The Forgotten Zodiac

Obelisk remained silent for a moment. "I...know not. But you must already be aware that whoever it is, they are vastly powerful, to be able to control me so easily. I understand that you probably believe me even less after hearing that I do not know, but I truly do not. Do you want the truth, or fabrication?" He didn't move very much, just watching Cynyr as he sat there. He could care less what Cynyr did; he couldn't be killed. He had once driven a knife through his own skull, shortly after eating the very thing that made him immortal. The blade had just stayed there until he pulled it out.

And to be honest, he had lived too long. He would happily accept death if it came to him.

Cynyr stood there for a moment longer, glaring at the ground, then pushed off from the wall and stalked over, putting his face a few inches away from Obelisk's. "I don't trust you," he said, his voice as cold as ice. "I will never trust you. I don't believe anything you just said, even if it might be the truth. You've hurt us too many times for me to even think about trusting you." He turned away with a 'tsk' and walked to the door, pausing there. He glanced back over his shoulder at the creature, so twisted and ruined, his body degraded and wretched.

Cynyr didn't care one bit.

The panther stalked out of the room without a second glance.

Obelisk watched him go. The twisted and ruined creature stood, his bandages supporting him as he walked to the door. He wasn't sure where he would go, though. Cynyr must have already told the guards or something; a few of them stared, but none of them said a word or moved to attack. He walked slowly, aimlessly, then noticed something. The small sound of feet behind him. Obelisk turned, seeing Werr pulling on the bandages that trailed behind him.

"I remember you," Werr said, smiling a little bit.

"Not as well as you think you do," Obelisk commented quietly. "Do you have questions for me too, then?"

"Hmm...can you pick me up with these things?" Werr asked. He had noticed the ones floating slightly, after all.

"Certainly." Obelisk chortled, wrapping a couple bandages around Werr's arm and chest, lifting him effortlessly off of the ground. The now-childish boy laughed, grinning wildly. Obelisk couldn't help but smile. "Have you ever dreamed of flight?"

"Hasn't everyone?" Werr tilted his head while Obelisk spun him around, securing a few more bandages to him.

By the time Cynyr found them, Obelisk was lifting Werr almost to the ceiling of the throne room, moving him to and fro. The boy was laughing and flapping his arms as though he were a bird. Obelisk was smiling for once. The expression looked so very strange on his face. As though he was made to frown.

Cynyr froze the second he entered the room, his sharp eye instantly wide. "Put him down," he said, his voice dangerously low and shaky. His volume quickly rose and he shouted "Put him down this instant!" He stalked forward, wind already forming blades around his arms. He cut one hand down in a slicing motion which generated blades of air that severed the bandages holding Werr. He caught the boy when he fell, setting him firmly down nearby. "What did I tell you?!" he thundered, the edges of his dead right eye twitching with stress. "I told you to stay in the kitchen and wait for me to come back, didn't I?" He jerked his head back to Obelisk and snapped "And you. I can't even believe that you were stupid enough to...that...to..." He sputtered out incoherent words, then turned to Werr and hissed "You're going to your room and you're going to stay there this time."

Tears dripped down Werr's cheeks. He opened and closed his mouth, staring up at Cynyr in shock and fear. When the half-cat turned to him the second time, Werr flinched again, putting his arms between himself and the angry knight. Werr suddenly turned on heel, running out of the throne room without looking back. There was silence for a moment, until Obelisk broke that.

"Stupid enough to make someone happy for a few minutes?" Obelisk said quietly, his smile gone. "Foolish enough to want to hear laughter after centuries of being forced to hear nothing but tortured screams? You were being far too rough with him. In two days, you have started to switch our roles in Werr's mind, Cynyr. I will not keep you from Werr or interfere any further, if that is what you wish. But I implore you, control your temper. And I warn you; things like this do not simply leave overnight. He could very well be like this for the rest of his life. And if you continue down this path, you will make yourself his enemy before you realize what you have done."

Cynyr blinked at the dark lord, suddenly feeling like he was standing on the edge of a rift with Werr on the other side. When he looked over the edge, he saw nothing but darkness. And there was evidence that the rift had once been much wider apart, so far that nobody could've hoped to jump over. But there was also signs of the rift being so close to Werr's side of it that there was not even a crack left behind, the two sides entwined in each other. And now that rift was opening again, leaving them further apart.

