Welcome to Gaia! ::

((maybe we should start prodding our characters towards the forest and the temple...whaddya say? *brandishes cattle prod*))

Konokku frowned in confusion, rising to her feet beside him. "Then...where is your home? Surely, there must be somewhere you can call your home. I never quite felt at home in the hustle and bustle of the great city of Bevelle, but I always knew deep down inside that I had a home here. Are you not the same?"

Konokku looked up solemnly into his face, not realizing that from Satoh's vantage point, she probably looked like a wide-eyed child. She suddenly thought she understood something of why he had chosen to become a summoner. Yes...the role fits him very well.
Konokku nodded after several moments. "Let us continue our journey, then. The temple is up that way, past the forest." She pointed without looking to the path that led into the dense canopy of trees on the shore. She didn't even have to look to find it; she knew exactly where it was from the hundreds of times she had gazed at it during her daydreams.

As they passed Elder Omuk's little hut, Konokku realized she had left all her belongings there. She was about to tell Satoh when Omuk himself pushed aside the cloth in the doorway, holding her things out to her. Konokku hastily tugged on her boots and retied her sash around her waist, uttered a quick word of thanks, and hurried back to Satoh's side. Omuk waved heartily to them and watched them until they disappeared under the branches of the trees in the distance.

(( rolleyes surely you could write something more interesting than THAT...))

Konokku stepped under the canopy of trees, welcoming the cool that came with the shade. She could hear the many different calls of birds that nested in the trees, and various shufflings and rustlings of fiends who lurked just out of sight. Konokku hoped none of them would jump out at them and try to attack.
When the path came alongside a clear, cold stream gurgling over smooth rocks, she remembered something. "My Lo...Satoh, you mentioned yesterday that you should like to bathe. I promised you I would show you the stream that runs through the forest." She pointed at the stream next to the path. "If one follows this to its source, one will find a deep, cold spring to bathe in."

Konokku looked up at him with surprise at first, then all of a sudden her face creased into a wide smile and she laughed out loud. It was the first time since the two had met that she had really laughed. Doing so made her suddenly feel at ease with her summoner, for the first time since they had begun their pilgrimage. Somehow, being able to laugh loosened a bit of the tension that had built up inside her. True, this alien feeling of casual companionship disappeared in a few moments when she worried over what Satoh would think of her. But she had been relaxed with him for the smallest amount of time, and it was the beginning of a new stage in their relationship.

She immediately bit her lip worriedly, bowing her head so her burning cheeks were hidden behind her tighty-curled hair. "I...I'm sorry, My Lo...Satoh. I did not mean..."
Just then Konokku looked up, an apologetic expression placed carefully over her features. She saw his slight smile and suddenly realized he had been teasing again. She stopped herself in mid-sentence, her mouth hanging open and her eyebrows drawn together in confusion. Blinking twice in quick succession, she hurriedly returned her gaze to the dirt path beneath her feet.

((Whew. Back after a weekend in Belgium - or should I say, a day in Belgium and four days of travel back and forth sweatdrop ))

Konokku strode by her summoner's side, absently twisting one of her dark curls around her finger and not thinking of anything in particular. After a few minutes she became aware of a rustling in the bushes on one side of the path. She slowed and peered through the tree branches, trying to see whatever was making the noise. Then she heard a crashing and crunching, as though something gigantic was barreling through the forest towards them. Eyes widening in alarm, Konokku took an involuntary step back and tripped over a root, landing hard on her backside. Just at that moment, a large fiend leapt out onto the path.
It wasn't just any large fiend, either. It was an Ochu, a particularly nasty species that thrived in the thick forest of Kilika. Standing almost twelve feet tall, this was one of the larger ones. It looked rather like a pinkish, bulbuous plant with a little skirt of leaves as long as Konokku. Several long, barbed tentacles stretched high into the air, green and dripping with poison. In the middle of the Ochu was a bowl-shaped chamber filled with water that gave the fiend energy to fight. The Ochu gave a strange squeal and raised its tentacles to their full height, ready to crash down on the summoner and guardian.

((okay...that's a guy? xp ))

The Ochu, not being exactly intelligent, plunged its tentacles down at Satoh. Konokku immediately snapped into action, rolling over onto her stomach and fumbling for her stump of chalk. She could hear sounds overhead, rustlings and strange squeals, but she didn't dare look. She drew her transmutation circle so hastily that her chalk broke in two. Holding her breath and hoping she wasn't too late, she pressed one hand onto the circle. Greenish light sprung up all along the lines of chalk, and a thousand roots of trees shot up out of the ground towards the Ochu. They wound themselves around the lower part of the fiend, who howled in rage as it suddenly became immobile. Konokku looked up at last, sweat beading her forehead. She had never transmuted so much at one time before, and now she felt rather weak and shaky.