Phedre hung upside down by her legs by a branch overlooking a sink hole of bubbling green muck. She remained motionless, her stomach muscles tight with the effort not to move and her dark violet eyes shot across the ground below searching for a safe place to land. The only noise she made was a swift swish as she flipped backward, landing with a SMUCK into the mud below. She sunk to her mid-thighs, splashes of mud flecking her face.

I hate this... she groaned mentally, trying to lift her leg up and out of the muck while keeping her weapons out of it as well.

Finally she made her way to a solid patch of ground surrounding the base of a tree. She leaned against it's trunk, her chest rising and falling deeply with the effort to breath. Her raven black hair stuck to her forehead from the sweat and her tounge was pintched between her teeth as she continued to think.

Alright Phedre... how are we gunna do this?

'Oooo, looks like you got stuck in the muck!'

Called a chanting and mocking voice from above the woman. Mockingly sweet, yet held elements of troublesome mingled in it's depths.

Ginger was fluttering above the woman, green and gold transparent wings showing a bare effort to keep her suspended in the air above the grotesque muck below. She went up every few feet from her wings to keep her suspended, yet vit looked like she was barely moving at all.

Smirking, she did a backflip in mid-air and hung upside down with her wings facing the opposite direction of the woman. Stilll smirking her smirk, she said deviously,

'Hello.'

Phedre stopped moving hearing a flitting nearby. She drew her bow and had an arrow notched and pointing at the pixie-like creature in a matter of seconds.

Her face was cold and solid, not taking kindly to the mocking tone of the stranger.
As if you're helping little bug, she thought, note to self, pay more dam* attention... if a pixie can sneak up on me then I dont want to think what could later on...

She held the bow up and aimed, the string tight, ready to be fired. "Can I help you?" she asked, an eyebrow raised. Her hair still clung to her face and she looked through strands of it, up at the pixie.

"Speak quickly, I fear I may have lost most of my patience already in this sinking hole of sludge."

Her smirk quickly faded when the girl held up the bow and arrow, pointing it straight at her. Her brows furrowed in to a straight line as she slowly lowered herself back to the ground, feet slightly sinking in the ooze and muck. Her wings slowly stopped fluttering, and her feet sank a few more feet, going up to her knees.

'Er- I'm Ginger...no need for help....'

She said, fluently and quickly, causing her words to almost sounds like 'Erimjiner', but her sense stopping her from saying that nonsense. Her hands slowly crept to rest against her sides, emerald green eyes matching the movement of the woman's chest going up and down as she breathed.

Phedre paused, the bow at Ginger for a few more seconds before bringing the bow down and setting the arrow back into her quiver. She sighed and shook her head, crossing her arms across her chest and looking at the pixie with a raised eyebrow.

"So what was the point of jumping out at someone like that?" she mumbled looking around at the fog swirling over the mud, "especially in a place like this."

She wasn't mean, or wasn't trying to be, but she was frusterated. She needed to get out of here before nightfall and the sun was beginning to set over the tops of the knarled trees around her.

She managed to make out the pixies name and took a deep breath, nodding slowly, "Ginger, eh? Well... intresting to meet you. I would say yes," she added with a small hint of a smile, "but you took me slightly by surprise and almost paid for it with your life."

Never test an assassin.... Don't give her your name... not yet... she may not even want it.

She looked around and let out another sigh, her muscles burning from the effort it took her to make her way three quarters of the way across the swamp. She caught sight of another low lying branch in the tree she stood under and jumped up to grab it. She hauled herself up and stood on the limb with ease, surveying the area.

Maybe I could travel across the trees, she thought awaiting any response from her pixie company.

She let out a small sigh of releif when the woman put down her bow, trying to get her legs out of the muck, which was an alarming rate up to her waist. She pushed down on what she thought was solid ground, but was a hard layer od dried muck that instantly broke when she pushed through it, causing her arms to sink to her shoulders, leaving her in a well, litterally sticky situation.

