting girl who thought nothing of the fact that the camp she had seen could hold in it poachers or cops. None of that even crossed her mind as she skipped merrily towards her comforting and warm flames.

Just looking at the flames before her Ardea felt cold. As if the lack of her own connection to the fire physically hurt and she immediately began clicking her tongue softly and creating a small fire in the palm of her hand. Once the connection had been made with the element she held so dear to herself, Ardea could feel her whole body tingle with a jovial kind of warmth and the clicking began to get a bit louder, just above a whisper, rapidly picking up speed as the fire grew and took shape into a little lion cub. Next out of a flicker of a flame came a butterfly. It flew in front of the little lion cub as he chased after it, both jumping off of her hand as they grew to life sized proportions.

She smiled at her creation through her words and for a moment didn't even need to use the quick and strange language as she watched them prance ahead of her. Too soon though she was rounding in on the fire before her and she reversed the process she had done so that all that remained of her beautiful creation was a small butterfly that nestled itself on her shoulder as she walked into the camp.

"Hello strangers! I'm Ardea, fellow traveler, and currently looking for a camp for the night."

Her voice was as sweet as honey but she spoke so rapidly that most of it was lost in her happy tone.

Anonymous

At first things were peaceful.

Until they felt it. Shade could feel it. Something disturbing the shadows in the night. Gust could feel it, sucking air from the forest to burn for fuel. Burn could feel it...because it was his passion, his light...his absolute. It made him grin. Gust did not move however, though his foot began to twitch to the sound of some unknown beat. They knew not why he did such a thing, but this was Gust, he was...well odd to say the least. He knew something was up, but he probably didn't care to share it with the rest of them.

That's when something came to their attention. Noises. At first Burn saw nothing but a small flickering light, While Shade could see everything at this point. There was a woman walking toward them. Burn glared slightly as the fire. Unacceptable. It was a fire puppet it seemed, or perhaps this woman could breathe the very essence of life into her creations. Whatever the reason, he was not happy about it.

The three said nothing, only two of them watched her carefully. This was...interesting, if not ill fated luck for her.

"Fine. Take a seat. I'm Burn. This is Shade, and the lump of grey over there is Gust. He doesn't talk much." Burn's voice was deep, an almost angry growl as his eyes flashed, watching her. The butterfly went out as if someone clicked a switch. Burn held his hand up, a small flame appearing in it as he watched it. It was the fire of the butterfly. "Interesting." There was something about it. His magic had a signature, always, this one however was different. It was more...he wasn't sure if it was more natural, or more...unnatural. However, he dismissed it, the fire in his hand dying as he slumped back.

"I suppose as gentlemen we should give her the tent to sleep in, aye Burn?" Shade asked as he looked to his brother. Shade's voice was lighter, but it was just as...strange. There was a darkness inside it, it was hard to tell just what it was but...it was strange really. Some might have thought...unnerving even.

"If the lady wishes it, she can have it."

Anonymous

Ardea smiled as they offered her a seat and immediately plopped down in the exact spot she had been standing in. Her face was lit beautifully with the fire before her but Ardea had always managed to glow beyond what her surroundings would let. Especially for those who looked for it. She was like a natural beacon. Her innocence, trust, and compassion showing clearly on her face as pretty pink lips smiled sweetly at the two companions watching her.

Soon this expression changed though. The warmth from her shoulder left and she watched the fire in Burn's hand for a moment with her head cocked to the side. She had a habit of doing that when something confused her or she didn't understand. His magic was different from her own. Ardea merely spoke to fire. In its own tongue, she still didn't quite know how she did it, though. The language spoken mostly through crackling sounds from the back of your throat as well as tons of clicks of the tongue always came to her. It wasn't translatable. She herself could never translate even vaguely what she was saying in a human tongue. The point though was that she didn't control the fire. She didn't push her own thoughts or disires into what it was doing. Instead she asked. She spoke to it and it tended to obey her... normally.

