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Leon's eyes fluttered, as if he were having a dream, but his lips moved as the water fell upon them. The water was what brought him back. He brought his hands up, clutching the bottle and taking big gulps of water, but took too much at once and started coughing, spitting up water as he did.

"I..." He thought about it for a moment. Hazy visions of a memory blurred his thoughts. He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember anything. Gazing up, he squinted his eyes as he looked around at his surroundings. It seemed familiar. He knew it was a desert, but he didn't know where this desert was, or why he was here.

"Where am I?" he asked in a weak voice.

Leon looked up at the source of the other voice. He gave a shout and jumped out of Acacia's arms, shuffling back on his hands and feet, away from the coatl. His hand instinctively reached for the sword normally at his hip as soon as he stood up, only to not finding anything. He looked down at his hand, not exactly sure what it was he was reaching for. His face tightened up, trying hard to remember, but that, coupled with the effect of standing up too quickly and having all that blood rushing to his head, made him feel dizzy again, and he passed out.

Leon would remain unconscious for the duration of their trip, having dreams of nightmarish things - the dead coming to life and killing the living; a large, undead dragon roaring defiantly at the heavens; and a knight clad in black armor, surrounded by skeletons and death. The latter scared him the most, and yet, it all seemed so familiar.

Over the Desert Acacia and Deo flew with the unconcious man until they came upon a small mountain range and in a little valley they found a small oasis, a little stream came up from under the ground and flowed down to pool in the center of the valley, there were many small trees around, the amount of green was actually startling in stark contrast to the dry hot desert they had just been in. They landed and dropped the man off next to the water, Acacia gave him her hat and a little money to tide him over with when he woke up, Deo hissed and scoffed at her, his long body slithering around his tongue tasting the air, looking for something. Eventually he slithered up te valley a ways and yanked a tree from the ground with his fangs, there under the trees roots lay a small square stone slab with a little picture of a winged serpent on it, etched out in grooves anf geometric patters.
"Sister, if you look in the small red pouch in my bag, you will find your sword pendant, use the sword to make a cut under my scales." Acacia hesitated but did as her brother asked, this was very important to him, she found the pendant her brother had 'borrowed' from her and had it enlarge into a full sized sword, Deo offered his sister her tail. She pulled the scales up tentively and placed the sword against his skin, squeezing her eyes shut she made the cut and Deo allowed it to bleed into the grooves of the stone.
Quite unexpectedly to Acacia the ground under her feet gave way and she fell for what seemed like a very long time before feeling soft smooth scales under her and gliding down into the unending dark silently. There is a long time where it seems almost nothing disturbs her senses and she starts to get apprehensive, the dark is pressing in, she can hear her heart beating in her chest.
"Brother." She is a little startled to hear herself speaking her brother's language, although technically it was hers to she har hardly ever used it. "Where are we? How can you tell where you're flying?" A soft hissing laughter.
"I'm just following the natural air current, I always forget you and I don't have the same senses." His voice is soft, quiet and comforting in the dark, he's still there. "Close your eyes, rely on your other sense, let your natural form out." she closes her eyes, starts to hear and feel the air, her skin tickles, she can feel her own smooth scales appearing, feel something stretching out of her back then suddenly she's not touching her brother anymore, she's flying on soft feathery wings of her own, she panics, opens her eyes, sees only the dark with her brother nowhere to be found.
"Deo!?"
"I'm right here, just relax, the air will take you in the right direction." It does, down, up, left, right, down again, the tunnel twists and turns for a very long time until finally Acacia very abruptly, yet softly touches ground. she feels something much bigger than herself land next to her and puts her hand out to feel her brothers soft scales, only something's not right, the scales have a slight ridge to them.
"Deo!?"
