[Funkduder]

((CHANCE))

The hint of red disappeared as the Averad blinked suddenly.

"What was that?" he thought. Walking over to the hint of red that he saw, he looked right and left and up and...down at his feet, was an apple core.

Averad bent down to pick up the apple core as he looked around. It looked fresh to him. "Hello," Averad called to the open wild. "Is anyone there?"

[Kalei]

Marie breathed in the town’s air and walked along the worn cobbled roads of the town. There was a distinct odor under all the usual town smells. 'This town must be near the Enchanted Forest' thought Marie. She had already reported her findings to the Red Queen with her crystal ball, and requested to stay a while longer. The Queen consented reluctantly, but Marie had her reasons. 'my gut tells me something is going on' she thought. Marie had long learned to trust her instincts, so In her normal child-sized form she decided to head for a place to listen for any unusual rumors.

'That'll do', Marie thought as she spotted a pub. She moved silently, her traveling cloak barely rustling. Marie briefly detoured to a deserted alleyway. 'would be trouble if someone saw me change' she thought. Once she was two inches tall Marie made the rest of her trek to the pub, being careful to avoid the puddles and not get stepped on. The pub, called the Laughing Sally, was the perfect place to gather information. Kind of shady, where the patrons were questionable, but could trusted somewhat because they weren't desperate for money. 'people have loose lips once they downed a pint or two of ale' Marie smiled to herself as she crept around the room. All she had to do was stay hidden and keep an ear out for the right conversation.

[Poggio]

Sebastian heard something vaguely like human voices as he walked. He still held on to the apple no longer having the appetite for it. The young prince felt like he was being paranoid hearing voices. It was only because he'd finally met a human again. The first one in nearly 4 years. That wasn't his only concern however. The trees were slowly starting to dwindle and just beyond them the prince could see lush country side. Rolling hills of farm lands decorated with spots of animals that mooed in a harmonious symphony. Unfortunately for him the sun was going to sleep just beyond the horizon. He looked at the back of Red's head as she continued along her path. In the distance he could see a small cloister of lights. Biting his lips he said to her but more to himself. “Then I will have to pay you later.” As soon as the last rays of the light disappeared, Sebastian felt his bones aching, shifting. The small hairs on his skin started to resemble something like fur and before he knew it, Sebastian felt his body shift into a more naturally comfortable four legged position..

Using a hind leg he kicked the fabric around his legs till he was free. Then in one bite he swallowed the apple that he neglected to eat. Trotting behind the smell of dirt, lilies and cotton. The nerves in his stomach wound into a tight coil. This would be the first time since his curse that he would be around humans, as a beast. He was really to hungry and tired to fend off a mob. Sebastian paused siting in the path way. “I don't suppose just for tonight I could be your pet?” The young Prince hopped that he wasn't speaking in growls.

[Mirror Gardens]

Red paused to look around briefly. She could have sworn she heard someone other than the boy following her. But before she could pinpoint where she heard the voice come from she heard a series of animalistic rumbling behind her. Turning around she found herself looking at a rather large lion. “…I wasn’t aware beasts like you were indigenous to the forest…”
This...this is too good!!
The distinct sound of barking laughter rang out through her head as Sasha laughed uncontrollably. After a while the wolf doll finally calmed down enough to explain to her what just happened.
The freaking kid turned into a lion! This is hilarious. Even more he wants to be your pet!!!
The wolf continued his laughing as Red studied the beast before her. Letting out a sigh, she turned back around and continued walking towards the village near the edge of the forest. “I don't care. But if you're going to be my pet, I suppose you will need a name…Sasha is suggesting Fluffykins.”

[Funkduder]

A growl rang out through the forest. It sounded like a man's growl slowly mixing with the growl of a creature he knew nothing of. Lifting his sword, Averad cut at the vines that were in his way.
"Although it will make some noise, it the only path that leads towards where he saw the apple come from."
But as soon as he cleared the vines away, he wished he hadn't. In front of him stood, around his own height, a beast, a creature which he could not identify.
"By god..."

