Ani Peraveda Melonball Wandninja Glister Gloaming THE FOURTH.

While all this drama was going on down the hall, Videro kept returning to those darn on/off switches, on the statues.  Switches!  Preposterous.  He leaned down, with  his eyes still on the pedestal, picked up his fallen cloak, murmuring about dust, and shook it out.  An angry purple ball of wooly fluff tumbled out, deep indigo, nearly the color of Videro's rich velvety cloak.  The fluff swooped up, grabbed Videro by the point of his collar, and slapped him smartly across the face.  It actually stung a little bit!  "I was SLEEPING you fiend, you insensitive jerk", the fluff spat.  Videro's eyes focused.  There was a pixie an inch away from his nose, with one foot planted firmly on his sternum.  An angry pixie.   "Just...just...how...dare you. I am Ani Peraveda Melonball Wandninja Glister Gloaming the FOURTH!  I demand an apology!!!" she sputtered, and continued on cursing and shaking him by the point of his ornate collar. Videro immediately tuned her out, while he tried to put together just how this being got into his clothes, his precious clothes.

Earlier that week, Ani took residence among the wings of the baby dragons. It was dark, it was warm, and there was all kinds of interesting traffic.  She had fun flashing around, terrorizing the tourists, pinching them and stealing their baubles.  Her minuscule attention span was already totally over this hobby, and Ani was making to pack up and wander to the next dungeon.  That's when the Very Interesting group bumbled into her lair.  Oh, they nearly got themselves slain by the big guy in the middle! Hysterics.  Moving in for a closer look, she nested at the feet of the big guy, and watched them shuffle around the perimeter of the room, like some kind of silly dancers.  Stuffing both tiny fists into her mouth, to stifle her peals of laughter, she just hung back and watched.  It got ugly there for awhile, the idiots triggered the baby angels...maybe she should turn them off...but nah, this was too interesting.  They took SO long, though.  Ani slid off the statue, tiptoeing in for a closer look, and nearly tripped over a REALLY soft piece of cloth.  Divine providence!  She snuggled down in it, and watched the adventurers raptly...or till she fell asleep, 3 minutes later.

Kouri's Goodbye

After witnessing Henry Senior dispatch the last shambling zombie, Kouri dropped her gory falchion.  She slid down the wall, into a half crouch, and put her head in her enormous dinner-plate hands.  The undead always unnerved her, always scared her, but this was to be too much.  

They'd been fighting for days, maiming, killing, even torturing.  This isn't what she signed on for, when she left the grove for "adventure", these people, while courageous in their own way, were not the heroes of stories, they were bloodthirsty and greedy, crass and rowdy.  Even Faolan didn't seem the same. He grew more savage and distancy.  Tonight had been the last of it.  Trying to save her friends, she got beaten almost to death, and flung around a room by statues. Statues!  Then, forgetting all of her wise mentor's training, everything she'd ever gained in overcoming her animal nature, she charged into battle like a common animal, goring a walking corpse with her majestic horns.  Frightened, traumatized, frustrated, and scared more than anything she could ever recall, Kouri slid deeper into a curled ball, and didn't move for a long time.  No one really noticed anything different, at first, thinking she was just exhausted from the fight, which was half truth.  She began to pray.  Praying for answers, praying for strength, guidance, anything.  The rhythmic whispered chanting provided comfort, and lulled her into a trancelike state.  She lost the world around her, the murky dungeon fell away, the sounds of post combat joking, groaning, looting fell away.  Everything but the prayers fell away.  

She quieted her heart, and listened.  Nothing came.  The sounds came back, the smells came back, the crushed zombie gristle under her left hoof came back...and she felt no different.  Picking up her pack, and reclaiming her sword, she resigned herself to moving on, again.  Plodding forward, deeper into the morass, both of her emotions, and in this very real, and very disgusting place.  Not understanding their mission, not feeling like she was even doing anything useful.  

Out of nowhere, a breeze came.  A breeze EXACTLY like the cool, piny morning shade in her beloved bower, lifted her mane and filled all her senses with a brief but immense joy.  It was pines and deep loamy leaves! It was sunshine and endless green water. The breeze came from deep below, eddied and swirled past her, and rushed up the stair case they'd recently descended.  Up.  Out.    She looked around, and no one seemed touched by the same wind, no one even noticed.  In that brief instant, she'd heard the answer to her prayer, and realized that to stay here one minute more was suicide, slow, agonizing suicide.  She could teach more people her way! She could care for her beloved forest!  There was more for her out there.  

She was losing her magic, losing herself, losing her best friend and companion, her steadfast wolf, continuing this path of destruction.  Hopefully her companions would understand.  She watched them now, with tears in her velvety brown eyes, knowing what she'd have to say.  This would be the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life.