The Forgotten Zodiac

"Right," Forin nodded, then hugged Diana tightly. "Do you...want to come watch, or should I leave you with Nare and Seria?"

"I want to watch," Diana said at once. "I don't want to be left alone again..."

"Alright. It's okay. I won't leave if you don't want me to."

"I don't."

"Then I won't." Forin smiled down at her.

Luen stood up, bending once to stretch his slender legs, then said "Whenever you're ready, Forin, but I would suggest you rest first. You look tired, and it'll be easier for you to delve deeper into yourself if you're more alert." He touched his best friend's shoulder, then said "I'm going for food. I suggest we all go and eat together."

"Alright. We can take some down time first, I suppose," Forin nodded, ripping the page out of his sketchbook and shoving it into his back pocket. He stood and stretched a bit, then picked up Diana and made to follow Luen to the kitchens.

Nate, Tasia, Werr, Cynyr, Welk, and even little Boko, were all already enjoying food that Toro and other Amnairians were serving up. Kiraki was in the corner, reading a book while eating soup; thankfully, she seemed to be under control of her curse at the moment, as they were all taking turns attempting to imitate Boko's high-pitched squeal of a roar, and having a good deal of fun.

Lexi was in the room too, trying her best to eat a bit of food. She looked positively exhausted, and she finally just pushed her barely touched plate away and resting her head on her arms on the table, sighing. She slowly slipped away from the table, deciding to go for a walk, though she didn't want to leave Werr. Since he had comforted her, she had just felt more reassured. That she wasn't all alone just yet, and that he could be trusted with...well, anything. But she wanted a moment to herself, and she didn't want to burden Werr with anything. So she slipped away.

Cynyr watched her go, saying nothing. He turned, instead watching Welk wiggle around on Werr's shoulders, trying his best to squeal like Boko. He was getting fairly close to it, too. Finally, he just curled around Werr's neck, resting his head under the boy's chin with a sigh.

Werr chortled. "That was good, Welk. Do it again, Boko?" The Drakeling nodded and let out another one of his squeals. Werr laughed. "You were really close, Welk."

"Boko!" Diana slid out of Forin's grip, running forward and hugging her scaled friend.

"Diana!" Boko purred, loosely wrapping himself around her until nothing could be seen but the top of her head. Her giggles could be heart from inside, which made Forin smile. Boko looked like a coil pot this way.

"Hey, I haven't seen you four all day," Werr looked up at the group. "How have you all been?"

"Better now than we were earlier," Forin shrugged, sitting down at the long table.

Luna sat down next to him, starting to fix herself a plate of food. "It's been a long day," she said, nodding slightly. "But we're getting there." She ran her fingers gently down Forin's arm, smiling at him.

Luen stumbled and crashed head-first into the table, resulting in a solid thud and a slight shiver going through everything on the table. He staggered upright, holding the growing bruised bump on his head and stammering "S-sorry! I'm so sorry! Didn't mean to, really..." He moved to a chair, sitting down and freezing the spot on his head so it wouldn't swell anymore.

"Luen...are you okay?" Forin frowned at his friend. "It's not that big of a deal. You didn't knock over the whole table or anything..." He reached over and gave the Kirin a pat on the arm. He looked back as Boko was squealing and rolling around in circles, Diana still tucked into his coils and grinning more than ever before. Forin closed his eyes and listened to the laughter for a long moment, the sound soothing to him. Diana didn't laugh nearly often enough...

Luen smiled softly at Forin's touch, then took some fruit from the table and sat munching on it.

Then, in a surprising turn, Cynyr slipped into panther form and began batting at the two with his paws, his ears up and his tail held high. He wasn't hurting them, not at all. It was more of quick pokes. It wasn't quite as playful or friendly as the kind of emotion Werr and Welk commonly saw, but it was a start. They knew well enough that he would normally prefer to sit in the corner. But he jumped out of the way of their rolling and gave his light pokes, seeming to...well, he didn't seem to enjoy it. It was more like he was trying to become use to small children playing, knowing he would need to learn sooner or later. Especially since his wife was expecting a child.

Boko continued to roll around, Diana shrieking with giggles as the Drakeling moved his coils to let Cynyr poke her, too. Eventually, Boko got bored and advanced on Cynyr, trying to catch the pather's flicking tail with his own, an erratic swordfight of tail tips. Diana shied away from Cynyr and played with Boko's front end, in the meantime.