[Lunaryon]

Alicia smiled, staring at the man across from her. Oh how she wanted to just reach out and touch him, the colors he breathed were so pretty, but if she did he would be tainted, and then the pretty blues and greens would be replaced with ugly greys and blacks, suddenly the man started to move, and sounds came out, "Hello there little lady" He said, as the man came closer "What is a girly like you doing in a place like this?" Eyes wide, she looked to each side, "Who me?" she asked, raising a hand to her breast, "I'm just waiting for my brother to get done with his job in the next village." The man's smile suddenly changed, becoming the smile of a predator, and the colors he breathed where tinged with oily darkness, "Then maybe you could stay a while with me?" He asked, stepping close, Alicia was sad, he looked like he was one of the good ones, but he was like all the others, bright on the surface, but dark in the core, removing one glove, she reached out, and lightly touched the man, as he began to convulse the colors dimming and darkening, finally she let go and he fell to the ground screaming and muttering, looking around Alicia smiled as once again no one saw what sh... A dolly that breathes colors? A smile crossed her face, and she moved, putting her glove back on, and sitting down in front of the Dolly. "Hi there Magic Dolly!"

[Mirror Gardens]

The doors of the throne room were pushed open as a knight in well polished scarlet armor strode in, the intricatly designed golded spade symbol on his chest signifying his rank and importance. Making his way to the throne he removed his helmet and before it. His handsome face held a serious expression as he looked up at the inhabitant of the throne. “My Queen, scouts from the edge of the White Witches realm have reported that there has been movement amongst the goblins. The messages sent from the scouts have been vague, but it is clear that they have become uneasy with the recent activity. Perhaps it is time we finally did away with the Witch. My Queen allow me carve my way into her lands and bring you her head on a pike and put an end to her pitiful plotting against your Excellency!”

“…Do you love me Spade?”

Slowly opening her deceitfully gentle chocolate colored eyes, Jade stared down at the man before her. Her passive tone sent chills down the knights back as he stared up into her beautiful face delicately framed by gentle waves of black silk. There was no doubt in his mind that the exquisite woman before him was the true and rightful Queen. How the White Witch could dare call herself a queen filled him with a passionate rage. “Yes my Queen and I shall continue to love you until the very last breath has left my deceased body!”

Jade laughed, a cold and merciless sound. Of course he loved her. She was the true Queen, the only one deserving of love and praise. Looking at the man before her, she could see that he clearly believed what he spoke. And why shouldn’t he? She was well worth dying for after all. In one elegant motion, the Red Queen stood from her thrown and stepped towards him, her extravagant gold and crimson gowns train flowing daintily behind her. Stopping before the knight, she leaned down and placed a soft kiss to the man’s head. “Then” gripping the back of the man’s hair she jerked his head back and peered into his eyes with an emotionless glare, “do not presume to give me orders.” Flinging the knight away from her, she sent him sprawling to the floor, his armor creating a loud acoustic ringing throughout the large room.

Returning to her throne, she stood there for a moment before turning back around to gaze down at the startled knight. A cruel smile curling on her luscious ruby tinted lips. “You will not touch my dear sister’s realm. No, you shall head to the village near the outskirts of the Lost Forest. My darling Marie had… requested to stay there. Her time is up. Bring her back. As for my sister…send out another knight, no rather, send one of the villagers to offer her a peace treaty informing her that I wish an audience with my dear beloved sister.” Sitting back down on her throne, she smirked as the knight quickly stood and bowed, “Yes my Queen!” and then rushed out of the room to attend to her wishes.

[Kalei]

‘Damn,’ thought Marie, “she saw me.” Marie had stepped out of her hiding place behind some empty mugs when things looked like they were going in a bad direction with the man and the white-haired girl. It was late and no one else was present, except the pub owner, who was keeping busy. It turned out though, that the girl could take care of herself quite well.

Marie didn’t say anything for a few seconds when the girl came over to greet her. This girl could kill her without any trouble, so Marie chose her words carefully. If she told the truth (or at least only what was necessary) she might kill her for being a witness, but maybe she would let Marie live since they were both ‘special’. If she lied she risked angering the girl if Marie was exposed as a fraud, which could get her killed. ‘But they are harder to keep up with than the truth’, she thought.

