Kira sat patiently under the shade of her family's canvas tent, sipping casually from her canteen of cool water. A breeze whipped up then and sent her hair dancing about her face as the girl welcomed the wind, scented with dry sand and little else. She sneezed as some grains found their way up her nose and dabbed at it with a spare rag before letting out another. Her mother appeared then, covered in dust and spider webs from the tomb they were excavating. "We need another lantern Kira!" she yelled, and her daughter obligued by slipping off the trunk of maps she had been resting on and poking around the tent until she discovered one. She lit it and handed it to her mother, Cheryl, who smiled at her and said before dissapearing, "You might be able to come in Kira! We've just about opened the chamber door..." Her voice was lost down the echoing tunnel and with a sigh Kira hopped back up onto the trunk and resumed replenshing her fluids.

Some time later, Cheryl and her fiance Paul shook the age old dirt off themselves and approached their daughter, who by now lay dozing atop the trunk. The sun had set some time ago and the night had grown warm and breezy although sandstorms were whipping up every ten minutes around the camp. Cheryl shook Kira awake lightly and chuckled as the girl mumbled, "Mummies...eating...mommy..." before waking completely. She sat up and blinked in the low lanternlight and grinned sheepishly. "Sorry...must have drifted off..." Kira made space for her mother on the trunk. "Don't worry about it, I would have done the same. We've uncovered the entrance to the burial room and you can come with us to open it tomorrow. For now, I think it'd be a good idea if we got some sleep."

Kira nodded and stretched back out on the trunk as her mother and Paul shook the sand out of some older blankets and lay them on a large strip of canvas. The two then flopped down atop them, not even bothering to change, and instantly fell into deep slumber. Kira turned on her side, for a bolt was poking her in the spine, and looked at the shadowed entrance to the tomb, almost expecting to see ghosts wander out of it to return her gaze.

Although Kira was used to travelling all over Egypt with her mom and Paul to excavate lost pyramids, this one was perticularly creepy due to the fact that those who had tried to open it before had mysteriously vanished and their co-workers had closed the tomb back up for unknown reasons. Kira tended to be a bit super-stitious, and was rather angry with herself for falling asleep while her parents were still in there. She had mixed feelings about actually entering the place, but she knew a few old remedies that her nanny had taught her long ago about warding off angry spirits and pleasing the more friendly ones. She finally made herself go to sleep for she didn't want to face the tomb half awake. Who knows what'd happen then...

While Kira slept, the winds gathered in fierce cones of energy all around their camp, throwing sand and ripping apart canvas. Kira awoke in the middle of the storm and sat up, blinking, until she was thrown off her trunk by a powerful gust and into one of the tent poles. "Mom!" she screamed, struggling to pull herself to her feet. "Paul!" It was no use. Her voice was lost in the enraged howling of the wind. "Spirits...angry spirits..." she muttered to herself while trying to run for cover.

She found her way to the opening of the tomb and without further hesitation jumped inside, landing hard on the stone floor. Groaning, she sat up and looked above her. The storm was still blowing full force outside and she could swear she heard her mother's screams. "In here!" she yelled, standing despite the pain in her right leg and trying to climb the walls. "Mom!! Come in the tomb!!" she screamed frantically, but her mother's voice, if she had heard it at all, seemed distant now. The sandstorm suddenly discovered her hiding place and dropped in through the opening, blasting Kira with dust and debris.

Kira ran down the nearest tunnel, plunging herself further and further into darkness. She came to a door and flung it open, hurling herself inside the room and slamming the door behind her. The wind pulled at the edges and almost got it open, but Kira found a large trunk or something like it to block the door with. She backed into a corner and sat down hard, curling up into a ball and watching the shaking door with wide eyes.

Something soft came down off the wall on top of her, but rather then screaming the girl grabbed it and hugged it in her fear, trying to draw comfort from the musty-smelling object. Somehow, she managed to drift into uneasy slumber, curled around the pillow-like something as if her life depended on it.

When Kira awoke, she saw that the door had been blasted open by the storm during the night and the trunk smashed against the wall, making a huge opening in which sunlight now streamed through. She sat up, very stiff and sore, to look around the chamber. There were gold figurines everywhere, but most were broken and in discarded heaps. Graverobbers. Her mother wouldn't be happy about that. Then she remembered what had happened before and tried to stand up, but found that something was stuck to her clothing.

She screamed and pulled it off, then backed into the opposite corner, shaking uncontrollably. "Oh God..." she muttered, "I was sleeping next to a mummy all night," Kira frantically brushed the sticky substance left by the mummy from her dress, then noticed something odd on the wall of that corner. She approached it, not daring to touch the mummy, and placed a hand on the wall where the stone seemed to swirl. Her hand went right through it. She leapt back and tripped over the mummy to land in a heap on the floor beside it. "Stupid...hey, wait a minute."