Cynyr seemed done with the game by this time, and he curled up under Werr's chair and allowed Boko to abuse his tail. Until the drakeling got a tad too rough, which caused Cynyr to warn him off with a quick smack to his tail. He really wasn't interested in playing then, and groomed his paws instead.

All in all, it was just a quiet, peaceful evening.

Welk grew cold and slid down into Werr's shirt, poking his head out of the collar and shivering. Being made of nothing more than a mixture of thin, light silver and soul energy, he got cold fast.

Boko and Diana giggled, but went back to eating rather than playing with each other. Werr was more than happy to let Welk warm up against him. Eventually, though, Werr started falling asleep in his chair; he and Cynyr had trained pretty much all of that day with the Artifact. His hand burned (and looked visibly red, although Seria couldn't ease the pain), but they had made progress by this point. Werr had even gotten it to where he and Cynyr had switched bodies for five whole minutes before Werr lost concentration. That had been a sight to see.

So all in all, he was pretty exhausted. Forin watched him doze off in his chair, then wordlessly reached up and balanced a glass of water on the king's forehead. Werr didn't seem to notice, too tired to do anything.

Welk frowned, flying up out of Werr's shirt to slowly heave the glass of water off of his best friend's face. It was a lot of effort for him, but he managed to get it back onto the table before scolding Forin. Then he nudged Werr until he woke up and said "Come on, I'm tired too. Let's go to bed."

Cynyr flicked his ears up, then stood and pulled at Werr's sleeve, nudging him towards his armored back. Werr was lucky to have friends that cared for him so much.

Werr blinked groggily, then smiled and climbed onto Cynyr's back. He was indeed lucky. He thought of himself as so. He would have died a hundred times by now if not for his friends. He knew that. There was no way he'd forget it, either. He was weak on his own, but with his friends to help him, he was strong. And with how many friends he had, and how powerful they were, there wasn't much they couldn't overcome.

Welk hovered over and rested on Werr's shoulder, draping himself over it like a tiny ragdoll. He held on tightly as Cynyr bid the others goodnight and headed off, pushing the doors open with his nose and trotting out. They encountered Lexi sitting in a window sill, staring out quietly at the setting sun. She turned sharply when Cynyr scuffed his claws along the ground, making a sharp noise.

"Oh!" she said quickly, blinking. "Um...hello. Do you need anything?"

"Hi, Lexi." Werr smiled a bit. "You should probably head to bed eventually. That's where I'm going now," He yawned, stretching his arms. "If you need anything, Toroph should be able to help you. He's always in the kitchens, apparently. Then there's Obelisk, who would be happy to help you, I've noticed. He's in his room, like he usually is here...is there anything I can do for you before I retire for the evening?" He asked quietly, smiling.

"No, no, that's alright," she said quickly, then seemed to think about it for a moment. "Well...actually, there is one thing...no, that's stupid, never mind..."

"What is it?" Cynyr asked, lowering his head a little so his eyes speared up at her intently.

"N-nothing..." she stammered, lowering her head and staring at the ground.

Cynyr stared at her hard, then murmured very softly, "If you want to hug him, it's alright, you know. Somehow I don't think he'll mind."

Her gaze leapt up fearfully at him, her brown eyes wide as she wondered how in the heck he knew what she had wanted.

Werr blinked, then smiled widely. "Lexi...I would like that." He slid off of Cynyr's back, holding his arms out. He didn't advance forward, just waited with his arms open wide.

She slipped forward and wrapped her arms him, leaning her head against his free shoulder. The gentle male presence was enough to reassure her and dispell all of her fears. Here, she felt safe and secure, and...loved? That last one, she didn't know yet. And she wasn't sure of it herself. But...maybe. She looked downwards at Cynyr, then slowly moved a hand down and stroked his head gently.

Surprisingly, he didn't move away. He allowed the stroking. Why? They didn't know. But it had to be a good sign.

Werr smiled, then was unable to hold back a yawn. "Sorry," He flushed a bit, then smiled again. "I'll go to bed now. Goodness knows you don't want to see my tonsils too much," He laughed, then lowered himself back onto Cynyr's back and yawned again. "I'm really tired, so...I'll see you tomorrow morning, yeah?"

She turned her head, blushing as she said "Y-yes. I...can't wait. I wish you well, Werr. Goodnight." She hesitated for a split second, but couldn't seem to bring herself to do anything and just turned, fleeing down the hall and turning the corner quickly.

Cynyr turned as well, padding off towards their room. "...She likes you," he said. It wasn't a question. "A lot," he added, flicking his tail. He didn't say anything else as he headed to the room and pushed it open with his nose.