Kari Sairento's Story

Meanwhile in the city of Athens...

Today had been a very unfortunate day for Kari, she had been attacked by a group of humans that had finally managed to get the best of her. Despite her best efforts slashing at them with her powerful talons and her ear pricing shrieks the group contained her in a cage. She hated cages. Cages were horrible metal death traps that transported their victims into unknown lands, where they'd either be killed or suffer a fate worse than death. Kari had seen too many taken away like this, she was one of the last of her kind and refused to go down without a fight. Even while contained she continued her murderous screeches as they transported her into the city of Athens.

Athens was known to be a beautiful city, filled with wonder. That wonder of course came from the near by magical forest Kari called home. To the people of Athens the forest was beautiful, magical, and most of all terrifying. Only the bravest humans entered and only the lucky came out and the extra lucky came out with a prize, a unique creature. Sometimes these creatures were harmless, but had beautiful furs, others were considered a delicacy, and some were dangerous and the people would try to tame them so they could be used for entertainment. Yes, Athens was the place to go for these special creatures and now Kari was at the city's mercy. Would they kill her for her feathers? Would they make her a special attraction, or maybe they'd just keep her isolated and pluck her feather while she was still alive. All Kari knew was that she didn't want to find out what they were planning. She had to escape and quick.

Once in Athens the group reached a storage area where they placed Kari's cage down. By now it was late at night and the humans didn't want to deal with her again until morning, however they just couldn't get her to stop shrieking and trying to attack them. "She's going to wake the whole darn city up, if we don't shut her up now!" one of the men said in a harsh tone. "Don't you have something to quiet her down?"

"I'm getting to it," another man said as he bent down to reach something that Kari could only perceive to be some kind of weapon, she just screamed louder. The man lifted the long instrument and shot something at her. Kari began to feel slightly dizzy and soon she could no longer hear her own voice. She fell onto her side and her eyes started to close despite her best effort to keep them open. As her eyes were closing she could faintly hear one of the men, "Happy now?! I shut her up, she'll be sleeping like a baby now until morning," and with that she was asleep.

While sleeping Kari had a dream. In this dream a beautiful angelic woman came to her. "I will help get you out of this predicament, but in return I need your help as well. Use the power that I have unlocked within you to free yourself and find five others. Once you have found them return to your home and lead them to a glowing potion. With this potion you can help save Espio. I'm out of time... I'm fading... Good bye and good luck..." The woman was gone, leaving Kari alone in her dream world to ponder what the woman had said. She didn't really want to save Espio, but she did want out of this cage. Then again if Espio was in danger that meant her forest was too and she couldn't have that. Her thoughts were racing and then she remember that she was dreaming, so when she would awake none of this would matter anyways. The woman wasn't even real and there was no way that she all of a sudden had special powers. Still she thought it may be worth a try to at least pretend she had powers in the morning, that is if she even remembered any of this.

Dawn arrived and Kari was finally able to open her eyes. She looked around and saw the metal bars around her disappointment sunk in, yesterday really had happened. Kari struggled a bit banging on the metal cage bars when she suddenly stopped and remembered the dream she had. It was a little bit silly for her to believe that maybe that dream wasn't actually a dream but at this point she didn't care. If somehow she had gotten magical powers then this was the time to test it out.

Kari closed her eyes and concentrated on the metal bars. She wasn't sure what she was expecting to happen, but when she opened her eyes the saw the bars were vibrating ever so slightly. She tried again, this time with her eyes open. The bars vibrated slightly again, but this time she also noticed a bit of the dirt outside of the cage raising off the ground. There wasn't any wind so seeing the dirt start to fly around was odd. She tried again this time concentrating on the dirt, a mini tornado formed. Kari smiled, she could control the air.

She spend some time practicing her powers and then she saw a little mouse, the prefect test subject. She focused on the mouse and created a mini tornado around it and the controlling it she brought the mouse towards her. Once the mouse was in reach she put her arm through the bar and using one talon on her finger she skewered it killing it instantly. The test run worked perfectly, she swallowed the mouse whole enjoying the reward of her success.

