Lina sat down at the fire watching Amethyst's guard. Some of them smelled nervous, some of them smelled untrusting, but only one of them smelled angry. She watched him carefully. Zelgadis had been careless once, but he didn't like Xellos. This was his daughter, he would have been very careful who he sent out to escort her.
'Then again,' Lina thought with an exasperated look. 'Sailoon produces some excellent plotters.'
Lina kept an eye, or an ear rather, on the suscpicious guardsman while she sat down at a fire across from Amethyst.
"I haven't heard from your mom since before you were born," Lina said. "My last letter went unanswered."
"Never opened," Amethyst added. Lina looked at her. "That's how I knew you were alive."
"You don't remember anything about her?" Lina asked.
"No, nothing at all," Amethyst answered.
"She must not have died long after you were..." Lina's eyes popped wide and her ears flicked in surprise. She looked over the young chimera once. "...born." she finished slowly in a hoarse, canine breath.
"What is it?" Amethyst asked nervously.
"I just realized how much you look like your mother," she said. It wasn't quite true, her resemblance to Amelia was grounded mostly in her attitude, but it got her off the topic.
"Really," she asked. "Most people say otherwise." Among the few similarities Lina did notice was the early-developing chest that she had been so jealous of when she was younger.
"Oh certainly," Lina said. "And I'm almost certain that she would be proud of you now." Amethyst's ivory cheeks flushed red for a moment.
"Why, thank you, Inverse-Sama." It was Lina's turn to blush at the near reverence in the young girl's tone.
"Don't worry, I'm right behind you," Xina promised. Xalan looked at her doubtfully. "Do you think I'd pull something now?"
"Maybe not," he responded. "You did say you had an...idea."
"Yeah, I have an idea, but I can't do that right now," Xina answered. "Listen, mom's waiting for us. I'll just leave the armor here and catch up with you, okay?"
"Xina, if you piss off mom now..." he cocked his head to side and gritted his teeth. "Well, maybe she'll come up with something to make herring look easy."
"Okay," she sighed in frustration. "I promise to be back on father's grave as soon as I can."
"Good," he nodded, trying to think if he missed something. "I'll see you at the camp down."
"Didn't I say that?"
"Okay, don't take too long," he looked back once at his sisters too-cheerful face and then started running along with the deer that he had pulled from storage. As soon as he was gone, Xina bounced up and clapped happily. She skipped outside and looked up into the sky, night was falling quickly.
"Okay, Val should be getting there soon," she muttered and then took off running on her own path.
Xalan arrived at Amethyst's camp site about fifteen minutes later as his mother was trying to get off the subject of what magic Zelgadis had taught her. Magic was always an uncomfortable subject with his mother, and though she never said why, he suspected. Xina had once asked about going off to learn magic and their mother had categorically said that magic was impossible for them.
"You're half-mazoku," she had said. "So you don't have the curse, but the damn moon is still in your blood." He had always wanted to ask about that, confirm his beliefs.
"You used to be a sorceress, mom?" he asked as he set down the deer. He feigned surprise, but doubted he would fool her, acting as if he put something together from how Amethyst was talking. Speaking of the young chimera, she face-faulted at the comment.
"She was the greatest sorceress!" Amethyst declared. "She's your mom, how can you not know that?"
"I don't like to talk about it," Lina answered for her son. "Where's Xina?"
"She was putting the armor away," he said. "Promised to be back her as soon as possible." Lina heard the half-formed doubt in his voice and sighed.
"What were her exact words?" Lina asked.
Val lay back against the rock and looked up into the night sky. He liked this kind of night, with the sky clear and the stars bright. In fact the only thing about nights like this was that there was always chance that...
"Hey, Val." The only thing about nights like this were that Xina knew he came here and might show up asking for a favor.
"Uh, hi Xina," he looked over at her. She was wearing her mother's armor, that wasn't a good sign. She looked especially happy and pleased with her self too, meaning she just managed to fool Xalan. Usually that wasn't an easy task, but Xina had a talent for confusion.
"Nice night huh?"
"It is," he agreed.
"Um Val?" right to the awkward request, boy, this was fairly big. "How fast can you get me to Sailoon?" If he weren't already laying down, Val would have face faulted.
"Great, this is just great," Lina grumbled as she stood up. When her son had repeated Xina's exact words she had slapped her forhead in exasperation. "Xalan stay here and keep an eye out. I'll go get your sister before she gets herself into real trouble."
"Sorry mom," he said. "I thought I had caught everything."
"Not your fault," Lina said. "Not entirely anyway, she's got a lot of her father in her." Then Lina was padding into the forest on her fox feet, probably travelling faster than Xalan could.
"There they are," the sorcerer noted. "Where's the scapegoat?"
"That elf-boy?" despite the fact Jolrael was definitely no elf, his clothing was certainly elven and marked his land of origin.
"Of course him, who did you think I meant?" the sorcerer snapped hoarsly
"Well," the man's second swallowed nervously. "We can't find him anywhere?"
"You can't find him," the sorcerer repeated flabergasted. "Have any of you been talking?"
"Around him? No, of course not, sir."
"But you have been talkimg. He could have overheard at anytime."
"I..." he appeared chagrined. "I suppose so, sir."
"He's gone off to warn the princess," the sorcerer decided. "Track him down, and stop him. He's just a boy how hard could it be?"
In addition to the few counter tracking tricks he knew, few compared to the people he had grown up with, Jolrael was not even on the ground. He was half-leaping, half-floating from tree limb to tree limb as he moved toward the camp in attempt to save the princess.