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Javira had kept herself in a quietly observant state. When the girl Masa introduced herself, she did so in turn. "Greetings, this is Gauri, and I am Javira." She seemed particularly enamored of her chocobo, so she let the girl fuss over her.

Gauri, for all the petting, didn't care too much. She accepted such attention as good and right with the world, not a favor to be fussed over and thanks for.

From that point, her attention was focused on the airship, even as it moved--apparently silently--as a dot so very far away. The others didn't need her in conversation anyway--she didn't owe them the effort of insinuating herself into such, and it was acting oddly anyway.

And then, people offloaded into the forest. Well, they were looking for something. Maybe becawuse they were looking, she could find. Then the girl, Masamune, went toward them, and Javira's heart sank. "No..." she called to her in a whisper, but it appeared to go unheeded.

((And now that the backlog is done....))

The girl didn't seem able at all to protect herself, and not everyone's intentions were pure. Ah well, it was the habit of the young to head toward danger... and ignore those who were speaking to them. She turned to apologize to the speaker, and.... stopped.

"Oh my," Javira said quietly. "If you require it, I can cast a Life spell..." She didn't seem bothered by the zombie, more concerned for its welfare. The woman's wings unfolded from each side of her head and fluffed with worry as she glanced back over her shoulder at where Masamune had gone.

--There was a temple here? Well, that was something interesting to find. But going back to the temple meant that she'd been there before. And she had no idea where it would be.

((Masamune, remember that Epine isn't going to be here continually, and you'll likely be stuck waiting for a reply for a while. You might want to edit your response so you can keep up with/not wait for the action. Plus, large blocks of action from you mean we can't effectively interrupt you when our characters would logically without invalidating some part of your post.))

(( O.o I know Epine won't be on all the time... xp I'm in the same timezone as her...so I want to get as much RPing in whilst I'm here as I can...I'm not going to do anything that will effectively stop the RP...the reason Khel told me to go back to the temple is because I actually had to go offline...and if you did have to go on without me, I have no problem with back-tracking, as you have already done... ))

Masa couldn't stop looking at the woman that had told her to go back to the Temple for help. She was human, obviously...but at the same time she wasn't. She blinked a few times, snapping herself out of the little trance she was in. "Yes...OK!" With that, she turned and ran off back through the forest towards the temple.

On her way back, she encountered Gauri and Javira, who were headed in the opposite direction back towards where the Airship and the two strangers were. She gave a slight wave, but she wasn't sure if Javira saw her, so she just continued running back to the temple.

She emerged from the forest, a little out of breath from all the running, and stared up at the temple. It didn't take long for her to get up the steps. She stood before the entrance to the temple and glanced momentarily over her shoulder at the Airship. Would this Guardian that the grey-skinned woman spoke of know anything about it?

Using both hands, she pushed hard on one of the doors, pushing it open slowly. Once she was inside the temple, she looked around. "Hello? Guardian?" she called out as she looked. "A woman with grey skin told me to come find you...there's an airship floating over the forest!"

(( I don't know how much I'll be on tonight...so, if Epine posts as the Guardian and gives some info about the Airship, you guys can RP that Masa ran back and told you about it. Like Masked said, no point in us being held back for something like waiting for someone to come back with info... xd ))

((btw I'm on and off a lot (due to cpmputer/isp/visitors issues) so if I'm absent from an event just assume I happen to be invisible and somewhere in the vicinity... XD And if for some reason I vanish in the middle of a conversation it'll be ok to rp that Paper simply wandered off... short attention span and all... ^.^;; eheh.. heh.. *cough*))

At first, Paper had only held passing interest at the appearance of the airship, and wished simply to continute her spying game. But as people began to react to its presence and the possible implications, the ghost found it more difficult to concentrate on dodging the gazes that were now often directed upwards.

Bother, she thought to herself as the ghost settled into a sulk behind a leaf. Nearby, Genesis had hopped down from her branch above and now floated closer to her summoner.

"What's that thing," the elysian mumbled to Paper as she absently picked up her pony tail and fidgeted with its feathered tip. "And.. what's it doin here?"

Paper shrugged, in theory anyhow, and her glowing dimmed somewhat. "I dunno," she buzzed. A thought occured to her then. "Hey, what's it doing here?"

Genesis felt her eye twitch. "I just asked..." The elysian's shoulders slumped. "Let's go find out, okay?"

