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While he was relieved that his friend hadn't suffered the damage he'd expected, he was terrified to learn he was going to hug him again. Audric backed away, but Azerim came toward him again, this time wrapping his blue hands in the same fleecy blanket Audric had wrapped Azerim in before, and pulled him into a hug again.

"I'm not--" Audric's protest was cut off as he was crushed back into the hug. He was soon flooded again with the heat of before, of sunshine, of warm marble pallazio floors, of tanned men smelling of the scented oils of ancient italy, ancient rome, and ancient egypt, of white silk made sticky with sweat, of leather, and of passion. Audric released an audible gasp as the contact brought him through time, and he glimpsed mountains and mountains of aztec gold.

Instantly his body rebelled against it, and Audric shivered as his heart heaved ice through his body, running him cold again. Ice began to crystalize on his ears, his horns, the edges of his jaw, running along his body. Just then, Azerim's voice came in clear again,
"Concentrate on not letting your element run wild."

Audric's eyes shut, and his teeth clenched. He willed the ice to cease, he willed the cold to slow, he willed the frost to end. Audric's stiff body relaxed, and suddenly limp, he fell more into Azerim's embrace, like a thawed animal. His hands fell from where they were pressed between their chests and slid underneath Azerim's suspenders, to run around to his back, to slide up the sensual curve of his spine, the little indent that ran down his back. For Azerim, he chanted in his mind, for Azerim...

The sunlight came back, glimpses of the humid heat of the amazon jungle, of the tawny fur of the jaguar, and of the beam off of a golden statue. Audric became hot, uncomfortably so, flushed with rouge across his cheeks, like a drop of blood in a bowl of milk. His body was noticibly warm, his ears lax, eyelids half parted as Audric hallucinated in the history that Azerim swam through. A single stone that had seen it all, but gold kept reoccuring, again and again, armor or statues or jewlery or something...Every moment that passed he became more and more heated, his pulse firing rapidly.
"A...ze...rim...I...m....so...hot..."

A name jumped in and out of his mind. He couldn't grasp it enough to hang onto it, but it seemed significant somehow. For now, he needed to cool down, and fast.

Audric released Azerim without a struggle, but wasn't fighting, either. He just kept looking at Azerim with that dazed and slightly feverish expression. He tottled over to the chair when prompted and sank into it, quivering ever so subtly. Sitting down, and out of contact with Azerim, he began to cool, though the fost that was sprinkled on him melted with contact on his skin. Soon enough, the color danced away from his cheeks, and his eyes refocused. With the menagerie and bombardment of senses faded away, he was left with the cold silence of the freezer, the hard reality it faced him with. Audric felt ...loss.

He looked at Azerim fussing over him without much reccolection of anything aside from what he saw. Was this the unknown feeling Azerim faced? No wonder he was afraid. Still more than anything, Audric looked amazed, and wanted to reach out and touch him again.
"Wow..." He gasped, "That was intense."

Audric leant foward and pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes, trying to clear his head. Through long pointed nails, Audric could feel the soft texture of his hair drag between his fingers, becoming unkept curls. He fought to recover the flash of images that passed by him, because he couldn't bear to touch Azerim again. His tail flicked back and forth, the little silver ring lightly clinking against the chair's legs.

As he dragged in cold breaths, the heat that flooded his mind dissappated completely. Reaching down, Audric's fingertips brushed at the frosty floor, and he reconnected with the ice, shot through completely. He looked up at Azerim, eyes calculating once again.
"...A Game? What game?"

A blink, and Audric spotted a white mass moving at a high velocity toward him. Now, he might be cold, and most mammals that reached his temperature would be very very slow, but Audric was no slouch. Reaching out his hand, Audric snapped the ball out of the air. Standing, he spun once and whirled the ball right back at Azerim, more from instinct than malice. After all, what kind of game included hurling things at one another?

Dian had since left the shop for the day to go home. Azyre listened to the conversation with ears strained, though his mind was on W2s. He'd realized a little after Dark had left that there were two voices emerging from the freezer room, but was in no mood to go sprinting off after the blonde, particularly because Teak and Fresca were off duty, and there was no one else to watch the shop front. Azyre knew Dark would return sooner or later. Judging from the pounding footsteps echoing outside, he guessed sooner- MUCH sooner.

Azyre wasn't startled at the burst intrusion. Nor was he all that startled when the teenager suddenly collapsed onto the floor, gasping and wheezing for breath. Azyre's calm cerulean eyes watched concerned passers byers stop and stare through the window before passing by. Unsuprisingly, no one bothered to enter the door and ask if he was okay.

The green haired elf stood and walked to the water cooler where he poured Dark a cup of cold water and walked to him, handing him the cup before he started to talk.

"W-"

"What's the ring in the top back half of the shelf? The purple one, I mean..."

Azyre's gaze narrowed slightly, but not with malice. More with another unsuprised expression that Dark would switch topics so suddenly, particularly after sprinting who knows how far. Should he finish his prior sentance, or switch with the flow?
No, he must finish what he started.

"Well, He's in the back room with the fridge, with Audric." Azyre said, spinning gracefully to then address the inquary about the ring. His wavy green hair cascaded around his shoulders as he searched the top shelf, locating the very ring by the shine of light that bounced on it. Gently he plucked the stone artifact from the velvet stand and walked to yet another shelf by the desk, pulling free a book.

"This one?" He queried, dropping the ring in Dark's hand at the same time he cracked open the book, searching through inventory records for information on the ring.

The shopkeep nodded solemnly. He omitted the usual comforting speach on how they were nearly invulnerable to real danger and how none of them have had any reported deaths aside from the caretaker forgetting their existance which rarely happened, and yadda yadda. He'd given it many times before.

The elf flipped through the pages with interest, until he found the page that held the picture of the ring in question.
"Paya's ring- Urcaquary" He began, skimming down to find his own notes on where he found it.
"Following the faint power signature, I found myself inside a archeogical containing room, where different artifacts from south america were being reveiewed for a possible exhibition. Most of the items there were extremely sacred, and tagged and labeled innappropriately. It was a good thing the gods are largely dormant now, or there'd be many a dead american in this very hall. But the votiv figures were not what I was here for. At last I found it, still encrusted in dry yellow dirt, but intact. Urcaquary's summon. It was a simple matter to reproduce the dirt covered ring. Americans could not interpret what this truly meant, so they couldn't tell what was false as long as the stone was around the same age."

Azyre stopped with wistful reccolection as he looked onto the ring. That was one of the more entertaining aquisitions. He folded the book and leaned back, smiling wistfully.

Azyre stood without a sound and set the book down. He smiled that Dark did not think anything that he had taken an archeological artifact and replaced it with a false ring. He did not even seem to think it unusual Azyre could find these rings, or that he sold the posessed items to people. Leaning forward a little, Azyre's green curls swept forward on his shoulders around his elongated ears. The dryad approached the teen turning over the ring in his hands, and reached out to still them.

Holding his hands perfectly still with Urcaquary's ring centered between the two of them, Azyre slowly cupped Dark's hands in his own. Long legs bent, and the dryad decended to a kneel, almost appearing suspended in prayer as he turned his head, and focused his right ear over the bowl that was their hands.

Bright cerulean eyes closed and Azyre's breath stilled as he strained to hear the softest of noises to ever be emitted. But it was there, whispering quietly in spanish, the pleads of an angel who needed to bond with another, or have his voice forever lost. Urcaquary was on his last of legs, the whisper of a dying man who had called for help for centuries.

And that was all Azyre needed to hear. Standing again, his eyes opened and the elf nodded to Dark.
"Take it, my friend. We shall find a way for you to repay me in time."