Just an Idea...

[Koori no hi]

((Except that they're all friends))

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((hmmm...interesting))

[Koori no hi]

((The humans are the ones not helping them - even though both of the kids look human, so it's not like they go around and people are afraid of them or anything))

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Carolyn and Chase were resting near a stream, they were some way into the forest- of- the evening- light. There were large poppies all around them and the sunlight filtered in through the leaves making it look like they were in an enchanted place.

Chase said suddenly, "I had a dream about this forest once, it was so magical and I always wanted to be able to see it. ..." he paused and Carolyn said, "hmmm..."

"Strange now that I am here, I want to leave" Chase ended his sentence.

Carolyn didn't reply, she was busily playing with the dancing fish in the stream, they were all salmon pink and shimmered in the light. She caught one in her hand and showed it to Chase. The fish stood up on its fins and started dancing in her palm. Carolyn was so surprised, she dropped the fish and it flopped about on the violet grass.

[Koori no hi]

((oooo, I'm getting a bad feeling about this place!))
They both laughed at the fish flopping around until it splashed back into the stream. A breeze blew through the field of poppies and when it hit the two of them they fell instantly silent.
Chase said dazedly, "I'm not sure why I wanted to see it. It was a bad place in my dream."

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Carolyn thought about it for a few moments as the breeze wafted by, she was aware of the sweet poppy odour as it seemed to envelop her from all sides. "Maybe you only thought you wanted to see it, when you were in the dream ...did you make up yur mind in the dream or afterwards?"

Chase said, "you know it's all fuzzy so I don't remember. I do wonder what is so bad about this place, a dancing fish is not usual but we haven't come across anything else frightening"

[Koori no hi]

((so we aren't gonna talk about them traveling except when they come across something important. That's a good idea. I feel like such an idiot for not realizing some things about writing... I need to stop babbling now))

She lay down in the violet grass edging the stream and let her feet dangle in it. After a while Chase stood up from where he was sitting.
"Um, Hi." he said cheerfully to her, "Who are you? I think I've seen you before, but I'm not so sure."

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((I like your babble, go on.....))

Carolyn thought he was pulling her leg, and she said, "joker, you..off with you" and she caught sight of her hand waving about her face, it had turned violet. She screamed and sat up, jerking her legs out of the water. Her colour returned in a second, scaring her to bits in a thrilling kind of way.

[Koori no hi]

That fear jerked her awake for a moment. She knew something was wrong with this place. Even though the forest was where she was most powerful, surrounded by trees, but she could still feel the sickness of this place, in the plants.

"Hey!" she yelled, "Chase, we have to..." Her voice trailed off as the breeze from the poppy field blew over her again.

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"hmm..." Chase seemed to reply back to her, though she couldn't see where he was. She felt like she had to get up and walk about or she would become one with the forest, but just as she was about to wake up from her daydream she felt being pulled by her legs. There was no pain as she was dragged away by what felt like a very furry hand. She opened her eyes and caught sight of shadowy figures, As she watched they became more real and took firmer shape. There were several of them and they looked like water people of some kind. Strangely, she didn't scream as if she had expected them to find her. She stroked the nearest one and said in a strange dialect, "carry me there" and pointed to where they had built her a nice poppy bed.

She forgot all about Chase as she was petted and caressed by all the water people, their bodies changed colour like the waters of the ocean back home. When she got tired of the incessant rubbing, she was brought berries and poppy cakes. She lived liked that many dream days and nights. As she grew attached to the land around her, it seemed to change and grow with her. Where there was a pond before, a lake seemed to be flourishing. The water people had started getting human bodies, everyday they would visit her and bring her all kinds of water creatures and some sang to her while some played the water organ. Before long, her bed became a house and then a palace. Every night she would look into the waters of the lake and conjure something up for her entertainment.

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Rencor was frustrated, he was pacing up and down a path thinking about the cause. He had to think of something fast, he had news that something was up and about in the forest where the book was kept, the book couldn't be found or he would lose all his powers...

