Welcome to Gaia! ::

The pub Althenna sat in had been burned to the ground several days ago. She had been there when it happened. She had also stayed to help rebuild. (She had discovered that she -- and her fingers -- preferred the heavy lifting to the hammering of nails.) The village -- if you could call it that -- had no name and seeing as how it was right along the Setaran, Semanese, and Neturan boarders, it was no small wonder that most of the residence spent a good portion of their lives rebuilding things. But Althenna rather liked their attitude. When the pub had been set fire to, a few farmers had bashed the offending demons over the head, killing them dead, and the occupants had left in an orderly and down right jaded fashion. Then, they had barbecued over the burning building. She could still remember when the owner had handed her a hunk of anonymous meet slathered in sauce.

"Very efficient, this." he said, answering her puzzled look, "Gives us a good meal before we put it back. Less cleanin' up, too."

And now there was already a new pup. She even got a free drink for saying the whole three days. (Apparently not many people did.)

Althenna was not usually one to drink (she had to keep her mind sharp if she wanted to build herself an army) but this stuff was good... whatever it was. She took another sip and savored the taste as she thought.

Had it been three or four months since she had become a defector? She wasn't sure but she wasn't happy either. She felt she should be farther than she was. She had journeyed first to Kapali, the capital city of Netura. She was familiar with the layout of the palace (as her mother was training her to be a personal guard to whatever son or daughter William had) but Henry had changed things. Only a fool wouldn't. (And if he were a fool, he never would have taken the throne.) Unfortunately, King Henry's paranoia worked to her disadvantage. The palace was always crawling with guards and overlapping security; even the watch was over lapped so there was never a moment when one guard or the other was to distracted. She had tried to both guards away from their post but no matter what she tried, she couldn't budge the second one. She had thought just to distract one and slay the other but it would only be a matter of seconds before she had house guard on top of her.

Then she had traveled to Semane. She had found it would be much harder to take out each of the demon lords seeing as how their homes were not only so far apart but had been build in unbelievably difficult places to reach. She had found some weaknesses in security but by the time she reached most of them, she was to tired from whatever natural pain in the a** she had to pass to reach the palaces that she knew she would not be able to take action without rest. And resting in the home of the person you were trying to kill was not a good idea. While she had not been caught in the first three houses, she had in the forth. The little b*****d must have been hiding his aura because she hadn't sensed his demonic energy. When she had stumbled upon the young demon, he had looked just as surprised as she probably had. A fight had ensued. She would admit the boy was a good opponent but then, he was from the royal house of the east. From his markings, she had guessed that he was the son of the head or someone very close to the head of the house. She had managed to escaped without to much apparent damage (though the poison from the nick of his claws had nearly killed her) and had learned a valuable lesson.

If she wanted this done, she wouldn't be able to do it by herself.

'If mother were here,' she thought sourly, 'she'd give me a speech about trying to act alone in this.'

“Come, join Merik and his followers to take down the other demon lords!” a scrawny demon was shouting from the streets as Kayn walked by without a passing glance.

The day before, it had been someone shouting to join Janeri and his forces to become the supreme ruler of the demons. The four demon lords became furiously divided, but the current ruling system forces them to remain as one ruling group. As if warring with the humans wasn’t enough- there had to be internal turmoil all around. If the demons weren’t so conflicting in Semane, this war would have been over long ago.

And to think that Kayn had fought dutifully against the humans a few months ago! But when the lords focused on each other as enemies and tried to divide the army amongst themselves, Kayn furiously left, refusing to fight for any of the warring sides. Maybe she would go back to the battlefront if the demon lords decided to join forces as they used to be, but at this rate having them all killed would be easier and more probable than the lords overlooking their differences.

Bitterly she trudged past the demon and his false promises, coming to a tavern full of drunks shouting at each other and laughing like there was no tomorrow. After Kayn stopped being a warrior, she didn’t quite know what to do. There was no use for her if she refused to return to the battle or choose a demon lord to side with. There was nothing she could do!

After furiously downing a gritty drink that was probably made of liquefied human or something, Kayn stalked out of the tavern and punched the demon shouting about Merik across the jaw.

The smaller demon was clearly not putting up a fight, which Kayn found disappointing since she was angry enough to be looking for one. It was enough to attract some unwanted attention, however, so Kayn let the demon fall to the ground as she stormed out of the circle that had gathered to watch.

As Kayn walked away she heard someone calling after her. Hoping it wasn’t someone there to bother her about fighting (although maybe that would give her a reason it get involved in another brawl), Kayn regrettably turned around. Of all the creatures she expected to see, a human was not one of them.

Kayn was a bit taken aback by the human’s straightforwardness. Take out the heads of two kingdoms? Just like that?

“You would take out the leader of your own kingdom?” Kayn asked incredulously. “You must have a death wish,” she said as she folded her arms across her chest.

“And what makes you think I’d betray my kingdom?”

Kayn raised her eyebrows. “What are you? Another group of dissenters wanting to bring a certain group to power?” she gave a sidelong glance towards the demon she had recently beat up, no longer shouting things about lord Merik.

“You sound insane, you know that,” Kayn said. But she really was listening. Taking out all four demon lords would mean that there would be no more division- although if they had followers loyal enough, it would be like taking one step forwards and two steps back.

“If you came three months ago when I was fighting in the war, I would torn you to shreds because you‘re just another sworn enemy of mine,” Kayn said. “But now, if you’ve got a plan that’ll work, I’ll join,” Kayn agreed, looking behind her at the city she was in. There was nothing left for her here anyways, not after she left the battlefield.

“Neither of us are a match for the demon lords,” Kayn muttered. “And I hardly have any talent, although I used to be a warrior in the battle against you kind,” she explained. “So I’ve got strength and know how to fight hand-to-hand. I’m also working on controlling black crystals. Sometimes I can pull them up from the ground without touching them.

“And my name’s Kayn, trained by Master Kulak,” she said.