Thump, thump thump. Kaida ran through the forest, feet pounding the hard ground. I hate them! She thought bitterly. They killed him on purpose!

He's gone...gone...gone...gone._ Angry tears welled up in her eyes as she thought of her love, shot in front of her very eyes. Even though it was a long time ago, the memory still stuck with her. She blinked them away, she could be very tough when she had to. She stopped, leaning against a tree, gasping for breath. She looked down at her watch, and to her surprise it had changed into an odd aqua device with black buttons. She brushed her green hair of out her eyes and touched the device. And instantly was sucked into it.

Josaphine entered the new world standing on her own two feet. That was how she liked to do things. She searched the surroundings for signs of life. Suddenly, she felt a presence behind her. She whipped around; fists raised and came face to face with a falcon. "Who are you?" she asked.

"My name is Amanthuly. I am your companion here. You may call me Aman... i know that Amanthuly is a bit of a mouthful. Come, i shall answer your questions as we walk through the forest. We must find the others." And with that, Aman rose into the air and landed upon Josaphine's shoulder.

They came to a clearing where they saw many people. Josaphine walked up to them, waving. "Hello" she said. "My name is Josaphine, and this is my companion, Aman. Who are you?"

Aidan and Titterama came back, the girl carrying an armful of sticks. She dropped them in front of Jenna. Aidan walked to the edge of the clearing and sat down at the foot of a tree. The tiger followed and sat down at her feet.

Lurea sighed. nobody seemed to pay attention to her. She wandered off into the forest surrounding the campsite, not even needing to come up with an excuse for leaving; nobody seemed to care what she did. "Its just like back home. Mom's ok i suppose, but she never has any time for me… or doesn’t she? She could just be saying that, it’s not like anyone cared before."

"Moping are we?" Telperion half remarked, half asked.

"Leave me alone!" Lurea shouted angrily, he was just like everyone else after all.

Kayaro put the wood where the fire was going to be and said to Cherry and Erik and there companions, "C'mon!" Hey, Lurea, are you ok? Are you coming too? Please, don't be mad at Erik!”

"I'm fine," Lurea replied softly, "can i just be alone for a little while?"

Her mind was racing. Thinking about her mom brought back painful memories of her past. When she was still a baby her parents had been happy, young, and hopeful. Her mother was trying to make it as a professional photographer, and her father, having just graduated from law school, was working as a lawyer. When Lurea was born, her father had wanted to give her a name in Tolkien's elven languages, so her mother agreed on one condition, she would pick the name. After pouring over the "Elvish Dictionary" she found it, Lurea, meaning gloom and darkness. She found it amusing that such a beautiful word had such a dark meaning. As a middle name Lurea's father picked Tinuviel, for Luthien Tinuviel, one of the more amazing characters in "The Silmarillion".

Tears began forming in Lurea's eyes, remembering how happy they looked in the old photo albums her mom didn't know she still kept.

Kayaro replied, "Well, if you’re sure," and walked to meet Jenna at the lake.

Kaida blinked, the sun's light was blinding. A huge pair of eyes stared into hers. One as black as the midnight sky, the other emerald. What the...

"Greetings and Salutations, I am Nirvana, your companion." Kai looked at the "companion" curiously. It was a horse, though she was sure he had kelpie blood, with a white face and three white stockings. It's mane, tail, and body were black.

"Go 'way." She turned and stalked off.

"Make me Kaida Kamada." Kai froze and slowly turned. "How do you know my name?"

"I'm your companion, I know every thing about you."

"Then tell me what Kaida means."

"Easy. It means little anti-social human." He smirked, which looked very odd considering he was a horse.

"It means little dragon," Kai hissed. "And this is why." She took a lighter out of her pocket and began to play with it, glaring at Nirvana.

Kaida scowled at the companion and put the lighter away. She turned and began walking away.

"Oh no you don't!" Nirvana moved in front of her blocking her way. Kai sighed, her flare of temper had retreated.

"What do you want?"

"You have to meet the others." Kai looked at him in horror.

"Oh no we don't."

"Hop on. We're going." To tired to argue Kaida climbed on Nirvana's back.

He cantered easily to where the rest of the group was sitting. "Hello chickadees! Meet your new groupie!" Kai slid off his back in disgust; he was so aggravating

Aidan glanced at the new girl and rolled her eyes. "How many people are there going to be?" she asked Titterama impatiently.