The panther turned abruptly and darted out of the room, heading after Werr. He made it to the boy's room and tried the door, finding it locked. "Werr, open the door," he said, forcing his voice to be low. "I'm sorry...I didn't mean to get mad at you, but...that...'man'...you were playing with has a bad history and I was afraid he might hurt you. I'm so...so...sorry...."

Werr just wailed something from inside, though the door caused it to be muffled and incoherent. A normal person wouldn't be able to hear it, but Cynyr's sensitive ears picked up every word. "You aren't my mother, why are you acting like her?" He had whimpered. Tears ran down his face in heavy flow. "You're exactly like her..." He was curled up not on the bed, but next to the open window. He was tying knots in his bedsheets, trying to make a rope to get down into the courtyard below. From there, it was a straight run to the outdoors, and what he assumed was freedom.

Cynyr didn't answer, instead choosing to back up a step. He dug his hands into his head, not knowing what to do. He didn't know what the boy was doing in there (he couldn't see through walls), so he ended up just sitting on the floor opposite of the door and making his skull bleed from digging his claws into the skin, trying desperately to think of something to do.

Suddenly, there was a thud from the roof, along with the sound of tiles shifting.

Cynyr glanced up, his eye narrowed suspiciously, but the sound didn't come again. Finally, he lowered his head back down, his tail flicking slowly.

In Werr's room, there came the sound of claws clicking across the roof just over the window, then a shadow fell across the sill. Whatever was on the roof suddenly jumped down and landed on the edge of the window, which brought a sharp crack out of the sill.

Grey glared at Werr, rustling his gray and black wyvern scales. He took human form, sitting casually on the sill and pushing his dark blue glasses further up onto his nose. "Hello, human," he said, blinking green eyes at Werr.

Werr jumped and scrambled away from the window, swallowing hard. "Who...who are you?" He stammered, grabbing up his book and once again tucking it close to his chest. He quickly wiped his eyes before backing up slowly until his shoulders bumped into the bed. The glare alone was enough to frighten Werr at this point.

The wyvern shrugged, raising a hand tipped in sharp white claws. "I am of no concern to you," he said, tilting his head back to watch the goings-on below the window. "I'm just here to chat. Is that so bad?" He turned back to Werr, the look on his face tactfully blank. "You stink," he said, his sensitive dragon nose picking up the boy's scent. "And by that, I mean I hate the way you naturally smell. The scent of a human is a truely disgusting thing. ...Oh?" He stared at Werr for a moment, then said "You don't remember me, do you?"

Werr slowly shook his head. "I...I don't remember a lot of things," Werr said, opening his book a crack and peeking into it. "Apparently...I'm not too sure who I believe now..." He snapped it shut again, sliding under the bed without another word. He felt very trapped, namely; Cynyr was outside, and this stranger was here...

The wyvern slid off of the window sill and took dragon form, just fitting into the room. He moved forward and put his snout under the edge of the bed, then suddenly gave a powerfully shove with his head. The bed tipped over immediately, leaving Werr open and prompting a "What was that?" from the mage outside the door. "Well, I'll just let you know something real quick, okay?" Grey said, stalking forward and bringing his sharp-tooth-filled maw close to the boy's body. "You don't want to be friends with me," he said, his voice dripping low into a dark tone. "I hate all humans." He lifted a leg and brought it down over Werr, pinning the boy with his foot. "So if I kill you, many humans will end up suffering," he said, smiling. "Including that panther outside your door. He cares for you, you know. He just can't show emotion well." His lips curled back to show his sharp teeth, saying "Shall we see if he cries when he finds your carcass laying dead in here?"

"Werr?" the wind mage outside called, sensing something was off.

Werr struggled uselessly with Grey's foot, gasping as the talons started to dig in. He screamed at that point, kicking and struggling for all he was worth. He didn't last very long though, eventually just stopping and lying there, wailing hysterically as he waited for his chest to be torn open.

"What are you waiting on, Cynyr?!" Obelisk's voice shot out from behind the half-cat. Obelisk himself appeared a moment later, his bandages blasting through the door as though it were made of paper.

