The Forgotten Zodiac

Welk trotted along in cat form, staying on Werr's right side while Cynyr walked on the left. Welk shook his head, ruffling his growing mane. He hopped along on three legs as he lifted one paw to brush it over his head. "I think I need a haircut." he said.

"What?" Cynyr said, glancing over at him.

"Check out my fur," Welk said. "It's going crazy."

Cynyr stared at him, then snorted and said "You idiot,"

"What? What did I do?" Welk asked, confused.

"You're not a cat," Cynyr said. "You're a lion. You're growing a mane."

Welk blinked in shock, then paused and sat back on his haunches, running both front paws over his head several times. Only about one moment later and he was bouncing wildly around the group in excitement, calling "I'm a LION! That's so AWESOME!" He twisted around and bounded back over to Werr, who literally had a split second to think before Welk lunged up on his back legs and put his front paws over the boy's shoulders. He didn't knock him over, as he had remembered at the last second not to completely bowl him over. He ducked his head forward and nuzzled the side of the boy's face, purring.

Werr laughed, having to stop as Welk nearly tackled him. "A lion?" He grinned. "No wonder you're so fierce when you're mad. I made a good choice of knights, I would say so." He scratched Welk behind the ears, still chuckling. "Come on then, let's get to our rooms. We should try to be a little quiet though, Forin said he was putting Diana to bed."

Welk's purring grew louder as his friend scratched behind his ears, then he said "Remind me later to get you to do that more," He nuzzled Werr again, much gentler, with only his nose, then pulled back and consented to walk on his side again. They reentered the city like this, with Werr flanked by his knights.

Only to find Luen in a panic with poor Nate unable to calm him down. He wasn't even able to get the wolfling to sit down, at this rate.

"Hey, hey!" Cynyr shouted, stalking forward in panther form. "What's going on here?!"

Luen froze at the sight of the huge, foreboding black panther stalking towards him, then stammered "I-I can't find F-Forin or Diana anywhere! They're gone!"

"Were there signs of a struggle?" Werr asked at once, looking towards the calmer of the two. Nate, obviously.

"Not really," Nate shook his head. "But we found a little blood in the room we're guessing Forin and Diana were in. Not too much, but enough to indicate that they were taken by force. We've asked around, none of the guards seem to have seen anything..."

"What about Jag?" Werr asked, remembering that the Gryphon and Lily had stayed behind as well.

"They were eating dinner, they knew about as much as the guards did."

"Great..."

"Where could they have gone?" Welk asked in concern.

Seria had moved forward and had put her hands on either side of Luen's head, trying to help the teenager calm down. He sighed, but pushed away from her a moment later and started pacing.

Cynyr furrowed his brow, thinking. "It wouldn't make sense for them to just up and leave, plus you found blood in their room," he said. "So they aren't here. We need to look elsewhere. Werr, go talk to the queen and let her know what happened if she doesn't already. I'll stay here and help look." He brushed under the boy's hand and took charge of the situation, actually ordering some nearby Amnairians to search. Surprisingly, they actually obeyed and took off to look around.

"Right," Werr nodded, starting into the castle at a run. He knew that Forin had felt uncomfortable about something or other here, but who...or what would have taken him and Diana? It made so little sense, no one had seemed agressive towards him until now...

---

Forin slowly woke up. He felt horrendous...one moment, he had been tucking Diana into bed and getting ready to tell her a bedtime story, at her request. The next, there had been a flash of blinding light, and then...nothing. Forin immediately tried to move upon remembering, but he found that his limbs refused to obey him. It was hard enough to force himself to keep breathing. He was numb all over. The only thing he could feel was the tight blindfold around his eyes and rough cloth over his hands. That kept him from using his powers...great. Just what he needed in a situation like this.

Forin decided to focus on using his ears to try and figure out what was going on. But things were so quiet...

The sound of a door swinging open came to his ears a moment later, coupled with the sound of hooves clicking across the hard ground. The door slammed shut soon after. "Oh," a voice said in a mocking tone. "Someone left their Tartaran here. What a shame." He felt something sharp press lightly against his temple. "You shouldn't have come here, you fool," the voice said. "Now, you're going to pay for intruding in our world. You've already experianced the first part of what I'm going to do to you. You are completely paralized from your neck down and will remind that way until you return to your own world. As for the second part..." The Amnairian standing in front of him smiled. "I thought you might like some company." she said, then he heard her shift around and press something.

