The Forgotten Zodiac

Werr relaxed, leaning back a little. He didn't mind Cynyr's comment, though he did wonder what made the half-cat so ridiculously grumpy all the time. He held on tightly as they made their way through the forest, despite the ease he was finding in holding onto Welk now that they were moving. They weren't going very fast, but Werr certainly didn't want to fall.

After what seemed like only a few minutes, they broke out of the tree line and were heading down the hill to Werr's house. "Do you remember where it is?" Werr asked, blinking in the unfiltered sunlight that hit them once they were out of the cover of the trees.

"Yep." Welk said, loping down the hill with ease. "The destroyed one." He chuckled, showing that he was only joking, then slowed down, trotting cautiously up to the remains of the home. He sniffed carefully a few times, making sure there was no one around, then walked in and let Werr off. "Okay, let's try and be fast." he said, flicking his tail nervous around him.

Werr looked around, realizing that a few things had been removed. Mother's chair...he shook it off and hurried into his room, grabbing the survival kit from underneath his bed. He then moved to the guest room, grabbing the bedding roll. "If you come downstairs with me, you can pick out something you'd like to keep...I don't mind," Werr said, leaving the kit and bedroll by the stairs before walking down them.

Little did he know, someone was already down there. He looked like a noble of some sort, with long blond hair (tied back with a red ribbon) and blue eyes, along with tanned skin and a lean frame. He wore a red shirt and black pants. That was covered by a red cloak that was trimmed with gold, along with expensive looking leather boots. A small leather bag was strapped to his waist, though he kept a much larger one as well. He had the kingdom's insignia on his cloak.

He was sitting in Heather's rocking chair, several of the adventure journals open in his lap, along with the letters sent by Werr's father. He was frowning slightly as he read, but was fairly silent and unaware that someone was descending the steps.

"Okay." Welk said, watching Werr as he gathered up his things. "I'll get something for Cynyr, too. One of those books. He'll like that a lot." He followed Werr down the stairs and into the collection room, where he instantly paused. "Werr!" he hissed softly. "Someone's in here!" He then ran forward, his senses leading him straight to the intruder. He barely paused when he spotted the person. Welk crouched for a split second, then leapt up over the chair and slammed into him from behind, knocking him out of the chair. "Who are you?!" Welk growled, digging his claws threateningly into the intruder's back. "What are you doing in here?!"

"Augh!" The intruder cried as he was tackled to the ground. "Guards, Gu--oh, wait, there aren't any here, are there?" He stopped, cringing as the claws dug into his back. "Okay, okay, I-I get it! My name is Nightlash, and I was reading, okay? Does that answer your question?"

"No." Werr walked forward, frowning. "Why were you reading?"

"So I can learn mo-more about the crime that was commited here?" Nightlash squirmed in Welk's grip. "Seriously, please g-get your pet off of me, I-I'm just investigating! If you don't get him off, I'll make him get off!"

Welk growled ferociously. "What gives you the right to tromp through and violate a crime scene, then start reading other people's stuff?!" he snarled. "And for your deluded information, I'm not a pet!" He transformed into a human, still sitting on the young man, his claws still digging into his back. "I'm a half-cat, which counts as a human!" he said, the fur on his ears and tail bristling. He snarled, showing off a pair of sharp white fangs.

"What gives me the right?" Nightlash squirmed more, trying to break free. "What gives me the right? You have no idea who I am, do you? Of course not, you're children...if you were smart, you wouldn't pin the Duke of this province to the floor!" He snapped angrily. He somehow managed to shift his weight to his left side, pushing himself up with his right hand. He rolled over, taking Welk with him and pushing the half-cat underneath him. He broke free, but he didn't bother trying to pin Welk.

Instead, he jumped to his feet and backed into a corner, drawing a knife from the folds of his cloak. "I really don't want to use this, you know. Just...calm down. I meant no harm, commoners."

Welk snarled as he was tumped over, landing flat on his back, then slowly sat up, glaring at the new person. He ran the back of a hand over his mouth angrily, his tail flipping around crazily behind him. "Duke Shmuke." he said, standing up. He dusted off his clothes, then looked back up at the young man. "I don't even know what a Duke is besides an obvious idiot." he said flatly. He moved over and walked behind Werr, almost like hiding behind him. He carefully peeked out from behind Werr's body, glaring icily at Nightlash.

"Apparently you don't know who I am," Nightlash sighed angrily.

"A duke works for the king," Werr told Welk simply. "What are you doing here, 'duke'?"

"I was told there was a disturbance of the magical sort. Any remaining traces of mages or witches in this kingdom are to be dealt with by myself. According to my current research, a mage fled here, but something happened that forced him to leave. I thought it had something to do with the woman buried in the backyard. After a bit of asking around, I figured out that this had been her house, but some odd black thing had attacked the house."

"Sounds about right," Werr said thoughtfully, but shook off his thoughts quickly.

Welk's hair only bristled further when Nightlash explained why he was here. His ears were flat back against his head, and his tail was flipping wildly around behind him. He tugged on Werr's sleeve, getting the older boy's attention. "Is he a threat to Cynyr?" he whispered, talking only where Werr could hear him. "He said he deals with 'remaining traces of mages or witches'. Cynyr's a mage. Does that mean this doofus is going to try and hurt him?" He moved a little closer to Werr, still very defensive towards Nightlash.

"I dunno," Werr murmured back. "Better safe than sorry. We say nothing about Cynyr."

