The Forgotten Zodiac

Karsenir stayed where he was, not about to give the wolves any room to move forward while Avis was still on their crumbling bridge. "Then get off!" He called as she ran to the edge of the bridge once he heard her hop off the end of the tree, he took a small step back, away from the weak spot on the bridge. He was certain the wolves would come closer though, putting more strain on the weak trunk.

There was another painfully loud crack, and Avis shrieked out of fear for Karsenir. "Come on, let's go!" She called to him, biting her lip. She realized that her ankle was bleeding, but she didn't care to complain right now. She was too busy worrying for Karsenir, of course, and too busy getting herself ready to run for it as soon as her companion was off the bridge.

Karsenir took another slow step back before turning his back to the dog and running to join Avis. As the wolves snarled and pounded the log as they ran after Karsenir, the bridge gave out, sending all the beings on the bridge hurdling down to the bottom mof the ravine. Karsenir panted, hunched over his hands and knees, out of breath. He frowned. It was a good thing he had seen the signs of food nearby, now that he was showing signs of weakness. "A-Avis..." He panted, straightening up. "Y-Your leg..." He shook his head and let out a heay sigh, trying to slow his body down some. "You're bleeding."

"I-I'm okay," Avis said quickly, taking off the shoe carefully. It was a lot worse than she had thought at first; the skin had been ripped up by those sharp teeth and her twisting had only made it worse. She could stand and walk, but it was painful. At least it wasn't broken.

"You won't be for very long," A voice said. The owner of the laugh Avis had heard before. He was standing on the other side of the ravine. He looked furious, too; he wore a thick white fur coat and brown clothing underneath, with tough leather boots. "You killed them! I'll get you for that, you little monsters..." He appeared to be a cyclopse, with a single eye that was burning with rage. Of course; he was the wolfman in the circus. The one who went after those who escaped. Avis wasn't aware of it, but he had been on their trail since this morning, with the help of his dog-wolf half-breeds. Who were now at the bottom of the ravine.

"K-Karsenir, let's get out of here," Avis said, her eyes locked on the figure she could barely see.

Karsenir took one look at the cyclops and scooped up Avis. Karsenir hardly heard what the monster had to say before taking off, as fast as he could so he could put some distance between them and the pursuer from the circus. He didn't look back and hardly heard anything Avis might have said to him. They quickly reached the cultivated fruit trees that he had seem from the other side of the ravine. but Karsenir didn't stop yet. If that freak made it across he'd be on them in no time. If Karsenir stopped, he wouldn't have the strength to try and go again. If he didn't have the strength to keep carrying Avis, he would definately not have the power to keep Avis from going back to the circus.

"Karsenir, look!" Avis tugged on his shirt and pointed towards what appeared to be an old, broken down house of some kind. It didn't appear to have been in use in quite awhile, so it seemed like the perfect hiding spot. The entire orchard seemed a little...overgrown, to be honest. The trees held plenty of fruits (most of which Avis would be desperate for could she see), but it looked like not many were very well taken care of.

Karsenir weakly turned his head and looked where Avis pointed. "Y-yeah. O-Okay..." He said, his voice had a little bit of a rasp as he spoke. He was slowing down and once they were inside he collapsed to the ground, ever careful of the girl he was carrying. They were a good distance from the ravine. Since the dogs were dead, should the cyclops find a way across the enormous trench, he would have to find them on his own. 

((As I was saying, any time you find yourself being completely dragged through a roleplay, just bring in a character who has extremely destructive tendancies and get yourself so completely involved with the other characters and make a million plot holes that the other person has no idea what to do anymore. Then you bring in your own patches to said plot holes (normally involving magic of some kind) and tah-dah! You're more involved.

The cyclopse was meant to drive them this way.))

"Are you okay, Karsenir?" Avis crawled off of him, frowning unhappily.

"Who are you?" A soft voice came from behind the only door in the 'house'. Avis jumped a bit, staring nervously at the door. "A human...and...something else. Who are you?" The voice repeated itself.

"I'm...Avis, and this is Karsenir. We're sorry to intrude, we were just...being chased." Avis stammered, not sure what to say.

"That's alright. You can stay for as long as you need to. There isn't much, but your free to have whatever you can find here. Just...don't open this door, okay? The blood you have on you will set me off if I see it. So don't let me see it."

"Right. Thanks," Avis scratched the back of her neck, a bit confused. The voice seemed to belong to a boy, and not anyone over the age of 20. Maybe 18. Still...might as well listen to him. And he said that anything they found, they could use. Avis got up and started rummaging at once.

((Yuss. xD

Mah friends' characters are crazy enough already. : P I don't need to jump in quite yet.

I had figured, I was just teasin' you.))