"No more, hopefully," the tiger replied. "You should introduce yourself."

Aidan sighed. "Fine." She walked over to the girl. "I'm Aidan. The tiger is Titterama."

The tiger stared at the horse and growled slightly.

Kris sighed as yet another person entered the group.

"Are you going to say hi?" Reika commanded.

"No, why should I?" Kris relied.

"She has a horse; she can't be all that bad."

"Fine." Kris walked over to her. "I'm Kris," she told her, not smiling.

Reika nudged her. "Introduce her to everyone else."

Kris glared at the thestral but did as she was told. "The girl with the coyote is Jenna and the girl with the leopard is Blair. The one with the bird is Cherry; the prep. The other girl is Lurea though I'm not sure where she is right now. The guy's Erik."

Reika sighed. "What is with you humans and label?" she asked, annoyed.

Cherry bounded up to the new girl. "Hihihi! I'm Cherry, but..you knew that. And everybody thinks that I'm a prep just because I'm wearing a cheerleading uniform." Staring at the lovebird fluttering behind her shoulder, she said, "This is Lilliana. Isn't she cute?"

"Hi," said Lilliana. "Welcome to Savoya! I'm so glad we have more people"

Erik sighed as he saw another girl. "This is going to be harder than I thought," he muttered to himself. "Hopefully she believe me-"

"Death Howl!" the boy turned to see the Barghest trot over with a fish in his mouth. He dropped it with the other and grinned at Erik.

The boy rolled his eyes. "Do you think anyone will want to eat it now?"

Sukuyo looked hurt. "They'll just have to live with it. I know I am."

I'm not eating THAT," said Cherry, staring at the spit-covered fish. "EEEW! But I do appreciate your trying," she said consolingly to Sukuyo. "You're really very cute and I'm sure Lilliana would love a piece of the fish."

Sukuyo glared at the girl. "What's wrong with it? I'm not sick or anything. Dogs have healthier mouths than humans. And I’m NOT cute. I am basically the angel of death in the form of a dog and could kill you with a howl. Do you STILL think I'm cute??????"

Erik sighed. "Sorry bout him. But he's telling the truth. You might want to watch what you say around him; he has a very short temper."

Aidan couldn't help but smirk. "Pathetic," she thought. "It wouldn't be that bad if Sukuyo did his death howl on her; we really don't need a prep like that."

Titterama continued growling at the horse. She turned to Aidan. "Why do I have to be stuck here with a bunch of horses and dogs?"

"He's not a horse. He's a companion with kelpie blood." Kaida remarked glaring. "And besides, do you really think I want to be a part of this group? Really, why would I want to put up with you, especially that prep?" She gestured to Cherry. "I mean honestly, you assume that you're gonna have to put up with me. I'm not sticking around." She turned and stalked off.

Nirvana sighed and turned toward the group. "She's called Kaida, which means little talking anti-social thing. Now, I have to go after my runaway chosen, tata!"

Reika sighed as the new girl stormed off. "Honestly, can't we try to get along?"

Kris glared at her companion. "Obviously not."

Reika sighed again and turned to Jenna. "I hope you don't expect all of us to eat fish because some of us are vegetarians."

Blair saw that Kaida wasn't looking so welcome and plus she was in a bad mood. "How about you go try to make friends the two girls who feel left out." Mancorien told her while going over to Jenna to help. Blair ran over to Kaida calling " Kaida wait! Kaida!"

'I wonder if I’m overcoming my shyness' she thought as she started to catch up with Nirvana.

Blair realized that her shoulder was still bleeding and that she now focused on it she stopped for pain ran up and down her arm. She became light-headed and sat down, dizzy from all the pain. And as before tears sprang to her eyes as she whispered "Mancorien? Are you there?" Luckily Mancorien heard her and saw that Blair was on the ground again. She came over.

"yes?" she asked.

Blair replied "Mancorien can you do anything to stop the bleeding?"

Mancorien calmed her and said, "Just hold still, ... Herb Tears. This is going to sting." Blair, with her free hand, grabbed Mancorien's fur and clenched her teeth. The next thing she knew was that all pain was gone. She let go of the leopard and opened her eyes to see the bleeding was gone. she hugged Mancorien until she whispered "it's okay. I’m still working on the stinging part."

