P A R T Y ! [event]

[Elle]

Elle watched the beast charge past them, not comprehending what had happened. What was this thing and what was it doing out here? Well, it looked like it would just keep running. Then it stopped. Her breath caught in her throat as the creature turned around.

She tore her gaze away from the thing's piercing red eyes to look up at Z. Her eyes portrayed her fears without her having to say a word. She desperately tried to keep a hold on her skin as she silently wished that the beast hadn't noticed tham and would just continue on it's way.

[ωΘĿƒ]

The thing was.... oh crap. A Shadowfeind...

Z remembered a while back when there had been an attempt on his father's life. Dragon politics and all - he'd nearly been assassinated while he and Z's mother slept. Z had been terrified to hear about this. He was only a little kid at the time. It was when his parents still cared about him...

After that scare, they'd brought in what mother called "extra security". Shadowfeinds. The same as this one. Father loved them. They did what he said and did it well - without complaint or minds of their own. Z never liked them. They scared him when he was playing, and they were always lurking around the castle, staring at him and everyone else like they hated them all so much.

Later he'd found out that there was a big market for Shadowfiends. They were a luxury item - something that every rich castle and establishment wanted. They were the perfect bodyguards, the perfect soldiers. They didn't need sleep, they didn't need food, and they didn't need independent will. They were pretty much puppets, forged by the blackest of magics for people like Crane and his father.

He hated Shadowfeinds. Every last one of them, and it seemed for the first time in his life, they hated him back. He had to get Elle out of here. That thing wouldn't hesitate to kill them both, if that was what its master had told it to do.

And the powerful sorcerer Crane was its master, wasn't he?

"We have to get out of here. Now." Z said, quickly. "Can you move? At all? We have to leave fast."

It started moving again. Now that it had seen them, it started coming closer - not too fast, but fast enough to make Z want to bolt.

"Come on! Come on! Can you run?"
[/size]

[Elle]

Elle continued to watch as the thing came closer. She had never seen one of them before, but from Z's tone she could tell that it was bad news. The slow way it moved frightened Elle even more than it would have if it moved at a normal pace. The fear was almost enough to freeze Elle in place.

Then she heard Z shouting something at her. Could she run? She quickly looked down at her leg. Maybe she couldn't, but she'd sure try! Nodding furtively, she pushed herself up and without waiting for Z, she ran as fast as she could away from the shadow thing. So what if she couldn't see well? So what if her leg was burning now? She'd keep running until she couldn't run anymore.

[Iƪƪia]

Illia watched the trapped Nymph continue it's futile struggle. It was quite amusing. After all, she had never seen one of these creatures up close before, and now she was able to examine it's features up close. It was just like a tiny little person, but with wings... And a weird glow.

Finally, it's energy seemed to dissipate as it stopped it's attack on the ice box and instead focused on clutching at it's throat and gasping for breath. It's struggle must have really tired it's out leaving Illia almost feeling sorry for the creature. That is, before she remembered that this could have been the beast that had nearly killed them with a meteor.

But, then again, was it the same creature? After all, the thing was only trapped in a sad-looking ice box. If it was the same nymph, shouldn't it have been able to get out, no problem? It might have even chucked another meteor at them, but it didn't. It did seem likely now that this was just a case of mistaken identity. So then there was no reason to imprison her, right? Well, there wasn't much of a reason in the first place, so...

"Be nice," Illia warned as she melted the box encasing the nymph.

With an annoyed twitch as the melt water washed over her, she quickly flitted away into the night sky, leaving a glowing trail behind her.

Flicking the water off her hands, Illia looked back in the direction that she had come from. It certainly was taking Z and Elle an awful long time to get there. Perhaps they got lost? With an indifferent shrug, Illia trotted back down the path. Though, she didn't have to go far before she heard footsteps. Hurried footsteps, actually. Someone was coming toward her. Very quickly.

