Mature: Desert Moon

[Emora Deen]

Tenele tilted her head at the sound of the barely heard voice floating over the wind, but she didn't take her eyes off the man before her. "So it is," she sighed, turning green eyes on the sun. "Silly question. I'm not good with this sort of thing, lying. I hate it really. You'll have to excuse me. I was simply nervous. I'm a lone woman travelling in the middle of the desert and I come up against a large group of... what I'm going to assume are men. You got my heart beating a little too fast and my nervousness got the better of my tongue."

Tenele backed away slowly. "I'll be going."

[Soran Nightblade]

Atul raised his head, alert to the sound of conversation nearby. He turned his horse in that direction and rode swiftly. It took work to keep the animal calm with all the wind. They'd need to move toward shelter soon.

"As you please," the robed man said, still eyeing her curiously. "This is a very odd place for someone like you to be alone."

"She is not alone," Atul said, coming in behind her. "She is with her future husband."

The robed man froze, staring at Atul. The horse...the blue robe and bluer eyes like sapphires. The silver-haired beauty beside him, married yet engaged. "To your knees, all of you!" he flapped his arm, crazed with excitement before he did the same. "Your highness," he addressed the king. "The very man we came to see. This truly must be fate, for us to meet in a place like this."

Atul dismounted warily, taking in the color of their robes.

* * *

Hidden by the whistling sand and nestled between two large boulders that could block the wind, a small form lay curled like a frozen snake, pale and cold. A bronze eye opened slowly, a second eyelid sliding wide horizontally as her slitted eye blinked for focus. She'd thought she heard something. Dreaming again, she thought darkly. She refused to be scared. She'd met with the cold before. So what if it ripped her in half? She would be brave. Maxwell would not save her this time. Maxwell was dead. Maxwell was cruel.

[Emora Deen]

Tenele turned her eyes on Atul. "I'd hoped you stay back a little longer," she told him softly, turning up her eyes to the king. "How am I to keep you safe?"

* * *

Talon called for Sho over the wind. He searched high and low, even digging his hands into thorny bushes and ripping them from the ground just to see beneath him. His hands bled, but healed just as quickly as the wounds opened.

Finally he came to stones. There was a garden of them, all lumped around one another, some large and others not. He wondered how they'd gotten out here in the middle of no where. Then he decided that they could have easily belonged to a building and the wind had shaped them over time.

"Sho?!" he yelled, feeling his chest tighten. This was useless. She was gone, and the longer he searched for her the greater risk to the others. He clenched his eyes, taking a ragged breath even if he had no need for it, and turned on his heel.

[Soran Nightblade]

Sho knew she was imagining things. The voice she heard made no sense out here. It was about to storm, blocking out any hope she had of warming herself in the sun when it rose. She was alone, and it wasn't fair to hear that voice. She closed her eyes tightly in frustration, took a deep breath, and screamed. She had enough energy for a second or so, and then she fell quiet, coughing on sand and going slack as if all the strength she had left was depleted.

* * *

"Your highness," the robed man said, rising to his feet along with his men. "We are of the Circle. We have fought great challenges and cast off our worldly lives to protect you, and this kingdom."

[Emora Deen]

Talon stopped short at the soft sound, barely heard above the wind. It would have gone unnoticed by anyone else's ears. But, he was fine tuned to the sound of suffering prey. He turned back to the rock and stalked to it, where he found nestled between the two in a small gap the body of a young reptilian girl.

"Sho," he gushed, dragging her from between the rocks and curling his body around her. He knew he wasn't warm. He was useless. The cold wind had already chilled his lifeless body, but Tenele and Atul on the other hand could warm her easily.

"You will have heat," he pledged to her, gathering her in his arms and carrying her off.

* * *

Tenele stepped towards the men, her hands beneath the robe thumbed the hilt of her sword and dagger. "We have asked no one for protection and surely do not require it. Tell us of the blood on your hands and of these challenges you have fought in the name of the King."

[Soran Nightblade]

Sho wrestled weakly against the unexpected arms around her. Her strength was pathetic. She turned her face in to his chest, out of the wind, and coughed. The effort moved her shoulder, and she cried out in pain as the wound beneath her cloak scalded miserably. She'd nearly forgotten the pain. She was too tired for it.

* * *

"The country has suffered a long time under dark forces. You know this better than any, your majesty. But although you've overthrown that evil, its stains remain to be seen everywhere in the countryside. Demons, weres, the undead... these abominations remain all across your good lands, spreading their poison. We are not enough to fight them, when so many need us. But when we heard of your marriage plans, we stopped our crusade to come to you and deliver the truth that god has shown us all."

His eyes glanced warmly to Tenele. "You needn't marry a monster to bring this beauty to your side. The reincarnation of Attara was meant for you. She was born to purify you. The beast that has stayed at her side was her trial, but not yours. That super-vampire is a test from what is good left in heaven. Do not let him charm you. Cast him down, and save her."

[Emora Deen]

Tenele narrowed her eyes on the priest darkly. "I need no one to save me," she chuckled. "Neither does the king." He rather reminded her of the elves they'd met in the trees of the Ashgrown forest. They too insisted she needed saving from her Athraka husband. He'd probably assume, as they had, she was brainwashed by him. "If you truly have sworn your service to the King, then relinquish your weapons."

