Sun, Moon, Stars, Rain

An unusually icy wind blew over the Dark Forest. A low pressure system had produced a sudden cold snap over the entire state, and the creatures of the forest were suffering. One girl in particular, a honey bee nymph, was doing especially poor in the cold weather conditions. True to her honeybee nature, the nymph, Sonya, had grown weak and sickly in the harsh climate. Her eyes, which were normally bright and filled with life, were dull and fever-glazed; her sunny face had grown pale, her cheeks unnaturally pink. Sonya spent all her winters alseep in deep hibernation: she had never rally experienced the cold and now she was paying for it.

Sonya, being a nymph, had home, no warm place to retire away to. She feared she was not welcome in any of the demigod's cabins and doomed herself to walking about the forest. She wore a bright green, summer dress, which had no sleeves and barely touched her knees. She shivered, whimpering as the cold gnawed at her bare arms and legs. She wore no shoes; she sloshed barefoot through the icy mud near the creek.

At some point, she had strayed from the creek near her home and found herself lost deep on the southern half of the woods. Normally, the honeybee nymph would easily be able to navigate the forest and find her way home. But now, with her mind hazy from sickness, every tree looked the same. She didn't have the slightest idea where she was. Thunder clapped in the distance, and she swallowed a lump in her throat, forcing away the tears that pricked at her eyes: crying wouldnt help anyone. A harsh wind blew and rain began to fall. Drawing her arms tighter around herself, Sonya trudged on.

Several hours later, Sonya no longer felt sad or hopeless. Several hours later, Sonya no longer felt anything at all. She was come rely numb. Her arms hung limp at her sides and she stumbled drunkenly through the forest, not entirely sure where she was going or why she was going there. Her mind was foggy. She struggled to grasp any concept of time or self-awareness: she no longer remembered who she was. She looked up at the sky and saw only darkness: night. Alarm bells went off inside her head, but she wasn't sure why. It wasn't until she heard a monsterous roar from behind her, that she was fully able to understand the gravity of the situation.

Slowly turning around, she found herself face to face with a huge, monsterous creature: it had the head of an eagle with a beak filled with teeth, a body that was half lion and half lamb with huge wings, and the tail of a dragon. The thing was huge! It stood nearly sixteen feet tall, and it very clearly wanted to kill poor Sonya. It had no intentipn of eating her, it just wanted to have some fun. The trembling nymph felt helpless tears roll down her feverous cheeks and let out a sob as the monster roared in her face. Completely frozen in fear, Sonya watched in slow motion as the creature swung it's backside around. She shut her eyes just as the enormous tail slammed into her. She went flying and slammed into a tree.

She felt something warm and sticky slide down her face from a painful gash on her forehead. She wanted to reach up and wipe it away, but found that she was completely unable to move. Letting out another pain-filled sob, she watched as the monster drew closer and closer. As darkness began to creep into her vision, she began to wonder if, after one hundred and sixteen years, this is where she would finally end.

He had been training. For God know how much time, Axel had been fighting thick tree stumps and branches with his own bare hands. He had lost count of his many hours had passed since he first started his workout, but he knew that an entire day hand't passed yet since their was still a tad of light he could recognize. He was laughing out loud though. The thrill of slicing and dicing things was unrivaled in his mind and the thought of facing Damien again in combat in three days time was enough to make him want to keep pushing hi limits even further. He was shirtless, but not intentionally, for some trees actually damaged his shirt when he entered his berserker mode, courtesy of Damien's hardcore training sessions. He had bruises and blood on his chest but just like his big brother, he didn't seem to mind the pain at all, in fact he seemed to relish on it as a form of drive.

