Xalan snapped awake and stood up looking down their intended path. His back and side burned with slightly, as if he he'd been cut. He stretched and found that his joints were stiff and sore beyond what he would expect upon waking up as well. The feeling faded fast, but that didn't help him.
"Something wrong?" He looked over at the swordsman, it wasn't really a question.
"How much faster can you travel," he asked.
"Oh can cover at least twice the distance we have been covering each day." Xalan face faulted. There was a muffled "ouch" as he fell, but he missed it in his surprise.
"Why didn't you mention this before," he asked.
"You can match that pace?" he asked surprised.
"Ano..." Xalan blinked and looked down to see Amethyst. "What are you doing?" Xalan blushed furiously and backpedaled quickly off the chimera.
"I'm uh sorry...I didn't uh mean to..." he stammered. "Umm how much faster can you travel?"
"Brilliant save," Jol noted with arched eyebrow.
"Uh I don't know, I'm pretty fast," she muttered, obviously glad for even the hastily made subject change.
"Well what's a comfortable pace for..." there was a blur and Amethyst was suddenly standing about twenty yards away. "....you?" Jol and Xal blinked.
"Is that a good pace?" she asked as when she blurred back.
"err...yeah," Xal answered. "Why have we been traveling so slow then?"
"We could have been travelling faster?"
"I suppose you believe that your sister is in trouble," Jol noted. Xalan nodded.
"Something hurt her," he answered, looking toward Sailoon.
Val clicked his claws together nervously, it was nearing dawn and Xina hadn't come back yet. Soon Val was going to have to back away from the town or be discovered. He certainly couldn't take human form without any clothes.
"What's taking her so long?" he wondered.
"Hmm, so this is Xellos's staff," the thief master looked over it with a sort of bored curiousity. "All in all it isn't quite what I expected."
"But you'll pay me for it, won't you?"
"Oh certainly I'll pay you," he said. "This gem alone is worth a fortune." The palace worker was aghast.
"You're going to remove the gem from the staff?"
"Of course," he sounded surprised. "They'll track it down quite easily if it is still in its original form. We can't have that."
"If its all the same to you," the worked swallowed hard. "I'd just like to get my money and leave."
"Certainly," he gestured and one of his lieutenants nodded. "Donneson, please show our friend to the vault." The dark clothed man nodded obeidantly.
"Fall-oh me, ser."
"And you don't have to worry about me talking, I can keep my mouth shut." They disappeared somewhere into the further depths of the thieves guild.
"I'm certainly not worried about you talking to anybody," the thief master chuckled to himself. There was a strangled cry from where the two had disappeared then Donneson returned. "Now who would be interested in this little praise?"
He pried at the gem stone with a dagger grinning. The grin vanished after the gem refused to budge from its setting. In fact he failed to even scratch the surface of either object. The thief master stuck his dagger into the fork and used it as a lever, succeeding only in snapping his own blade.
"Damn piece of crap!" he shouted and tossed the staff across his underground throne room. "We'll have to find a way to smuggle it out of here." The staff lay where he had tossed it, the red gem seeming to laugh at him.
Xina was first conscious of the incredibly soft and comfortable bed she was laying in. The thick and warm blanket over her was next. She was very comfortable, for a moment she considered just letting herself fall back asleep and curl up in the soft bed and blankets. Then she remembered the last time she had been "asleep" and snapped awake.
"Where am I?" she asked no one in particular. She rose up and stretched, grimacing at the left over pain. Still there was not nearly the amount of pain there should have been. She had healed, and unlike her mother, that should have taken a while. "How long have I been asleep?"
She glanced around the room and saw that nobody was in it with here, she was relatively safe. Some one must have interrupted that maniac before he could finish her off. Someone must have found her, maybe healed her. She glanced at the tunic and breeches on the desk across the room, and then at her burnt and torn doeskins. They were even tailored for to allow for her tail. The breeches were a shimmering black, and the tunic was a red almost dark enough to be black, also a shimmering material. Xina assumed it was silk, but she had never seen silk before so she wasn't certain.
"Hey, are you still there?" but no voice answered back. "I guess I'm on my own then." She started as someone knocked on the thick wooden door that was the only apparent entrance to the room. She watched the door anxiously waiting for an attack, and wishing she had paid more attention to her mother and brother's attempts to teach her something about defending herself.
"Do you need anything, miss," the voice on the other side of the door asked.
"Umm, not really," she answered, confused. "How long have I been asleep?"
"The Regent-Prince healed you last night," the unseen guard answered. "I think you've been here for almost half a day now." Xina winced, Val would be getting more than annoyed by now. She sighed and picked up the breeches, might as well put them on. Her own clothes were more or less finished with.
"Okay, uh thanks," she called back.
"The Regent-Prince wanted to speak to you when you woke up," the guard said. "Whenever you're ready."
"Zelgadis Greywyrds?" she asked suspiciously.
"Of course." She growled irritably.
"I suppose that I should talk to him," she slipped off her ruined tunic and slipped on the one that had been provided her. "He DID save my life. But I'm NOT staying!"
"Are you ready then?" he asked. Xina looked down at her mocassins and grimaced at the way they appeared when next to the fine clothes. She looked about to see if they had provided any other clothes, but couldn't see any.
"Alright, let's get this over with," she grumbled stretching out the remaining kinks in her joints. Then she opened the door and looked up at her guard, tail swishing irritably. She had to look pretty far up and this didn't put her in a much better mood.
"Its right this way," the man said, leading Xina along. Soon the man opened a door and moved out of her way. Xina growled quietly as she walked into the room and saw the second chimera of her life.
Zelgadis stood with his back to her in the great study. Whether the turned back was a sign of trust or contempt, Xina couldn't tell. He smelled of parchment, steel and dry stone, mixed in was an older smell, faded. That was the smell of blood, sweat and fear. Later Xina would recognize it as the smell of battle. Beyond the man's scent, his mood seemed to fill the room. Her own irritation faded in the presence of his bone-deep regret.
"I believe your name is Xina" he said without turning around.