[Yomegami]

The lightning flashed overhead, although it did not illuminate much. It was followed by a rolling thunder, almost scaring a certain Hydrokuhna down below out of her wits. Not to mention it was raining. A lot.

Skye wasn't too sure why she was out in a thundershower, in the middle of the day though it may be. Perhaps it was because the kits she was taking care of wanted to go out. She would have been content with taking them to Terrace Park, where it was nice and safe, but noooooo - these kits wanted to head for Craiss and see the Crystal cities the hunters left behind.

The thing was, these weren't her kits - they were the progeny of another kuhna in her pen, the demon Ankara. As he had other business to tend towards, he had left his children with her for their safety. And it was just Skye's luck that they, too, were demons.

The darker of the two kits, a murky kuhna named Oroki, was already at the mouth of the cave, being much faster than either Skye or his sister. Rearing up on his back legs, he gazed at the cave with wonder in his eyes.

"Looky, Aunty Skye! Looky, Tia! It's the cave!" he said, childish wonder filling his voice.

"I see it, Oroki." Skye called back, a tone of friendliness in her voice - although the tone was mainly to conceal her fear of what they might find in there.

Tiamat, a light-colored Translucent kit, was quick in joining her brother next to the cave entrance. Although she said nothing, she too was happy to be here. It beat standing around at home - it was too humid in the kuhna temple, or at least in her opinion.

Skye was a bit slow in getting there. By the time she got to the place the kits were standing, they had already gone into the cave - although for different reasons. Tiamat wanted to get out of the rain, Oroki was getting impatient.

"Come on, Aunty Skye! Don't you want to see the cities?" Oroki asked.

Skye was hesitant in answering, but eventually walked into the cave as well. "I'm still not too sure why this was your choice...." she said.

"Don't worry, Aunty Skye, we'll handle everything!" Oroki said, just before Tiamat playfully pounced on her brother. Giggling insanely, both kits darted off into the darkness.

"Hey! Be careful!" Skye called out after them, then rolled her eyes. Demons, she thought before running off after her wayward companions.

((No more than two active people please? Too many people make RPs move slow....))

[Yomegami]

Fast although they were, it still didn't take too long for Skye to catch up with Tia and Oroki. But that was mainly because they stopped running to wait for her.

It was much darker back here than it was at the entrance, but that didn't bother Oroki - he could see perfectly in these low-lit conditions. It didn't bother Tiamat much, either, as she was capable, even at this young age, of producing a small flash of light to guide her way.

Skye was probably the worse off. Being your average Hydrokuhna, the only powers she possessed were those possessed by other hydros. And her night vision wasn't the best, either. Fortunately for her, there was still some light filtered in from the entrance. Occasionally, a sound of thunder from outside echoed through the cave.

Skye looked over her shoulder, perhaps wanting to leave.

Oroki and Tiamat, however, couldn't be more different. Neither of them looked the slightest worried or scared - if anything, they were eager to carry onwards.

"Come on, Aunty Skye!" Oroki called. "Let's go!"

"Aren't you nervous about running into an Akail?" Skye asked, getting more worried by the second, or so it seemed.

"Akail? We laugh in the face of Akail! Ha! Ha! Ha!" came the response. Apparently, even the most dreadful danger was nothing in the face of childish innocence.

"Well, at least wait for me before you go running off again," Skye sighed, admitting defeat.

[Yomegami]

At the end of Skye's statement, the two young demons promptly ran off yet again - but this time, they didn't go far.

Oroki halted, his attention on something carved on the cavern wall. "Tia! Help me get up there, I wanna see what that is!"

Tiamat was just as curious as Oroki when it came to the marking, and thus she willingly helped her brother, balancing his hind paws on her own forepaws, with Oroki's front paws on the wall.

Skye followed their eyes to the object they were glancing at - which turned out to be one of the runes she had heard about before she arrived here.

"What does it mean, Aunty Skye?" Oroki asked, to which Skye shrugged.

"I don't know, Oroki. Perhaps we'll find out later...." she responded.

Oroki and Tiamat exchanged glances, and then Tiamat set Oroki back on the ground.

"Wait! I know! We'll find one of those Akail you mentioned, and ask him what it means!" Oroki exclaimed suddenly.

Skye couldn't help but chuckle, before she had to chase the . Kids came up with ridiculous answers to problems sometimes. "How do you know that the Akail-"

But before she could finish her question, brother and sister had run off. Again.