Fire was her element, but it was so in a way very different from the general majority's view of the living creature. Typically people drawn towards fire are destroyers. They show fires natural ability to kill or wreak havoc. To destroy lives. Ardea was the other side to this coin though. She showed that if you tend fire and you merely keep a watchful eye on it those flames could be your best friend. She was the fire that rested in everyone's hearth. It was what kept you safe from other animals in the dark. What kept you warm at night.

She snapped back to reality when she heard them offering her there tent. Immediately her head snapped back and a smile played on her lips again.

"Oh. No need to worry about me. I'm fine right here."

As if to prove a point while at the same time not doing it for any reason other than 'because she could' Ardea laid her back against the grass legs still folded in a criss cross position. She took a deep breath in, feeling comfortable around the fire and was almost tempted to start playing with it again before remembering that she was still gauging this other fire creature. She didn't like to play when there was a controlling fire element around. They tended to get agitated very easily and didn't really like her... although she could never understand why. She was always nothing but sweet to them.

Anonymous

She couldn't have been real. She was really way too...bubbly and innocent. Burn had to admit that he wasn't sure he liked the idea of taking advantage of the young girl. FIrst off, he had heard the clicking just as much as anyone else had, and it had sounded more like fire crackling. He wasn't sure what that really meant but he didn't like it. It spoke of trouble. Big trouble. Still...if they were quick about it all, kept her tied down or blindfolded her so she couldn't see them...

Hrm.

This was just like trying to get into a princess' bedroom.

Too many guards, and too many variables, and just a few unknowns actually. LIke what the hell she was and...why was she like this? Was she just...ahm...an idiot perhaps? Or was this all an act. Was she just like this at all times even? This woman who talked like fire?

"Well, if that's what you want then." Shade didn't mind that, it probably would have been better if she was in the tent...maximize efficiency and what not but...bah. Play it carefully then. Maybe not tonight. A pity really, Burn and Shade could have had some fun. Gust of course would have just been really quiet as usual. He didn't care about the things his brothers did really. He was off in his own little world in the end.

Burn and Shade stood up, moving a little bit away from the fire to set up their tent, which was big enough actually to fit three people. Of course, they only needed one big enough for two, Gust could sleep outside and would have no real idea it happened. He was lost on the wind for the most part. It only took them a few minutes to get it set up, and to have the bedrolls made up for all of them. "Gust. Come on, the tent is ready." The young grey haired man stood up and headed over to the tent, disappearing inside of it. "Well...I suppose we'll see you in the morning Miss Ardea." Burn had decided the best plan was to not try anything with her tonight, it would be a lost opportunity but it was probably easier to find someone in a city, a prostitute or something like that.

It must have been several hours later, well into the night, but not yet early morning, and Gust was already awake, crouched on a log just...watching Ardea with unblinking eyes. There was something strange about her. He could feel something odd about her...she just seemed different. However, Gust didn't say anything really. He just stayed quiet, watching her. This was one of his lucid moments actually. One of the times he was awake, that he was lucid and knew what he was doing really.

Anonymous

Ardea began settling herself in the grass and merely stared at the stares and played with the fire for a few hours before falling asleep herself. When the sun just began to change the dark colored sky with the sunrise Ardea began to wake up. Luckily she opened her eyes to the side that didn't portray Gust staring at her and merely saw him after she flipped over. Then she blinked a few times. Squinted. Rubbed her eyes. And finally looked away and then looked back again.

"Does my hair really look that bad?"

Her head tilted to the side again and her smile seemed playful. Ardea's bright red hair was cropped short so the bed head wouldn't have been that bad if it wasn't for the leaf sticking up fro the back of her head.

"But otherwise good morning."

She stretched before continuing.

"Or good night... if you haven't slept yet. Unless of course you did sleep but you slept during the day yesterday so that my night was your good morning and now my good morning is your good afternoon. In which case good afternoon."

She sighed and then thought over it in her mind before coming out with one more possibility.

