The Forgotten Zodiac

((I know. Although, you should know that there were a couple groups of them. Which makes it easier. xD Maybe one or two, but we'd have to actively go and save them. Did you want to play one?))

"I'm hungry," Werr said at once, looking up again. Nate handed him a few cans and a fork. Werr dug in quickly, not caring what he was eating.

"I'm always hungry. But I can't eat." Cici sighed.

Airlia suddenly shrieked, which made everyone jump. A spider had crawled out from under the couch; it was just a little thing, but Airlia was obviously afraid of them. Then, in stepped an unlikely hero; Spy darted forward, picking up the spider in its mouth, swallowing it in the blink of an eye. "Yum!" He hopped a little, then scurried back to sit with Jag and Lily.

((Okay den. And I dunno. Whatever you want. Anything that helps prevent Werr from having to rule an entire country at such a young age. He wouldn't be able to spend time with Welky and Cynyr, once we get the latter back.

You should like Cynyr more after he explains everything about his mask and stuff. He's a sad little panther.))

Jag laughed and gently scratched Spy's head, scritching his clawed fingers through the little chimera's fur and against his skin. "Good job, snack." he said, smiling. He held Lily's hand with his free hand, gently running his thumb over her fingers. "You should eat something too, love." he said, nodding at her reassuringly.

Welk was content to lean against Werr, sighing softly. His mind was racing with thoughts as he attempted to plan things out, which was unusual for him. He wasn't a big thinker. He carefully rubbed the scar in the middle of his chest, remembering the feeling of Relic's claws tearing through his skin, over and over...

He shuddered, closing his eyes for a moment, then opened them and said "Werr, when you're done, I want to show you my room. You'll like it!"

((Yesh, I know. -is totally not planning anything- And he'd probably get Welk and Cynyr to live in the palace with him anyways. :T))

"I guess..." Lily nodded. "Um, can I have the peaches, please?" She asked quietly. Nate nodded and brought over the can and a fork. She hesitated a bit before taking it, still a bit afraid of Nate.

This didn't escape the Dragonian's notice. "You shouldn't fear me," He said quietly. "We're allies." Lily just nodded, pressing against Jag. Nate turned away, looking somewhat distracted now, but he said nothing.

"Your room?" Werr was saying as Nate turned. "Sure. Sounds like fun." He said, smiling a bit, but he and Cici both knew that he was still feeling troubled and distraught.

((Yeah, but he still wouldn't be able to spend as much time with them. Welk would still be sort of sad, though of course he wouldn't be sad over Werr being a king. He's a good person like that. He's only ever jealous of other people spending time with Werr or Cynyr. That's like his only negative flaw. He gets super attached to people and gets jealous of other people spending a lot of time with them.))

Welk nodded, hugging the boy. He nuzzled Werr, tilting his head down to rub his fluffy blonde ear against his shoulder. "And I'm going to go up to Cynyr's room. I've only been up there once before, but he caught me and told me never to go up there again, so I never did. Well, since he's not around, I'm going to go up there and look around. Try to find out why he never wanted me up there. We gotta be careful, though, because the stairs are sort of falling down. One of the reasons why I didn't go up there before."

((Yepyep. xD So anyways, the idea I had before (that I forgot), they save Cynyr and stuff, but find that they were too late to save the other council members. Most of them died, but one of them went missing (taken by Obelisk as a replacement for Werr). So in the meantime, Werr gets appointed king and spends a little bit there, but Nightlash steps in with the council member that he 'saved' and tries to get Werr off the throne, but Werr realizes what's going on and has them imprisoned so he and Cici can fix them ('cuz it takes time) and the people have an uproar at that because they don't understand, and it turns into a mess that takes Werr off the throne and so they have no choice but to figure out how to re-seal Obelisk so all of this stuff would stop altogether.))

Werr frowned a bit. "Don't get hurt, okay?" He said, quickly finishing the rest of his food. "Okay, I'm done. Let's go see your room," He stood, stretching a bit and rubbing his mostly-full stomach. He could probably eat more, but he wanted to leave some for the others without having to open more cans. There was plenty, and he'd have more chances to eat.

((Okay den. Dat sounds fun and I fully accept it because none of my favorite characters get too badly hurt. -woot-))

"Yes!" Welk said, jumping up and hugging Werr tightly, then taking the boy's hand and heading towards the stairs. He winced as he took Werr's hand, as his bite wound still hurt, but he ignored it in favor of showing Werr his room. He led the boy up the stairs, doing one of the things he did best; chattered. He opened the door to his room and let go of Werr's hand, bounding inside and jumping on the bed. The room was simple enough. A bed, a closet, a bookshelf, a chair and a window that was fairly high off the ground. The little wooden farm animals that Werr had given Welk so long ago were carefully positioned on the window's sill, along with the chunk of crystal. "This is my room!" Welk said, rolling around on the bed. He nearly knocked off the lamp that was sitting on the small bookshelf near his bed, but he caught it at the last second.

