Things Look Better with One Eye Closed

"No one willing to work together to resolve a pressing solution is never a good thing," Birch commented. "The civil war in Salinas five years ago never would have happened if both sides had looked over their differences." Kitai shuddered at the mention of that war. When she was human she had fought in it and been caught in one of the numerous battles in which one of the sides had no survivors - or would have had no survivors had she not been bitten by that werewolf.

"There are more than just the fifty of us that can fight with you too," Siva added. "There are the new recruits that haven't yet earned a rank. But they might be more of a liability than an asset in a battle since they don't really know their limits yet."

((Okay, so turns out I won't be on at all tonight. I'll be back tomorrow night around 9:30pm your time. Sorry 'bout this. I'll edit this into a post then.))

"Nope, no 'fighting thingies' on me, sorry." Faorn told Akaelin. "I don't know much... no weapons or anything were in the Lycaon mountains where I came from."

Then she turned to Syn, "You came from a third world country? What country was that?"

"I'm not saying that they won't eventually see what's happening and come to help," Jan said for the deaf falcon. "But they're not too happy with me at the moment, so I wouldn't be able to fly over and try and bring aid back."

"Qu'darem," Syn answered. "I grew up in the slums and whatnot. S'why I don't have much of an education." Truth betold, the wyvern was about as illiterate as Kieran.

"Alright..." Akaelin mumbled as he thought for a moment. "Okay, you henkilo son of a bitch," he said, turning to Enthea. "You fly off to your little Celes thingy. Bring back whomever listens to you, and meet us near Salinas when you're through."

Enthea gave the wolf a hail Hitler salute. "Heil mein Furher!" she said sarcasticly before shifting forms and flying off.

"Anyone who doesn't have their own little special fighting force will accompany us to Salinas. Questions? Too bad, don't feel like answering them," Akaelin finished.

((Do you want to rp out the trip to Salinas, or just be like... Two weeks later or however long it takes to get there: BAMF! Ahhhhhh! Salinas!))

((I don't really care, either way))

"If many of the people in Kanten who fought with us during the last war are still willing to help then we could pass through there on our way there or back," Kitai added. "That is assuming that Birch is thinking of the heading towards the Paloma end of Salinas, which he probably is since the guard's headquarters are located there."

"Yep," Birch said with a small grin. Kitai had avoided listening to any news from that part of the continent after she heard in one town that the Chalca area had been all but flattened during the civil war. But he would occasionally meet up with people he knew from the guard and knew that for the first time in a long time they had a member that hadn't trained with them since childhood.

((Back in 10 minutes.))

((Neither do I. XD You wanna just do a couple posts and then we'll fast forward? How long is it to...*looks down at your post* the Palomas end of Salinas?))

"We'll head there on the way back. After we have Entheas forces with us as well," Akaelin said.

((Short post is REALLY short.))

((beats me, the geography of this whole world is really fucked up XD))

"Do you think we could-" Kitai started to ask a question then cut herself off.

"Go check up on Chalca?" Birch asked. Kitai nodded in response

"But people around there don't like weres, not even in Paloma. If I do see anyone I knew when I lived there I doubt they'd want to talk about me. All they'd see was that the sister of the vicious werewolf is now also a werewolf." A chuckle sounded from the woods; apparently Quill found it funny that she had really gotten that reputation in their hometown.

Akaelin merely shrugged. "It's worth a shot anyways, and if you really want to it doesn't hurt as long as you're prepared for potentail rejection."

"If anyone doesn't have anything else to say, then I'd suggest we get moving. Birch, Kitai, you two know the way? Cause I have no idea whatsoever."

Kitai shook her head. "Not from here." she said. "All I know is to head in a general westerly direction."

"I know the way," Birch said. "Between leaving the hq and settling down with the Rebellion my hobby was and still is travelling."

((you wants ta jump ahead?))

((Sure. Umm.... You can decide how far ahead. XD I had a bad night at work so my brains a little dead.))

((narrator voice: one week later...))

Kitai knew they were close to the border now; the smells were growing more familiar. She took out a long strip of cloth and wrapped it around her head to cover her wolf ears. Wearing boots and tucking her tail out of sight were two other things she hated to do to disguise her appearance, but they might let her be able to talk with the people she knew for a little bit before they ran away screaming or attacked her.

"Five miles to the nearest city beyond the border, one mile to it," Birch read off of a sign. "30 miles to Paloma, and 10 to Chalca. I'm sure that they've rebuilt most or all of it by now."

Akaelin gave Birch an overlysarcasic grin, followed by an exaggerated thumbs up. His expression quickly changed back into one of unamusment, as it usually was. "Is everyone going to start speaking spanish here?" he asked. "And Kitai, will you want some people to stick close to you incase someone goes all 'Err werewolf' on you?"

"Some people might," Birch said. "But the country has become a lot more open to immigration and trade since the end of its civil war, so there's probably a good number of people that know more languages than just that one."

Kitai shook her head. "I can defend myself if someone does try attacking me, and there's nothing I could really do about them running away," she sighed. "The only weres that people respect are the ones in the guard, since it was one of the factors that ended the fighting. If we want to try gathering forces though, it would probably be a good idea to keep Quill out of sight. I know that wanted posters were put up all over and she's pretty recognizable."

"Yo no hablos espangol?" Jan asked, though clearly his spanish was just as bad. "No. You hablos espangol?" Akaelin asked. He was only guessing that Jan was asking him if he spoke spanish. Jan shook his head and chuckled before responding. "No. Espanja on kuin ainoa kieli En puhu."

