The Forgotten Zodiac

For the longest time, nothing happened. Werr finally stirred after a long while more; he turned his head and let out the quietest of moans. Then, at long last, he opened his eyes. Doctor Marr came in the second he noticed; he poked and prodded around Werr. "He's not responding," Marr frowned, waving his hand in Werr's face again. There wasn't even a flinch. He closed his eyes after a few more minutes.

"He has a concussion," Marr mumbled to Cynyr. "He should snap out of it soon. I'll get the ice." He moved off again, tutting unhappily. Once he was gone again, Werr opened his eyes again, letting out another whimper. He just stared blankly at the wall.

Cynyr shifted a little closer, flicking his ears up and watching Werr intensely. After a few moments, he allowed his ears to sink back down into the position they usually rested in: tilted back. He reached out and licked the boy's forehead gently more, brushing his hair back with his tongue as well. Lick, lick, lick, lick. Over and over. Soft and kind, in long strokes. He stopped after a few minutes, stared at the boy, then carefully lifted a heavy paw and cupped it around the side of Werr's face. He held it there for a moment, then took it away and rested his head on the boy's chest. "You'll be okay," he reassured, more to himself than anything. "I've seen people with concussions before. Always fine." He sighed deeply, closing his eyes.

Werr looked at Cynyr while the half-cat was licking him. He blinked slowly, not quite registering what the panther was doing. When he rested his head, Cynyr was able to tell easily that Werr was heaving in breath after breath, whimpering every few inhalations as though he was trying to speak. When he finally did manage to speak, it was disconnected and slurred. He tried again and again, until he said something that Cynyr would understand. Understand, but not like. Werr's speech was slurred and broken, but the point was clear.

"Who...arrrre you?"

Cynyr froze completely at that, staring at the boy. His mouth opened as if to say something, then closed. "No," he said, giving his head a slight shake, then shaking it hard. "No! You can't...this isn't..." he stammered, unable to form a correct sentance. He stood up on the bed, his tail flicking rapidly behind him in a sign of feline stress and aggression, then said "I'm Cynyr. Your personal guard. One of..." He cut off for a moment, then finished with "...one of your best friends." He leaned back slightly, keeping his head away from the boy.

Werr tried to scoot away, a little afraid of Cynyr's reaction. "Gu...ard...friend?" His eyes narrowed at this, as if he suspected Cynyr of stealing something of his. "No...I-I don't know you, wh...where's f-father...? Where am...I?" He shut his eyes tightly, hoping silently that he was just seeing things.

Marr had come in at this point, with a bucket of ice water and a large towel. "Oh...oh, dear. Amnesia." He frowned, moving forward and setting the bucket down next to the bed. "How much do you remember, exactly?"

"Re...member...?" Werr scooted away from the doctor, obviously fearful of these strange people who he had once known. "F-father...f-fire," He whimpered, nearly falling off the bed in his attempt to get as far away as possible. "The house c-caught fire somehow...I...please, tell me where I am!"

((Fixed))

Cynyr watched him for a moment, then turned to Marr and snarled in his face. "How do I fix this?" he growled, drawing his lips back in a feral look. "This...I can't..." he said, then shook his black fur and said "I have to fix this before Welk gets back. I saw what happened, long ago, when Welk lost his memory. Werr freaked out. If Welk...sees this..." He flicked his ears, the muscles under his thick furred shoulders rippling. He bared sharp teeth and looked at Marr again, saying "Fix. Him. Now."

Marr backed up several paces. "I can't do anything, Cynyr. You should know that. The most we could possibly do is take him to places he knows well and try to get him to recall his past, but that might not even work. Amnesia isn't exactly something I can treat...I don't even know if your healer friend would be able to fix it. At any rate, you should think about trying to regain Werr's trust...it looks like you got off to a bad start with him." He pointed. Werr had crawled out of the bed and moved surprisingly quickly towards the window; obviously, they were on the second floor, so the amnesiac king hadn't thought twice about jumping once he saw how high it was. He was definitely looking for an escape route, though.

Cynyr growled and turned, whacking Marr in the face with his tail as he jumped off of the bed. He took human form and sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He walked forward a few steps, holding one hand out reassuringly. "Werr," he said softly, forcing his voice to be low and gentle. "You hit your head and lost some of your memories. Please, I just want to help you. I'm one of your friends. I promise I won't hurt you." He slowly reached up and took off his mask, giving his hair and light flip to get it out of his eyes. "Remember me?" he asked, his single eye pleading. "Werr Grehi. Son of Darius and Heather Grehi."