Werr smiled and looked around. "It looks a bit like my room did," He sighed. "A bit dustier, but that's alright."

"It's too simple!" Cici put in unhelpfully. "I would have added a toy chest, or maybe a fireplace, to keep it warm."

"Shush," Werr shook his head. "It looks fine." He sat on the bed next to Welk, scratching his friend tiredly behind the ears. "I like it."

Welk smiled at Werr, then scowled at Cici. At this rate, she was going to be the only other person in the world that he hated other than Nightlash. "What I am, five? I don't need a toy chest." he said, then purred when Werr scratched him. He sighed, enjoying the comfort his best friend's touch provided, then said "You can sleep in here if you're tired. You look tired. I wouldn't blame you, either." He took cat form, still purring at Werr's touch.

"Toys are good no matter how old you are," Cici huffed at him.

"I'm not tired..." Werr murmured laying back on the bed, scratching still. Despite his words, he was asleep within a few minutes, his hand still resting on Welk's head. He had been exhausted, really.

Welk moved closer to him, gently laying his head on Werr's shoulder, still purring even though the scratching had stopped. He dropped off into sleep as well, his purring fading into a soft hum. As it turned out, he could purr in his sleep as well, because he didn't stop. He rested his ragged tail over Werr's leg, content to stay by his friend.

No matter what.

Time passed slowly. Werr spent much of it eating or sleeping, and the rest of it talking to Welk. After a day or so, Cici decided that she would 'sleep' too, and hadn't spoken since. Werr was certain that she'd wake up once there was any sort of trouble, though. Forin seemed to be recovering okay, but he was rather crabby and wouldn't let anyone open the curtains. If they did, he would crawl underneath the couch and start hissing. Diana was trying to help by opening the curtains a little bit at a time, getting him used to being exposed to light again, but progress was slow. Spy thoroughly cleared the entire house of spiders, and Lily had gone about cleaning the house, making it free of dust and cobwebs.

Yes, the time passed slow, but things were peaceful once again.

Luen also did his best to help Forin, whether it was convincing him it was safe to come out from under the couch or just sitting with him and talking in his calming voice, holding the creature of Tartarus' hand and just talking on and on about anything he could think of. It was sort of a step for the shy wolfling as well, because he not even once thought of his shyness at talking out loud. Just his friend.

Finally, at one point, Welk and Werr decided to get up the courage to go into Cynyr's room. The courage was more on Welk's half than Werr's. Welk had never been into Cynyr's room a lot, as he had explained, and it was still engrained in his mind that that room was off-limits. But he made himself climb the stairs and open the door anyways, deciding that any clue towards getting Cynyr back was worth it.

The room was a bit simpler than Welk's. A bed (neatly made), a bigger bookcase, and a closet. Nothing more. Not even a lamp or anything at all of the sort. No windows, either. The only thing to give light in the room was a small candle resting on the bookcase. Welk lit that, then glanced around, a bit nervous still. "Well." he said, glancing around. "Let's look around." He wandered over to the closet and dug through it, sighing when he pulled out one of Cynyr's overcoats. He hugged it and pressed his face into it, breathing in the scent of his brother that still clung to it. "It still smells like him." he murmured sadly.

((There's a very important locked box undah the bed, if Werr wants to find eet. o3o))

Werr did just that. Lily hadn't been up here, apparently; the room was covered in dust, and a spider was hanging out in one corner. Werr scanned the books on the shelves, then turned to sit on the bed, but Cici slipped out of his grip, hitting the ground and rolling under the bed. "Whoops, sorry..." Werr mumbled, though Cici was still asleep. That was obvious, as her glowing hadn't lit the room upon entrance. Werr got on his knees, reaching under the bed. His hand first found a box, however; he slid it out from under the bed, not sparing a second glance to it before reaching back under the bed for Cici. He pulled her out and sat on the bed, brushing a dust bunny off of the top.

Welk quickly noticed Werr's find and trotted over, wearing Cynyr's overcoat now. It was a bit too big for him and he had zipped it up, but he didn't care. "What is that?" he asked, taking the box from Werr and examining it. It was locked and there was no key in sight. Welk set the box down and scurried all over the room, searching, but found not even a trace of a possible key. He walked back over and picked up the box again, a bit scared over what could be inside. Finally, he made himself melt the lock and opened the box. He gasped. "Werr..." he said. "It's...pictures." He carefully reached in and pulled out four small pictures, gently setting the box to the side. "Look at these." he murmured, looking at the first three and handing them to his friend.