Kira crawled over to the embalmed thing and touched it lightly. Something moved in it, and it was warm. It was also smaller then an adult, and this pyramid was supposed to belong to a great King. It wasn't wrapped in the traditional embalmer style either, but rather it looked to have been woven around something to protect it, not conceal it. Curious, she picked it up, oblivious to the sticky substance it left on her clothes and carried it with her out the door, following the tunnel to the entrance.

In order to leave the tomb, she had to climb up a rope latter that had been left behind by the storm. Unable to climb with something in her arms, Kira ended up sticking the cocoon on her back (it hung there all on its own) in order to leave. She climbed out into the sunlight, blinking fiercly, and saw that their camp had been destroyed and there was not sign of her mother or Paul.

She detatched the cocoon from herself and placed it beside the ruined tent and looked around for any clues as to what had happened to her parents. Nothing. There was nothing left but torn blankets, broken artifacts, and chunks of map. She flopped down beside the cocoon and began to cry. "It's all my fault...I should have warned them..." she sniffled as the cocoon seemed to shake and whimper. Kira remembered that strange portal in the tomb and wondered if that's where the creature, if thats what it was, had come from.

Happy to have something to do, she attached the cocoon to her back again and lowered herself into the tomb, trying to remember which tunnel she had taken. Chosing the nearest one, she selected correctly and found herself back in the same room she had slept in the night before. Inhaling deeply, she stepped through the portal, unsure of what awaited her there...

As Kira transversed the portal, she was blinded by bright light for endless moments, then tottered out to land face-first in sand. Sputtering, she sat up and looked around. "What the..." She got to her feet, brushing grains of sand from her dress and stumbling forward, ignoring the sharp rocks that prodded her bare feet through the blanket of sand. Wherever she had travelled to, it looked exactly like the desert she had just left. Heat waves rippled across her vision, and the sun glared down at her from a noon-day sky.

Luckily, the cocoon had remained attached to her back during her fall, and she now removed it to cradel in her arms. She brushed sand off of it frantically, but the sticky substance that covered it held the particles firmly in place. Kira looked around for any distinguishing landmarks she could use to get back to this place when she needed to use the portal again. A flash of something green caught her eye, then dissapeared behind a dune. "Wait!" she called after it while running.

When she reached the dune, nothing was there. "Must've been a mirage..." she grumbled, sinking to her knees and trying to use the dune as protection from the sun. Suddenly, she caught sight of four, no five emerald green tails vanishing around the corner of the dune. Getting to her feet, she half ran, half crawled after the animal, pleading for it to wait for her.

She chased after the creature for hours it seemed, never getting a clear view of it, only a flash of green here, the swish of a tail there. It must be leading my somewhere, Kira thought hopefully. And indeed, the creature stopped before a large pool of water. The girl was unsure of whether or not this was another mirage, but she dipped a cupped hand into the cool water, which felt real enough, and took a sip. It was real!

Kira plunged into the shallow lake and swam about for quite a while, leaving the cocoon on the bank and forgetting about the strange animal that had led her there. When she finally did crawl out, it was to see the animal curled up beside her cocoon, snoozing lightly. Kira approached it with caution, for it looked almost fox-like. "Hey..." she began in a soft voice, but the animal jerked awake to reguard her steadily. Thank you for retrieving my child, Kira

"What? Who-" I spoke to you. My name is Chip; I am a Glass Egyptan. My child, she gestured to the cocoon, which was now rocking violently in her forepaws, Must have tumbled through the portal into your realm. To thank you, I offer you my child as a gift. "How did you know my name?" I have the ability to read thoughts, came the simple reply from the elegant Egyptan. My child will hatch now. Please, come closer so that he imprints on you as his mother. "But you're his mother..." The Egyptan gave her a strange canine smile. I may have birthed him, but all Egyptans seem to find humans who they look to as parents. Please, hurry, the cocoon is splitting...

Kira crouched beside the cocoon, which indeed had a fair-sized split down the side and a black nose could be seen wriggling against it. Kira aided the baby Egyptan, ripping the fragile casing and levering the black body out the slit. Amber eyes blinked at her, then nuzzled against her shoulder, whining anxiously. "He's beautiful..." Kira managed to say through her tears. She turned to look for Chip, but the mother had vanished. "Thank you Chip! Wherever you are..." She turned back to the baby Egyptan, who was pleading for food. "I'll find you something, don't worry..."

It didn't take long for her to discover tropical fruit bushes growing around the lake. She picked some of these and ripped them into small chunks to feed the Egyptan. Soon, all the fruit was gone and the cub was contently sleeping in her lap. Kira had made a shelter for them out of some tree fronds and wet sand. It wasn't very sturdy, but it would protect them from the elements until she could find her way back to the portal.

Kira stroked the velvetty ears of the Egyptan, smiling to herself. "I think I'll call you Soran," she decided suddenly. The cub turned over restlessly in her lap and blinked awake to reguard her. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?" Soran seemed to shake his head at her, and Kira wondered when he would be able to talk. No matter, he would be her family until she found her mother again...

Name: Soran
Age: Cub
Sex: Male
Type/Colour: Black Variation
Tribe: Rune