(OOG: Please note that I'm taking the mods seriously when they say we don't have to follow the storyline - but don't worry, I didn't stray too far. My apologies to Elly's real player, if I mess any plans up! I'm just the substitute. ^^ I'm also posting this without giving it to anyone to look over... so I'm sorry if there are any mistakes.)

It was all so dark...

She pushed her way through another thicket of wintercrass, jumping through the mess before it could snap closed again and scratch her. The sturdy leather of her uniform was no match for the sharp edges of the plant - numerous red lines oozing blood over her arms, gloves, and cheeks proved that point.

//This is insane... I can't believe this...// Elly stumbled to a halt at the edge of a small embankment, staring down at the mass of wild vegetation that her eyes could barely discern in the dusky light. //What am I even doing here? That poor village...//

It served her right, running into this maze. She'd pulled a war down on dozens of innocents, and then run from it like a spoiled child... SHe deserved something like this. When she could finally get back to Solaris... IF she could get back to Solaris...

But then, they wouldn't really care, would they? These people were just -Lambs- to her superiors... not even worth the fodder they used to feed their animals. She'd probably receive /praise/ for getting rid of the witnesses to her landing... and not mourn one bit for the men that had died under her command. They too had been mere Lambs, chosen for the job because they'd been deemed worthless by Command HQ.

Were they searching for her right now, she wondered? Searching because her father was IN Command, and they couldn't allow a Gazel to be humiliated so on the surface?

Elly braced her feet and slid down the embankment, hands flying to her mouth before she could inhale any dust. But, overbalanced, she slipped and fell back, and her hands flew out to cushion her fall - to no avail, of course. She grunted, a brief flash of pain flaring in her thigh as she hit the ground.

They'd find her like this, probably... sprawled like a child fallen from her mother's apron strings, because she couldn't even clear a basic obstacle.

Shaking her head, she covered her leg with her hand, wiping her fingers across her leggings to check for blood. Nothing; that was a good thing. A bruise could be hidden... and she really didn't need this sort of disgrace when she was already considered... an amusement by her fellow Elements. She could imagine Dominia's snide comments now...

Why search for a such a useless individual?

Isn't she really just a Lamb in disguise?

Standing with a little difficulty, Elly picked her way down to level ground, unhooking her staff from her waist in hopes that it might help her prevent another fall. She wished, right then, that she'd been trained with a sword, no matter how violent a weapon it was. It would have been useful in cutting her way through this place.

The forest floor looked no different from here than it had above, seen this time through strands of stringy, sweat-damp hair. Making her way across to the next line of trees wasn't as hard as it had looked, but she tested every step with tip of her weapon, wary of another fall, or worse, a trap of some sort.

She'd been through this in training, but it had been easier back then... maybe because she had known it wasn't real? But even during the final tests of mettle, the ones that depended on field experience, the ones that took place during real missions... she'd had her team members to back her up. Now, she was alone... And even though she was willing to give Lambs the benefit of the doubt, she knew what they could do...

And Dominia had no right to complain about Lambs -- not when she herself had originated on the surface. It was that hypocrisy that so irritated Elly sometimes, despite her best attempts to keep an open mind.

//She doesn't deserve that...// Dominia's past was known to her, if not to many... Her attitude didn't matter, even if it was abrasive. She had her reasons... but if only she would keep it to herself once in awhile, instead of giving life to rumors that Elly wasn't sure even she could really disprove...

The branches parted more easily witht he help of her staff, though the trek through the thicket of 'trees' was nothing simple; she nearly tripped and fell numerous times - all of which she wanted to blame on the stupid heels (who had come up with the idea of high-heeled boots for the military, anyway?) - but she eventually stumbled her way through again to another, steeper embankment.

//How many of these /are/ there?// A thick, rotting log stretched across the mini-chasm, fairly dripping moss and other, more unsavory things. Better than sliding down again, right? But it didn't look very stable... Better than nothing, but definitely not ideal.

Carefully, she stepped up onto the log, testing her footing before finally hoisting herself up and resting her weight on the creaking wood. It felt about as stable as it looked, yet it didn't appear to be under any strain... she hoped it would stay that way. A few more careful steps alleviated her anxiety somewhat, although as she continued across, she half-expected it to just crumble to dust under her footsteps.