"Yes, I STILL think you're cute," said Cherry happily to Sukuyo. "But I won't say it if you're going to get all upset like that! You shouldn't get so annoyed when someone pays you a nice compliment!"

Aidan stared as the new girl ran away. "Wish I could so that," she thought. "But sadly, I know better." She sighed. Hearing Cherry's comment, she rolled her eyes. "That girl could be facing death and she would still think it’s cute."

Titterama lifted her head. "Are we eating any time soon?"

On her way back from the lake with Kayaro, who had gone fishing with Sukuyo, Jenna heard some one yelling that they weren’t about to put up with this group. Before she knew it, she also found herself crashing headlong into this person. Kay gave a coyote warning bark, as Jenna's stone flew out of her hands, and her bag of fish landed on top of some nearby bushes. Before she could say watch it, Jenna realized she hadn't met this girl yet. She picked up her stone as Kayaro handed Jenna her bag. Jenna raised her eyebrows, and not smiling she said, "Who're you? You must be new. For starters if you're seriously running away, I wouldn't mind coming because I am only putting up with them 'cause I have to." She would've continued, but Blair had arrived on the scene. "By the way I'm Jenna, and this is Kayaro. Hi Blair, " she mumbled and walked off. Coming into the clearing, she noticed a fish on the ground in front of an angry Barghest and Cherry's disgusted face. Kayaro, putting 2 and 2 together, came up to the fish, sniffed it, and moved it on the ground with his paw, wiping the spit off it.

"If no one minds?" and Kayaro immediately ate it. It was a rather nice size, too. "Good catch, Sukuyo, it was great!"

Jenna added this to her notes, and then went to where the fire would be, and laid the stone aside. She turned back to the group, "Whoever can do a fire attack, could do it now."

"EEEP!!!!!!!!!! You...you ATE that thing??" asked Cherry, disgusted. "That is sooo BAD FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!" she shrieked, grimacing at the idea of eating a spit-covered fish. "You people are all CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!" she squealed. "Crazy insane people!!!!!!!!"

"I'll go get us something like...berries," said Lilliana delicately.

"GOOD!!!!!!!" squealed Cherry. "I'm like hungry. I wonder how my boyfriend's doing..." she sighed, remembering the tall, handsome Andrew. "Let's all go around in a circle and say what we think Andrew's doing now."

"Cherry," Blair told her, "2 problems, first we don't know who Andrew is except that he is your boyfriend and second no one would want to." Mancorien snickered behind Blair. Then, feeling that she should look for Lurea since she had disappeared. She told Mancorien and then Blair jumped on Mancorien's back and they strode off.

Cherry pranced over to Blair and her companion angrily and, flipping her ponytail, she stood in front of their path, glaring. "First of all," she said, "I'm sure that EVERYONE here except for you both would just LOVE to here about Andrew. And second of all, it doesn't matter if you want to or not...I'm going to tell you all about him, since you were so rude." She then launched into a description of her boyfriend:

"He's tall...very tall, well not VERY tall but tall, maybe about 5'6, I think, yeah, I really should ask him for his exact height sometime...anyway, he's tall and he's really hot, and he plays football sometimes, and he's got dirty blonde hair and blue eyes..."

"I wasn't trying to be rude." she stared at Cherry. "But now that you have me irritated i will. I bet you that if you ask Aidan, she will not care one bit about your boyfriend."

"I bet she would," said Cherry defiantly. "Who wouldn't want to hear about Andrew? If they don't that's mean of them; I bet that if I talk about him while we're eating today everyone will have the sense to listen . He's in the hospital," she said with a twinge of sadness in her voice. "He was in a car accident. He doesn't need people in a far-away land insulting him." Her eyes glazed with tears as she ran away deep into the forest.

Blair stared after her. "Mancorien, let's keep moving." so, as before, they went off to the woods to find Lurea and talk to her. Cherry ran into the woods, her eyes full of tears like she was about to cry (but never did), until she was deep into the forest. Growing tired of being alone, she decided to head back to where the others were eating before she realized she was, well, lost. In her best cheerleader voice she screamed at the top of her lungs "HELLOOO?????????" She then did a cheer she'd learned:

"C" *clap clap* "H" *clap clap" "E" *clap* "E" *clap* "R" *clap "CHEER!"

