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"Ugh..." Aquene groaned as she came out of her forced-sleep. She didn't quite remember what she was doing, but what was worse, she couldn't even place where she was. That unknown... Uncertainty... She hated it with a passion. The young witch swore aloud even before her eyes adjusted enough to be able to see she wasn't alone.

Aquene tried to sit up properly, but then noticed her hands were bound. It was also the point in where she discovered something even worse... Unable to use her ice-flames. She then let out a constant stream of curses until she couldn't think of anymore. People were definitely not going to like hearing what she said, but who said she cared?

She finally decided to look around to see whom was around her. Most people, she had never seen before, but noticed that one girl seemed very familiar. Aquene, despite her situation, smiled crookedly. "Hey look... Cow-lover is here..."

He was not alone. That much was obvious to Lea at least as the snow leopard mononoke woke up with a soft growl rumbling at the back of his throat. Too many people and too many voices. It was tempting to ignore them all and just go back to sleep. So very tempting. He flicked an ear at the familiar tinkling of the bell that was always attached to Xerxes' ear. The other feline mononoke was here? Good. Maybe he could tell the others that they should be a little more considerate and seriously consider lowering their volume since someone was trying to get back to sleep here.

...

... oh. He had intended to stretch his limbs a little. An odd habit of his really whenever he was in the process of finally getting up, only to find that it was no longer possible. Not at this point in time and a long as well as hard look at both his wrists and ankles showed him exactly why. Bounds. Reaching into himself, he tried to shift his form into the feline predator that his ears and tail hinted at and then nothing.

Now that finally got his attention and he pushed himself up from the floor of the carriage, an irate look crossing his features as he tried to recollect how precisely he had landed up here in the first place and then it finally hit him. "Cedar..." He was with her though where and what they had been doing until this particular lapse in his memory still escaped him no matter how hard he tried. Casting a frantic gaze at the others who were in the carriage as well, he spotted a couple of familiar faces among the captured witchlings (Xerxes, Kalypso, Uaithne), the 2 Blackhearts whom he recognized from the battle at the Hallow's Eve Ball and finally the witch he had been seeking.

It wasn't easy but Lea eventually managed to inch his way towards Cedar despite the agonizingly slow pace he could manage in his current state, his hand shifting to give one of hers a squeeze to get her attention before smiling wryly at her. "You alright..?"

Cruor watched their captives awaken and move around, all obviously distressed, but there hadn't been any hysterics... Yet. That was a good thing as the one thing he disliked almost as much as majins was wailing, sobbing, and other such dramatics which didn't get anyone anywhere. He listened to one of the girls swear up a storm and rolled his eyes; of course they had to pick one of the ones with a bad attitude. In all honesty he just wanted to be done with this particular mission so he could have a nice, stout drink and go to sleep; it had been a long night.

"Sacrifices are always necessary..." he murmured, crimson eyes staring intently at those on the floor of the carriage, distancing himself from them mentally; it wouldn't help anyone if he dwelled on it much longer. "Once we drop them off, we should grab a drink... Or go hunting. I need to blow off some steam."

Actually, hunting down and murdering majin and Witch Eaters sounded like a terrific idea at that point, especially after everything that had happened. Besides, the carriage was beginning to reek of fear and sweat, which simply made the ride even more unpleasant... For him t least. He was fairly certain that their captives weren't enjoying themselves very much. Then again, he supposed that they weren't supposed to, not if they were a threat. Finally, after a few moments of listening to them he let out a rather... Animalistic growl of annoyance at them, eyes narrowing.

"Keep quiet. You'll quickly find I'm not as nice as Sibelius."

The sudden jerk of the stopping carriage jolted Chanda out of unconsciousness and right into a panicked alertness. She knew she wasn’t where she was before, where she was supposed to be. The smells were all wrong. She had been alone before (or she had thought she was) and now she was surrounded by scents of other witches, majin, mononoke and the air that had been thick with the scent of coming rain was now choked with fear and uncertainty. The tiger mononoke snarled at her binds and the close quarters, the more wild part of her finding itself increasingly distressed and furious about the situation she was stuck in. It was difficult to not give into her more primal, animal urges to struggle and fight to flee from her captors. In fact she almost did give in, standing up in a quick motion only to have a wave of dizziness and nausea swim over her and force her back to her seat.

“Nnnrgh.” As she took deep, slow breaths to keep herself from expelling the contents of her stomach everywhere she tried to remember what had happened. She was meditating and then…there had been a noise and a whiff of…something? Fragments of memories fluttered just out of grasp and the most she could make out was that something bad had happened. But from her Blackheart captor’s talk of jaw breaking she didn’t need the past to really ascertain that.

But why her? And, even more puzzling…why them? Chanda looked at the rest of those kidnapped. Witchlings, a good deal of them mononoke sure, but mononoke were human. Why did the Blackhearts want to take humans? And witchlings even! Young and defenseless…it made no sense.

The ramp settled onto the ground and, despite the order, Chanda stayed sitting right on her pretty little behind. ******** if she was going to march along right into…well…whatever they had planned for her. If they wanted her so bad they’d have to take her by force...again and again and again ad infinitum until she lay dead. And besides, she needed a moment to try and compose herself, to settle her nervous inner beast and, ultimately, to try and think of a way to get at least the witchlings safely out of their clutches. As a witchling she had had others stand up to protect her in her time of peril, now it was her turn to be the protector.

Sin was glad for a friend, obviously a braver one than herself. Then again she thought a bobcat was far more vicious than a skunk. She even eeped a bit when one blackheart, the dragon, growled at them; then the other showed his power. She was just a witchling who prefered potion making over spell casting. She could cast them but not with any proficency. Thats why she stuck to potions; easy to use and simple. Then she looked back at Mia, "I was walking home from the bakery I work at. Everything else is a blur."

She another mononoke awaken at the jolt of the carriage, another feline; a tiger from the look of it. Maybe her captors thought it funny to take her given a nickname for her kind is a polecat. She looked to Mia as the girl began to get up and nodded, "Ok..." she whispered and followed the example. Her tail, puffed out in fear, wrapped around her waist now. She followed Mia out the door and down the ramp.

She was a little bit more graceful in walking down the ramp, being timid at the moment didn't make for rushed movements. She huddled next to Mia as she looked around. So....this was the home of the reapers. It felt so....horrible. So full of fear and power. She sniffed a bit, her sense of smell rather good, and even that smelled like a dark fear. What was going to happen to them?

Cow-lover. Aquene was there. The witch had thought that this couldn't get worse, but Aquene just had to make an appearance. She was the one that had a fit filled with curses. "Obviously they don't have standards of quality for who their taking." She sniffed over in her directly. If there wasn't a couple between her and the other witch she would have used all her force to kick the girl right out of the carriage.

Cedar straightened feeling a hand sliding along hers and giving it a squeeze. She glanced over her shoulder to see Lea, and a flood of relief passed over her. She nodded at him lightly, glancing over her other friends to make sure they were alright, and she leaned back against Lea's arm. "We're being taken to Poena Privus." She said gently to him. And just as she said that the carriage had stopped the Black heart from the Halloween ball gave a display of his 'manly-ness'. She scoffed softly working her way up and keeping close too Lea. It wasn't much but being near him and her friends was a small comfort. Giving the two Black hearts a definite sniff, she made her way out of the carriage.