There had to be a way out of this place. If she could just reach a clearing of some sort, or preferably the edge of the forest, she could set up a signal that would call the nearest airship in for a rescue. She had already tried that earlier in the night, and figured out that it wouldn't work under such a thick canopy; but by then, she'd been lost. Running blindly in the dark, as she should have known, was definitely not wise.

She halted, suddenly, breath frozen in her throat. Had she...? No, there it was again; a rustling, a sound of something moving just ahead, as if some clumsy animal were boring through the brush without a care. Elly hooked her staff to her belt again without a thought, drawing her standard-issue pistol instead, and holding it ready.

Something else they hadn't bothered to really drill her in... she could kill people without a problem, thanks to Gebler's standard training, but how was she to face a wild animal? There was no psyche to twist, no real fear to take advantage of, much as she hated that... Of course, being stranded in a forest in the middle of nowhere wasn't usually on Gebler's 'common locations' list... She was just 'lucky'.

Brute force was out of it. Dominia might be able to pull that off, and even Tolone, but she couldn't. She didn't have the build, or the strength, or the will to just plow through everything in her way. Too soft, non-militant--

The vines parted more swiftly than she'd anticipated and she started, pulling the trigger with a yell before she could stop herself. A loud yell punctuated the shot, full of--

//Wait...// Elly opened her eyes - when had she closed her eyes? - and stared past the shaking barrel of her gun at the 'animal' that had just barged its way through the bushes. The yell had been too human... and indeed, rather than an animal, she saw the slender form of a man hunched over at the end of the log, clutching at a crimson-stained shoulder.

"Oh my god..." Elly's hands dropped to her sides, the gun almost falling from limp fingers. She holstered it numbly, staring at the person not more than five feet away from her. A Lamb - it had to be. The way he was dressed was enough to tell her that.

Was he from the village?

That village...

"A-are you okay?" she ventured finally, inching forward when he seemed to be absorbed in whatever ti was he was thinking. "Excuse me..."

He remained there, hunched over and murmuring something for a moment, before turning his face up to meet her eyes. "What?" He seemed to be in quite a bit of pain, still clutching his shoulder... perhaps he was just appalled at her ridiculous inquiry...?

She blinked, halting. "I said, are you okay?" His blank look might have been funny, if she had known just why he was confused in the first place. But... "Oh, of course..." She shifted to Aveh's dialect, biting her lip before speaking again. "I thought you were a wild animal. I'm sorry..."

His expression turned incredulous. "/Sorry/? How could you /not/ know? I wasn't exactly invisible when I came through there!"

"Well, what do you expect me to say? I didn't do it on purpose!" Elly clamped her lips shut, backing away again. Why was she still here, anyway? This was just a Lamb, after all... But... "Will you show me the way out of here? I don't have time to be lost--"

"First you shoot me, and then you want me to show you the way out?" He stood with a little difficulty, swaying a bit on his feet. But either he didn't notice, or he refused to acknowledge it. "That way." He waved vaguely the way he'd come, his expression settling from anger to pensive in an eyeblink.

"Show me. Take me there." To hell with courtesy... she was supposed to be a Solaris officer, after all. That wasn't her job.

Shrieks sounded off in the distance, these definitely not human. And they sent a chill down Elly's spine, with their unearthly intelligence. Or was it hunger? It certainly didn't bode well...

The boy shifted to the side of the log, as if to make room for her. "That was a stupid move... The creatures in this forest don't like loud sounds... they probably heard that gunshot..."

Elly clenched her fists, glancing around warily, as if her eyes could pierce the darkness any better now than before. She couldn't see anything, and yet... she could /hear/ things, getting closer... "Then we should leave before they get to us, right? So lead on, and we'll both get away safely."

He shook his head. "Look, I don't--" His words trailed off in mid-sentence, the silence broken by loud, scratchy rustlings. He looked up, slowly, as if dreading the very idea of what he would see.