"Whiiiichhhh meeeaaanss?" Seff asked. "Finnish. Means, Spanish is like the only language I don't speak."

"Do you know...Croatin?" the owl continued.

"Da mi je ciniti." (Yes I do)

"Dude!" Seff laughed. "I didn't even know there was a language called Croatin. I thought I was making something up. Okay, I'm satisfied, let's go."

"We're at the border," Birch announced as a small outpost came into view alongside the road. A man stopped Birch as he led the group and spoke to him.

((pardon my keyboard not having upside-down punctuation or accent letters XD))

"A donde vais?" he asked. "Quienes son y quien es usted?"

"Somos un grupo que quire viajar a Chalca y Paloma," Birch answered. "Necesito llamar la guarda Salinan primera. Tenemos una persona emberezado que necesita algo de ellos."

"Bueno, hay un bar ((the word is the same XD)) con un contacto de la guarda Salinan. Puede llamar de alla."

"Gracias," Birch said before turning to the group. "The next town up has a runner we can use to contact them."

"Konnen wir nicht alle nur eine Sprache sprechen, dass jeder versteht? Ich meine, es ist wirklich nicht schwer."

"How dare you!" Seff gasped, slapping Jan across the face. "Owwww!" Jan whined, rubbing the side of his face. "I didn't insult anyone! Lebhafter eule dame."

Seff merely blinked and tilted her head. "Okay, that time I insulted you and you did nothing," Jan pointed out, only to get slapped across the face again.

((Dude, it don't matter to me. I don't speak spanish so it makes no difference to me. XD))

When they reached the bar that the border guard had told them about, Birch left the group to go seek out who it was that would run a message back down to the headquarters.

"Do you think Yoko will be able to find us here?" Kitai asked wistfully. A series of thunks sounded in a corner of the tavern and she saw that Quill had engaged in a game of knife-throwing with a few men and winning. The hood that she wore concealed her face, and there was indeed a pretty good mugshot drawing of her up near the wanted board.

"He found us in Sanctuary," Akaelin pointed out, growing tired of all the foreign languages. The question is, after he finds us here, is he going to get out alive? the wolf thought to himself. If he had his way, the answer would be no. He'd rather just kill Yoko now so he could go back home and they could end this war without any one dying.

((*thinks of way Yoko can enter* ^^))

((I have to go for tonight. I have band camp tomorrow, so I'll be back around 11:00am or so your time.

Another commotion caught Kitai's attention as Birch got into an argument with the man that he was talking to. After a string of profanity that was said so fast that she could only catch bits and pieces of it she was able to translate what he was saying.

"What do you mean you'll only call them is it's an emergency for a common person like me?!" Birch was yelling at him. "Point One: we're talking about the apocalypse here! Point two:" He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal the shoulder part of his tattoo that ran from his left shoulder down the same side of his back. "I recall that I can call on my comrades whenever I fucking want!"

"Lo siento," the man muttered after seeing it. "No supe que fue viento del arbol."

Birch calmed down a bit then spoke again. "Bueno, ahora voy a decirte los nombres para la guarda privata. Icehand, Greentail, Cricket, y Wolfslayer. Wolfslayer es un amigo de mi prima. Va a ester muy feliz cuando vela."

((kk))

Akaelin merely rocked back and forth on his heels, looking like he knew exactly what he was doing. Even though he had absolutely no idea what was going on. He couldn't wait to get out of the area. All the spanish was starting to annoy the hell out of him.

Birch left the man as he swiftly left the inn and changed to the form of a cheetah, running in a westerly direction. All of the far-out runners were cheetahs or raptors so that messages could be carried with greater speed. "Well, four of my buddies will come to stay with us until Kitai needs to leave and hopefully some of the others will hear the 'end of the world' part of the message and bring additional forces to fight with us," Birch said. "However, the humans that are in the guard usually dislike any weres outside of it much like everyone else in this country so it would be wise to tell the Rebellion not to anything to antagonize them."

Akaelin couldn't really think of anyone in the rebellion who would give the humans a hard time, save for Quill. And she was Birchs responsibility. If anyone else lacked common sense and decided to try and make the humans stay a living hell, he'd simply rip out their tongues. Then they wouldn't be able to say anything. Problem solved.

((Cheetahs are more sprinters than distance runners, actually. *has been watching too much animal planet* Also, their claws are always unsheathed and they can't roar. >.>))

Akaelin started to wonder exactly how far away Celes was, and when Enthea was going to arrive. "You do what you need to do," he said to Birch absentmindedly. "I'm going to camp outside along the border and wait for Entheas group to arrive. If anyone needs me, that's where I'll be." With that, he turned and left, glad to be out of that Inn and away from all of the spanish. Arlyn had decided to accompany him, along with Syn.


Poor Sayne was frightfully confused. Because Jan didn't speak spanish, he couldn't translate for the falcon. And since Sayne didn't speak spanish either, he couldn't understand what anyone was saying based off of lip movements.

((>-< I forgot to type short distance - long distance. They aren't that far away from the place.))

Birch tapped Sayne on the shoulder so he would turn towards him and be able to read his lips. "We'll just wait here for them to get here," he said. "They should be here within the day. At least, my four friends should be. They're stationed in an outpost between Chalca and Paloma so the runner will go to them first. The others shouldn't be here any later than tomorrow. And if you try speaking english to people around here I'm sure that a lot of them know it but just prefer to speak in their native language."