[Yomegami]

By now, Oroki's and Tiamat's seemingly endless energy was beginning to wear their poor nanny out. Thankfully, the twosome knew that Skye lacked their endurance, and stopped every time they realized their guardian was somewhere behind them.

Panting, Skye plopped her bottom down next to the pair. "Maybe.... we should.... find a place.... to rest...." she sputtered in between breaths.

"But Aunty Skye, where is there a place-" began Oroki, but his sister interrupted in her first words since they started out.

"What's that light coming from?" Tiamat asked in a soft voice. Her gaze was soon followed by Oroki's and Skye's.

"I dunno, Tia. Do you know, Aunty Skye?" Oroku responded to his sister, and questioned of Skye.

Skye thought for a few seconds. Then it came to her.

In addition to the Crystal cities, there was also the grave of Shi'Hana, the gyrraptor who gave up her life to fight the Imperials here. The location of the grave must be where the light was coming from.

"Amazingly, yes. I think it's the grave of Shi'hana, a gyrraptor who fought and died fighting the Imperials during the War. I'm not too sure if you want to see that, though?"

Oroki and Tiamat leaped to their feet. "The grave of a war hero? Oh, cool! Come on Tia, let's go see the grave!" Oroki yelled, and then the two darted off in the light's direction.

I hope that's what it is, anyway.... Skye thought as she ran for what felt like the hundreth time.

[Yomegami]

"Aunty Skye! It is! It is the grave!"

Oroki looked beside himself in excitement as the three kuhnas strode into the cavern of the grave of Shi'hana. Skye sighed with relief that her guess was, indeed, correct.

Although she sat down to catch her breath, Oroki and Tiamat ran right over to the grave and began examining it.

"So this gyrraptor gave her life to fight a war? Neat!" Oroki exclaimed. "Maybe not the sort of thing I'd do, but still, that's pretty brave." Tiamat, however, had returned to her quiet self and said nothing.

"Maybe you two should be respectful." Skye said to the two, "this is a grave where we're at and you're walking all over it." Upon that realization, the siblings looked down, then looked at each other, and then hopped off.

"Now...." Skye began, lying down, "Let me have a little rest, and we can continue onwards to the Crystal cities."

Wherever those are....

[Maelstrom]

[/center]
(OOC: join?)

The heavy rain poured down, drenching the land and ensuring that the cloaked human and its pair of hollowheart companions traveled slowly, slogging through mud and muck. On this miserable day, the triad made slow going, following an aged, nearly indeciperable map and hampered by the weather. After much wandering off course followed by backtracking, they finally stood at their destination: an entrance to the legendary Craiss Caverns. Striding through the cave mouth, each of them, though the two hollowhearts would never admit it, felt a little of the weight on their shoulders lift. They were one small step closer to the fulfillment of their vital goal.

Human and hollowheart alike paused to try and dry themselves. The human removed the long, thick cloak, revealing a young woman in clothes so mud-spattered that whatever the original color had been, you certainly couldn't tell now. Laying her cloak down on a rock, she tried to wring the water out of her brown hair, shivering in wet clothes.

"Mistress? If you'll move down the tunnel a ways, we can dry ourselves," said the void hollowheart.

"Thank you, Andromache. My apologies, I was thinking." She started walking down the tunnel after picking up her cloak from the ground. Her only unusual feature, odd green-gold eyes, squinted in the gloom, trying to see by the light of glowing runes on the walls.

"Why couldn't we have flown!" demanded the blood hollowheart, spreading his wings and shaking vigorously in an attempt to shed water. His companion Andromache bared her teeth in a hollowheart version of a sneer and began to shake herself as well.

"If you had flown, you very well might have been electrocuted, Meriones." The woman continued to study the runes as she finished, "Besides, the winds were strong enough that you might have been blown off course anyway." Looking up to find the two hollowhearts beginning to head down the tunnel towards her she warned, "Do not forget why we have come. Above all, we must not fail." The hollowhearts looked grim at the reminder, and all three headed deeper into the Craiss Caverns.

(1/5: 1,1)

[Maelstrom]

Breaking the silence that blanked the Caverns like a thick wool blanket, the human commented, "If I were a superstitious person, I would say that today's weather was an ill omen for our quest."

"Superstition is just an excuse for the weak and fearful!" scoffed arrogant Meriones.

Andromache added her thoughts on the subject, "There is enough misfortune in this on its own, without adding the anticipation of more because of an old wives' tale, Mistress."

The woman chucked at her companions' vehemance. "Peace, friends. I was only teasing. Besides, we have enough trouble without making extra up. On that note, we do have something of a problem."

"Mistress?" "What problem?!"