Karsenir just moaned quietly in response, but his moan went unheard as the other, unfamiliar and attention grabbing voice was heard. He just sighed repeatedly as Avis handled the boy and began feeling around in the darkness. If his body wasn't so run down at the moment his night eyes would make her task so much easier. He could hardly keep his eyes open as he laid on the ground now, so he rested since he couldn't help Avis in this state anyway. He laid and tried to regain his body would allow him without proper nourishment. One of the troubles that his family line had passed down to him was his weakness. He could go on with his impressive strength for quite some time, longer than most other people, but when he crashed, it took some fuel to get him going again. He had expected to be able to move on longer than this. He had thought wrong.

Avis was pleased to find a stew over a dead fireplace. It looked fresh. She was quick to try and get the fire going, but it took her awhile. Eventually she got it though; it provided light, warmth and soon-to-be-food. After a bit more rummaging, she located a single roll of thin gauze, which she used about half of on her ankle. It had stopped bleeding already, but she was pretty sure her foot would look deformed from here on out.

Avis poked around outside (not daring to stray more than a few feet) and came back with several apples and a couple pears. Using a knife she cleaned in a basin, she sliced the fruit and set it near Karsenir so he could eat. She quickly went about finding something to drink, but only came up with fruit juice. It was good enough, though, so she quickly prepared a couple cups of the stuff. By then, the soup was bubbling, so she washed and prepared a couple bowls and set one of them next to Karsenir. "Sit up," She said, smiling a little. "You can't eat if you're lying down. I made us dinner."

Karsenir listened to where Avis was as she moved around the room, since he lacked the strength to move anything. When she went outside he got really tense, but he relaxed again when she came back inside okay. His attention stayed on Avis as she moved about the room, hoping that she wouldn't go outside again. If he had the strength to speak, he would have asked her to stay inside, but he couldn't. He was left with the only option to lie down essentially paralyzed and just listen to Avis and hope that they would be safe for a while. When he was told to sit up finally, he moaned and struggled to open his eyes. He managed to squint one eye open for a moment, just barely able to see Avis sitting next to him. Regularly, he would have been happy to do as Avis told him, but he couldn't on his own at the moment. He frowned deeply. The last time he had been in this state was when he was on his own a couple years ago. He had trouble gathering food and he starved himself. Luckily he ended up in a small sheltered area under the knotted roots of a uprooted tree. Without any energy, his body had shut down for a week, living off its own power without any help. He was lucky this time to have Avis around.

Avis smiled a little at him. "You have to eat before you sleep, okay?" She moved the food carefully aside, then struggled to pull Karsenir over to a wall. It took her a solid ten minutes of pulling and pushing until she finally got him to sit up and lean back against the wall. "There you go. Here, I'll feed you, even. I don't have much dignity left, anyways," She giggled a bit, then pulled his soup into her hands. She blew on the soup, careful to get it cool enough to where she wouldn't accidentally burn Karsenir's mouth, then started feeding him. She was careful not to let any of it drip, and she made sure he swallowed each spoonful before feeding him another.

The soup was actually quite good; it was oddly sweet, though it had rabbit meat in it. Avis guessed it was made from fruits and wild game found in the general area. Finally, she finished feeding Karsenir his soup. She washed his bowl and filled it again, walking over to the door. "Excuse me," She said quietly, knocking on the door. "Have you eaten yet?"

"I have not. I wasn't really hungry before, but now I smell the soup...and the blood. That doesn't help." The voice answered.

"Oh. Well, I can put this on the floor and hide behind something," Avis offered.

There was a bit of silence, and then, "Oh, alright. Thanks, by the way."

"Don't worry about it." She smiled a bit, setting the bowl and spoon on the floor and moving away, eventually hiding behind the open pantry door. She couldn't stop herself from peeking out in time to see a pale, clawed hand reach out and scoop the bowl up. The door slammed shut again in the blink of an eye, and Avis stepped back out from her hiding place and decided to try and help Karsenir drink the juice she made by giving it to him by spoon.

Karsenir's face looked a little green through his as Avis slowly moved him against the wall so she would have an easier time feeding him, since he couldn't move himself, let alone eat something on his own. He had his eyes shut still, and after a short time the green tint to his skin went away and he seemed more relaxed than he had before she'd begun to feed him. He had trouble getting down the first spoonfuls of the soup he was being fed, but after that Avis couldn't get it to him fast enough. He couldn't taste anything in the soup because his body had yet to send any energy back to that function, but about halfway through the soup he could taste again. He still didn't have the strength to move or speak much, but he did finally manage a breathy "Thanks.....A-A...vis..." He had yet to open his eyes again, having decided he would rather give a sign of gratitude for her helping him recover from his crash than simply stare at her. He had no choice again but to sit in a tense state and listen when Avis gave a meal to who or whatever it was in the other room. Then she came back and helped him again by spoon feeding him some juice too. He went along with it, unable to do anything else with himself. He was smiling faintly as Avis fed him.

