[Fallen_Snow]

His paws beat against the cold ground. His fur was blown back, the gray and brown blotched coat rippling in the cold wind. His two tails streamed behind him, barely moving unless he had to turn. He was using them as wind rudders, as he occasionally did. His eyes were squinting behind large aviator goggles, which he wore every now and then when he was going to be running long and hard. His eyes flopped back, exposing the light pink inside. His tongue lolled out of his mouth, and a white scarf clung hastily around his neck. Snowy had tried to prepare him for the cold weather, but he wouldn't let her weigh him down with heavy winter wear. He was a streamlined genius, made for running!

His paws felt good against the packed dirt road, and he slowed as he reached the Shrine. Nodding repectfully to a few monks, he threw back his head to make the goggles go up, holding his ears slightly perked back. His scarf hung dangerously close to his paws; if he wasn't careful he would trip over it. Stopping at the candles, he gazed at them silently, the flickering golden light holding his attention. He wondered casually if he would meet anyone here.

[Wyndhail]

(Human Form)
The medic did not really have a particular reason for coming here. Or, well, any kind of good reason.
On the contrary, he was simply lacking anything better to do and in need of, perhaps, a bit of relaxation.
A little visit to somewhere unknown to him seemed to be something to do for aforementioned relaxation and minor entertainment, and so the young man strolled along the well-trodden dirt path on his way to the relatively large shrine. Besides that it would be a good experience for him, he did find the history of the place quite intriguing. Supposedly this was where creatures like the Hunter or the Mekkayena could be found. Some people dismissed it as a rumor, but personally, Noah believed that the critters were there. After all, the ones who had said they could not be found here were probably the ones who hadn't seen any.
Wisps of steam curled up in front of his face as he breathed- 'seeing his own breath' some children might exclaim on a particularly cold school morning. They dissipated into the cool, crisp air as quickly as they had come.
While Noah was nearly always tired and never really in good shape since the accident that had caused many of his current health ailments, he had gotten used to his various issues and a faint smile was still on his face. A glance was given to the surrounding terrain, covered in glittering snow. Noah didn't particularly have an affinity for the cold, but his clothing was enough to protect him from it. As long as he wasn't freezing to death, the mountainous region here was quite picturesque to him. As long as he didn't overexert himself here he'd be fine, and he didn't intend to do any strenuous tasks or sprinting unless it was absolutely necessary.
'Absolutely necessary' is a phrase which here means 'if Noah detected anything getting injured or otherwise in some sort of trouble, including minor scrapes and cuts.' He would be ready with his band-aids right away, these being contained in his tacky and faded medic bag.
A monk stood solemnly to the side of the shrine's entryway, coming into view as the young man approached. He nodded and gestured welcomingly toward the doors, but said nothing. The medic smiled and gave a polite, hushed "Hello" as he entered from the frosty outside into the slightly warmer building. It didn't seem like the place to be boisterous. Not that Noah was boisterous.
When he was outside he had been wearing a heavy white jacket over his ordinary clothing, and there was no particular reason for it to be removed now. The inside was a bit warm, but he preferred his current attire. A light frosting of snow dusted his blonde hair, but it melted into cold dampness. Other than the somewhat more icy appearance he had right now all was normal: rectangular, black-rimmed glasses were perched upon the bridge of his nose, bright blue eyes (they looked rather tired) surveying the interesting sights that were in the current room. Ordinary, nondescript pants- as per usual- and a faded brown shoulderbag with a red medic's 'plus' sign slung over his shoulder topped off the man's look.
Chilled, pale hands slipped into his pants pockets, looking around the room and stepping about in the center of it when he turned to see a small animal peering- seemingly intrigued- at the flickering, dancing light of the various candles that littered the edges of the room. Upon closer inspection it was a Dalma, though of a color Noah hadn't really ever seen. Usually they were white and black. However, he figured not all of the members of one species would look exactly the same and thus dismissed that little intricacy. After all, not all Fellox could turn into humans and such.
He strolled closer to the Dalma- now standing about a yard away- and smiled cordially.
"... Hello there. How are you today?"
A voice tinged with a German accent was quite soft, yet still audible. He wouldn't want to scare the critter or something along those lines, and besides this he was not a particularly 'loud' person. That wasn't really his forte, anyway. There was absolutely nothing intimidating about him, and in fact he gave off the opposite reaction to most people he met. Noah either seemed calming and friendly or quite weak, typically combining both disastrously in a way that made him almost a slave to his own profession.
But he enjoyed it, did he not? It was a somewhat twisted relationship. It was almost like philanthropy, but he was running out of things to give.