"When we came inside, I didn't notice it immediately. But there were puddles farther down the tunnel, and muddy prints where none of us had walked yet. There are at least three others near here, perhaps more; the trails overlapped frequently."

"The bad news is, the prints aren't big enough to belong to an Akail. The worse news? I know that the creatures are fairly small, quadraped, and walk on paws, but I don't know what they are. The prints match no creature in Eden's Hollow, and I haven't traveled enough to be able to recognize them."

All of them lapsed back into silence again, continuing deeper under the earth.

(2/5 :1,1)

[Yomegami]

((Y'know, you've could've waited for me before double-posting.... >>))

By this time, all three of the kuhnas had since fallen asleep. It had been a long journey here, so the rest was muchly needed - well, for Skye, anyway.

Being the most active, it was only natural for Oroki to wake up first. He yawned, exposing a multitude of tiny, sharp, teeth, and stretched. Looking around, he saw that neither Skye, nor Tiamat was awake.

"That's good then," he said, speaking to himself, "that means I can go run around for a little while." And so, he left the cavern of the grave, walking back out until he had reached the main tunnel again.

Once he was there, he noticed something odd - the runes around here were glowing. That was interesting. Very interesting.

But, before he could think about what that meant, he heard something. At first, he thought it was the thunder from outside again. But no - this sounded like footsteps.

Of course, being young, the first conclusion that came to his mind was - it was an Akail.

Oh, boy! An Akail!, he thought. Then he raced right back.
------

"Aunty Skye! Aunty Skye! It's an Akail! An akail's coming!" Oroki yelled as he lept onto the sleeping Skye. His action, of course, was paticullary successful in waking the hydrokuhna up.

"What? Akail?" Skye asked, still half-asleep.

"Akail, Aunty Skye! Akail! I heard it!" The young murky kept saying, leaping up and down and beside himself with excitement.

Skye's reaction was not what he expected. She gasped, then pulled Oroki under her right arm, and then proceeded to rouse Tiamat.

"What is it, Aunt Skye?" she asked in mid-yawn. "There's an akail coming. Or so Oroki tells me." Skye looked nervously towards the entrance.

"Akail? Sweetness!" Tiamat responded.

At this time, Oroki wretched himself from underneath Skye's leg. "Come on! Let's see the Akail, and ask him what the runes mean!" With that, he darted out of the cave.

Tiamat was quick in following, leaving Skye a nervous wreck.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no...." she panted. Then, she too ran out - except her reasoning was to protect the kits from the "akail," not to see it herself. She didn't want to see it, nor know what it planned to do....

[Maelstrom]

(Sorry if I offended you, I just prefer to split my posts if they get ridiculously long, like that one. I read the rules, but it didn't actually say anything about double posting, so if I'm in error, I'd appreciate if you'd tell me. Thanks)

"The map doesn't tell us anything but how to get here? Useless! I'd better be able to fight something here or - "

The hollowhearts, with their sharper hearing, noticed it first. "Mistress! Meriones and I hear something."

"What? I don't hear anything. What kind of sound?"

"Quiet footsteps - "

Andromache's explanation was interrupted by high, faint voices that even the young human could make out. They strained tensely, trying to make out words or location. "Curses! Everything echos so much down here they could be miles away or right down the corner!"

"Maybe they're Akail! I bet -"

"Don't be stupid," interrupted Andromache, "Akail are notoriously good at keeping hidden. It is far more likely that the voices belong to whoever made the unknown tracks. I do not know how many their numbers are, Mistress, but it seems they are coming closer."

They turned to face down the tunnel and braced themselves for whatever might be coming.

(3/5, 1,1)

[Yomegami]

((Well, there isn't a rule about double-posting. That's just a preference of mine.))

"I was right here, and I heard it! I heard it!" Oroki spoke wildly to his sister as they left the side tunnel from Shi'hana's grave. He was nearly beside himself with excitement. They were going to see an Akail!

Tiamat, although just as excited as her brother, wasn't jumping up and down, and in fact was looking over her shoulder nervously. "I wonder where Aunt Skye is....?"

"I'm right here, Tiamat. *pant*" came the response, and soon enough the Hydrokuhna soon joined her companions.

Oroki gave Skye a wide grin. "Hear it, Aunty Skye? It's the akail!" he exclaimed.

Skye tilted her head to the side and listened. "That doesn't sound like an akail...."

"What else could it be? It has to be an Akail! I don't think anyone else is here!" Oroki responded, halting his eager jumping.