In the distance she could hear footsteps, using her amazing hearing she focuses in on them and could make out a conversation. It was the men from the previous night they must be coming back for her. "I can't believe some guy in Fernon actually wanted to buy this crazy beast. What does he want her for anyways, Fernon usually tried to keep all wild animal out of their borders, especially after that horrible incident, where all but two men were killed."
"I have no idea, he said he could tame her. Maybe he wants her to hunt for him. I wouldn't be surprised though if the guards killed her as soon as we hand her over. The captain of the guards own son was involved in that incident, luckily his son is still alive, but I bet they want to get some revenge on these monsters."
They men stepped in Kari's line of sight. The first man approached the cage and put the lock in his hand and took out a key. "What are you doing you IDIOT!" shouted the other man, causing the one with the key to stop in his tracks.
"What? I'm just opening the cage up to fed it. We can't let her starve to death or we won't get our money."
"If you do that she'll escape! Just throw the food through the bars."

'Darn it,' Kari thought. Them opening the cage was what she had been waiting for. Once they opened it she'd have been able to use her new powers to blow them away and then escape. Unfortunately being able to control air meant nothing if the lock was still locked. A few mice were thrown at her threw the bars, at least she had food.

"Load her onto the kart so we can start our journey, but be careful!" The men the moved her onto the kart, she did manage to scratch one of them not that it actually did her any good, but it was satisfactory. The two men got in the front and got the horses to start moving. They were heading to Fernon, away from Kari's home.

Kari practiced using her power to make the beginning of the journey hard on the men, she created a large wind storm that she isolated just to the kart and she tried to knock the kart over, but she wasn't very successful. She needed to keep practicing. Then in the middle of her attempts to cause the men as many problems as she could she saw a carriage in the distance. Out of the carriage stepped out two young purple haired girls. They were both wearing beautiful dresses, 'They must be royalty,' she thought. She knew they wouldn't do anything to help her, no human wanted to help her, but something seemed different about those girls.

The kart continued on, starting to pass the young girls. Kari continued to created drastic wind storms around the kart, hopefully she'd be successful in knocking it over at some point.

Lanie had glanced at the passing carriage. "I feel their presence in there." She pointed toward it. Before Lilly could stop her, Lanie ran toward the carriage catching up to it just before they were out of sight. She knocked on the walls of the carriage and it slowed down. The driver opened the door and hesitated, quickly bowing while still sitting in his seat. "O-oh! Your Highness! W-what brings you to Athen?" Lanie shifted her eyes toward the back. "I feel as if something is back there. May I take a look?"

The young man gulped at stuttered,"P-princess, I a-assure there is absolutely n-nothing back there! There is no need!" Lanie glared at the man with a cold aggressive stare. The man stepped out of the carriage in pure terror and went to the back, opening the doors. What Lanie saw was horrible. A poor girl a few years older than her, one of the hybrids, in a cage. Lanie yelled at the man,"What a devious man you are! How could you hold a living creature like her captive! And a peasant like you shouldn't sell any parts of a living creature! Get out of my sight!" The man shivered in fear and ran off.

She climbed in the back of the carriage and unlocked the cage with a key she found in the front seat. When it was open, she led the bird girl out onto the dirt road. Lanie smiled and curtsied. "Hello, I am Princess Lanie Ravenhart. You are safe, now what is your name fair maiden?" She hoped they would stop talking soon, because she could'nt put on the smiling act for much longer...

(ooc: Sorry I'm not sure why it posted twice.)