A moment later, Diana was tossed into the room, her arms and legs tied tightly together.

Diana wailed, especially upon seeing the centaur standing over Forin. She tried desperately to scoot away, especially upon seeing that Forin wasn't moving. He was slouched over in a corner, leaned precariously against the wall. She thought at first that he was dead, then he spoke softly. With the most hateful, enraged tone that Diana had ever heard him use. He struggled to speak, barely capable of breathing in the first place.

"R-Reshke...lash toroh..." Loosely translated, it was a rather nasty threat that meant something along the lines of, 'may you be skinned, your bones plucked from your bloodied body, and your screaming head devoured by worms and crows alike'.

The winged unicorn snorted and tossed her head. "Silence yourself, fool, you'll only make it worse," she said. "Not that I care in the slightest." She tilted her head downwards at Diana, revealing the visage of Bala, the queen's head guard. She scowled at Diana, her hooves making a light clicking sound as she walked over. "I have stood guard here for many years," Bala said. "Training new guards, keeping the peace... Never before has a Tartaran been allowed entrance to our beloved city. You even dared to stand before our queen! She diminished her beautiful light for a few unneeded seconds so she could speak to you and let you be more comfortable!" Hatred dripped from her words, a characteristic unbefitting an Amnairian. "You..." she snarled. "...are going to pay for everything you Tartarans took from me!" She reared up, bringing her hooves down mere inches away from Diana's legs. She stood for a moment longer, simply breathing hard, then tilted her head back and regained her composure. "I have already hurt you," she said. "Now, I hurt your summoner. It is the right way to do it, of course. First the summon, then the summoner. I could get to her first without knocking you out. Don't worry..." She smiled, which was a cruel, dark expression. "You will still be awake to hear your mistress' screams." And she turned to Diana and drew her horn across the girl's arm, drawing a thin line of blood.

Diana whimpered and started crying, trying to squirm away again. Forin snarled and gritted his teeth. "You...th-think she hasn't...su-suffered enough?!" He wheezed, his lips pulled back in a snarl. "Wha-what...has she done t-to deserve th-this? Lea...leave her, sp-spare her, h...hurt me ins-instead!" He dragged breath into his lungs, and was silent for a moment. Then he said quietly, "I...beg of you...sh-she's no-not worth hurting..."

Bala snorted and said "You're begging gets you nowhere. My mind is set and you will get no sympathy from me for you nor your summoner," Her horn was sharp and cut neatly across Diana's leg, then the unicorn suddenly tossed her head and plunged her horn into Diana's shoulder, just missing the bones. Blood gushed out both sides of the wound as she pulled her horn back out, barely batting an eye as the girl's blood ran down into her eye from her bloodied horn. She flicked her white tail, resuming her cut-by-cut abuse of the little girl.

Diana screamed, thrashing and sobbing as blood spread in a thick puddle around her. "Fo-Forin...!" She wailed. "Save me!"

"I can't..." Forin murmured, struggling uselessly to move, if only a little bit. Nothing happened whatsoever. He was screaming at himself mentally while his true form sneered at him in the back of his head. As Diana bled, he felt his soul itself being crushed. Only once before had he been incapable of saving his summoner, and she had killed herself three days after she was forced to summon him. But he was aware of the suffering, this time. It wasn't he who was suffering at all.

And every scream from Diana's lips hung in his mind and around his ears until it was all he could hear.

Finally, after some more time passed, Bala stopped. She pulled back, blood curling down her muzzle to splatter on the ground. Diana was riddled with cuts, but there were no more of the large wounds. Bala bent her nose and put it near Diana's face, then growled "If you don't want to die, you won't tell anyone who I am. I'm going to let you and your...pet...go, but you will both take your friends and leave this place immediately. All of you are traitors for having him..." And she brought one of her back legs down on Forin's leg. "...in your group. If you don't leave with your friends, I'll take the wolfling next and kill him right off, because I know you both like him a great deal." She smiled at Diana. "Remember, little girl. Don't tell." she said, then both Diana and Forin were teleported to the outside of the city.

Forin, even through the numb tingling of his leg, could feel the snap. He couldn't hold himself up once the wall was no longer there to support him, though. He fell onto his side, thinking at once about what to do. "Diana..." He struggled to say over her sobs.

"I-it hurts, Forin..." She choked out.