When she stepped down in the muck to lift her feet, the other one sunk deeper, which left her stuck bending over with muck up to her ribs. She lifted ehr head to look at the woman and flinched as she said sheepishly,

'Eeee...umm...could you help me?'

Phedre looked back down at the sinking pixie as she sunk another inch deeper into the mud. She let out a sigh, cracking her knuckles, and crouched low on the branch.

"Next time," she said, her voice low and eerie, "keep flying."

She wrapped her legs around the tree branch and hung upside down extending her arms to grab Ginger's shoulders. She got a firm grip under the girl's arms and yanked her upwards, using all the strength in her arms and stomach to haul her from the suctioning mud. She dropped her as quickly as she freed her, on a peice of solid land under the tree.

"There. Now fly," she righted herself back again on the branch, an eerie breeze playing with her loose raven hair.

Slowly she got to her feet on the branch and steadied herself against the trunk. She peered one way with squinted eyes, then back the way she came.

Looks like forward's the only way to go, she thought her muscles beginning to feel fatigued.

She looked at the distance between her branch and the next tree and decided to risk the jump. She bent low and sprang from her spot onto the next branch, its rough bark chaffing her palms. She pulled herself a top it and looked towards the next tree, then back at the pixie.

What am I gunna do with her?

She fluttered a few feet off the ground as soon as she was pulled out of the mud by the woman, trying to rub off the sticky muck on her white dress and legs.

'Thanks...'

She said, looking over at the woman, and fluttered over the mud and muck over to the woman. She fluttered two feet above the womans head, before asking a simple question or two,

'Where ya going? Can I come too?'

She said, her words seeming to move to quickly for her small mouth, despite the fact that she had a big blabber mouth in some cases.

'Oh, and I never caught your name, what is it?'

She asked playfully, darting quickly along side the woman, hovering a bare few inches above the path in the forest.

Phedre let out a groan as the pixie darted infront of her. She pretended not to notice her, and instead jumped to the next tree, pulling herself up on the branch with a wince, her muscles screaming for a break.

A smile crept on her lips as she was asked for her name. Anyone who lived in the surrounding area... or country for that matter, knew the name of Phedre. They knew her legend-like past and her knack for killing, and going unnoticed. The name brought fear to most, and death to a few. The one thing that the legends and stories didn't seem to tell... was her half-blood. Her ability to transform. It wasn't something she shared, nor did infront of people... but it was a dangerous secret that was almost impossible to find out.

"My name you ask little one," she said with a laugh, preparing to jump to another tree, her hand hovering over her dagger hilt at her hip incase the pixie tried something, "Is Phedre."

She leapt easily to the next branch, her heart slightly beating faster with the effort. She had decided that she would address the other question after the pixie knew who she was.

'Phedre?Nice name...sounds some what ...familiar...'

She said, her voice wandering off in to nothingness as she gazed in to the sky, before turning her cranium again to Phedre and fluttering over with barely any sign of effort.

She flew up on to the branch that Phedre was on, imitating a bit of Phedre's moved as she breathed heavily.

'Sooo....can I come with ya?'

She asked, suddenly leaping off the branch and fluttering over to right in front of Phedre's face, face a bare few inches from Phedres. She was grinning a big, friendly grin.

Phedre stopped, staring into the face of a nieve pixie, her eyebrows raised.

She doesn't know.... she thought with a broadening smile, this could be useful.

Phedre stood on the branch and rubbed the back of her neck. "So you wanna come eh," she asked trying to keep her voice steady, "Don't you think you should know where I'm going first?"

She smiled and cracked her knuckles and neck awaiting a reply, her eyes were dark and mysterious and her lips teased in a mischevious smile.

If she doesn't know, she's in for a surprise... and if she tries something when she DOES know... she's in for even more of one...

'Ok! Where ya going, then?'

She said cheerfully, unknowing of the assain that Phedre was.

