Autumn's Beginning, Autumn's Breeze

Velna leaned against Trent's chest glad he was ok.

"We should go help that guy that saved me." She said looking up at him. "Maybe he can help Crest."

"We will go thank him, but Crest will not come out so that he can be healed, you know him just as well as I can." Trent smiled."But we will go thank him, then we have to get moving."

"To where, we are always moving around, never stopping and I don't know why." She said as they walked down the path.

"You know why, you know that those men will stop at nothing to find you and Crest. I can't let that happen." Trent said stopping and looking at her.

"We would be able to fend them off. I mean come on, Crest is huge, we have fought together for a while now, we could do it." She argued back.

"You aren't strong enough yet, Crest has told that to you a thousand times, as have I. You aren't ready. I know you want to get rid of these men that want to hurt you but that doesn't mean putting your life in danger, and why would you want to stay here. You normally don't even want to be around other people." Trent said walking agian.

"I don't know, it's just, maybe we just need to stop. I know we can't ask them for help but we can hide, if we leave tracks the men will find us, if we don't, they wont." She said running to catch up.

"I'll think about it, but I don't like it." He replied as they reached the house.

Davnix-

I smiled, wrote a quick note and dropped it on the table. "Right, lets go."

Riley stood quickly, bringing Ariana up too. We exited through the front door and hurried towards Natan's house. I hesitated a moment before knocking on the door, remembering Nathaniel's angry glare boring a hole through me. But i knocked anyway, and was relieved when Bella answered.

"Yes...?" she asked, arching an eyebrow at us.

"Is, uh, Natan and Isabella here?"

"Yes, they're in their rooms. Why?"

"Just need to talk to them really quickly."

"Do your parents know you're here?"

Damn. I had hoped she wouldn't ask that question. "Er..."

"Please don't tell, Aunt Bella." Ariana pleaded. "We're not doing anything bad."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine, but if i get into trouble I'm blaming it on you."

I smiled. "Thanks."

We ran up the stairs and i went with Riley to Natan's room as Ariana went to Isabella's. Right before i was about to knock on the door, i heard a knock on the front door. I peeked down the stairs and saw Bella open the door to Velna and Trent.

"Ah well, Bella'll tell them where we are." i muttered.

Ariana

I opened the door to Isabellas room but didn't find her alone, as I had hoped, the vampire Max was with her. My breath caught in my throat, he looked exactly like the demon who had taken me I realized, but I shook the fear away, Max was just a vampire, not a sape-shifting soul sucker, a one form blood sucker.

"Bella!" I whisper-shouted, "wake up!"

After a breif explination they got up and followed me to Natan's room.

"Got them," I said.

Davnix-

I knocked on the door to Natan's room and let myslf in, leaving the door open so that Riley could follow. I blinked when i saw Natan spring up and cast his arms out to both sides as if he was trying to hide something...

Then i saw Val look quickly over his shoulder then push him playfully. "Don't worry, it's not your father."

He slowly lowered his arms and smiled. "Sorry."

I laughed. "It's fine. We wanted to come ask you something."

"Yeah?" Val asked, stepping out from behind Natan.

"We were wondering if you'd help us hunt down a demon."

Suddenly Ariana let herself into the room, Isabella and Max following close behind. I saw Natan cast his sister and the new vampire a curious glance.

"I see I am not the only one who has fallen for a vampire," Natan said slyly, chuckling to himself. "Hunt down a demon, eh? What do you say, Val?"

She smiled. "I thought you just wanted to sit."

"Well, i feel the need for an adventure. What about you?"

"I was thinking the same thing."

I smiled again. "So are we all in?"

*TN, just have your two characters show up in the bedroom, looking for Natan*

Trent smiled at the lady that opened the door.

"Can I help you?" She asked gently. Trent felt Velna peek around him.

"We wanted to come thank Natan for helping Velna earlier." He said returning the lady's smile.

"Alright, he is up stairs, come on in." She smiled, Trent hesitated for a few minutes before he followed her up the stairs. Velna clutched his arm and followed. He shook her off, but she stuck close to him as they reached a room where a few others were standing. He noted the guy that had helped Velna and the guy that had brought Velna back to the other house.

Natan-

The door to my room opened yet again, Admitting the girl i had healed earlier and her brother. I walked forward to greet them.

"Hello."

"Hi." Velna said. "I just wanted to say thank you for earlier. I never got a proper chance."

I waved it away. "Just doing my job. Do you need anything else? I'm afraid we can't provide a place to stay in for the night, unless i run it across my mother..." I shrugged. "We're getting ready to leave, see? Demon hunting and all..." i grinned.

