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Post by Badgerstar on Mar 29, 2008 14:27:53 GMT -5
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Post by Badgerstar on Mar 29, 2008 14:36:31 GMT -5
This is the best song in warrior cat versian!
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Post by Bear on Aug 31, 2013 12:35:34 GMT -5
When the sun rose the next morning Emen and Lario took to the streets to try and find the assessment centre again. They wandered for several hours finding nothing but wasted time. There were more people with Enders than Emen was expecting. She hadn't thought so many people were Halcyn or chose to live in Rend but she passed someone walking with a bird, a horse or a wolf more often than not. Lions and dragons were a rarer sight but she still noticed a few as they walked.
"We're going the wrong way Emen," Lario said suddenly and sat down.
"How do you know? I thought it was this way," Emen pointed towards a narrow street completely in the shade from the houses all but kissing on their second floors.
"We've already been that way. It took us to the outskirts with all the farms," said Lario. Emen wasn't convinced but the lion Ender had already set off in a different direction. "We need to go this way, it smells of fish."
"Fish?" Emen shook her head and followed him. They were already late, she didn't suppose it mattered anymore.
Lario padded through a street filled with market stalls that opened into a larger area with a few trees planted in the centre.
"We have definitely not been this way before," Emen said. She was sure she'd remember a place like that.
Lario sat again and sniffed at the floor while licking his paw to avoid being seen as doing something so common. He heaved his shoulders in a shrug and twitched his tail. "Then you've made us lost. You'll have to ask someone for help."
"Why do I have to?" Emen asked but scanned the area. Plenty of people were browsing the stalls examining fruit, cloth, meat and one stall selling small metal statues.
A young man stood under the shade of one of the trees. His shaggy dark hair covered most of his face and hung in a tangled mess to his shoulders. His tanned skin marked him as someone from the south, or, at least, with a parent from the south like Emen. A black and dull purple dragon sat beside him, it's focus intent on a blackbird hopping across the floor. The dragon had curled horns that ended underneath it's eyes and a long whip-like tail with a scythe on the end. It seemed of a similar height to Lario, or a head shorter.
Lario motioned for her to go and talk to the man. Emen hesitated. He didn't seem very friendly but she wasn't sure why. He was stood on his own in a fairly busy market. She should go ask someone else for directions, but something made her feet begin to walk over to him. The man noticed her quickly but simply stood and let her approach. She felt his eyes examining her closely and felt uncomfortable.
"Hello, I'm Emen and this is Lario. We arrived yesterday and were told to go the assessment centre, but we're a bit lost. Can you tell us where it is?" she asked in a rush. There was something unnerving about the man, but she wasn't sure what.
"We'll do better than that, we'll show you, won't we Ruwin?" the dragon said. He twitched his tail and waved at the two of them. The man, Ruwin, stood and watched them for a few more seconds before nodding.
"Of course we will. I'm Ruwin, this is Tyton," he introduced himself and the dragon Ender by his feet.
"Call me Ty," Tyton interrupted quickly.
The man and the dragon began to walk. He took them back through the market and down a smaller street they hadn't noticed. It didn't take many turns before Emen was lost again. Lario sniffed at the floor and the air as they walked and didn't look as confused as she felt. She noticed that the lion Ender walked as far away from Ruwin as possible, and hung back to walk behind them rather than at her side as he'd take to doing.
As they walked Ruwin held a conversation with her.
"Are you Halcyn, Emen?" he asked.
Emen nodded. She supposed she'd have to get used to people asking her that. Unless she walked around publicly showing magical ability there would be no way to tell if she was Halcyn or had volunteered to live in Rend.
"I was called Sundered when I came to live here. A year later Ty Fell for me," he said calmly.
"I thought that was impossible?" Emen frowned. Enders only Fell for people aged twelve to nineteen. It had been that way for hundreds of years.
"That's what everyone here thought. They told me it was impossible. They decided that I was wrong. That I was a year younger than I am and that couldn't remember my own age. I don't suppose it matters, really," Ruwin shrugged.
He led them in silence after that. They walked for several more minutes through alleyways and across massive streets several houses wide before they stopped outside the large assessment centre Emen had been taken to yesterday.
"Rend is very confusing, but you'll get used to it." He stood next to her and pointed across her shoulder towards a tall tower in the distance. "Just follow that tower. Your building is nearby. You'll get used to Rend eventually, but follow the tower and you won't be as lost."
Emen thanked him and watched him walk away before heading to the wooden doors. She hoped she'd see him again, but with the size of the city she doubted it.
"You need to stay away from that man, Emen," Lario whispered as they climbed the stairs. His fur was raised and his tail swayed violently.
"Why?"
"You just do."
"If you can't tell me why, then why should I listen to you?"
"You just do, Emen."
Emen grunted noncommittally. Ruwin seemed nice enough to her, she wasn't going to purposely avoid him based on a vague order from Lario.
Teo and Jiceo were again in the library. Teo stopped writing with her white quill and stared at the pair disapprovingly.
"You're both very late. I told you to come this morning," she scolded.
"Oh be nice Teo, they probably got lost. Everyone gets lost. We need better signs. It took you two whole weeks to find the centre when you arrived. I think a few hours is probably some sort of record," Jiceo teased.
Tight-lipped, Teo put her quill and parchment aside and pulled a thick, leather-bound book from a pile and began to flip through it. She stopped at various points, her watery blue eyes scanning the pages before darting up at Emen and back again. She continued turning pages and occasionally scribbled something on a separate scroll.
Eventually she stopped flipping through the heavy book. "I'm going to send you to Ourissa our head seamstress. Her workshop is near the farms." With a wave of her hand she sent Jiceo to take them to Ourissa.
The man led them back out of the building and took them through another maze of streets. It seemed to Emen that it would be easier to find Ourissa's workshop than the assessment centre. The building was surrounded by stables, crops and large, open fields of cows, sheep, pigs and horses. A flock of chickens flapped across the street as they walked by. The workshop itself was a rather small stone building with clothes hanging from plenty of windows and across the top of the door. A faded and peeling painted sign showed two needles crossing and tied together with thread.
"Ourissa will look after you," Jiceo told Emen with a smile. She watched him leave, spotting the tall tower Ruwin had told her to look for in the distance.
The inside of the building smelled strongly of perfume, flowers and clothes. It was one large room with people sat along benches working on all sorts of different clothes. Emen didn't want to work as a seamstress. She'd never been very good at sewing and it never held her interest for very long. A large, round woman with tightly curled grey hair noticed them standing in the doorway and hurried towards them. In her arms she carried several bundles of brightly coloured fabric and could barely see over the top of them all. More were draped over her shoulders and pinned to her clothes. There was a single thread of gold stuck in her hair.
"Has Teo sent you to work for me? Aren't you a pretty little thing?" she said with a bright smile. "I'm Ourissa. Come with me, how well can you sew?" Without waiting for an answer, Ourissa handed Emen a pile of cloth, put her arm around her shoulder and led her to a work station. Lario followed as he always did.
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