"I know," Forin murmured, longing to move close to and comfort her. He could feel his own consciousness cracking under the weight of Diana's agony and his own failure, coupled with the laughter of his true form. "Mistress, ma-make noise. Make as much...noise as possible, for as long as...as you can. We need...help..." He breathed before he fell unconscious. Diana sobbed, but she knew what Forin was getting at. She started screaming again, as loud as she possibly could. She screamed out 'help' for the first few minutes, but then resorted to just screaming until her poor lungs could scream no more. Which actually took about ten minutes or so, considering that she had already screamed quite a bit. She squirmed closer to Forin, managing to ease herself against his side. She was still tied tightly. It was the most she could do to press herself against Forin and forced herself to focus only on Forin's breathing instead of her pain.

But there was so much pain...

Much further inside the city, Luen was standing miserably near Nate, listening as Amnairian after Amnairian reported back in with no luck in finding the two missing members of the ground. As Cynyr was discussing with one of the Amnairians on what to do, Luen suddenly froze and flicked his ears back, listening to something only his sensitive ears seemed to pick up. A split seconds later, he had taken wolf form the fastest anyone had ever seen and was racing away, literally leaving a puff of cloud dust behind him with how fast he tore off. He ignored the shouts of confusion behind him from the others. He ignored the startled shrieks of passing Amnairians as he bowled several over in his haste. He ignored it all and rushed to the gate of the city, stumbling and nearly tripping himself up as he ran out.

He appeared in Diana's, panting softly, spotting the girl only a moment later. "Diana!" he shouted, quickly running over.

Diana looked up weakly. She was losing too much blood far too quickly. She tried to start crying again, but it hurt too much. "Luen..." She whispered, then whimpered as she remembered what the guard had said. "We have to leave...we h-have to get out of here...or she'll kill you!" She shuddered, knowing that she probably couldn't explain any further without risking her dear friend's life.

"What?" he said, taking human form and quickly bending down to wrap his arms around her. "Who? What happened to you both? Who did this?!" He sounded furious, scared and frantic all at the same time. "Never mind," he said. "Let's get you both to Seria." It didn't seem possible that Luen, with his scrawny body, could carry Forin, much less him and Diana. He didn't even try to carry them, as it turned out. He kept to human form, holding Diana in his lap with one free hand gently touching Forin's shoulder, then threw his head back and howled to the sky. The single long note was much louder than Diana's screaming had been, and it was quick to draw attention. Namely, that of certain cat ears. Knowing that the cat halves in the ground had heard him, Luen settled into comforting Diana and gently freezing her shoulder wound so it wouldn't bleed so badly. "It's okay," he soothed. "It's okay. I'm here. Shhhh..."

Diana trembled in Luen's grip. "Forin ca-can't move..." She whimpered, tugging on Luen's shirt. "We need to le-leave, we need to run...I c-can't tell you who, or she'll kill me, too, a-and..." She shuddered terribly, letting out a pitiful cry as the movement shot pain all over her body. She closed her eyes after that, not wanting to talk anymore. She kept tugging though, trying to get Luen to get up and leave or something.

He moved his hand up and held onto hers, stopping her from tugging on the yellow shirt he was wearing. "Stop." he said. "We're going to get you all healed up first. Then we'll deal with whatever's hurt you."

Moments later, Cynyr darted out of the gates with Seria on his back, since she no longer had a cat form to revert to. Welk followed closely with Werr, his short-yet-growing mane bouncing around his neck.

Cynyr slid to a stop and Seria got off, hurrying over to where Luen was holding Diana. "What happened?!" she asked, moving a hand over Diana's body to heal her wounds with a touch. She moved over to Forin and healed him, barely even having to concentrate on her spells. The touch instantly created the perfect spell to use on the wound.

Diana started crying weakly again once it stopped hurting. Werr knelt down next to them and asked quietly, "Diana, who did this to you?" But she whimpered and buried her face halfway into Luen's shirt, still shaking badly.

"I can't," She murmured. "I can't say. Or...or she'll kill...me, and Forin and Luen...I won't let her..." She grabbed at Luen's shirt with her free hand, though she didn't tug. She just held it. "Ple-please, Luen, we can't stay..."

Werr frowned at this and stood, moving over to Forin and removing the blindfold from the Tartaran's eyes. Forin really was unconscious, that was obvious, but Werr was also able to tell that Forin had been crying. Forin? Crying? Definitely one of the oddest things Werr had ever thought about.