"Tenele," Talon called loudly over the wind.

Tenele turned her attention away from them. "I'll be back," she said to Atul as she passed, jogging off across the biting sands to her brother.

"I found her. She's very weak. Her shoulder," the vampire whispered, kneeling with Sho. He didn't even pay attention to the group clustered near Atul. He could only notice Sho's pain.

[Soran Nightblade]

Sho's eyes drifted open, too tired to squint. She stared at him, and the wind dried her eyes out while she refused to blink until she knew what she saw. "You're not..." she fumbled around a dry tongue. Tears leaked from her eyes and grew sticky with sand. "You're not real."

[Emora Deen]

"He's very real," Tenele soothed, turning back to her horse. She jogged back to the group and took water from her saddle. She narrowed her gaze on Atul and said, "He found her." Then, she was off again, carrying water back to the young one.

"Drink," Tenele insisted, pouring the water lightly enough to wet the girls tongue. "Give her this," she ordered Talon, handing him the leather skin before she began riffling gently under the girls cloak for the wound. "I will make the pain stop."

[Soran Nightblade]

Atul couldn't afford to take his attention off the group of fanatics in front of him. "Well? Your weapons?"

"Don't be charmed by the darkness, my King," the man pleaded. "We are warriors of righteousness. These weapons are tools of God. We can save you from this path."

"You can put your weapons down, or I'll make you put them down," Atul groaned, already annoyed with their diatribe.

"If you will not help our mission," the man said, drawing a loaded crossbow and pointing it at the King's neck steadily, "Then we have no choice but to assume you are beyond salvation."

11 more crossbows trained on the king's vital points. "Our country has suffered for centuries thanks to the darkness's affect on its rulers. She cannot afford another black king."

[Emora Deen]

Tenele found the wound, apologising quickly for accidentally grazing it. "Better in no time," she whispered softly to the tired girl, healing the wound. Two wounds tonight on creatures other than human. When she was finished, she blinked the spots from her vision and stood up, turning to check on Atul.

"Shit," she huffed, jogging back to them. She slowed her pace when she was close enough.

"Lower your weapons before your king," Tenele told them, lowering the hood from her head and the shield from her face. There were many times when her hair alone garnered her enough attention that men and women alike fell at her feet. "This is not the way of God. God chose to put him on the throne, and guided him as you said, through the battle against Verin. Do you not spit in the face of the Gods by training weapons on the chosen King?"

Tenele eyed the holy weapon, stepping cautiously in front of Atul. She wasn't nearly tall enough or wide enough to shield him, but she could hide the vital parts.

[Soran Nightblade]

"Attara, we have no quarrel with you," the leader growled as they began fanning out, spreading around Atul and Tenele until they were well surrounded on three sides. "Your highness, call your future wife's husband to you. Surely your darkness and his have some connection. Bring him here, and we will bring him to justice. You will be free to love as you choose, uncorrupted."

Sho's hand found Talon's sleeve and gripped it as tightly as she could. "Talon," she huffed, too tired to cry.

[Emora Deen]

"I am here," Talon said softly, his attention distracted by the weapons trained on his sister and the King. "You are safe. I will get you some place warm. Please, hold on longer."

The young vampire was torn between cradling the defenceless girl and going to his sister's aid. He took off his cloak, as he had no need to be warm, and wrapped it up around the reptilian girl. He knew it would do little good, but he had to leave her to help Tenele. The situation was getting out of control, and besides. He craved the blood of Sho's tormentors.

Tenele narrowed her eyes. "You know that there is no way to port across the sands," she scowled, stepping up to the leader with his cross bow trained on them until the point of the air bumped her chest. "Lower your weapons or I will show you a God and you will not live to further your quest."

Talon's claws extended from his hands and he went for the middle of the left side to the circle, slicing out on either side of him and attempting to take two at a time.

[Soran Nightblade]

The fanatics started at this newcomer attacking their ranks. The first man Talon reached fired his weapon randomly into the air. The second tried to aim, and didn't have time.

Two men startled and fired, catching Tenele in the arm while the other landed squarely in the side of Atul's ribs. "I didn't mean to!" the man yelped. Atul rocked backward and landed hard.

"He's here! The vampire, take him down!"

The men closest were already fleeing for a safer position, but before Talon could make it to his third victim, three heavy twangs sounded as crossbows fired toward him.

[Emora Deen]

Talon whirled to evade the first one, and went right into the path of the other two. They struck him, one in the back at the shoulder, and the other center-back. He felt the heat of fire scorch his skin, and the rush of burning lava in his veins.

Rage was the only thing that kept him on his feet as he smelled his sister's blood on the air.

"I'll rip you apart," he snarled, grabbing up on the members of the Circle and tearing at his throat.

"Atul!" Tenele yelped, torn between who to go to first. She fell down next to him, taking hold of the arrow and pressing her hand down on his chest. She needed to get the holy metal away from the skin before it burned through him. She dragged it backwards from his flesh and pressed a hand to the wound, focusing her attention on healing him.

It was hard to heal Atul, even more so with holy magic involved. He was the son of the God opposite that of her mother, and everything she was wrestled against her. The power flickered and waned, but she focused harder.

Her nose ran blood, and her hands trembled. She finally managed the wound to the point he wouldn't bleed out, but it wasn't doing him any other favors than that.