Blair heard a shout. "Mancorien turn around, i have a feeling someone is lost." she told her. Quickly Mancorien turned around and they were speeding towards the voice.

"C-H-E-E"...Cherry shouted louder and louder, even adding the cheerleader moves, not that that did much good. She sat on a tree branch and yelled "HELLOO..." she saw a figure speeding towards her and giggled with relief. "Yayee! Someone's out here too!" As she ran towards the figure she felt something grab her arm savagely. Turning around, she screamed to find a griffon's beak pulling at her...

"Kayaro!" Jenna heard the scream and, remembering the birds, she jumped onto the coyote's back and they whisked away in that direction.

Carefully weaving between trees, Kayaro came into a halt next to Blair and Mancorien. Jenna hastily got off, and asked, "What hap-" There was no need to finish. The towering griffin that had been standing behind Cherry started to lift her up in his beak.

"Caleo!" The coyote evolved to his larger form, once again and shouted, "Earth Beam!" It hit the Griffin's forehead, and it reared in anger, dropping Cherry.

"Somebody catch her," Jenna looked wildly around.

But before anyone COULD catch her, Cherry fell to the forest floor with a thud. She swore she'd broken some bones and began howling in pain.

Jenna pushed Cherry out of the rearing griffin's way, and Caleo turned to Mancorien yelling, "Let's combine an attack!"

Cherry sat on the ground, arms and legs throbbing with pain, staring upward at the griffon, malice glinting in its eyes. She continued to scream, in pain and in fear. "Hurry up!!!!!!!!!!" she yelled to Caleo and Mancorien.

Blair shouted, jumping off Mancorien "Evolve to Iarlotiel! Vine Gust!" Mancorien grew a red tint and her eyes became silver. Her claws grew longer and as they did she reared and vines whipped the griffon’s two legs. it wounded the griffon, but just barely. She looked at Jenna; they had to do something together because their companions had the same element. "Do an attack with me and it will be twice as powerful!" she told into Jenna's ear.

Blair ran over to Cherry and said “i will get Iarlotiel to do her healing on any wounds you might have okay?”

"Iarlotiel, Vine Gust!" Blair screeched.

"Caleo, Earth Song!" The coyote joined in Larlotiel's attack.

Cherry watched as the two of them attacked the huge beast, screaming in deep pain and fear. It was clear that she'd broken some bones in her arm, and fractured her ankle...she would've encouraged Blair and Jenna if she weren't so deeply pained. "AAAAAAAAAGUH!!!!!!!!!!" she let out a high-pitched scream instead. "AAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!!!!!!!!!!!"

Aidan rolled her eyes. "Why the heck would I want to hear about her boyfriend?" she thought, never noticing the three girls run off. She heard a scream. "Titterama?"

"I'm on it. C'mon." Aidan leaped onto the tiger's back and they rode over to the others. "Titterama evolve to Kaori." Once again the tiger changed shape and color before attacking. "Ice Beam!"

Erik looked up as he heard a scream. "Another battle?" he thought. "Come on."

Sukuyo nodded and they raced into the forest. Erik stared at the griffon.

"Not too bad," he muttered to Sukuyo.

The Barghest nodded and attacked. "Death Howl!" the attack didn't work as well as it did with the birds and fish but it wasn't a complete disaster.

Aidan glared at Erik as he joined the battle but she couldn't help but smirk, as his attack was not completely successful. She turned to Jenna. "As much as I hate to admit it, we should combine an attack."

"Right," said Jenna ignoring the mean side of this comment, "Now, Kayaro!"

"Earth Quake!!!!!!!!!!" the Caleo howled.

"Ice Beam!" Kaori yelled, a beam of ice shooting out of her mouth. She stepped back, watching the griffon weaken under the force of the combined attack. "He's weakening. Let's do it again! Ice Claw!"

"Earth Beam, " Kayaro yelled, as a green-and-blue ball of light joined with Aidan's attack. The griffin let out a piercing shriek and disappeared with a puff of sparkly blue smoke.

Aidan smirked. "Good job, Kaori. You could have easily done that alone." She turned back to Jenna. "Now that this is over, I can go back to hating you." she glared at her and walked back into the clearing. To her surprise, she saw another girl. "God. How many people are there going to be?" she asked Kaori. "I any more come, I swear I'm leaving," she threatened.