“I am not a dolly.” Marie corrected the girl, “ I am just a girl who can change her size.” Marie quickly looked to see if the owner was watching, then hopped from the table, to the chair, to the floor, where She resumed her regular size. “see” ,Marie said smiling at the white haired girl.

[Poggio]

“I refuse to be called Fluffykins!” The prince snarled this girl was insufferable, he thought. “You will call me Sebastian, or Prince Lyngve, but address me other wise and Red will not just be your name.” If possible the lion felt his brows burrow into an angry scowl. To make matters worse, something moved from the brush. He lashed out at the being. It was a man that was wildly screaming about a beast. Sebastian roared angrily at the stranger, in four years he was the second person the prince happened to meet, not only that but it happened all with in a Day. This was too much to ask for when he was so close to salvation. He pounced on the stranger, he had weapons and thicker clothing then the girl. He was also made from a brawnier stock. Sebastian's hungry mind quickly surmised that the man was a hunter. With out thinking with his humanity, Sebastian bared his teeth aiming for the strange mans jaw.

XD btw funk he looks like the beast in the character picture. I wasnt feeling to creative when I made him.

[T e c h n i c o l o r]

The morning light shone down a still slumbering form lying next to an ancient fallen oak. Tethered to one of the old tree's branches stood a tall black stallion. The sleeping girl held tight to an ash-colored bow, cuddling up to it as if it were a stuffed animal. A quiver full of red fletched arrows was leaning against the oak's mossy trunk. An errant ray of sunlight broke through the cloak Tess had covered her head with, causing her to squint unbecomingly, and sit up, untangling herself from her long forest green cloak.

Getting up, she stretched and walked over to her horse, getting a bit of food out from one of the saddlebags. As she munched, she started re-saddling the destrier and covering her marks from the night before. After she was satisfied that she had left as little a trace as possible, she shouldered her quiver and bow and mounted the stallion. "Alright Xanthos, just a few more days and we should be out of this place for good!" Tess gave her mount directions to move into a quick walk. She didn't think she'd been sighted, so she wasn't worried about rushing. Better to leave fewer telltale tracks than to go careening through the forest, breaking branches and leaving deep hoofprints.


Tess let her mind wander back to the events of the past week. If not for her father's insistence that she be trained in horsemanship, archery, and survival skills along with her brothers, she probably wouldn't have survived her trek through the wilds of the White Kingdom. She still couldn't quite wrap her mind around the treachery of the neighboring duke. Fingering her now shoulder length locks, she scowled. If that stupid fairy hadn't gone and put such a weird spell on me, I wouldn't be in this mess, she thought. Suddenly the trees started to clear out, giving Tess a view of a town. She stopped Xanthos, trying to decide if she was close enough to the border to walk around in a crowded place without being recognized. Her supplies were running low, and she wanted to hear news of the kingdom. Deciding that she could outrun the local guard on Xanthos if need be, she directed the horse to move in the direction of the gates, pulling her hood over her head while looking about her for any signs that she was being followed.

[Funkduder]

Averad looked in amazement as the beast not only spoke, but expressed personality as though he were human.

“I refuse to be called Fluffykins!” The prince snarled. “You will call me Sebastian, or Prince Lyngve, but address me other wise and Red will not just be your name.”

Then the beast... ("No prince," he thought) turned towards him and his made Averad realize that he made a mistake. "This was no 'prince'...this was a beast."

Sebastian's hungry mind quickly surmised that the man was a hunter. With out thinking with his humanity, Sebastian bared his teeth aiming for the strange man's jaw.

Averad jumped back and slashed his sword and an upward arc. He didn't mean to blink...but he did.

[Mirror Gardens]

Sasha had simply continued to laugh at the boy’s anger at the name as Red continued walking. When the stuffed annoyance was finally able to speak again he began translating the boy beast’s following roars. He was just finishing up when the beast roared again. This time however it was a sound better associated with that of an angry beast about to attack. Whirling around once again, she was surprised to see the arrival of another man.

Then it all seemed to happen instantly. She barely even noted Sasha grumbling for her to let them kill each other when she suddenly felt herself move. The boy beast lunged at the man’s head and in a second the man had a sword swinging upwards at the beast. Just before the two collided she drew a dagger from her belt blocking the man’s sword mid arch, just as she used her other arm to block the beast’s attack. “That is enough.”