[zapdragon555]

"Are we there, yet?"

Ah, the phrase asked by millions of kids worldwide. And the answer was always the same. "We'll get there when we get there, sweetie," a young blue Lucain, named Calypso, said to her impatient adopted daughter. "I don't want you breaking anything or knocking over anything when we get to the Shrine. Do you hear me?"
"Yes ma'am," the Kuhna, named Aurora, said. "I'll be careful." Aurora flexed her claws anxiously. "What if we find a Hunter? Or a Mekkayena?! Wouldn't that be awesome, Mommy?"
"Honey, you know how rare Hunters and Mekkayenas are," Calypso said dodgingly. "And besides; what would you do if you found one? Take it home and name it 'Fluffy'?"
"Maybe..." Aurora said, flicking a pebble out of her way with her claw. Suddenly the hyperactive Kuhna's gaze shot foward. "Look! It's the shrine!" she said, bounding ahead at high speed. "C'mon, Mommy!" the Kuhna said to her Lucain mom, who was lagging behind.
"I'm coming, sweetheart," she sighed. Racing foward to catch up with her little bundle of energy, the two neared the shrine in a matter of minutes. Aurora bounced in first, followed by Calypso. "Be careful!" she said as her daughter caught sight of a human and a Dalma.
"Hi, there!" she said loudly, only to be shushed by her mother. "My name's Aurora. What's yours?" she said, more softly this time. Her mother came to stand beside her.
"I suppose I should introduce us properly," Calypso said, glaring at her daughter. "My name is Calypso and this is my daughter, Aurora," she said, looking at the two. "What are your names?"

(1) (6)

[Fallen_Snow]

"Oh!" The Dalma yelped, surprised by the Fellox-man behind him. "I'm, uh, delightful, thanks," he said, furrowing his brow as he came up with delightful. "I'm called Farien, Farien Freethinker, to be exact. But Farien will do just fine." he said, wagging his tails against the white stone flooring. "What's your name, huh?" he barked quietly.

Just then, a Kuhna waltzed up to him. "Oh! Hi. Fraer- Fari- I'm Farien, genius, at your service." he finally got out, laughing at how he kept jumbling up his name. He loved jumbling up words. "Calypso and Aurora, huh? Pretty~." He said, smiling his dog smile and wagging his tails some more. He liked doing that, too. "I'm here to watch the candles and find crystal lions and mechanic hyenas. Have you seen any?" he asked, his eyes holding the question in their umber and blue depths.

[Wyndhail]

So he had scared the Dalma anyway. It made sense; the shrine was unnervingly quiet even with the footsteps of others that echoed off of the walls. The solemn shrine did not seem like a place to be spontaneously greeted in.
Just as he was about to respond with a 'nice to meet you' and his name in exchange, Noah heard two others enter the shrine. It would've been kind of hard to miss, Noah figured, because one of the aforementioned two others was a seemingly rather rambunctious young kuhna. The medic turned around, figuring that the most effective thing he could do right now would be to introduce himself to all three of them at once. (There was a moment when he looked quizzically at both the Kuhna and the Lucain and wondered how in the world the Kuhna could be the Lucain's daughter, but it would not be polite to ask and it wasn't his place anyway. His expression turned back into a tired smile.)