The chimera was forced to jump to the side as Elle came charging past her. Confused, Illia looked through the trees in an attempt to see what she was running from. Her eyes fell on a strange black creature with piercing, red eyes. She had heard of these things... Shadowfiends, weren't they? Cursing, she stumbled back as the creature lifted it's head to gaze at her.[/color]

[ωΘĿƒ]

Z bolted out of the trees like a madman, seeing the blurred form of Illia race by.

Illia?

Oh wait...

"Illia!"

Z made a huge skid across the forest floor as he stopped, turning around and racing back up to Illia.

"What are you-"

She got the message, and started stumbling back. That was better, as long as he knew Illia was coming with him. He waited for her to pass him up, then began running behind her, glancing back to see the huge thing looming behind them.

The eyes, so cold and dead. He shivered as it began to slowly get faster.

"Ahhh why the hell do I always get stuck running?!?"

Looking ot the side, he noticed it only happened when- No! Illia wasn't causing it! This was Crane's fault! It was his evil shadow thingy, after all.
[/size]

[Iƪƪia]

Opening her mouth, Illia shut it just as quickly. What was the use, assigning blame now? Not while they were so preoccupied... No, she'd just have to wait until later to explain what an idiot he was.

It was all his fault, after all! It always was. He was the troublemaker here, not her! She was just going along with it... Against her will! Come to think of it... Everyone at that party was at fault! If they had made a semi-entertaining party, then they wouldn't have felt the need to do anything to make it more interesting.

It was all a conspiracy against her! It always was!

Shaking her head, she hazarded a look back. The thing seemed to be moving faster... Well, whatever. That didn't change the fact that they had to get away... It just meant that they had to do it more quickly.

She hastened her pace, placing as much distance between herself and the shadowfiend as possible. Ducking out of the way of stray branches, she continued to gain ground, not bothering to look to see where Z and Elle were now.[/color]

[Elle]

Elle could only wince as every breath she took in brought with it a stabbing sensation in her side. Her chest was on fire, but she could do nothing to lessen the pain. After all, that would involve stopping, and that was out of the question, of course!

She was able to hear footsteps close behind her, but she didn't hazard a backwards glance. The dragon was having enough trouble as it was. Every other step had her stumbling over a rock or being whipped in the face with a rogue tree branch. However, none of that mattered right now. All she cared about was that she kept moving foreward.

[ωΘĿƒ]

Z was trying to concentrate on everyone that was running, so he could make sure nothing happened to them if they fell behind and got torn limb from limb by the Shadowfeind.

Wait... That was what happened to someone that fell behind!

Being the last one in line, he could see both Elle and Illia. Illia was really good at running. She almost looked like she didn't care about everyone else who was.

Oh well. Illia was always independent. He was sure she didn't really want to leave everyone behind. She was just leaving him less to worry about.

And worry he did, because Elle was slowing down. That wasn't good. She needed to run faster!

Taking a little glance behind him, he saw the Shadowfeind getting smaller and smaller. It was waiting for them to stop, and he had a feeling that plan wasn't as stupid as it sounded.

"Elle!" Z screeched, trotting up to her. "This isn't a marathon! This is a 'get the hell away from the big scary evil thing before it eats you' dash. Move faster!"

Of course, while he was yelling this at Elle, he wasn't paying any attention to where he was going, and he tripped over a log.

Oh crap...

When he looked up, he saw a looming black thing. Man, those Shadowfeinds were fast! It had been at least a hundred yards behind them! Now though, it was really, really close. Z looked up, and right then, he decided something.

He was going to fight it.
[/size]

[Elle]

Elle barely heard Z's words. She was so absorbed with her effort of sprinting without tripping on something again was consuming every bit of her concentration. However, it seemed to be working. Sure, she was continuously stumbling, but she hadn't fallen again. The same, however, couldn't be said for Z.

She came to a stop immediately and turned back. Then she saw that... Thing. That creepy, shadowy thing just feet away from her.