(( Also, just so ya'll know. Red cannot understand what Sebastian is saying since he's a lion, she's getting translations from her stuffed wolf Sasha whom only she can hear. Okay just wanted to clarify that. ))

[Poggio]

Sebastian found his jaws sinking into flesh but it didn't taste like sea or male sweat. Sebastian didn't let his jaws sink into the flesh but he couldn't stop himself from falling hard into the ground. Once his mouth was free, he simply rolled to the side to keep from hitting both of them. Slowly he got up and started. He had so many questions he wanted to ask the man, namely friend or foe. Given that he was in beast form he was obvious a foe for now, but where did he come from? The most important question that Sebastian wanted to ask was how was he going to help.

When he recovered his strength, Sebastian started to pace around him. The man was thick and meaty, as much as he attempted to keep those thoughts from his head, the prince could not. He turned towards Red sitting down beside her. “Thank you.” He growled still refusing to submit to the name fluffykins. “I don't know how you can understand me but for the love of god I am still a human being woman. I will pay you 100 gold to call me Sebastian and let me be your pet.” The lion grumbled. His treasury was not going to like this, not one bit.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Some distance from where the altercation between the captain, lion price, bounty hunter, and stuffed animal was happning, Agrath decided to open her eyes. The water was still and clearn all about her and there were none of her little bird toothpicks to be found.

She fluttered her eyelids and stretched her jaw before gradually working each limb out of the sleep paralysis it seemed to have settled in to.

It had been days now, since her last meal and the meat had now worked it's way through her system, for the most part. Extending her limbs, clacking her jaw sn stretching more vigourously now she decided that it might be time for another meal. She certainly wasn't starving yet, but one never knew when the next meal was to be found. My not take advantage of the easy ones already top be had? And an easy meal was waiting for her so long as that new ship remained in port.

[Michael]

It had been such a very long time since Nikolai had actually been around proper people. Well, people at all, being as they were perhaps so far and few. Cretins, idiots, slaves, savages, infidels, monsters, braggarts, cowards, fools, nancies, and hoodlums.

Though sometimes..you found people. And it was ever so amusing.

"How very interesting the upside out and right side down things are~" He cooed in a low and purring voice, dissolving- or was it resolving? Into being on a low hanging branch near where all the commotion was. He grinned a toothy grin, clacking sharp claws against the bark of the tree. His tail slung down, jangling as this or that ornament went skittering about against the others, all racing to escape; being trapped by the final ring along his scrawny looking tail. The ridiculous length wrapped about the limb he rested upon- giving him balance while still looking lazy as all heck.

"Could this be a dream- or a coincidence? Or perhaps Both and neither." He grinned ever wider, voice a sinister crawl as he looked them each over in turn. His tail unfurled again, curling and uncurling below him like a lazy yo-yo, too unmotivated to make it all the way back up each time. It didn't even occur to him that it was the oddest situation to be popping into; nor that it was odder still to suddenly up and try starting a conversation. All irrelevancies in his mind.

..That was, if he still had a mind left.

[Mirror Gardens]

When the lion boy backed off, thankfully leaving her arm intact as he did so, Red released the other man’s blade and moved away. These people were becoming more trouble than they were worth. Returning her dagger to its proper place in her belt, she turned to head to the village again when she heard the lion’s rumblings once again. Letting out a small sigh, she turned to face the beast that had come to sit beside her while she let Sasha translate what he said. “I doubt you have any gold hidden in that fur of yours, and 100 gold is hardly worth my time…But since I currently have no job lined up at the moment, I suppose you may tag along. But if I find you have no gold, I will have no qualms letting Sasha eat you.”

Yum…cat food.

Turning to head towards the village again, she suddenly heard the appearance of yet another voice. She could feel her patience ebbing away. At this rate she would never get out of the forest.

Great I smell more cat.

While she didn’t have any particular distaste for cats, she could not help but share in the annoyance that seeped out of her stuffed companion. Either way, she was tired of being delayed and decided to ignore all of them and began towards her destination once again. If the beast followed her fine, she had already accepted the job, now it was his choice to follow.