She followed his gaze to the treetops, or what she could see of them. Vines, leaves, and branches were entwined so thickly that only a glimmer of light cut through their tangle. It could have been the night sky she was staring it, if blank of stars... Then something /shifted/ and she jolted forward, grabbing the gun from her holster again and spinning around - turning her back on her companion. But that couldn't be helped.

The thing that thumped onto the log in front of her was hideous, in a shadowy sort of way, but humanoid even so. She shot at it, missing the first time, but making her mark on the second; it shrieked and stumbled back, sliding and beginning to fall.

"Elly!"

Her head jerked around just as another of the things landed behind her. Yet before she could turn fully another landed beside it, and a resounding crack shook the log at its impact, and loosened her foothold. She dropped the gun and grabbed at a protruding branch, but it snapped at her weight and she fell, watching with a stab of fear as the two creatures jumped down after her.

"Elly~!!"

How did he know?

How did he know that name?

Her parents knew it, her friends knew it... even her fellow officers knew. Yet... a stranger? How had he known what to call her? How did she know, somehow, that she was awake, and alive, right now... and not just dreaming? He had saved her... but she had expected he would.

Why?

Elly stared at the interwoven branches above her head, illuminated into something ghostly by a crackling fire. She lay very still, shoulderblades pressed against the hard-packed earth, but somehow comfortable even with that. Warm, thanks to the fire. Hair brushed back as if she had been tucked into bed by her mother, and not straightened on teh ground by some stranger.

But he didn't feel like a stranger. That was the oddest thing of all, now that she thought about it.

"Are you okay?"

She blinked the haze of her thoughts away, drawn out of her reverie by the curious echo of her earlier question. A shadow stretched over her vision, and the young man she had shot knelt beside her, silohuetted against the firelight. The left side of his shirt was still stained with blood, she noted with a rush of guilt.

"I almost couldn't stop them, with my shoulder like this, but that staff or yours came in handy." He gestured toward the fire with that remark, but she didn't turn her gaze away from his face. Serious, shadowed brown eyes gleamed with the faint amber light. "So... are you okay?"

"How... did you know my name?" It was one of the few things she did remember clearly, in that rush before the ambush. Her own fault, she knew... as he had said, the inhabitants of the forest obviously didn't appreciate loud noises. "How?"

He shrugged, after a moment, wincing slightly as the motion pulled at the wounded shoulder. "I don't know... I just shouted it out. Was I right?"

She nodded after another moment's pause, trying to quell the weariness that seemed to be creeping into her bones. "Ah..."

"I'm Fei." He settled next to her on the ground, crossing his legs and propping his chin in his hands, elbows on his knees. His attitude was quite a bti calmer, now, though she thought she sensed something more than he was showing her; he looked worn out, depressed... He was obviously here for a reason, although she couldn't begin to guess why... unless...

"I-is there a village nearby?" She asked softly, strugging to sit up. He reached over to help her after a moment, propping her back against a tree stump.

"... Not anymore, there isn't."

Elly bit her lip and ripped her gaze away, almost shying away from the undertone in his voice. He must have been, as she had suspected, one of the villagers... She couldn't imagine being happy if her home was destroyed... considering that, he was surprisingly composed. But no wonder he seemed unhappy...

There was nothing she could do, of course. What was done was done, and it was her fault, all of it. /Her/ fault, not anyone else's. "I'm sorry..." The statement was woefully inadequate, all the mroe so because he wouldn't understand what she was talking about.

"Sorry? Why?" Fei picked at the dirt, shrugging again and rising to his feet. "It's my fault."

//What?// She opened her mouth to deny it, but stopped. What was she going to say? It didn't even look as if he cared... but she couldn't just leave it alone. She had to say something, or do something... /Something./

Nothing came to Elly, however; she simply watched him shuffle back to the campfire, thoughts tumbling helplessly in her mind all the while. Things had gotten worse, not better... and now she'd dragged yet another innocent into her problem. Because of her mistakes...

What was she going to do /now/?

(OOG: Gah, I made Elly.... not Elly. ^^; And I don't like Fei, so I didn't characterize him very well either. Aren't you glad I'm only temporary?)