"... Er, hello, it is nice to meet you all as well..." His hands were still in his pockets, one of which contained a capped pen that Noah had for some reason forgotten was there. "My name is Noah..." His voice trailed off awkwardly, but the ever-present smile was still there. Faint and tired, but still sincere. It became a bit amused once Farien referred to finding 'crystal lions and mechanic hyenas. Have you seen any?' Personally he didn't really think Calypso or Aurora had seen any... but that was just him. Noah did notice that both the Dalma and the Kuhna might very well get into trouble. This trouble could possibly involve band-aids.
Yes, he was always the one to be prepared for any possible scrapes. It was... his job.

[zapdragon555]

"Nice to meet'cha, Noah and Farien!" Aurora said, bouncing a little. "'Crystal lions'? 'Mechanic hyenas'?" she looked at Farien as if he was crazy. "Oh! You must mean Hunters and Mekkayenas!" she said, louder than she meant to. She was quickly shushed by her mom.
"No, we havn't seen any," Calypso said, a bit uneasy at Farien's 'pretty~' comment. "Er, thank you?" she said a bit awkwardly. She noticed that Aurora had walked over to a candle, and was sniffing it casually. "Aurora!" Calypso scolded. "Enough!"
The Borealis Kuhna burned under her mother's gaze and slunk back to where the group stood. "We'd love to find one, though!" she said, her mood returning to normal (if you could call it that). "I want to find a Mekkayena! I'll take it home, and name it Fluffy, and brush it, and feed it, and--" She was silenced by a sweep of one of her mother's tails over her constantly moving mouth. She held it there for a few heartbeats and then removed it, allowing Aurora to breathe again.
"Well, if you're looking for one," the blue Lucain said to Farien and Noah, "I suppose we could come with you, if you'll have us."

(2) (7)

[Fallen_Snow]

"Oooh, well yeah. That sounds like fun. You should come too, Noah. Hey, got any food in there? This genius is hungry- forgot to load up on snacks before leaving." he woofed, getting up and sniffing at Noah's bag. His nose crinkled and he made a face. "Oh, dear, that smells bad! What is that- doctor stuff? Well, we could use a doctor. Those hyenas--I have heard--are dangerous. Very, very dangerous. They served Xai're." he said with a solemn nod. "Yeah, you should come. We may need you." Farien concluded with a smile, wagging his tails back and forth slowly.

He looked towards Calypso. "Yeah? Oh, cool! I like the hyenas that are all confused. According to my studies," he said, puffing out his chest importantly, "I've found that some are a bit 'glitchy', since their part robot. So their brains aren't right, if you get what I'm saying. Some are even just plain goofy, so maybe you can get your Fluffy!" he said brightly.

((Sorry for taking so long, guys. ^^;;))

[Wyndhail]

Oh. Well.
Noah wasn't too sure about this whole 'looking for scary/angry/metal things' plan, but there wasn't going to be any sort of persuasion attempt on his part. He wasn't too good at it in the first place, and it seemed that they were quite intent on going anyway. (Maybe not Calypso as intently as the Borealis Kuhna, but hey, she didn't seem to be overly bothered by it. Overly.) The medic was thrown off slightly by the 'they served Xai're' because death was really just a big kick in every doctor's face, but all of this seemed to be outweighed by the fact that the three of them might require his assistance at some point. Noah did have a feeling, however, that both Calypso and himself would have a handful with the two of them if they ran as fast as they talked. Aurora seemed to be intent on brushing, feeding, and so forth her potential Mekkayena. Dear me.
A short, one-syllable laugh followed Farien's comment on his 'doctor stuff'.

