Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Ooh, Lin is getting DUMPED.))

(( I think that A. That's a cool idea, B. You should be on MSN so I'm not tempted to keep posting OOC, and C. Well Ialo is ********, might as well find him a new GF anyways.))

Ophiuchus did not say, or show any outward sign of frustration as Lin approached him. For all the awkwardness that he felt for earlier, he still respected Lin and took her seriously.

"Yes Lin?"

He really wanted to facepalm. He really almost did. One, he could begin to see that this might go exactly where it wasn't supposed to go - and two, it was kind of ridiculous (to him) the way she whispered 'demi-god'. But she honestly was being serious. This was a big deal.

"Dymetri?" he asked. Ophiuchus was still there in the woos when the vampire died. And with Ophi's powers... well, he could sense a death a mile away, as well as sense a faint trail from... something Lin was carrying.

Oh, this was about to go downhill.

Ialo stood and watched silently as Danni's funeral came to an end. Her coffin was lowered into the ground and the students and teachers had dispersed. Who knew what rumors would be abounding in the morning. The Headmaster was one of the last people to stay behind. When he finally left, only Ambrose was still at the grave. Ialo said nothing to the boy. Because he was Danni's brother, Ialo wold allow Ambrose to stay there as long as the boy needed to.

The Headmaster turned his back on everything outside, and slipped inside the school through one of the side entrances, one that was closer to the Headmaster's office than the kitchen's back entrance. The heavy door slowly swung shut with a resounding thud that made Ialo cringe. It was just him though, as no one else was around.

No one else - is that what felt so wrong? During the entirety of the funeral, Ialo had a headache - he attributed to his grieving. But was there something else that was giving him this feeling, a feeling of something ultimately missing?

Ialo closed his eyes and leaned against the wall taking slow, calming breaths. That was right - he had to calm down. Everything had to slowly recede away. When he was the proper state, he might has well have been in some sort of meditative trance. He could still see, despite his eyes being closes. Dragons had a sixth sense - aura mapping, it was sometimes called. It was a form of tracking. It wasn't entirely unique, as dragons weren't the only creatures to use it. But they were by far the best at it.

The world seemed to melt away into nothing, and then Ialo's sixth sense practically exploded. All around him, he could see colors and lights, none of which was actually visible. Every color, every light, was someone aura. And there were so many - auras above him from the dorms upstairs, his own aura coloring his vision a pale gray-blue, auras around him from those still in the woods - the elven student, Ophiuchus, dark auras, demonic ones, many many small auras from all those living in the woods.

Ialo gasped, and sank down to the floor. He hadn't used this ability in so long, it was so overwhelming. "Something is missing," he murmured aloud. "What is it?" There was definitely an aura missing. He wasn't even sure how he knew that, with upwards of thousands of individual signature auras in a merely a three-kilometer radius and spanning almost a week in time - yes, he could actually tell how long ago each aura had been where.

Why the hell had he not used this more often? Maybe for the same reason he was curled up on the floor, effectively paralyzed from all the information he was trying to process.

Lin blushed brightly at her professor's question. Well, she would just say that her pendant broke. She wouldn't have to say how it was broken.

Lin reached for the chain around her neck and brought up the shattered pendant. All that was left was the hook the glass hung on and a few broken shards still attacked to the hook.

"Well, sir, my pendant that holds water from my home's magical spring broke. The water seeped onto Dymetri's hand without his knowledge, and it... killed him. All elves carry one of these pendants with them. Well, all elves that come from my home, that is. It was a silly mistake, but one that cannot be rectified, sir."

Athena took deep breaths, calming herself as the dreary event came to an end. It was over. She could go find someone who could help her help Danni. She could stop pretending. It was over.

Adolf emerged from the woods, pausing briefly to respectfully bow his head at the gravestone as an apology for intruding on such a moment and disturbing the dead one's funeral. Then he looked over to his goddaughter, who he could tell was pulling herself together from the way she'd closed her eyes and relaxed (well, more so from the tense stance she had been holding), the way she held her hands loosely at her stomach, palms up. It was a way she'd learned somewhere, he knew not where, for quick meditation. It was no substitute for the real thing, but it seemed to work in the same way that coffee and actual sleep work, with meditation being the equivalent of actual sleep and coffee this version Athena utilised.

When Athena opened her eyes, she wasn't sure what to do. She saw her godfather, most definitely, but it was so unexpected that she almost thought she was dreaming once more. But when he was in front of her, suddenly, and giving her a brief and comforting embrace, she knew he was actually there, and she wrapped her arms around him fiercely. Her emotions from the funeral mixed with her happiness at seeing him once more, for the first time in over a year.

Adolf, for his part, simply stood there and held her gently. "I'm sorry for your loss," he murmured. It was such a standard thing to say, but she knew that he was sincere. It was simply his way, and she nodded vaguely in response.

"...the full moon is in two days." Athena pulled back from Adolf, and looked him in the eye. "And I know that she is not dead." At his questioning stare, she gave a bitter smile. "Danni is a very powerful user of dark magics. I think she upset the wrong demon. She is too strong to just be gone like this."

Adolf nodded vaguely, and started to gently urge the young hanyou towards the building. "It is hard," he said, "but there is nothing you can do."

She shook her head, letting him lead her even though he didn't know where he was going. "No. There is. The full moon is in two days, Adolf, and you are here, and the Headmaster and his friends are very powerful, and..."

"And what?"

"...I have Dust." No, Dust was not uncommon, but in any visible or gatherable quantity, it was harder to come by. Athena had been working on it for a while, and she'd developed a spell that would collect any particles of Dust after the reactions of her alchemy and magic, and it was a slowly growing volume she'd placed in a bewitched bag. A bewitched bag that currently rested in her pocket...

She... she was not getting it.

"I'm sorry Lin. There can't be a second time. For everything I can do, I simply cannot resurrect a dark creature with white magic. I'm so sorry - I can't bring Dymetri back."

Ophiuchus slowly brought his hand up. He would have to be ready to fire some sort of sleeping spell on Lin.