The first one was a picture of a beautiful female half-cat with long brown hair pulled up into a ponytail. She had blue eyes and delicate features, and was smiling lovingly at whoever had taken the picture.

The second was of two little girls, both with brown hair, though one had darker hair and blue eyes and the other had lighter hair and yellow eyes. The were giggling and laughing in their picture, smiling away as they played with a yellow butterfly.

The third had the lady half-cat from the first picture, but now she was with a tall male half-cat with jet-black hair and piercing yellow eyes. He wasn't smiling in the picture. He was nearly frowning.

Welk was utterly still, however, when he saw the last picture. Slowly, after he had stared at it for nearly a full minute, he held it out to Werr, his hand shaking.

It was a picture of Cynyr. About six years old.

Without his mask.

It was obviously before whatever reason he had been forced to wear the mask had happened. He had normal, pale white skin and no marks on his face. He was smiling in the picture, grinning from ear to ear. He was...fairly handsome. He had obviously had potential to grow up and be a very handsome young man.

So what had went wrong?

Werr took the picture, slightly confused until he recalled who's room this was. "This is Cynyr?" He asked quietly. He handed the picture back, smiling a little at his friend. "You should hold onto it. All of them. They might help us in getting the real Cynyr back." He said, patting his friend on the shoulder. "You okay? You look kind of pale..." Of course, he didn't understand what the pictures meant to Welk. He hadn't known the bad-tempered half-cat all that long, after all. Even if Cynyr had been starting to warm up to him, Werr was still undecided on whether or not he had liked him. He knew that Welk definitely liked Cynyr, though. And really, that was enough for him.

Welk clutched the picture tightly, his arms shaking. "I always..." he said softly. "...always wondered...what he looked like." He sighed, touching the picture lightly. "Well, here it is." he said. "This is his face. But...that doesn't tell us why he wears that mask. What if he was in an accident or something?" He bit his lip in fear, then exhaled quietly and picked up the picture of the two adult half-cats. "Hey." he said, eyeing the picture of Cynyr and the male half-cat in the other one. "This guy looks a lot like Cynyr." he said, waving the picture of the adults slightly. "I think...I think that's Cynyr's dad. And his mom!" He picked up the picture of the two little girls and said "These must be Cynyr's sisters! I didn't know he had sisters! ...I wonder where they are now? Hm." He carefully tucked the pictures into his pocket, adjusting the thick black overcoat on his body. "Why?" he asked softly. "There's so many things I want to ask him. What happened to him? Why?" He rubbed a hand over his face, his crimson eyes dull.

Werr sighed a bit. "When we save him, we'll ask him. Definitely." He said, pulling Welk into a hug. "Don't ask why until you can ask the right person, okay? Striving for answers alone is never good. I should know..." He said quietly, remembering the times he had questioned himself for going through with all this madness. If he wasn't a council member, none of this mess would have happened. But it did happen, and they were here now. There was no point in trying to change the past, after all...

Welk wrapped his arms around Werr in return, sighing and biting his lip to stop from crying. "Y-yeah." he said. "You're right. Because after we get all of that stupid dark magic out of him, he'll go back to how he was before. I know you'll like him more after that, Werr. I know that you've mostly only seen this bad side of him, but it hasn't been him all of the time! It was that dark poison in him. I've lived with him for as long as I can remember. I know the real him, and I know you'll get along with him. The real him." He nuzzled Werr's shoulder.

"I'll trust you on that one, then." Werr nodded. "Let's go help pack up, okay?"

The others were already mostly packed and ready to go, really. The only problem they were having was with one particular item that was definitely giving them a hard time. It was bright and sunny outside, which meant Forin was fighting to stay indoors, away from the bright square of light that was the open doorway. At the moment, he was under the couch again, glaring at all of them angrily.

Luen watched him sadly, then motioned at the others to go out ahead of them.

Welk slung his bag over his shoulder, still wearing Cynyr's overcoat, then marched out the door determinedly, the others following.

Once they were alone, Luen carefully bent down on his hands and knees, sighing. "Forin?" he asked softly. "I know you're scared. But that light won't hurt you. It's not light magic light. It's just regular sunlight. You've been in it before, remember? I won't make you leave if you don't want to. I'll stay here with you if I have to, because I'm never going to let you and Diana just walk away again. But...they do need us. Trust me, okay? I won't let anything bad happen to you. As long as I'm here, no light magic will touch you again. Just try. Please." He held out one of his scarred, pale hands, not pressing for Forin to immediately take it. He just held it out. Waiting ever so patiently.