After using his natural powers to increase his strength tenfold, Axel dropped down on his knees. He had used his power of more than ten times today and he knew that if he used more of his power it could severely damage him. Yet he wouldn't give up, he couldn't give up, unless he wanted to throw in the towel. With a push of will, Axel stood up after stumbling around for a few seconds, with his breath ragged and in pants, and used his power once more. With a roar compatible to a lion's he sent out a terrible sound wave that could be misinterpreted as the battle cry of a hungry beast.His muscular and well-built body shined with bright scarlet energy and the twigs and branches that surrounded him were pushed aside like a shockwave. His eyes were blank and his hair was lifted up by his release of power. He knew this would be the final time he count use his power for the remainder of the day and he needed to make it could. With a crouch, he compressed his power even further and allowed some trees to shake. With a stomp of his booted feet, he dashed at incredible speeds against a tree and smashed both his fists against the trunk, reducing the center of the tree to nothing but a big hole. His power would soon die out though and he had a long way to go if he wanted to get back to camp. So he shut off his power so he could use half of it again for later.

As he walked back to camp, Axel came to admire some of the trees he was surrounded by. They had some form of beauty to them, even if they were daunting to some. Yet as he went into deep thought, he head the sobbing of another being. Immediately after hearing the sound, Axel dropped his bag of equipment and ran towards the source of the sound. After running full speed ahead for three minutes, he came face-to-face with the source of the sound and it was a girl in danger. The threat at the moment, a beastly amalgamation of lions, goats and other animals he wouldn't really care about. Without thinking it twice, he activated his power again, coated himself in his red energy and flew against the colossal beast. He concentrated his magical ability around his fists and without a second thought rising up inside egis mind, he crashed a deep fist against the beast's hide, and then thrashed around with several high kicks and short, yet successive punches.  Afterwards, the beast backed off for a second and observed Axel like a predator does to his prey. He, on the oner hand, ignored the animal and instead focused his attention to the girl. He dashed to her side and helped her get up on her feet. She was injured and Axel grunted at her wound. This beast would pay for hurting a person, a girl even more so.

"Look, we got to get away from here now! I can't fight this beast now but we can still escape!" Roared Axel to the girl as he prepped his feet to run away by focusing his power underneath is feet.

Sonya remained unresponsive for far longer than should have been normal. She stared at the strange boy with ancient, fever-glazed eyes, studying him. A tingling in the back of her mind told her that he wasn't a nymph or a satyr, and somewhere in her hazy mind she wondered what kind of creature her savior was. Not that she was aware that he had saved her: with the monster silent and out of sight, Sonya no longer remembered that she was in any sort of danger.

The strange boy spoke to her clearly, frantically, but she wasn't able to register his words as anything more than strange noises. After several long moments that could've been hours, it finally occurred to the sickly nymph that perhaps he was trying to communicate with her. She opened her mouth to speak and began talking in her native tongue: a beautifully circular language that was older than humanity itself. She couldn't remember why she was talking, but talking felt good, so she kept it up. She babbled, talking about everything and nothing.

OOC sorry, short post :(

With the threat of the beast now gone, Axel took a deep breath in and exhaled an even bigger puff of air. He was really relieved to have made it in time, or else the girl would have been in serious trouble. He deactivated his power and smiled at the girl with one of his friendly and honest grins. He still had his chest covered with a bit of blood, but h didn't really care a lot. In fact, he was actually more than pleased the girl had been safe for she was one hell of a beauty. She had long blonde hair and graceful fair skin, which made Axel feel like he was some sort of mutt since he was the contrary, ragged tanned skin with almost black brown hair. Yet when he tried to see if she was alright, Axel found himself agape at the girl for he didn't understand a word she said, but he sure liked the way she talked, even if he understood jack squat.

"Um, well hello. My name is Axel and I'm sorry to be rude but I don't understand one bit of what you're saying luv." Clarified Axel with his smile still hanging, but the sudden feeling of the price of his powers. Just on cue, he felt horrible muscular pain running through his body as if every single fiber on his being was set to fire individually. Yet even if he was in a hell of pain, he tried to keep up the tough-guy act and continued smiling at the girl, until one of his knees dropped to the floor that is. Well that's it! I just messed upped my chances with this girl. Ah who am I kidding, I didn't even STAND a chance. Just forget it! Mentally said Axel as his left knee smashed against the ground and with it his pride and sense of a warrior.