Suddenly, a rustle in the bushes caused her timid cranium to turn to the foundation of the rustle so quickly that one would think her small neck would be forced to change positions by the force, but it stayed the way it was as she watched a large bird erupt from the bushes, a chain of smaller birds following it as they trailed in to the sky.

The moment the rustle of leaves met her keen ears an arrow was in the notch of her bow and pulled back. As the larger phesant errupted from the trees a smile grin appeared on her lips.

"Dinner time," she whispered, her voice almost inaudible.

She followed the bird with her eyes until it was almost directly overhead. She she loosed her arrow, it's deadly precision scouring the socket of the bird. She smiled, quite satisfied with her shot, and watched the now dead bird plummet into a hard patch of land 5 feet from the branch in which she stood.

"Excuse me," she said somewhat sarcastically to the pixie and she lept from the branch down to her meal-to-be.

She picked up the bird with a black, leather, gloved hand and held it out before her. There was a gash present on its chest, oozing yellow infected puss errupted from the wound. She looked around, her ears perked and her eyes sharp.

She dropped the phesant quickly and stepped back to the tree, mounting herself to her branch, eyes darting around her without blinking.

Something's here, she thought, trying to smell it, something that could be a problem...

Ginger watched, mouth ajar, as Phedre jumped down and picked up the bird, then quickly put it down, jumping again on to the branch. She narrowed her eyes as she wtached Phedre, brows furrowing in to a thin, straight line as she watched. She then opened her mouth, her one words spilling out like one spilling a bucket of water in slow motion, complicated, moving fluently yet creating a lot of noise in sense,

'Woah...'

Her mouth suddenly seemed to feel like straw dust, despite the heavy dampness in the chillingly cold night air.

Phedre paused in her scouting to look at Ginger, her eyes dark and mysertious. Her loose raven hair was being brushed by an invisible breeze and her hands wavered over her dagger hilt.

Woah?? What do you expect from an assassin?

She grinned slowly, her white teeth bright against the darkness of her apparel. She remembered the sliced phesant and returned to her scouting, the ips of his fingers itching to release her long silvery claws.

There was a rustle of leaves nearby that caught her attention just as a shadowy figure pounced on the dead carcass of the bird. She caught sight of it through the corner of her eye, and drew her bow in one fluid motion. She spotted, and released within a second, the arrow peircing the collar of the shadowed creature. It let out an unearthy shriek and gazed up angrily at the tree.

Phedre looked to Ginger and let out a wry smile.

"I'd tell you to fly..." she said with a pause, "but I think you know you should by now..."

She steadied her footing on the branch and drew another arrow, waiting for the pixie to leave.

And she doesn't know the name of Phedre... perhaps she will be remember it now...

Ginger let out a short cry and backed off the branch, causing her to almost fall in to the muick, but starting to fly at the very same moment the muck touched her wings, causing them to have a heavy layer of muck on them. Despite the fact that they would slow her down because of their new heaviness, she did not waste time cleaning them off, attempted to flutter away, yet slowly, across the forest, feet kicking at the air as if to hurry her up, doing so if only one tenth of an inch.


((Ah, sorry-being ushered off computer.))

OOC: Not a Problem
____

Phedre watched the pixie flit away and shook her head, loading another bolt on her string and loosing, this one sticking in the hood of the shadowy creature. It dropped to it's knees and fell, eventually, on its stomach, blood oozing ina puddle around it.

She paused, listening for nearby sounds and upon hearing none called out, "Pixie, it's safe to return," a little softer she added, "you don't need to though..."

She crossed her arms over her chest, her bow at ease over her shoulder and awaiting Ginger to reappear. The assassin's mark was clearly tattoo'd on her forearm, and seemed to glow in the growing moonlight.