As soon as Lanie opened up the cage to let her free, Kari flew up onto a near by branch. She heard the girl say, "Hello, I am Princess Lanie Ravenhart. You are safe, now what is your name fair maiden?" This completely took her by surprise, she looked closely at the girl and noted that she was one of the girls she saw earlier. Why was any human especially a princess being nice to her? Every human she had ever met was cruel to her, the only explanation she could come up with was that it must be a trap. She kept her distance, but decided to reply to the girl. "Thank you..." She wasn't really sure how to be nice to a human just those two words took a lot of effort, "I am Kari Sairento, one the creatures that your kind seem to have deemed. I do appericate your kind jesture of letting me go, but I will not fall for any of your traps. I do not wish to hurt you, but any other human that dares to approach me may suffer a different fate..." As she spoke she remembered some odd human thing where if you saved someone's like then they owed you something in return. "I suppose since you did help me that according to your customs I am supposed to do the same for you. I normally don't adhere to your people, nor do I take orders from anyone. However I am willing to offer you one thing in terms of my thanks. If you wish I will watch over you if you should ever come to the magical forest that I call home."

Lilly smiled at Lanie's fast and honorable reaction to save the little creature.
"Hello, Kari Sairento." she spoke with a smile. "I see you trust us now, even though humans don't treat hybrids well. I'm Lilly Ravenhart, ready to accept whatever you decide."

The girl scratched her head for a moment. Was it okay to involve the hybrid in their adventures?
"The brid girl kinda has a point to offer us help as our watcher. Come to think of it, two 13-year-old girls just decided to go on a journey becasue of a dream. We did start off quite fast. I also don't know how are we supposed to find the rest." Lilly thought.

"Kari Sairento," she spoke. "Have you ever been a watcher before? Also, you did say that you don't want to be touched by a human, but... can I touch your feathers?"

"Well I can't say I completely trust you two, but you girls can't be all that bad. As for being a watcher, not exactly. I don't take care of humans, but I do take care of those I care about. Most avian hybrids are very protective and territorial. I am not an exception to that rule." She continued to watch the girls closely, noticing every move they made no matter how small it was. She thought carefully about the question young Lilly had asked her. She wanted to touch her feathers, it wasn't an uncommon request for a human to want to make. It's just usually they didn't ask they just did or killed in order to do so.

"How about I give you this instead," she looked for a feather that she was ready to molt, a beautiful secondary feather. The feather was softer than any fabric that man could make. It was mostly brown but had some off white almost lacy looking pattern on it. She jumped down from her perch and handed it to Lilly. "Maybe one day you can touch my wings, but for now this will have to do." Kari looked at both girls and forced herself to make a weak smile. "Well if that is all then I suppose I'll be off. I would like to return to my forest."

Lanie watched Kairi give her sister the feather. Before Kairi could walk off, she quickly ran in front of her. "Have you had any strange dreams lately? One involving a beautiful woman?" Lanie wanted to make sure that she knew if she was one of them or not. She had a determined look on her face. If she wouldn't answer, she would only ask again. It couldn't be helped.

"If you did, you are like us. We had a dream with a similar concept." Lanie started. "Now we can do weird things." She had practiced her powers on the way to Athen. She put her hand out and closed her eyes. Concentrating real hard, she raised her hand and managed to make a solid black figure in the form of a knight appear. "I noticed the carriage you were held in rocked a bit. Is it your doing?" She wanted to get all of the magical people rounded up as soon as possible. Lanie could tell Kairi was one of them.

Kari's eyes widened. She was surprised, these two girls were like her. They had the same dream and they were two of the girls that she was supposed to find. She really hadn't ever intended on going to find the others, but here were two of them, there really was no escaping the task that had been given to her in her dream.

"Yes... I had that dream last night. I've been practicing all morning with the intention of using it against those men when I got the chance. I was going to send them off in a tornado when they opened my cage. Lucky men they are that you two came along. So yes, rocking the carriage was my doing, I thought I might as well make their lives as hard as possible." She could tell that this whole thing was the start to a very long journey and she wasn't exactly thrilled about it, but she knew that the young princesses would need help, it wasn't safe for them to venture into the forest alone. "Looks like I will be joining you on your journey to the forest and finding the others. Do you know where any of them are?"