"So, why are you here?" Nightlash asked, putting away his knife after deeming that these two were no more threat to him.

"Er...we're her next-door neighbors, and we came to see what happened," Werr said slowly, thinking carefully. "We knew Mrs. Heather, we were very good friends of hers..."

"So, Mrs. Heather? Was that her name?" Nightlash blinked. "Everything else you said was a lie, but every lie is set upon a kernel of truth. The next-door neighbors moved out around a month ago, both of them. No one's been in their homes since, I can tell from the dust amount. So, by reasoning of elimination, I can tell that Mrs. Heather was her name, and you knew her to some extent. Can I get the full truth now, by any chance? What do you have to hide?"

Welk nodded to Werr, agreeing with him, then growled angrily when Nightlash figured out when Werr was lying. "What do we have to hide?" he snarled. "Our personal information, that's what! I'm not telling you squat about me!" He ducked back behind Werr, still badly on-edge. It wasn't like him to get this angry at new people, but then again, a lot of stuff had happened today, so he was still ruffled over it all. "Idiot." he huffed, not bothering to stick his head out again.

"Very well then. I'll figure things out, with or without your cooperation." Nightlash tutted, stepping forward and gathering the papers and letters. "By order of your Duke, you are to reliquish these articles to me."

"Wha-you can't do that!" Werr snapped.

"I can, and I will. Be grateful that I don't have you both shipped off to jail for assulting me." Nightlash scoffed, tucking the papers into his cloak.

"You jerk!" Welk shouted, once again peering around Werr to glare at the boy. "What if I just randomly walked into your house and starting taking your stuff and saying that you had to give it to me just because I was some weird rank you've never heard of?! Tch, forget this guy, Werr. Let's just get our stuff and get out of here." He walked to the little wooden farm and, very delicately and gently, with great respect for the items, picked up a horse, pig, sheep and cow and tenderly put them in his pocket. He then turned to the shelf that held the small blue crystal and gently put that in his pocket as well. He seemed satisfied with those items, and after giving Nightlash a horrible glare, walked over and picked out the two most interesting-looking books for Cynyr. He tucked them carefully under his arms, then stood there glaring at Nightlash as if looks could kill.

"Fine," Werr frowned, collecting several maps and grabbing a small jeweled locket off the shelf before moving towards the stairs again. "Go for it, mister Duke. It's not like I could read very many of those, anyways."

"Yes, they seem to be in some sort of code," Nightlash agreed, picking up one of the journals as well, just for good measure. "Farewell then, Werr," Nightlash said, merely listing off a name he had read in the letters, fishing for a reaction. Werr stopped for a split second before continuing up the stairs. Nightlash smirked. That made things easier.

Welk was extremely tempted to attack the young man again for that, but he didn't do it. He hissed at Nightlash as he walked past, his ears down, then turned and sped up the stairs after Werr. "Jeez, what a freak." he growled, stomping up the steps angrily. Once they were back in the ruined house, Welk handed Werr his two books and transformed back into a cat, ready to head back to where they had left Cynyr.

"How cruelly cunning..." Werr murmured quietly, putting the books in his bag, and picking up his stuff before climbing onto Welk. "He saw right through me..." Werr sounded slightly annoyed, but more curious than that. Nightlash wasn't really a kid, he looked much older than either of them, but this 'Duke' intrigued and troubled Werr greatly.

((So how old is Nightlash? Because I thought he was a kid.))

Welk sped out, galloping quickly over the ground and up the hill, heading back into the forest. To Werr's surprise, however, the cat didn't go straight back to their campsite. Instead, he went on a long, disorientating trail through the forest, going back over the same spots a few times and weaving nimbly around trees. "Just making sure nobody's gonna follow us." he said, explaining what he was doing to Werr, then finally headed to the campsite. Once they got there, Welk brightened back up to his normal self. "Cyyyyyyyynyrrrrrr, we're back!" he trilled loudly, stopping near the waterfall formation to let Werr off.

Cynyr, still on top of the waterfall, had been dozing peacefully, his legs hanging over the edge of the formation. When Welk shouted, he jumped awake and sat up. "Wha--?!" he gasped, blinking rapidly.

((Like, 25. Did I not mention that? Whoops. Sorry. D: ))

Werr climbed off of Welk, looking up at Cynyr. "Your brother got you books from my house," He called up, smiling a bit. "If you want to read them, anyways." He sat down on a rock, getting out an ink bottle and a quill. He needed to record their meeting with this Nightlash person, while the memory was still fresh.

"Here!" Welk said, getting the books out and trotting over to the bottom of the rock formation. He raised the books and Cynyr flinched.

"Don't throw them!" he yelped, covering his head.

"Oh yeah." Welk said, realized that it would probably be bad to throw the books at his brother. Instead, he chose to scale the rock wall and hand them to him, which Cynyr took delicately.

"What are these?" he asked, gently opening the cover of one of the books. "These...these are amazing!" he exclaimed, his attention riveted on the contents of the books.

"Glad you like them." Welk said, then turned and leapt off the edge of the formation. Even though the top of the waterfall was well over twelve feet from the ground, the half-cat landed without damage. He walked over near Werr and sat down at another rock, pulling the wooden animals out of his pocket. He began gently playing with them with the innocence of a small child, even though he was a 15-year-old boy. He started talking quietly to himself, giving the animals voices and making them talk to each other.

Cynyr glanced over at him from his spot on top of the rock formation and smiled slightly. He and Welk had never had much, so he was glad to see his 'little brother' with something he could play with.