"Please tell me you don't speak another language?"

Anonymous

Gust simply watched her, saying nothing at this time. He was smiling however, just lightly, one had to actually look to see it of course. She was interesting. Chatty, naive however, which was a little ...strange of course but still, there was people like that. Her comments made him smile as he hopped from the log and sat down on the edge of the log.

"I speak the common tongue, but I prefer..." He just trailed off as his eyes slowly seemed to unglaze and that goofy smile played onto his face. Burn had strieed at hearing voices, yawning as he walked out in nothing more than a long pair of satin black pants, coming over to put a hand on Gust's shoulder. "He's a wind mage. He listens to the winds, speaks to it, that sort of things. He's not very lucid, he's usually very out of it." Burn took a seat on the log beside Gust, looking at the fire carefully. His eyes slowly focused on the fire pit, and with a small movement from his hand, a burning fire came from the ashes.

"We're all mages. We're on a search to discover the true nature of magic, and of our chosen elements, so we can one day become our elements." Burn told her idly as he stared into the fire with a grin. Shade soon exited the tent as well, just like Burn he wore a pair of satin black pants, though his had little...polka dots on it really. Both Shade and Burn didn't look too muscular, but they didn't look flabby, they at least looked defined.

"Anyone hungry?" Shade asked as he looked to a small satchel at his side, hooked through a loop on his pants.

Anonymous

Ardea just cocked her head to the side at Gust's sudden trancing off, and afterwards while listening to Burn she still tried to test him almost. She couldn't decide whether this magic was good or bad.

"You don't understand your element?"

Her head cocked to the side and her brows furrowed in confusion. From her experience her element was all she knew. She knew it's every reaction to every situation. Just how tolerant and just how intolerable it could be. To not know her element, something that was so much a part of her, was like saying that she didn't know her own hands.

This important question was however forgotten at Shade's mention of food because she looked up and immediately noticed that the two were wearing the same pants and a broad grin appeared upon her face.

"Aw! You guys all shop together!"

Anonymous

"Not...exactly. It's hard to explain." Burn sighed as he shook his head. Explaining their quest to people was really hard. They just...had to do this. "We're searching to understand the true nature of magic and...nature. Connections and such. So we can ascend to true elementals. Shedding mortal coils and what not." Shade explained as he looked over to the woman with a small shrug. Burn's would be easy, fire wouldn't take too long to understand but...shadows were interesting. They weren't really...anything. They were the absence of light.

"Huh?" Burn blinked as he looked between himself and Shade. Oh, the pants. Well. They were similar weren't they? "These? Well...we all had them made for us a while ago. And well...we are brothers so...we do everything together." They had a close bond at least, though they argued, bickered, that sort of thing, they were still family, and they all respected that.

"So...what is a young girl like yourself doing out here all alone?"

Anonymous

She listened to them and looked around at the three young men before her. Elements? She could already assume that Burn was fire. It was a connection that she could feel existed. She figured something mysterious for Shade... just guessing off of the name there. And last was the gray one. Normally silent and half asleep. Perhaps wind or air? Those elementals can be really far out there sometimes.

"Oh wow! I am here to do something.... Shoot. What was it? What was it....?"

She looked around for a moment as if hoping that her answer would magically fall from the sky. Finally she gave up with a shrug.

"Oh well. I'll remember eventually. Do you need any help taking down the tent or anything? I'd offer to help cooking but previous experience shows that the whole forest would blow up if I dared to risk it. Wow... Your hair looks really cool. And fluffy!"

Ardea walked up to Shade in order to get a good look at his hair, by now completely forgetting what she was talking about in the first place. Ardea had a bad habit of doing such things.

Anonymous

Burn really couldn't believe she was allowed out here all on her own. She really seemed...well...absent minded would be putting it nicely. Bubbly. Easily excited. Huzzah. Just what they needed, someone full of life and coupled with a short attention span. This could just be...really bad couldn't it? "Yes well...I'll handle the cooking." Burn said as he took the satchel from shade, starting to get some pans out from it. Apparently it was a whole lot larger on the inside than it was on the outside.