"Er, no. No snacks in here... Although, yes, it is 'doctor stuff'." He trailed off momentarily. "I suppose I'll come with you then."
Noah appeared to pronounce his w's as v's most of the time.
But it was not as if he wasn't going to be coming anyway. Truth be told, he wouldn't like to somehow find out that one of them had gotten hurt just because he wasn't here, and even though the odds were that he would most likely never meet them again he would still worry about their wellbeing if he was gone. The odds were, if we were going to keep talking about odds, that they would probably not find anything special. He intended to go into the shrine before he had met them, anyway.
When it came down to it, though, Noah was never one to refuse the chance to help someone else, whether that meant simply accompanying them on this or (nearly) anything else. With this said and not actualy yet done, he smiled at the Lucain.
"Well, I suppose this means I will  be coming with you then, yes? I was not really looking for anything in particular, but I will certainly come anyway."
It did seem kind of fun to him, but in the 'go get your children to sit on Santa's lap' kind of way. He didn't really see it as too likely that Aurora was going to get her 'Fluffy', but it was worth doing anyway.

[zapdragon555]

Aurora grinned hugely. "Awesome!" she said, learning to control her voice a bit more. "Where should we start looking?" she said, looking around.
"I'm not quite sure..." Calypso mused. "Perhaps we should just start wandering? Or is there a specific place we should--"
"Ooh! Ooh!" the Kuhna said raising a paw in the air, cutting off her mother's statement. "I think Mekkayenas are found in the Halls of the Lost!"
The blue Lucain shivered at the mention of the Halls of the Lost. "Uh, I-I think we should start here," Calypso said, acting as if she hadn't heard her daughter's statement. She began to walk toward a hallway that lead to a room with many candels.
Aurora flicked her ear in annoyance. "Fine, don't listen to me," she muttered under her breath. She followed her mother into the room, only stopping to look back at the others. "You guys coming?" Aurora teased.

(3) (8)

[Fallen_Snow]

Farien laughed. "Oh, I'm not listened to much either, even though I think my ideas are genius. No one respects 'em. But you should listen to your mom." he said with a smile. As the grown-ups walked past them, he quickly whispered in her ear, "When we find a suitable time, we'll leave them and go to the Hall of the Lost. I think you may be right." he said, wiggling his eyebrows mischievously.

Catching up with the others, he felt that he should try to start up a conversation. "So... what brought you both to this fine... shrine on this beautifully cold day?" he asked, his tails sweeping back and forth, just touching the warm tile beneath him. His rhyme made him smile.

Fun, fun, fun. This was great! Meeting new people, making friends, rhyming even! So much fun.

[Wyndhail]

Dear me. The Halls of the Lost? The name itself wasn't even appealing whatsoever, and from what he had heard of it the place itself matched the feeling the title gave. Judging by the attitudes of Aurora and Farien, though, he figured they'd end up in there one way or the other. However, there was no point in just rushing in there or something like that. They could at least enjoy the decorations and historical relevance of the place before just... diving in there and such. They would have to go through other places to get there, anyway.
Seeing that the Kuhna and her apparent foster mother (unless he was mistaken, but he wasn't really sure at this point) were now on the move, Noah briskly caught up to them.
Not too briskly, of course.
Noah did enjoy Farien's demonstration of proper virtues. Yes, Aurora ought to listen to her mother though he wasn't one to poke into anyone's business about such things. He wasn't sure what he would do if Aurora/Farien/both chanced to run off and get terribly lost somewhere, not that getting lost at all couldn't be considered terrible at some point. Obviously he would definitely have to look for them, simply for the purpose of making sure nothing happened to either of the two. Ah, children.
A few moments passed as they walked with little more noise than the sound of shoes/paws stepping on the cold floor of the shrine. Then Farien asked a question, apparently not directed to one person. The medic took the time to answer it, as such.

"Well, I merely came to take a short break from my occupation and things like that. I guess it's a bit selfish of me," Of course he'd think that way. "... but at least I can be useful here." Noah shrugged and smiled.

[Fallen_Snow]

((Since Zap hasn't posted in a while...))

Farien nodded at Noah's comment. "Well, yeah! You can be useful here. Actually, I've been prone to stumbling and falling and stuff so you could come in handy. Thanks for coming here! And I thank you in advance for saving my life." Farien said, and then leaned in close, whispering, "Just in case."