"Wha..." Werr stared in shock when Cynyr took off his mask. He opened and closed his mouth, then suddenly charged for the door. When Cynyr moved to follow, doctor Marr slammed the door and stood in front of it before the half-cat could leave.

"Cynyr, I don't think that was the brightest of ideas! Don't chase after him, you'll just make it worse!" Marr frowned at him.

There was another earthquake. The worst of all the ones before it.

A scream rose up from the hallway. Just one.

Something had rose up from a crack in the ground, you see. Bandages criss-crossed over empty sockets, more of them materializing to cover the rest of his face and chest where the bandages had been burned away. He dragged himelf out of a widening crack, wheezing and coughing as he did so, his long, black fingers scrabbling for a hold on the tile floor. In his other arm was Werr, limp and unconscious. The human king had fallen into the crack; Obelisk had been lucky to catch him.

Werr, not quite so lucky.

Cynyr growled and slammed his mask back over his face, feeling a wave of self-consciousness wash over him. It was only due to Werr that he had ever overcome his fear of having people see his scars. He shoved Marr aside and flung the door open, stalking out after Werr. He immediately froze upon seeing Obelisk, blinking as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. His slitted pupil had been wide a moment ago, but now it thinned and narrowed down to the smallest of slits in anger. He whipped his hands out to his sides, creating barrages of air that were ready and waiting to be released. The room was quickly filled with the sound of the wind humming at the mage's arms, signling a deadly blast of sharpened air. He growled softly in his throat and moved forward, looming over Obelisk with a snarl on the unmasked part of his face. He used a quick burst of air to snatch Werr out of Obelisk's arm, tucking the unconscious boy close to himself in a protective manner. "You have two seconds to explain why I shouldn't just knock you back into that hole," the wind mage said angrily. "Oh wait. I don't care." And he got a blast ready to fire, holding it neatly in his hand and aiming it right at Obelisk's handhold on the ground.

"Stop, let me explain!" Obelisk shrieked at him. "The Obelisk you know isn't me! W-well it is me, but it's not the same..." When the blast of wind didn't come, he rasped out a cough, and continued his sorry attempt to convince Cynyr not to send him back into the abyss of the world. "It's complicated...b-but Cici fixed it. She gave her life to fix it! That has to mean something to you..." He pulled himself up a little further, his eyes narrowed in pain.

He was immortal, not invincible.

The panther stood there, glaring down at the dark lord that had caused them so much pain and suffering. There was a time when he would've just shoved the disgusting monster back down into the hole without a second thought. But he had changed in two years, albeit not a lot. Still, though, there was some differences in how he used to be and how he was now. That was the only thing that made him slowly back up and set Werr down nearby, then walk back over. He bent down and grabbed Obelisk by his neck, dragging the dark lord up and onto the solid ground. He didn't let him up, however. The panther pinned Obelisk to the ground on his back, keeping a tight hold around his neck and holding his other arm up in a fist pointed at the being's head. He had one of the blasts of air ready to be released rested just over his fist. All it would take was the slightest flicker to let it go. "Why should I believe a single word coming out of your putrid mouth?" he hissed, glaring his worst at Obelisk.

Obelisk didn't move once Cynyr had him pinned. He could easily throw Cynyr off; he settled for silent acceptance of Cynyr's power's inches from tearing his already scarred-beyond-repair face apart. "Hit me all you want. I'll never die." He rasped. "You could trust me merely on the fact that I haven't driven this through your skull already," He lifted a finger, and a dark, solid spike appeared. It didn't move though; it just hovered in the air for a moment, then fell to the floor, where it shattered. The pieces vanished before they hit anything else, though. "You could trust me on the fact that I did not, in fact, simply drop Werr into the miles-long crack I made in your world, and allow him to die. That, I did not do. That's what he would have done." There was no evil or hatred behind his voice. He continued. "In fact...you could trust me on the fact that I haven't closed that crack yet. You can throw me back in if you must...but I beg that you do not."

Cynyr held the wind attack at the ready for a moment longer, then slowly lowered it. "Alright then," he said, glaring at the dark lord. "I can't believe I'm doing this and I'm probably going to turn ALL my friends against me for this, but..." He hesitantly got off of Obelisk, allowing him to get up. The panther stalked back to Werr and picked him up as gently as possible, looping one of the boy's arms around his shoulders. Cynyr stood up and carried Werr back into the infirmary, keeping a close eye on Obelisk as he moved. "You'll be okay," he murmured to Werr, pressing his chin against the top of the boy's head. "You'll be okay."