Cynyr pushed past the dark lord and called out "Werr!" His eyes narrowed when he saw Grey, who just winked one green eye at the panther. "Nice to see you," he said calmly, pressing down a bit more against Werr. "You want him?" he asked, tilting his horned head down at Werr. "Come and get-"

Boom.

The wyvern was slammed out through the window by wind that was so strong it neared the force of a cannon blast. Grey squealed and flipped around in mid-air, landing easily on his strong kind legs down in the courtyard. He bugled up a challenge up at them, daring them to come down and fight him.

Cynyr came forward and scooped Werr into his arms, holding him close. "Are you okay?" he asked, glancing towards the broken window and surrounding wall.

Werr cried, pressing his face into Cynyr's shirt as his arms wrapped around the half-cat himself. He was shaking terribly and didn't seem to be - even slightly - attempting to stop, neither the tears nor the tremor. Obelisk moved casually past them, jumping down to the ground below. He landed with such force that would easily snap the legs of a normal human, but Obelisk was no normal human. He stood, a frown in its rightful place.

"Return from where you came from," Obelisk ordered. "Or you will return there, injured and shamed. Or perhaps...you may never return at all."

Cynyr held Werr close, nuzzling the top of the boy's head with his chin. "It'll be okay," he soothed, picking the boy up and moving him to a chair nearby. "Stay here. I'll come back and comfort you once that wyvern's taken care of." He let go of the boy and moved to the window, leaping out without a second thought. He landed easily due to his natural agility, standing up and readying wind blades.

Grey roared and swept his tail around, knocked over several pillars and plants. He opened his wings and fanned them, screeching "You'll both die by my hand!" He was panting already, his black eyes narrowed dangerously.

Cynyr suddenly paused. Black? The last time the panther had seen them, the wyvern's eyes had been green. He shook it off, saying to Obelisk "In all my craziest nightmares, I'd never thought I would ever be forced to fight alongside you. Try not to kill Grey yet. He's young and immature, plus...something about this whole attack is just wrong."

Werr stayed put this time, squeezing his eyes shut and humming a song to himself in an attempt to block out the bad things.

Obelisk nodded once. "You could fall back to protect Werr and allow me to handle this, but...I know you will do no such thing. For now, you will make the most of who you have to work with. Shall we begin simple?" Obelisk moved squiftly; several of his bandages immediately moved, wrapping thickly around the Wyrven's wings, preventing flight.

Obelisk, however, was at a disadvantage. It was early noon on a late summer's day; in other words, it was ridiculously bright, which meant that most of his usual abilities were rendered useless. Obelisk had seen that first hand when he had tried to push dark magic into the bandages in order to give the thing a good shock. Scales or not.

Grey snarled and whipped his tail around, trying to wriggle out of the bandages. Since he was a wyvern, that meant his wings were his arms. Now, with his wings pinned, that meant he couldn't fight with the clawed tips. Not that he needed them. He bugled again and jumped forward, landing with a heavy thud next to them. He was a small dragon, of course, but that didn't mean he was weak or easy to bring down. Wyverns were rare, like raptorixs had once been, so they had to have means to defend themselves with. He sucked in a deep breath, then billowed fire from his mouth, twisting his head this way and that on his long neck in order to throw the fire everywhere.

Cynyr leapt and dodged around the flames, using his wind powers to give him more speed. "Don't get hit, don't get hit," he mentally told himself, firing wind blasts at the wyvern. The blasts made Grey stumble, but he got right back up, his intent now on Cynyr.

Obelisk completely ignored the flames; the bandages were really the only things left to burn on his body, and those were replaced immediately by new ones. With the Wyrven's attention on Cynyr, Obelisk took the opporotunity to see if he remembered how to jump.

He crouched for a moment, keeping the bandages tight on Grey's wings. In a single bound, he landed on the Wyrven's back. Knowing he only had a few seconds before he would likely get thrown off, he wrapped bandages around Grey's momentarily-closed mouth, taking the ends in his hands like reins and pulling back sharply.

Grey attempted to snarl, forcing it out through the corners of his mouth. He lunged around in circles, fighting to pull the bandages out of Obelisk's hands. He threw his head back and tried to spike Obelisk through with his horns. When he missed, he settled for suddenly throwing his head forward and forcing his entire body into a summersault, trying to crush Obelisk between his back and the ground while keeping his sights on Cynyr, who continued to pelt his flanks with sharp wind gusts.