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Staying at the back of the lighted area, Brody resisted an urge to step into the darkness. So interested was he in the darkness, that he completely forgot where he was, tripping over the first step. With his clumsie finesse, Brody finished off the fall with a roll up the next couple of shallow steps onto his feet.

Breeze yelped and looked up, and stumbled onto the first step as Makai grabbed her and began dragging her upwards. Her eyes, which had been glazed over in fear, narrowed and began took on a firey, angry look.

"Let go of me. Now." she hissed at him, trying to pull out of his strong grip. "Don't touch me." She glared straight at him, her anger almost palpable in the enclosed area. It spread in waves from her, and she made no attempt to reign it in.

As anger replaced fear, she regained her senses and began actually looking around the stairwell. It was not as small as it had seemed, and there seemed to be a slight breeze. Although there was still no light, she decided that it couldn't be that bad after all, especially if the only other choice was to have Makai drag her all the way up.

For a moment, and only a moment, the walls of the hall lit up, and the shadows of unseen fire danced on the walls. It was an echo of the fire that leapt in Rowan's angry eyes. But as fast as the fire came, it went, and in its stead, an icy wind blew down the stairs, covering the steps and walls in frost.
Rowan dropped Breeze's arm, his expression and body rigid and frozen.
"Do not fall behind."
His tone of voice allowed for no argument - if either girl fell behind, he would rough them to the listening room.

The lord then turned away from his visitors and began to climb the steps again. Despite the frost, the stairs were not slippery, and were mostly easy to climb. But they were not friendly. They bent to Rowan's will and attitude - he willed the 'guests' to follow him quickly, but his attitude was less than welcoming, and the staircase reflected that.

So he wound through the staircase, and the higher they got, the colder it became. Icicles and visible signs of the cold crept around them. The cold seemed not to affect Rowan, his breath did not even materialize in front of him, though it would for Serene and Breeze.

After a great amount of time and the ascension of many hundreds of steps, Rowan arrived on a step that stretched ahead, and the staircase rose no further. A great double door stood before them, solid oak and silent as death.

Rowan stopped close to it, his aristocratic nose almost brushing the rough material. Then he spun on his toes to look at Serene and Breeze behind him.
"You are about to enter the 'Guest Room'. On the other side of this door is a non-descript chamber that fits its name. A door much like this will be on the other side. As you enter, so will those that followed you here.
None of you will be harmed. You may touch what you want in the 'Guest Room'. If you require anything for your comfort, do not hesitate to ask."
Then Rowan turned around again, and brushed his right thumb and middle finger against the wood. Smoothly, his thumb and middle finger left the wood, and easily transitioned to his index finger - his skin never left the great door.
His finger wove a pattern in the door, invisible and blinding to the girls. Then his hand fell, and the wood sizzled, the scent of warm rain and growing things rose heavily around them, and the doors swung open to reveal a room, bare but for two long couches, a long, low table and a smaller side-table. A great double door like the one Rowan had just opened took up most of the opposite wall. The floor was covered in a richly colored rug. On it was a great underwater castle, not unlike the one they occupied at that moment. Around the castle, inside its dome, grew wildflowers and wild fruit. A lion chased deer around the castle, just inside the rocky boundary. Outside the dome, fish swam in beautiful detail, fish they'd never before seen nor heard of.
At each corner of the rug was a figure, totaling four figures. Two male figures and two female figures. The two males were at opposite corners, and both seemed human, though their faces could not be made out - they blurred and escaped the eye.
In the final two corners were the female figures. One female figure had no definite shape - that is, her shape seemed to escape the eye the same way the male faces did. It was only obvious that she was female. The second female had the shape of a mermaid, or siren. Her face was not clear either.

Around the perimeter of the rug was some kind of scripture. It was in a language so ancient, so rare, and so deep that no one could ever read it - except those who'd written it, and those who kept it. It curled and crept like vines around the inside perimeter of the carpet, kept by a boundary that ran along the carpet with it. The script was only barely recognizable as such, and despite that, it could be nothing but script.

Aside from the rug, couches and tables, the room was bare. The walls were non-descript. Not even a fire crackled in a fireplace in the room - there was nothing.
Despite that, it was warm inside. The warmth was a wall that seperated the chamber from the staircase that kept the girls and Rowan.

Arianna felt the urge to poke at the darkness and see if it had any possible solid form, the way it writhed and pushed gave it that possibility. She wanted to take hold of the tendrils of darkness and see if they got irritated and would wrap around her to pull her into the darkness. She continually looked out trying to see into the darkness with no sucess due to the obvious. She put up a hand to brush the edges of the light and almost thought she felt something push against her yet also lure her. She didn't heed the lure and stayed at constant distance from the edge of the light where it would be had the darkness not distorted it.

As they reached the stairs, she absently stepped up, not faltering despite her obviously diverted attention. As they climbed, the darkness pushed closer and closer to her hand but she made no move to pull it back. As it approached, it seemed actually to go around it and avoid it slightly so whereas around was becoming darker, her hand remained in light. Is it afraid of me? She entertained the though for a bit before discarding it and just returned to watching her hand and the darkness.

Arianna gasped as she saw the people who entered directly across from her in the room. She pushed past Bran to reach Serene to make sure she was ok.

"Serene! I was told you could be in some trouble. Are you ok? Are you hurt?"

Serene stepped into the new room, looking around and observing the setting. She took, as of the moment, little notice of those across the room, she had to sate her curiosity first. The rug caught her attentions first but seh decided to take a look at everything else first, dull as they were comparatively. After making a round around the room, she then proceeded to the rug and studied it, crouching down to see each detail more clearly. She ran her fingers over the corner designs desperately wanting to know who it depicted.

Finally, she stood and acknowledged the people, reassuring Ari of her health and state of affairs before turning to the two new faces. "And who might you be?" She spoke confidently almost as if she were welcoming guests into her own home and not into this castle of which she knew very little about. Though in some sense, she was welcoming them to her island if not to her usual place of inhabitance.

*Caellynn stood just outside if the entrance, halfway in the light, and half still surrounded by the darkness. Not knowing anybody else in the room, she stayed relatively near Bran, as he was the only one she remotely knew. She heard the other man they had travelled with call himself Brody, and tried to memorize his name in her mind. She stared at the carpet, getting lost in the beautiful designs. Not expecting any one to notice her, she looked up when one of the girls from the other side, presumably the one they had been looking for, as witnessed by Air's enthusiastic greeting, asked her what her name was. Shy now, she quietly gave her name, then went to sit on the couch and stare at the carpet from a different perspective*

Bran shut the doors on his side of the room quietly behind him and crossed the room to rejoin Rowan and allow for daemon and person to be reunited.

"Shall we leave them for now?" He asked Rowan quietly as he propelled the man and dog out the door. Just before closing the doors, he called back to the group. "Should you need anything, don't hesitate to call. You may speak freely here. Meanwhile, we have a few matters to discuss."

He shut the doors firmly and proceeded down the ever warming stairs and to the observation room. He half smiled at the changing temperatures wondering how the two girls got the better ofRowan to make him lose temper so.