Shade blinked several times as he was suddenly approached by the woman, looking up at his hair for a moment. "It's...just hair. Bed head hair for that matter...nothing really special about it." He dismissed her rather...er...strange habit for the time being, but noted that she probably was ah...well...a little ahm...how to put it. Unfocused. Yes.

How she managed to control magic, he'd never figure out. You needed discipline for that after all. She didn't really seem to have that sort of thing. Well, maybe there was something about her, she could have been a spontaneous caster, who just...used her powers automatically even. No one could really be sure with those types. They could have real power backing them, but no focus.

Sort of like Gust almost.

Imagine that.

Anonymous

Ardea merely shrugged and backed up a step at Shade's awkward reply. She didn't even find this strange. She was used to being shrugged off when she did things like this.

"You don't have to feed me if you don't want to."

She moved closer to where Burn was mostly because she felt like she should give Shade his space now, and she felt more drawn to the fire; it was comfort.

"Or I could give you money for this."

At this thought she suddenly realized something. She didn't have her pack on, and in this thought began walking around the camp searching for this.

"Where did I put it? Where did I put it?"

It was sitting right beside where she slept so it didn't take her more than a moment or so to find it and lift it in the air.

"Found it!"

Anonymous

"It's not as if we would be losing anything if we did." Burn told her as he started to prepare things. Just simple breakfast, a bit of sausage, maybe some egg and a bit of pan fried toast. That's about the extent of breakfast for them, and really it worked. Of course, they could carry full breakfasts with them if they wanted, having an ever holding satchel with them but they chose not to. It just didn't work for them really.

"Payment isn't really needed, we're doing this...because we can." That was the best way to put it. It wasn't really out of the goodness of their hearts after all. Oh my no. They would never! This was just because they could. Yes. Might have been helpful that she was rather cute, or because they feared what power she had.

While she started to wander about the camp, both Burn and Shade looked at each other first for a moment before at the woman. They weren't even going to ask, they had truly come in the company of one really strange person hadn't they?

Anonymous

Ardea tried to be calm after that... she really really did, but the silence was murdering her mood and she soon found herself tapping her foot or switching her seating position every two or so minutes. Finally she gave up and thought she'd start a lovely conversation.

"So. What is all of your favorite colors? Mine orange although all colors are very pretty and I wouldn't want to make any feel jelous."

And yes. She was for real. Ardea was just odd like that. She was one to say the most random thing you could imagine, but that's just because of how fast her mind works. Speeds impossible for most to imagine. She actually is incredably intelligent, and has the most amazing eye for detail. Most people don't get to see that in her though, then again most people don't look. She wears her heart on her sleve so much that most people assume nothing else is there, and Ardea is perfectly fine with that in her little bubble of naivete and happiness.

Anonymous

"Is...is she serious?" Burn asked as he looked to his brother who just...he didn't look at all happy about that. This girl couldn't be for real. She had to be...he really had no idea just what was going on. She was...silly. She was crazy perhaps.

"You...Ah huh...You are something. Well...I guess I enjoy red, blue, and orange." What else was he supposed to say. However, he did lean in toward Shade as he shook his head. "We really dodged an arrow by not sleeping with this one. Her stupid could have rubbed off on us." Burn wasn't too quiet about saying that either. This woman just...she was so unreal and he couldn't believe her. It was rather insane to say the least.

"If you can't really guess our favourite colours at this point you should pay more attention." Shade commented as he helped Burn to cook up breakfast, trying not to get an anuerism from this girl. How could she possibly...she survived for however many years and yet...nothing had killed or eaten her.

"I'd say that the food is ready." Burn started to dish out food onto some plates he produced from the satchel, handing them out to everyone after they were full. Utensils were naturally included. "Looks good." It was the good natured Gust who spoke up, looking at his food with a smile.