Waltz groaned behind them, having gotten stuck in his 'chair'. "I... don't *huff*... want to.. *wheeze* kupo.. go chasing after any..."

"Well," Genesis interrupted. "That's too bad." She floated over to the moogle and stuck her clawed foot on his head. "Cause you're coming whether you like it or not!" With that, the elysian shoved with all her strength and managed to push Waltz out from between the two branches. The familiar crashed to the forest floor where he landed with a loud THUMP in a large bush.

The man frowned, looking at the zombie, with her tone of command. Much like the master, much like it indeed. What had happened to him, if he let one of his little creations get this uppity?

Regardless, even he could see the wisdom in her words. Defend now, then figure it out. He turned to face the intruders, though his ears strained to keep track of the rotting one, lest it was a trap, after all.

And with those straining ears, he heard a loud thud, as something fell to the ground. Instantly he turned on his heels, and lunged towards teh strange little thing on the ground. There was no smile, no smirk, no frown, nothing on his face that you could see, as he brought his lance within inches of the small, round, poofy thing.

"The hell sorta enemy is this?" he muttered to himself, resisting the urge to shake his head and laugh, "Seems... pathetic..."

The moogle squirmed around in the bush, trying its best to recover its composure.

"Wark!" The sound startled Waltz and he fixed his lopsided hat to gaze up at the irritated chocobo. Great. Just what he needed.

"Bah-kupo!" Waltz shot back as he fluffed indignantly. "Chocobos and their bedamned greens," he muttered in Gauri's direction as he did his best to free himself from the mimmett prison.

And just as he had gained some advantage in the battle he was greated by a lance tip to the face. The moogle's eyes popped open humorously... and the expression only got worse when the man's insult made the little moogle's cheeks puff out in anger.

"Wally!" came a strained screech as Genesis zipped down from the branches, her speed boosted by a summoned gust. She slammed into the lance with enough force to nudge it sideways a few inches.. but not much else. The foot long elysian clung to the weapon, tugging at it resolutely as if it and not the wielder was the enemy.

Paper simply materialized on a lower branch nearby, her little booted feet kicking back and forth nonchalantly underneath her. The ghost snickered behind one hand as she watched the man's reaction to the moogle flailing helplessly in the bushes. "You're all nutty," she offered at length in her high pitched voice. "The lot of ya."

"A clinger... gods above I hate clingers... let go!" the man said, shaking the lance furiously, shaking it up and down, then in a circle, then tugging and thrusting with it, and even slamming the tip against the ground to jar the whole of the shaft.

"Little bugger... get off, before I have ta do somethin' worse," he told the little winged creature. His voice wasn't raised, it didn't even sound annoyed, just as calm as someone might be about eating dinner or taking out the trash.

The man scowled, seeing the laughing ghosts, the strangers. His eyes passed over everyone, and everything there, little more than just a feeling of malice and disappointment that seemed to come from the dragon skull helm's eye sockets.

Finally he turned his back to them, squaring his shoulders, and looking towards the airship, and their little package, "You want me to defend the temple, right Zombie slave? Well, why don't you get your friends in gear. I hardly think two midgets, a laughing fool, and two strangers are the basis of a solid front."

Masa blushed a little, noting the Guardian's disapproval. "I'm sorry...I'm just worried about the animals in the forest, they're so frightened..." She trailed off as the Guardian disappeared and then reappeared, before walking away to another room. 'They certainly don't seem like just visitors' she thought, but the Guardian seemed very sure of herself, and Masa didn't feel like she even had the right to question her. "OK...thank you!" she gave a little wave, then turned and left the temple.

She stood outside the temple and stared up at the airship. "If they don't want to visit the temple...what do they want?" she thought out-loud, before walking down the steps and back towards the forest. A few birds watched her from the trees. They sensed her relief, and soon enough she could sense theirs. She smiled. "Everything will be OK I think..."

Masa eventually got back to where the grey-skinned woman and the other guy were, and was just in time to see the tall man throw a small, green bird-like creature into the bushes. Totally forgetting to tell then what the Guardian had said, she gasped and ran forward to look in the bushes. "Are you OK?!" she couldn't sense the emotions of this creature, and by the looks of it, it wasn't a normal animal, so she assumed this was some sort of spirit. What the green creature had landed on, however, she could sense. "Oh you poor things!" She picked up both the bird creature and the funny, little cat-like creature, and held them close to her chest. She glared over her shoulder at the man. "What's wrong with you?! You could've hurt them!"