The Forgotten Zodiac

Eve smiled and laughed. "No, Manny, I don't think Sylas can talk to butterflies, but I'm sure he'll like seeing them. Should we get Gabe to come, too?" he's probably good at catching them," she said.

"Yeah! Gabe can come get butterflies, too!" Manny darted off in the direction of their room, giggling happily.

"Gabe! Gabegabegabe, do you want to come get butterflies with me? We're going to catch a whole bunch!" Manny proclaimed as he burst into the room, grinning.

Gabe looked up from the scroll he'd been drawing on, nearly knocking over his vial of ink as he jumped. "Butterflies?" he asked, smiling. "Sure! I gotta let some of the ink dry anyhow, let's go go go!" he cheered, jumping to his feet and coming over to Manny.

"Yeah!" Manny picked Gabe up happily, running back to Eve. "I got Gabe! Can we go now? Plee-ease?" He ran in place, waiting to get a confirmation before running off. When he got it, he was off quick as a wink.

To his surprise, however, someone was already in the garden outside. It was Ullar, still bandaged and broken, seated in a wheelchair. Reetah was beside him, singing a pretty little song as they watched the breeze sway the flowers.

Gabe motioned for Manny to be quiet as they saw the two out in the garden, carefully slipping from the mannequinn's arms. He stood beside Manny and listened to the song, tilting his head slightly as he watched Reetah and Ullar.

Manny listened as well, staring at the two of them. Reetah finished and turned to look at them. "I know when I'm being watched."

"We didn't want to interrupt," Manny blinked.

"Well...thank you, I suppose. I'll just take Ullar back inside now." Reetah tutted, starting to push the wheelchair away.

"You can stay!" Gabe called. "We can catch butterflies for him! You think he'd like that?" he asked.

Reetah shook her head, continuing on her path. Manny watched them go. "Ullar would only be sad from watching us play, Gabe. Because he can't get up and play with us, probably..."

"Oh..." Gabe said, frowning. "I can understand how that could be a problem..."

"Yeah." Manny sighed. "But we can still catch a butterfly for him. We can bring it inside for him. Like we're gonna show Sylas. Come on," He smiled again and got right to work, hunting down the prettiest butterfly they could find.

Gabe trotted around after Manny, looking around the garden with wide eyes. "Look, there!" he cried each time he saw a butterfly.

"Shh!" Manny said each time. "We've gotta be quiet. Making loud noises scares the butterflies. We don't want them to fly away, we want them to stay still so we can catch them." He was far from mad, and was quite cheery as he sat still and waited for the butterflies to return to the flowers again. It didn't take too long, and before long, Manny found his fingers closing around a butterfly with bright blue wings. "Look, Gabe, I caug--" He stopped short as something hit his shoulder from behind.

Manny turned to face his assailant; it was a Manakete boy. There were several of them, along with a couple girls. All of them had rocks, which was what had been thrown at Manny. "You freaks don't belong here!" The tallest of the boys, obviously the head of the group, sneered. "We may be allies with the forest, but you're sure as heck not part of it!"

Manny didn't reply, staring at the rocks in their hands. "What, you're not even going to say anything?!" A girl snapped, and another rock was thrown. This one hit Manny's head, but he did little more than flinch and whimper.

"Hey!" Gabe said, then murmured the protection spell over Manny. "Jerks," he hissed, going over to Manny's side. "Leave him alone, he's with me," he said, crossing his arms.

A couple more rocks were thrown, but it didn't take long for them to realize that they weren't doing any damage. "Tch...you're just another half-breed freak who attracts all sorts of trouble," The first boy snapped, and threw a rock at Gabe, instead.

Gabe tried to get out of the way, but the rock struck his cheek and left a bloody smear behind. The warlock's eyes narrowed. "You really didn't want to do that," he said, and a small flame came to life in the palm of each hand. He glared at the group, daring them to keep at it.

"N-no, don't hurt them...they're just...they don't understand..." Manny whimpered, pulling on Gabe's hand.

"Are you calling me stupid? You're the stupid ones!" The boy threw yet another rock, and soon enough, all of them were. They were only about ten strong, but all of them had good enough arms. The rocks hurt.

"Stop!" Gabe commanded, repeating the protection spell to shield himself. His spells had gotten stronger, and it'd take more than a few cast stones to break the shield. "I'm warning you, leave us alone, or I'll start casting!" he threatened.

"Stop it, stop it, just stop," Manny cried, hugging Gabe from behind, obviously terrified. "I don't like this!" But the rocks didn't stop, even after one of the girls had gotten unnerved and run for it.

The rocks bounced off of the spell uselessly, and he looked to Manny as he didn't require concentration to keep the shield up. "They'll quit when they get bored," he muttered, patting Manny's head.

"Will they?" Manny sniffed. He yelped in alarm as something else hit the sheild. A knife, thrown by one of the younger boys. Thankfully, it just hit the ground harmlessly. "I...I think we should go back inside..." Manny trembled, not knowing what else they could throw.