[Koori no hi]

Suddenly he looked up and pulling a knife from a hidden sheath on his belt he charged straight toward someone standing on the other side of the path.

Chase sat upright in a field of flowers, he saw in the dim light his krisalidi coming toward him. It was dawn? He didn't remember going to sleep the night before. He looked blearily around. Where was Carolyn? He stood up and his krisalidi surrounded him. Inside the circle they made all the flowers turned to rotted balls of reddish goo on the ends of dried up stalks.
But the risalidi were in an uproar! They wanted to know why he had been gone for so long. For days he had sent them away. He felt them asking why in the wordless way they had. "Days?" he thought, "What happened?"
His mouth was dry and his stomach gave a lurch as it contracted from emptiness. He was starving! Looking around he noticed the flowers, the krisalidi's magic showed things for what they are, so was this whole field of flowers this rotted mess he was standing in?

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A worrying thought crssed Chase's mind, Had he made the right decision to come to the forest?

________

Back there, Rencor spied his opponent across the path.

It was a very big minotaur, and Rencor had been after it for a long time. He leapt at it and stabbed hard and long. The knife went in so deep he could feel the beating of the minotaur's heart, it sounded massive, Rencor held on to the knife as the minotaur furiously tried to maul him. They stuggled for one hour, the knife digging in deeper and deeper into the minotaur's heart, and finally it was over, the thrashing stopped and even the twitching. The minotaur was still, Rencor pulled the knife out, he put a drop of the minotaur's blood on a big yellow leaf and threw it into the river, chanting something strange. The leaf floated on the water, it circled with the wave and got wetter and wetter till the blood drop got mixed up with the water. Where the blood touched the water, a blood fountain erupted and gushed forth a thousand and one blood red monsters wo had the minotaur's strength and vigour. They all charged the land at once and stood before Rencor, who smiled for te first time in a million and half forest years.

[Koori no hi]

((wow this story is so left behind...))

the monsters were still soft and dripping, but as they stood in the open air their liquid bodies began to solidify. Rencor gave the batalion its orders. These creatures were Farthen. Born of blood and water and death, loyal to no one, but able to be controlled only by the killer who had supplied the blood for their creation. Farthen had only one weakness, if not hit in a particular spot they would continually regenerate no matter how badly they were injured ((of course it takes some time for then to regenerate, growing skin or other bodie parts takes time but it depends on how bad the injuries are))

these new monsters would find the boy. that shape shifting child was hardly worthy to be called a threat, but he was drawing ever closer to the book, and the forest wouldn:t keep him out like it had that foul elf Nerida.

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((yeah...so when do we cheer))

And the boy in question was exhausted from looking for the sleeping girl. ((I cant remember any names gosh))

She seemed caught in a fantasy world he didnt know how to break into , let alone find it. He fed his body some much needed meat broth and red eagle eggs. He knew he could hold out without food for as many as ten days or more but he would need his strength to go where he had half a mind to go...

_____________.________

She slept a sound sleep, dreaming and awake at the same time waiting for a dawn which never came. The people she had dreamed up tended to neglect her now, no one came for days and what seemed like weeks , as she slept on.

[Koori no hi]

Chase was able to supply himself with food because it seemed that the animals living here were unaffected by whatever the magic of the palce did to sentient minds. He avoided the worst of the magic by transforming into various animals. Though this wasn;t an actual answer to the problem, it did help to clear his mind for a short time after every change. Only his krisalidi could truely clear his mind from the beguiling sent that the rotting flowers emitted.

looking for Carolyn was no easy task. he couldn:t transform into anything with a strong sence of smell because the scent of the place burnt his nose, and that was the best way he had of finding her. He could transform into a bird, but flying was learned not instinct, so he couldn:t even rely on getting a broader view. Eventually though he did find her.

Carolyn looked terrible. There was a contented smile on her face despite the dark, bruised circles under her half open eyes. She had lost weight so that her skin had stretched tight over her cheeks, it wouldn:t have been so bad except that she had been so slender before that now after probably 19 days without food she looked emaciated. her neatly braided blond hair had come loose and was tangled around the stalks and petals of the bed of red poppies she was lying in.