"Acacia! There's someone else here!" His voice was out too far in front for Acacia to be touching her brother, her hand recoiled but whoever it was she was touching coiled around her in a death grip and gave a warning hiss. "Illuminate!" large round stones on the walls suddenly lit up and it was discovered they were in a vast cavern that seemed to belittle both her brother and the red and orange Couatl who had Acacia in its grip. It was actually much smaller than her brother but looked incredibly fierce, its eyes were blood red but lacked the warmth of compassion her brother's always had.
"Euclid! I demand you release the little majesty." Deo spat at the smaller beast. It hissed a chuckle in return.
"You know, when I heard the story of the little halfbreed princess I couldn't believe it. Falling for a skanky little Kitsune is so unbecoming of the King of our race." He put one large red eye up close to Acacia's head to get a good look at her, she squirmed and his muscles tightened on her.
"Release her, you would not get away with harming her in this holy place, I guarantee you that."
"Really? You think The Mother would come to kill me if I crushed this would-be mammal?" Deo lost his temper when Acacia let out a little squeak of pain as Euclid put further squeeze on her tiny body. Deo launched himself in a strike toward Euclids head and the other reptile dropped Acacia in order to dodge Deo's poisonous fangs, the battle had begun and soon the two bodies had entwined, Deo was obviously stronger but the smaller monster seemed to have more flexibility.
"Acacia! You have to take the sword and put it in the alter!" Acacia was a little confused at these instructions but soon saw what he meant, a simple slab like the one that opened the tunnel up sat in the far corner, unfortunatly her bother and the other Couatl were fighting in Acacia's way. "Hurry!" Thats when she remembered, she had the same wings her bother had! However, having never properly used them she wasn't too keen to try but the situation called for a desperate act and so with a running start she made her first attempt and found herself maybe a foot off the ground gliding wtih ease, it wasn't so bad, but it wasn't high enough to get over the fight either, thats when she remember the air current and taking a huge leap of faith closed her eyes to feel it out, catching a small updraft from the struggle she made it up, over and back down at terrifying speed towards the alter, holding the sword out in front of her she took aim and with a tremedous heave sank the sword into a groove in the alter obviously made by previous Couatl sinking their fangs into the stone. Then Acacia, her job done didn't notice that she was coming at the wall just behind the alter and promptly smacked into it. Euclid gave a tremendous hiss of defeat and fled up into the darkness of the tunnel that had brought them all down there.
"Whats with him?"
"Only members of the royal family are allowed to be present in The Mother's chambers when she awakens."
"Who is The Mother?"
"The very first Couatl, she was born in the spiritual plain and came to this place to give birth to her kind. She is coming to give blessing to the new king."
And there she appreared a glowing serpent of radiant gold and silver, her wings embellished with all the colors of the rainbow shimmering in unearthly glory Acacia realized that this meant Deo was to be the new king as it was his blood on her sword in the alter but Deo had different plans it seemed. He pleaded with The Mother to accept Acacia as one of her own children and when she refused he passed down his right as king on to his son, yet unborn in his egg Deo declaired Erasmus who was expected to be black as his father with gold embelishments from his mother the next king and then promptly grabbed his sister and left The Mother, saying he would not return to visit her in the spiritual plain on her birthday, nor would he send a card.

"Eeeeeeh, what a pain."

Unsane sighed. Left, right, front, back, it was the same sight, over and over. Dunes, rocks, nothingnless. He seemed to be as deep as someone could be within the desert, and quite frankly, it pissed him off beyond words.

Then again, it was his fault.

"How the Hell did I manage to lose the portal? It's not a ******** set of keys ..."

Jacket over his shoulder, grumbling to himself, the king of Esthell made his way under the scorching sun, looking for ... something, whatever.

"Eh?"

Unsane stopped grumbling for a moment to stare atop a dune. Either it was another mirage (he could've swore he saw an upside-down waterfall earlier), or there was someone just standing there in the middle of nowhere, like an idiot. Like Unsane himself.

"Maybe he's edible." He grumbled to himself. His stomach grumbled right back at him.

Well it sure didn't look like a mirage after all.

"Heeeeey."

Unsane tipped his head a side. His clothes, white dress shirt with black tie, pants, shoes, and a jacket he was holding in his hand, were completely dusted with sand, all now dirtied to a brownish shade. Even his skin seemed slightly drier from having been in the dry dunes for so long. The heat didn't phase him one bit, though.

"D'you know the way to Bass'ken lake?"