Trotting along happily, Farien led the way to the candled room, his tails swinging back and forth with the beat of his step. "So... what are you interested in, friends?" he asked in his intelligent voice. He wished he had a cool pipe, that makes people think you're smart. And his paws itched to move faster, but he had no intention of leaving behind his friends. No, he would keep his pace slow (for now, anyways.).

[zapdragon555]

(Urf. Sorry, school's been rough and my muse was kinda dead. x3x;;)

Aurora nodded vigorously at Farien's comment. She didn't like disobeying her mother, but she had to find a Mekkayena! "We came because we wanted to find a wild pet!" she said, bouncing. "Plus, my mom has been wanting to visit the shrine for ages!"
Calypso rolled her eyes at this comment, and flashed a glance at Noah, silently trying to tell him that the Kuhna was lying. "Er, yes. I've always been fascinated with the shrine," the Lucain said. She stared at the glowing candles that circled the room, the light flickering with the sound of their paw (and foot, in Noah's case) steps. "I do actually feel pretty at home here, with all the ice and snow..." she said softly.
"Yeah, my mommy's a waterbender!" Aurora piped up, wagging her tails. "Show them what you can do, Mommy," the little Kuhna pleaded.
"Oh, I don't know," Calypso said, eyeing some snowmelt on the floor of the shrine, just waiting to be manipulated. "I wouldn't want to accidentally knock over a candel or something..."

(4) (9)

[Wyndhail]

(S'fine. xD~)
Noah just looked at Farien incredulously what with the whole 'thanks in advance' thing. It was as if he was actually suggesting that he might/probably would get hurt in here. Dear me.
Still, a thank-you was a thank-you.

"Er, yes, you're welcome."

He would prefer that everyone at least try not to go nuts in here, but the medic figured that children and rambunctious people were... well, just that. He could at least hope that neither Farien nor Aurora would act a bit risky because someone with bandages was around. There was definitely the opportunity to get pretty lost here, and especially in the Halls of the Lost. Besides, that place had 'Lost' right in the name. (He had a feeling that it didn't mean what his mind was using it for, but Noah's point still stood.) If they were looking for a Hunter or a Mekkayena they would definitely be going through there at some point, but it would be better if they all went in at the same time.
Attempting to discard all of this vaguely grim/somewhat pessimistic thinking (or at least put it into the back of his mind), he did give an amused smile at the look Calypso gave him. Noah had a feeling that it was mostly at Aurora's will that the two had gone there, though the lucain didn't particularly seem to be hating it. She did say she felt at home here. At the mention of 'waterbending'- which Noah quickly figured would be manipulating water in some way- he looked curiously at Calypso.

"Waterbending? What exactly does that entail?"
Noah wasn't really well-versed in terms of the magical arts. He didn't really have much experience with that sort of thing.

[Fallen_Snow]

Farien was fairly interested in the waterbending also, but at the same time, he really wanted to stare at the candles some more. He felt like they were the things provoking thoughts in his head, and all he could think about was that each candle was inspired by a thought, and that each thought was like the light of that candle. The blowing out of a candle symbolized the idea of others putting down that idea. Farien hoped that they all worked like trick candles- can never blow hard enough to make the spark die.

Stubborn thoughts were fun.

But he let his ears open to this talk of waterbending and asked himself in thoughts if it was possible to learn such skills without any actually talent running through your veins and in your cells for it. Knowing that his cells didn't appreciate when he tried to make them something they weren't, he dismissed the matter. For another time and person, maybe, but not him.

"Yeah, how does that work?" he asked, his paws trotting a little bit more so as to speed up their pace. He didn't want to leave them behind, but the tempo of his was really beginning to beguile him into a slower thought process and he just couldn't take it. The step of their feet must speed up, or his mind (and theirs, too) would turn to icky gray-pink mush! And mush was not for thinking! Mush was for leaky brainers who don't care about their lives! He didn't like people he considered leaky brainers, no sir.

((... This is so much fun. <3 And it's okay, Zap. :3))