Avis beamed at him as he thanked her. She rather liked being thanked. "Of course. How about more soup?" She offered, setting the juice aside after it was about halfway gone. She fed him another bowl of soup before eating some herself; she ate a total of two and a half bowls before she started looking for something again. "Are there any blankets in this house?" Avis questioned, frowning slightly.

"If you hide again, I can give you some. I don't need them." The voice behind the door offered. Avis hid again, once more watching as clawed hands and finely toned and tanned arms pushed a small stack of blankets and pillows out of the room he was in. When the door was shut again, Avis helped Karsenir lay back down and set him up with pillows and a blanket. After she made sure that the door was locked tight and the fire was quelled, she curled up under her own blanket and was soon well asleep. She wasn't too sure what she was going to do about Karsenir's apparent paralyzation, but one thing was certain. She wasn't going to just leave him here.

Karsenir was just fine after another bowl of soup. It wouldn't have hurt for Avir to feed him more, but it was fine even though she didn't. Sleep was probably be the best thing for him, and it seemed Avis was one step ahead of his thoughts. He was not quite as tense with worry for Avis when she asked about blankets, but he was grateful for what came of her asking. Once he was settled in, he drifted of quickly, but not without murmuring one more quiet thanks to his caretaker.

((I like how they went to sleep right when you did. xDD))

Avis woke up with a jolt at long last. She peeked out of the window; it was about noon now. Goodness, she had slept through the rest of the night and all of the morning...

"You're awfully good at sleeping in." A voice came from the kitchen area of this cramped shack of a house.

"Uh...thanks?" Avis blinked at him. "Who are you?"

"My name is very long and rather annoying. But you can just call me Syn. That's s-y-n, not s-i-n, okay? And keep that ankle covered."

"Right." Avis nodded, looking over at the still-asleep Karsenir. She then looked up again as Syn turned around. He was holding what appeared to be freshly cooked eggs and ham. He was handsome in an odd sort of way; he was definitely built like he had worked in hard labor most of his life. He appeared to be about fifteen, in actuality, though he was a bit tall for his apparent age. He wore unusual garb; a fur-trimmed black vest over a bare chest revealed claw marks on his chest and shoulder. He wore similarly styled pants that went a little past his knees, flaring at the ends to make room for his boots. One was a padded leather, and the other looked like a piece of armor, plated with steel. He wore black bands around each of his wrists.

The strange part was the fact that he had shackles. Around his neck, wrists and ankles. There were even marks to suggest there had once been one around his middle. Syn looked down at Avis, smiling at her with a look that suggested she was little more than a lost puppy. His black eyes - despite his face that seemed to be made for harsh looks - were filled with mingled happiness and curiosity, as well as a bit of reservation. His hair, which looked completely unkept, was a dark red color, similar to that of the color of bricks.

Avis found herself staring. "Sorry," Syn said, wringing his pale hands. It was a bit odd; his hands and the parts of his legs that were visible seemed...wrong. They didn't fit on his otherwise tanned body. Especially the claws, those were just out of place to begin with. "I'm quite a sight, aren't I? I'm not the best at taking care of myself...or anything, really." He set the food down, two plates of it. He got up again to fetch water and bread.

Karsenir was alert to everything in the shack long before Avis woke, as his habit of rarely sleeping kept him up most of the night and morning. His body was still working to re-energize itself, so he still couldn't move and he did appear to be sleeping still. He listened as Syn and Avis spoke to each other. "I'm quite a sight, aren't I?" Now Karsenir was curious. More so than the night before. He had been so exhausted that his curiousity had shut down the night before. He waited a moment, trying to gather the strength to open his eyes. Even just one eye would've satisfied his slight hunger for knowledge, but he heard Syn leave the hut before he felt he wouldn't waste energy trying to see. "A-Aviss?..." Karsenir breathed, his eyes still closed and his body lying limp under the blanket that Avis had laid over him last night.

"Karsenir, you're awake?" Avis said, brushing his hair away from his eyes and smiling down at him. "Karsenir, you really need to rest more. I can tell. You can barely talk!" She sighed a bit, but kept on smiling. "I'm here. I wasn't going to go anywhere. Do you need help eating today, too? There's eggs and ham...it's a bit tougher than just soup. Do you think you would be able to chew?" She asked, not even remembering that she had told him to rest more.

Karsenir laughed inwardly at Avis as she spoke. A faint green color tinted his skin when she brushed his hair back with her hand, though if he had the strength he would be smiling. Unfortunately, he didn't. He let out a long breath and grunted quietly. "N-N...No..." He managed to speak again to answer Avis' question. His happier mood disappeared. Hopefully they had more fruit juice, or something that would help him continue to regain his strength. 

"Alright. I think there's more soup in the pot; it was almost full last night." Avis nodded, peering into the pot. "Right, there's still some here. I'll just get the fires going again. And I'll ask if Syn can get more fruit when he comes back, so I can make more juice." She said, getting to work on the fire. Syn came back at this time; Avis did indeed ask him to fetch more fruits, and he complied with a shrug.