"The akail, if what I've heard is correct, are only the size of a man. This sounds like something huge. Battlehearts, maybe." As the words left Skye's mouth, she wished she hadn't said that.

"Battlehearts?!" Tiamat exclaimed, suddenly alarmed. "I don't want to meet battlehearts!"

Oroki at first looked in the direction of the entrance, then at Skye, then at Tiamat. Then he screamed.

Upon hearing her brother scream, Tiamat decided that was the plan of action and started screaming herself.

"I didn't say it was battlehearts! I meant that as -" Skye began, in what was a futile effort to calm the kits down; however, the kits turned away and raced off to head further into the caves - where a real akail might be lurking, waiting for a panicked meal that Skye had unwittingly made for it.

As she too decided that it wasn't a good idea to stick around this area, she thought: I don't even want to know what Ankara will do once he find out I've failed!

[Maelstrom]

"What is that?"

"...I think perhaps that we have miscalculated."

"Miscalculated? Ha! Little furries are right to be frightened of me!"

"Those with too much agression and too little brains should not to display such arrogance, unless they wish to be made a fool of."

Meriones bared his teeth at Andromache and sulked down the corridor.

"I am concerned; what would make them panic like that? Whoever they are, hopefully they are unharmed."

"I should go before you if there is danger, Mistress."

"You are right, Andromache. Thank you. Go ahead, and try to help Meriones keep a hold on his common sense."

"That one has no common sense to speak of, but I shall try."

The void hollowheart inclined her head to the woman, and slipped down the tunnel. Pausing for a moment, the human sighed. "Sometimes I get the feeling this was just a cosmic joke ordained by the Evils."

(4/5: 1,1)

[Yomegami]

Oroki and Tiamat, not looking back, still screaming, kept on running and running, until they could not hear the shuffling of the beasts they assumed to be battlehearts. In fact, they only stopped running when Tiamat began to run out of breath.

"You okay, Sis?" Oroki asked, turning to his sister.

"Yeah." Tiamat responded, then she looked over her shoulder. "Maybe we should have waited for Aunt Skye. She isn't as fast as we are, you know."

Oroki glanced at one of the glowing runes on the wall. "You're right. We should have. I hope the battlehearts didn't get her...."

"We need to go back and help her!" Tiamat exclaimed, jumping a few inches into the air. "We told her we'd take care of everything, and if we've gotta fight battlehearts, we'll fight battlehearts!"

"Right!" Oroki said. "Now, this is what we're gonna do...."

------

Skye, having decided running off and screaming wasn't the best idea to avoid getting noticed, had turned to keeping close to the wall, and slowly progressing forwards. It was in doing this that she was first to see exactly what was the source of the shuffling noises. They weren't battlehearts, as she had suggested, but rather hollowhearts, along with a human that was obviously their trainer.

Well, battlehearts were indeed something to flee before, but hollowhearts were a bit more benevolent. Still, with dragons of their size, she wasn't going to take the risk.

As she turned around, and continued on her slow way, she thought: At least I can tell them what the sound really was. Not that it'll help any. Of course, she wasn't counting on the twosome to come racing back to save her....

[Maelstrom]

Yep, one big fat cosmic joke, but the Purities were definitely in on it too, thought the human. As she listened to her two hollowheart companions snipe at one another, she gritted her teeth, and abruptly snapped.

"Friends, this grows tiresome. Do be quiet!"

Ah, blessed silence...

A suitable time later for her temper to mellow, Meriones, who was in the lead still, tenatively observed, "There's somebody sneaking towards us. I can smell em' and hear their claws scrape the floor. Nothing Akail size though. Pity, might have had a good fight."

"If it means us no harm, I would be quite willing to let whoever it is go their merry way."

"Shhh..."

(5/5; 2,2)

[Yomegami]

((I'm going to close this. I've lost my muse here, and I'd like to have my kuhnas for other RPs. Hopefully, this won't cause any issues....))

Oh dear, it seemed everybody had to be elsewhere. The three kuhnas quickly looked back and forth. Then, they all bolted for the mouth of the cave, never to be seen again.

Well, except maybe for Tiamat....

[Maelstrom]

(no problem, I've got plenty of other stuff to keep my attention. I'll just do a withdraw post and skip off into the sunset. *Squeal* Your kuhnas grew up, and they're completely adorable! *luffs on them*)

"Perhaps we need to plan this better. If we returned to Eden's Hollow, we could regroup, possibly find more information, and return on a more favorable day."

The hollowhearts conveyed their assent, and all three retraced their steps through the tunnels, stepping back into the darkness and rain.