-he walked into the area silently looking around sighing at his souroundings, he wore a blue mages robe and on the side of his face were two blue markings he strange energies could be felt comeing from him, in his right hand he held a large staff he tapped his foot as he made his way thorugh this swamp he grumbled wondering how he had gotten here in the first place he sighed a bit jumping into a tree to escape to muddy ground below him he looked down at it with a frown-
"..................................."

He walked over all the mud, he seemed to float. He kept his entire body hidden under his rope. He also sheilded his identity by masking his power. He looked around then listened. This place is alot like my temple.

He then found a tree and jumped up into it.

Phedre stopped suddenly and redrew her bow, arrow pulled nack and ready to fire. She watched a flash of a blue cloak and her eyes darkened. She shot again, without a word, the arrow flying true.

It was her style as an assassin, shoot first, talk later.

She remained otherwise still, blending into the shadow of the tree. Another bolt was on her string and ready as her ears perked for further movement.

-He haddent seen the arrow come at him it hit his shoulder he winced and let out a small yelp looking back to where the arrow had come from his right hand on his shoulder he was motionless, his left hand was gathering a orange energy in his palm- "

".....Hey!..."

She cursed under her breath and slid against the tree out of his sight.

Just my luck, kill off a gaudian... this is a horrible day...

She readied her bow again, incase he tried an attack, and felt the skin on her back shiver with adrenaline. She lived for these moments. Her dragon form itched to break out, having not been fully freed for sometime now, but she kept it at bay, perking her ears for the sounds the Gaurdian would make.

Her head jerked to the side, hearing something rustle in a nearby tree and caught sight of nothing but darkness.

She turned her attention back to the wounded man and took aim, close enough to kill him with the next shot, far enough away that her arrow couldn't be traced back to her shadowy hide out.

-He ripped the arrow out winceinga bit as he did rubbing the spot where the arrow had entered he held his shoulder speaking out loud-

"..Why does everything want to kill me?!.."

-he had talked to raku which was one of his bigest mistakes he could have been killed by him in a matter of seconds now an archer trying to kill him he sighed a bit grumbleing his staff held out to his side blood poureing from the wound-

"........."

Did he just call me a thing? she thought with a raised eyebrow and a half smile. She put her bow down and slid the arrow back into her quiver. She remained out of sight but called out to the blue robed man.

"Tight compress, tie one above, then wrap it up."

She let out an echoing laugh.

"And I wasn't trying to kill you," she added with a smirk, "You would be dead right now If I was..."

-He grumbled doing as she instructed looking in the area he could hear her he sighed noddign to him self yes if she wanted him dead he would probaly be dead right now he looked up after finished wraping his arm-

"..Umm..Thank you?...Am i going to see my attacker?.."

-He was more or less wondering who it was at this point-

He heard the chatter coming from the east near by him. He slowly walked towards the voices.

"Who is there!!!" He yelled.

He then slashed his way through the small weeds and dead shrubs in the swamp. He jumped into a tree and looked around.

"I shall ask you one last time you is there?"

-He could hear another voice yelling he looked back to it his grip on his staff tighting he moved down a bit and then looked at his cloak he stode out alot because of the blue color he sighed staying silent-

".............."

Phedre took a swing around the tree trunk and looked at the ground around her. She let out a sigh and shook her head. She had decided to shout out her name, knowing that anyone in the Realm who was not deaf and blind, knew her by her blood stained profession. "Phedre, the Lady Assassin."

She tossed her hair back and called out.

"My name is Phedre." She stopped there, her deep shadowy eyes flashing for a second, thinking of her dragon form, that no one knew about... no one living that is.

-He nodded his head in mute acceptance he had heard the name before he glanced around the tree he was aginst catching a glance of her he moved silently from the tree infront of it now faceing the direction she was in-

"................."

She looked down at the man she had shot, unnervingly. Blood was beginning to soak through his bandages, making her raise an eyebrow, "amatures..." she muttered under her breath, moving into a relaxed sitting position on one of the branches.