"Don't let ME stop you. I would be perfectly happy leaving." Kaori changed back into Titterama and both girl and tiger walked over to a tree and sat down, ignoring the new girl.

Josaphine looked at the people in the clearing. "Wow" she whispered to Aman. "I've never seen a manic depressive before." She was gesturing towards the girl with the pout under the tree.

Jenna was in a rotten mood. Aidan didn't have to ask for her help in the first place. She was too annoyed to introduce herself, so she leaned her back against a tree, and glared at the new girl. Kayaro de-evolved and tugged on Jenna's shirt, pulling her towards the girl.

"I'm Kayaro, and this is Jenna," the coyote told the new girl.

Exasperated, Jenna spoke, "Hi, the girl who doesn't appreciate help that she asked for," Jenna glared at Aidan, "is Aidan. Her tiger companion is Titterama. The girl with Mancorien, the leopard, is Blair. The girl with the jaguar, Telperion, who's not here right now is Lurea, the girl with the thestral, Reika, is Kris, the boy with the Barghest, Sukuyo, is Erik, and I don't know about the girl I ran into who's not here right now." Jenna let out a long sigh, out of breath she turned away and sat down on a log.

Kayaro rested his head in her lap, and she absent-mindedly stroked his head, while day-dreaming.

Kaida heard Blair's call and turned around. She was gone of course, just like everyone else. Then she heard Cherry's screams and the sounds of battle.

"Oi, Kaida, we gotta go help them." Nirvana had finally caught up with her.

"We don't gotta do nothing. They don't need me." She turned and just as she began to stalk off, she received a severe clout on the rump, courtesy of Nirvana.

"Ow okay, we'll go!" She mounted and together the galloped to the sounds of the screams.

A soft song filtered through the air. It was a beautiful soprano voice singing a snatch of "Tourniquet" by Evanescence. Lurea emerged from the trees in a trancelike state; it was she who was singing. She walked past the exhausted group as though she couldn’t see them, and walked straight to a tree standing near the center of the feild. Suddenly, the singing stopped...it felt as if the whole world held its breath, then, Lurea spoke. Her voice was loud, distant, not her own. "It will come, the time when they will walk into the light to find darkness, and the circle shall be one," Lurea chose that moment to collapse.

Josaphine gave Jenna a cold stare. "Hmmm" she said. "So this place has a lot of depressives. Well Kayaro" she said addressing the coyote, "You seem very nice. It's a pleasure to meet you." She turned, looking at the other faces around her. The girl Blair.....she didn't see her. Perhaps she was in trouble. Just then she sensed something. "Aman!" she cried. "We have to go into the forest! Can you let me ride on you?" Aman nodded and grew to twice her normal size. Josaphine leapt on her back and flew off. As she flew away, she shouted back to the group. "Sorry about the abrupt departure!!"

Aidan stared as Lurea collapsed and the new girl ran away. "We really should help her," Titterama said.

"Oh yes, I would love to help all of my new friends," Aidan replied, sarcastically. "Why do you suddenly want to help? I thought you wanted to leave."

"Well, we can't leave, can we? So we might as well help." Titterama ran towards Lurea and nudged her in the side.

"Uhm...that's okay," yelled Cherry back. She lay on the ground, still recovering from the shock of the Griffon, Lilliana making a failing attempt to comfort her. "OMG thank you soo much," she said to anyone within earshot. "That...that was nice of you to...OW!!!!!!!!!" It was then that she realized she couldn't move her left arm, and her right one was so terribly covered it bruises that it, too, may as well have been immobile. "IIIICK!!!!!!!!" she shrieked. "OWOWOWOWWOW...OW!!!!!!!!!!!" "Blair's companion has a healing power," reassured Lilliana in that sing-song voice only a creature such as herself could possess. "I know THAT, but I've never broken a bone before and...OW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she shrieked in a very high-pitched voice so that anyone within miles surely could have heard her. "DON'T SCREAM SO LOUDLY!" hushed the bird. "Honestly, it's only a broken arm. There are plenty worse things that could've happened, you know, at least there was someone around to rescue you from that griffon..." "OOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!" cherry continued to scream.

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