Chase knew that she was in the smae kind of stupor that he had been in before the krisalidi had managed to wake him, but the krisalidi were a part of him, different bodies and form, they lived off of each other, but the same soul, spirit. Carolyn was his friend, not himself. He hadn:t been in this world for long enough to really know all that much about the magic here, but he hesitated to touch her or try to wake her for fear of the dark magic of the place harming her.

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Carolyn felt his presence dimly, it was like she was waking up from a deep sleep. She could barely feel her body, but she knew she would have to wake up fully somehow. She groped in her mind for the famous self-control which she knew had helped her in her past troubles...it was there she knew it buried deep underneath several layers of rotten magic of this place. She reached everywhere inside her to gather it all together, but it seemed a massive effort and she knew she was losing it. She tried to reach out to Chase to learn how he could keep away from the narcotic dream that the flowers induced in her. He seemed untouched somehow, a strong heartbeat in the fading landscape that she was caught in and that she knew would one day destroy her mortal self and leave her spirit untended and lost. She groped for Chase's energy, it was always just a tiny bit out of reach for her....she whimpered, a tiny moan of dejection. All was lost. She knew now she was going to die to save her world. And just then she lost consciousness.

Chase stood looking at her unaware of her internal struggle, unwilling to learn enough to save her. He didn't realise the aftermath of not finding the book. He didn't care enough. The krisalidi had always kept him safe, he had never made an effort to be of any use to anyone or anything ...he could have but didn't know how. He went on gazing at her lifeless frail body, blessed and cursed and unaware of it all.

[Koori no hi]

This couldn:t continue. he had to wake her somehow. if he bothered her the magic might kill her, but if he didn:t the magic would kill her. His head was feeling fuzzy again though, so he had to shift again soon or he would fall back under the planes` spell. He was currently in the shape of one of those funny, squashed faced cats ((not a good sence of smell remember, and still fairly mobile with good eyes)) changing back to his real body instantly cleared his mind. He reached out to touch Carolyn. Gently shaking her arm trying to wake her, but afraid of hurting her imaciated body.

In Carolyn:s mind Chase:s presence suddenly glowed brighter, a smal flame where there had been just red cinders before. Something had changed. (this would be, of course, where he had used the krisalidi:s magic to chang shape) Then as dimly aware as she was of her own body she felt his hand on her arm. Reaching out was such a struggle; harder every moment she lay there, but Chase was so much closer now. If she couldn:t reach his magic now it would be impossible. And she would die.

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Her bones ached, her head seemed like it was on fire, Carolyn wished desperately she had some of the krisaldi that protected Chase from the black magic around them. She knew her brain was giving out, she choked out through her dry as sandpaper throat, "fly" and gasping she struggled as a fresh new wave of the flowers hit her already numbed mind. She felt blood spurting inside her as something burst, she was going to die...

[Koori no hi]

((gosh you:re so grim. anyway, I figured she was gonna live and in the end her and chase would be like in love or something. we:ve gotta decide wether she:s alive or dead because we can:t just keep arguing about it in the story itself.))

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((oh why not? lol...ok maybe she can get healed and in the process is changed for the romance you have in store for her lol))

[Koori no hi]

((I don:t know a lot about romance stuff, but i just kinda figured from the beginning that they would end up together. as for healing it:ll probably take a while, but \i don:t want her to die cause she:s one of the main good guy characters. its ok if the bad guys die, but even then you have to kill them in just the right way or people will end up going "What the...!?!" but anyway, she does wake up? then chase is able to get her out of there cause she probably isn:t really abel to move all that well.))

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((umm..ok))

Chase wasn't sure what he had heard, he looked at ehr and asked "you want to fly?" getting no response he tried again, "you want me to fly away?" and then seeing she still didn't say anything but lay in her coma, he grew frantic and walked about figuring out what "fly" could mean.

He felt his krisalidi stirring within him, he was torn.