Desperately trying to catch her breath, she took a hesitant step forward before taking another step backwards. She couldn't just run away again. After all, he had stopped for her! But then again, there hadn't been a weird shadow monster back there...

No, it just wasn't right to leave him.

Swallowing, she clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling as she tried to figure out what to do next. Were they going to fight it? Well, that would be okay, right? She was a dragon... She was supposed to be strong and tough. She wasn't supposed to be afraid.

[Iƪƪia]

This was perfect. She was clearly faster than the Shadowfiend. As long as she continued running and she didn't trip, she'd be able to get away easily. And it was highly unlikely that anything like that would happen to her, so everything was fine.

And yet unfortunately, she didn't take into account the actions of other.

Hearing something - or someone - fall behind her, she skidded to a stop and spun around. The Shadowfiend had caught up to them. Z was looking up at the creature from where he had fallen onto the ground with Elle staring nervously at it from a few feet away.

Was this... For real?! What the hell?! This was just like in those awful, cliched horror movies where that stupid blond girl always trips as she's being chased by the psychotic murderer! And Illia always wanted the murderer to succeed when that girl was stupid enough to fall! They were morons! All of them!

Suppressing a growl, she decided that now wasn't the time for such thoughts. It was time to get the hell out of there! After all, that thing was distracted now, so she had a golden opportunity! But then again... Could she really just abandon them? Well, yes. She could. But it was a rather terrible thing to do. And yet...

Sighing at her misfortune, Illia looked from the forest behind her to the Shadowfiend in front of her. Unsure of the best course of action, she decided to merely bide her time right where she was and to see how things played out.[/color]

[ωΘĿƒ]

The Shadowfeind reared, kind of like one of those big, nasty bullies that wants to bash you so hard that he needs a little momentum to do it properly. Z knew this because, well... he'd done it to someone before. Broke ribs, he was sure.

He wondered if the Shadowfeind's would kill him, seeing as it was all full of evil pokey spikes and stuff....

While he was thinking about this, he almost forgot to actually get up and avoid the blow. Stupid... He only had thoughts when he didn't need them! Rolling out of the way, his skin melting to find the black-scaled adolescent dragon ready and rearing to rumble, he couldn't help but yell at himself.

"God I'm such a moron!"

The Shadowfeind seemed to have something to say to this, because as if to agree with him, it stumbled up from the failed blow, its lashing black horns yanking out of the mud, and charged at him like a huge, spikey black bull.

Z braced his shoulders, taking the impact like a true football player, and he only skidded along the ground a good meter or so.

"Ouch..." He whined, the Fiend prying its horns from his side and again ramming into him. Once. Twice. Three times. Z took the blows, his scales groaning like metal as each time he stood his ground and each time the Feind's horns scraped against them. After a few more times of this, he finally hurt enough to remember how to attack. Neck swaying back, jaws agape, he spewed a nice big fan of molten fire towards the ram-happy monster.

It disappeared, of course, shrinking form the fire then flickering out like a moth to, well, flame. Z scooted over to a tree to prop himself up, looking with a huge crocodile frown at the scales on his chest.

"That thing scuffed my scales!"

And, without further complaint, he crumpled to the floor.

Why did he always have to assume he was the most hard-headed thing on the battlefield?
[/size]

[Elle]

At some point when Elle was watching the shadow-thing - though she wasn't sure when - her hands had found their way up to her hair and had gotten themselves all tangled up. Finally realizing this, she pulled her hands away, lest she pull all of her hair out.

As the thing disappeared, she instinctively spun around, expecting to see it behind her. It wasn't, of course. But now that she was facing the other way, it could have reappeared behind her again! After spinning in a circle several more times, she reassured herself that it wasn't around her.

Slowly, she sidled over to the trees.

"Are... You okay?"

As she spoke, she continued to look around for that creature. Her hands were pressed against her temples, making it look as though she thought if she concentrated hard enough, that thing wouldn't come back.