Beginning-middle of EPIC story. I can't write things in order (Ironic since I refuse to read/watch/do anything out of order). I actually do have a bit of the beginning, but this part is what I'm working on the most right now so I have an urge to type it up. Oh! And there are typos because I typed most of it looking at my book, not the screen, and I'm too lazy to go through and spell check at this point.



The sun was lying in wait just beyond the horizon when the travelers crawled out from their makeshift tent, still miserable and sodden from the night before. The forest around them, however, was quite cheerful despite the pre-dawn fog and previous torrential downpour. The trees had thinned out this far east and birds flitting above were singing the sun's praises in anticipation of its rising.

Stork took this all in, dark eyes wide. The woods here were very much different from those where his gilded prison had hung, and in the blackness of their tracks the night before he wasn't able to realize the beauty of this place. Even in the clearing, his forest had been cold and uninviting, here it was warm and very much alive.

"Don't wander off too far." Leo warned, wringing out a corner of his shirt, facing the barely standing shelter they had managed to erect. Stork realized that he had gone quite a distance away in his wonder without noticing it. He wuickly made his way back to Leo's side, cloak sliding across dead leaves from autumns past, muffling their crunch. Arc was the last to emerge, blinking sleep from his eyes and looking no worse from wear from the storm. In fact, he was bone dry. He glaced over at the still soaked Angel and Human, the latter of which gaping at him openly in confusion, and only shook his head. As the half-Elf turned away, Leo swore he could see a wry smile upon his lips.

"The horses are gone," Stork's confused tone drifted over from where he stood, staring at the torn ropes they had hoped would hold the beasts during the night. "Poor things."

"We're just lucky they didn't trample us when they got free. They may not be f-" Leo was cut off, "I doubt it," Arc said plainly, moving to help in the deconstruction of the tent.

Leo raised an eyebrow at the man before him, then sighed. "Then our only choice is to walk until we reach the nearest village."

This time it was Arc's turn to bring an eyebrow towards the heavens, "And you have the gold for mounts for the three of us?" He couldn't suppress a smirk.

Leo shot him a look as Stork bent down to retrieve a stake, turning it over in his hand. "We'll figure something out," Leo grumbled, snatching the stake out of the startled Angel's hand. Stork barely took offense though, quickly recovering and starting in another direction to see more of the wood.

Leo was about to reprimand him again when he noticed the look Arc was shooting him. "He's not a child."

"He sure acts like one," was Leo's retort, but he let the matter go.

Stork meanwhile stepped lightly over fallen logs and fresh earth, his cloak as always a silent shadow behind him. He wrapped it closer about his shoulders against the slight chill of dawn. As always his large eyes took everything in. Though, just a few steps and a short journy about some fairly dense underbrush later, he stopped short in his tracks.

Now the sounder from his tavel mates were long lost, muffled by the forest, and so only was there the sound of crickets, merrily chirping their joy of the storm being over as the sung hung low in the new day above. A quick buzzing heralded the arrival of an errant dragonfly, flashing blue across a world of green before dissapearing once again. There was a laughing of water drops as the wind gently coerced dew off their beds of leaves high atop the trees and they came down upon the world below. Stork shook of the new wetness from his hair, stepping closer to the object that so strongly held his attention. Sitting among the trees, as if the forest had snuck up on it from behind, and blending with the light fog of after-rain morning that was quickly being burned away by the rising sun, was a grand, albeit small structure carved of white marble. Green vines traveled up the walls, which were only slightly pockmarked with age. Stork broke into a smile as a small brown mouse came out of hiding from its home, traveled the distance against line of half crumbled-away steps, then hid itself once again into some nook or cranny. It was then that birds had finished their moment of silence to allow the sun to rise in its glory alone, and the trees became alive with singing and the fluttering of wings.

Growing bold, Stork took one glance behind him then hurried with hushed footsteps to the stairs that beckoned him. He carefully navigated the worn stairs, ascending into the doorway. Inside was a large room, lined around its edges by a walkway marked by marble pillars, standing tall despite centuries having erased most of their detailed carvings. Above, a rectangle of ceiling was open to the sky, allowing the day to enter the reflecting pool directly below. Overfull from the rain, the pool was home to bunches of lily pads and frogs eggs, having turned wild long ago. The green of nature floated gently in a world of reflected blue sky and passing clouds. Stork's hand reached up to meet the cool marble of the doorway and for a flash instance he was reminded of his equally cool buildings shining every color of the sun, with their mirrors of water beside the roads intensifying the spectacle. He shook the growing thought out of his head and the growing tears out of his eyes. He was started home now, it wouldn't take long the other two had reassured him. There was no reason to reminisce, the real thing would be before him in no time. But that reassurance didn't erase the whisperings of two men who talked in low voices well into the night after the Angel was thought to be long asleep on his makeshift med. The whisperings that talked of doubt and danger. Once again Stork righted himself, pushing the whisperings to the back of his mind. It wasn't hard, however, as calld of his name were rising out form the trees. The others had finished packing the tent.

"Here!" He returned the calls, stepping deftly down the stairs once again. He hurried past the brush and back through the woods. "Leo! You've got to come see this!"

"Hm?" Leo lifted his head, watching the excited Angel acting as a young boy would, come running back toward the two between the trees. "What is it? You should be getting changed out of those wet clothes before you catch a cold."

"Oh.. Alright." The order had caught him off gaurd but nevertheless, Stork undid the silver clasp on his cloak, letting it gently slip from his shoulders and fall to the forest floor in silence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

bah that's as far as I got so far. I want to get up to Erica's introduction, which isn't going to be that far off, and then hopefully move down into Insid's world if this wave takes me that far, but I don't want to type more than I have written down. Sure, I've changed a few things as I typed it up, but its nice to have shit written up that I can go back to look at even should I not have the puter with me, and there's no way in hell I'm writing things down that I've typed up. I can't work backwards like that.

Anyway, if you've gotten this far tell me what you think. Sure, you barely know these characters or their stories or anything, but meh. I don't even know if I mean to give away Arc's elven background this early in the story or not.. but its there for now until I change it.

I'll probably be typing up more that I have written up in the future. I need to start getting this show on the road if I have any hopes in actually finishing it. Yes, I do plan on finishing this, and yes, I do hope and pray that one day it may actually be published. It may have started with a cockameme idea based on a doll, but I want to try and ride it as far as it'll take me.