"Well, it seems I'm more than beat!" Chuckled Axel as he perked upped to meet the lovely girl's face with his own dogged one.

OOC: I made a shorter reply so let's not really focus on post lengths, but try to keep them at one paragraph minimum.

Sonya continued her ramble until she heard the boy begin to speak again. Unable to understand what he was saying, she stared into his eyes and merely listened to the sound. She was only able to catch and hold onto one word/sound at a time. Studying his face, one word in particular caught in her brain and stuck. "...Axel..." She repeated, somehow connecting this word as his name.

She stared into his brown eyes, lost in their depth. Something about his eyes, his face, his presence in general was calm and cooling - - like a cold, wet rag on her fevered mind.  She narrowed her eyes, her brows bunched together in confusion. "Axel..." She repeated for a second time. The name stirred something deep inside her and she liked it. She liked the way it sounded as it fell from her lips. She let her eyes slip shut. "Axel," she said for the third time, this time sounding more definite as she held the word close to her heart.

Suddenly her eyes snapped open, her hands leaping to touch his face. Her ancient eyes searched his features, her hands studying his countenance. The fog, although still present, was slowly faded; the fevery haze in her mind had lifted. "You're human," she stated. Her gaze fell to his battered chest and her hands followed. She traced the injury with gentle fingers. "You're hurt," she said, meeting his look with a worried expression.

She glanced behind her, checking for danger, looking for the way to go. "There are bandages at home," she said, still facing away from him. "I can fix you there. I can make you well," she said, turning back to him with a soft smile.

Well this was quite a pleasant surprise. She had actually spoken something he understood. Although it did strike him as odd to see her get so excited with just his name, but he just dismissed this as a quirk of hers and smiled back to her. He didn't really need any emergency aid, but he was physically tired, and the prospect of laying down on something other than branches sounded just too pleasant to ignore. Using the last remaining strength he had, Axel pushed himself up and clumsily wobbled about.

"Guess that beast got me more than I imagined right?" Chuckled Axel as he limped slightly to her while using a tree branch as a makeshift cane. He wouldn't admit it, but he did need some sort of aid be it critical or just auxiliary. Something about her was different. It was like she had seen so much and yet had experienced so little. This thought both frighted and intrigued him enough to trust her an dyer help. It also was curious that she blurted out the fact that he was human. Wasn't she one herself? Thought for a second Axel before dismissing the idea with a nod of his head.

"Hey, I gave you my name, but you haven't told me yours." Blurted out the injured guy as he walked ever so slowly with the help of his stick. She seemed nice enough, plus her smile captivated him in ways he couldn't really describe with any other word but alluring. In many ways, she was attractive to him. She was mysterious and beautiful, but gentle and sort of an enigma. He would just have to take a bet.

Sonya cast him a glance filled with worry and sympathy. Very gently she had taken his arm and draped it over her shoulder, carefully gripped his mid-section with her other arm.  She allowed him to lean on her, easily supporting a good portion of his weight despite her small stature. "Sonya," she told him, looking up at him with a small smile. "I am a Melissae," she  clarified. "Nymph of the honey-bee," Although, she assumed he was well aware of her non-human statues, given her pointed ears and the henna-like birthmarks that graced her unblemished skin.

"I have a small shelter near my beehive which you can rest in for the night. It is small but comfortable and surprisingly warm. I took great care in its construction," she said. Never before had she so freely given up the location of her beehive, especially to a human. She was well aware of the destruction, war and devastation his species was capable of. And although she knew they were also capable of great love and compassion, she had never been quick to trust them. However, Axel was different. For once, mistrusting thoughts never once crossed her mind.

Her eyes glanced around the forest cautiously as the two began their slow trek to safety. "We aren't free of danger. Not yet, at least," Sonya said. "The monster from earlier may be gone now, but I have no doubt she'll return,"

OOC I apologize for such a horribly short post, but I'm on my mobile right now. Besides I thought you at least deserved some sort of response.