Obelisk followed, watching doctor Marr's expression turn to one of pure horror as he sat down on one of the beds. "What the..." Marr swore under his breath.

"I assure you, doctor, I mean no harm by being here..." Obelisk said quietly, turning his bandaged face away, watching Cynyr and Werr instead. "May I ask what happened to him? He's hurting, I can tell..."

"He's suffering from amnesia, apparently," Doctor Marr stammered, still not quite sure what to make of Obelisk. "He fell during an earthquake and hit his head on the stairs, or so I was told. There doesn't seem to be any swelling or break, but..."

"There is swelling. Just not in a place where you can feel it. It's behind the skull." Obelisk sighed. "It's my fault that this happened either way...my digging caused the tremors. Two years of digging before I reached anywhere close to the surface. I got a little...excited, and I moved too much rock too quickly. I'm sorry this happened as a result of that."

Cynyr froze. Even his tail stilled instantly, freezing in mid flick. He stiffened and slowly placed Werr down on the bed, then turned to glare at Obelisk. "So this is your fault?" he hissed through clenched teeth, his ears seemingly glued to his head with how far back they were. His gaze seethed hatred, his tail flicking around angrily. "If I would've known you caused this, I would've thrown you right back into that hole in the ground!" he shouted, snarling.

"I didn't mean for this to happen," Obelisk replied calmly. "And I apologized for it. I cannot fix his memory loss, but I've already put a halt on the swelling. His condition will degrade no further. Honestly, Cynyr, if you want to punish me for my actions, do so. I have already told you that not all of my actions are my own. In fact...nearly all of what you've seen me do does not involve my own actions. I was controlled. Much like the way I controlled people, but with a key difference. I knew what I was doing, yet I was powerless to stop it. Those who I controlled were oblivious to it the entire time, their memory wiped the second I released them."

He turned his face downwards, sounding somewhat upset now. "Again...if you want to punish me, do it now, by all means..."

Cynyr clenched his fists, his arms shaking slightly. He hauled off and punched Obelisk as hard as humanly possible, putting wind magic behind his punch to really make it hard. He panted once he pulled back from that single hit, glaring hard. "That..." he spat. "...was for everything you've ever done to us. Controlled or not. You made us hurt and suffer and some of us cried at your hand! I hate you with everything I have inside me! I hate everything about you and I wish I could kill you!" He shrieked the last line, panting hard. Slowly, he backed down, muttering "...But I won't. For now. But I swear, if you give me one reason to kill you, make one move towards any of my friends...I'll end you. I don't care how, but I'll do it. Somehow." He stepped away from Obelisk, his long black cloak fluttering with the movement.

Obelisk was thrown backwards by the hit, falling off the bed and landing heavily on the floor. He laid there for a moment, then slowly sat up, grabbing a rag from a nearby table and using it to soak up blood that was leaking from his split lip. It was strange, seeing him bleed; Obelisk had never allowed so much as a scratch on himself. There were open wounds here and there on his body, but those had half-healed since long ago. "If you can find away to kill me, Cynyr, please don't hesitate to do so. I grow tired of living...so very tired." He decided to curl up on one of the beds, somehow fitting his elonglated frame onto the far-too-small matress.

Werr awoke yet again a few minutes later. He seemed to be doing better; despite the fact that he yelled upon awakening and threw the blankets over himself. But he didn't have anymore problems with speech or movement, apparently. "Just stay away from me!" Werr yelled when Marr approached. "I don't need a doctor, I need my dad!"

Doctor Marr decided quickly against telling the king that his father was dead. Of course, he didn't know that Darius Grehi wasn't actually his father, but not many people knew that.

((Fixed))

Cynyr turned back to face Werr, swallowing as he did so. He still shot Obelisk furious glances once in a while, but he tried to ignore him for the time being. "Werr," he said, again trying for the gentle tone he only recently had figured out he possessed. "You don't remember me, but you should know that I would never hurt you. You hurt yourself," He paused and threw Obelisk a glare. "and lost some of your memories. But you have to believe that I know you! Or...if not me, then...Welk. Do you remember Welk? Blonde half-cat fire mage?"