She looked back down at him, somewhat forgetting about the voice that demanded her name earlier.
"So you know who I am, and I can tell by the strain in those beady eyes of yours that you are apprehensive... so why stay down there, staring up at me like a transfixed puppy, awaiting a meal?"

She shrugged.

"You won't find that here either."

She motioned to the pheasent she shot down earlier, with the maggot filled gash in it's neck.

-He sighed a bit standing up brushing him self off he shook his head his staff held in his right hand blood pouring from the wound still he looked at her a rather ralaxed look on his face-

"...I think you may be mistaken for if i wanted to i could attack you back and deal out much more pain so you see id just rather leave it alone than fight...."


-He shook his head walking into the swamp a bit more glanceing down at his wound every now and then-

He stepped out to where he could see the two. "Hello Lady Phedre."

He then turned his attention to Lynx. "Well you just don't learn do you?"

He jumped into the tree Phedre was in. The tree didn't move since he weighed nothing really. "Yes lynx you fool try and kill my personal assassin, I dare you."

He stared lynx down. "I mean you said that you could deal so much pain to her, how much do you think I could deal to you?"

His cold eyes focused on Lynx.

She raised her eyebrows as Raku appeared in her tree. She managed a bow from her seat on the branch and rose with a smile. "My Lord, It is an honour."

When he began to verbally threat and attack the wounded man her jaw dropped. They know each other? Her eyes widened and danced in the shadow as he addressed her with her new title of personal assassin.

"Pain?" she said more to herself than anyone else, "I feel no pain."

She drew her bow again, aiming it at the wounded man.

"Say the word, M'lord," she breathed, sighting her target, "And my first job will be finished."

Her eyes blurred a moment as her dragon form tried to force its way out of her. She shook her head slightly and re-aimed awaiting an order.

It's odd... I never take orders... until now...

"Well I shall let you carry on your own way, after all your the assassin." He smiled at her. Then he turned to Lynx. "Now I think you might want to run along little boy."

He sat in the tree waiting for one of them to make a move. "This shall be fun, and don't worry my assassin no harm shall come to you."

She smiled as she aimed the bow lower than its original spot in his neck.

Assassin's law... kill who you must and who you're ordered to.

She groaned.

And I don't HAVE to kill him... I guess I'll just leave him with anothre battle scar.

She gave a wink and raised an eyebrow, "Run," was all she said as she loosed her arrow, its destination, his upper thigh.

She put her bow down and rested her body against a tree, a smile on her lips. "Or limp." He laughed softly, awaiting his reaction.

She looked to Raku finally, "I worry not of my safety My Lord."

-He sighed looking down he would not attack another it took alot to get him angry he was far from it now he thought it best not to speak any words he turned faceing them for a moment then looked down walking deeper into the swamp silently his gaze fixed on the ground-

"...................."

-He staggered back a bit as if something had hit him from the front the arrow which should have hit his back at this moment shot through him as if he were not their, the arrow makeing no mark on him. the arrow slamed into a tree infront of him sending splinters everywhere he shook his head a bit regaining his balance he dident turn to face them again he brushed him self off and walked off into the swamp as if nothing had happened-

"........"

She stood stunned a moment and watched the man dissappear into the shadows.

"Raku," she shook her head and corrected herself, "My lord, what just happened?"

She tried to keep her mouth from hanging open in shock.

"I...I never miss a target..." She shook her head in disbelief, "Never have..." She couldn't help but feel like she failed her first job to him. "I'm terribly sorry My Lord! That's never happened before!"

-He dident have to walk that far he looked back for a moment not seeing even one of them he smiled a bit leaning aginst a tree the mist masking them and himself from view he yawned lowering his head his staff held in his right hand hung limply at his side he was silent now-

"..................."

"It's ok he is a guardian so get used to missing a lot of targets when it comes time for war." He then sat on the tree limb and closed his eyes.

The thought of war raced through his mind. He let out a brief smile. He then reopened his eyes and looked at her well I must be going I got to make sure we win this war.