Velna-

"Demon hunting?" Trent's eyebrows went up.

Trent, what are you thinking?Velna asked biting the inside of her lip.

You wanted to stick with someone, and I want to keep us moving, this sounds like a good idea. Plus, we've done this once before. he replied

Yea, forever ago, and what happened, we lost Albany.

Then we can fix that.

"You wouldn't want any help with that would you. It would give us a way to return a favor." Trent said smiling.

Natan-

My own eyebrows shot up. "Are you offering us help, O Half-Dragon?" i asked playfully.

He smiled. "That i am."

"Then i most humbally accept." i said, bowing and grinning. I was in one of the best moods i could ever remember being in. I had completely forgotten all about my father and was caught up in the idea of an adventure.

Ariana

"Any help would be much appreciated, its a personal thing between me and the demon so I don't know how much help I will be."

I felt Riley's arm on my shoulder a comforting gesture, if thats what he intended it to be it didnt' matter it worked for what I needed and I backed up to him.

Riley-

I wrapped my wings around Ariana again and laid my chin on the top of her head. "It seems we are getting more help than expected. That is a good thing for it means you are safer, and in that case, I am happier." I smiled.

"Good." she said, smiling up at me.

I hugged her closer to me. "So do we leave tonight or wait for morning? It's awfully cold outside..."

Trent-


Trent smiled, he was going to like this group. He felt Velna standing beside him, still stiff. She had every reason to be a little skittish, but she would warm up quick enough. She glanced around at the others.

"Any help would be much appreciated, its a personal thing between me and teh demon so I don't know how much help I will be." One of the girls said.

"I know how that goes," Velna said, relaxing a tad.

"So what type of demon is this?" Trent asked.

Ariana

"Basic, but powerful. Well..." I faultered, "at least he was more powerful than anything mother and father told me about at the time. I was only seven when I first met him."

I leaned a little bit closer to Riley.

"I vote we leave tonight. The sooner the better and the harder it'll be for mother and father to figure out what we're doing and stop us."

"So we leave now then?" Riley rumbled in my ear.

"Yes."

Natan-

I grinned. Finally, some activity around this dull place. I was beginning to wonder how i had lived here for 20 years and had managed to live...and stay so slim. All we did around this place was either practice with each other or sit around all day. It was a wonder we weren't all fat people waddling around all the time.

I wondered how my parents would react to us leaving. Would they be upset? Proud? Disappointed? Worried? Would they feel the need to come after us? My father might, since he knew i was with Val, and if he knew Isabella was with Max. He wouldn't just let us run off by ourselves with a couple of vampires...

"We'll leave tonight," i said. "But we have to leave notes, okay? So the parents don't follow us."

"We already left ours." Davnix said from beside me. "But they shouldn't find it until morning."

"Alright." i said. I flicked my hand and instantly a piece of crumpled paper and a quill pen flew over to me from my desk. I quickly scribbled down a note, flicked my hand again, and the quill went back to it's place on the desk and the note went to my bed.

"We'll need warm clothes, though." Ariana pointed out.

"And food." Isabella put in.

"We can hunt for food." Davnix said quickly. "We don't need to bring any."

"Davnix, it's nearly winter, and unless you want unseasoned snow for your meals, we need to get food. We'll find some on the way but we still need some things to bring along." I said, rolling my eyes.

"Oh, right."

"Alright then, let's get to it. Ariana, Isabella, Max, and Riley: you guys go over to Ariana's house and get all the food and warm clothes you can find and stuff them in these." I threw then a couple of marble sized bags.

"Er, aren't they a bit small?"

"They grow as you put more things in it, and when you're done they shrink back to this size and weigh the same as they do now."

"Handy."

I picked up some for the rest of us. "Alright, Davnix, Val, Trent, and Velna will stay here and gather everything here. I'll get my spell components together, along with Isabella's. Alright?"

Ariana

We walked back over to my house and snuck back upstairs.

"We'll have to get you a tunic," I said to Riley, "its due to start snowing soon and your wings won't be warm enough."

Riley-

I shivered involuntarily at the mention of snow. "Thanks."

She laughed softly as she rummaged around in her drawers. She stuffed a few things into the bag quickly, which suddenly grew in size. When she withdrew her hand, the bag shrunk again.

"Weird..." I muttered.

"So is my family. You'll get used to it."

"So what do you do?"

"Pardon?

"Well, Natan is the healer and mage, Isabella is the mage/healer-in-training, Davnix is the swordsman... So what do you do?"