Dreams and other Portents

I grin up at the thug, lengthening my teeth. "Try it and your face will match your hands." He cracks his knuckles, but I grin all the wider.

The gryphion's eyes blaze... "Not yet, not yet." It winks conspiratorially, "I start to talk, the games over... I've read the rules."
As he speaks, another figure emerges from nowhere behind the three and skulks the border toward Liv, it's blue pelt washed almost white in my fairy lights.

I blink. Someone just moved between the worlds...I turn. All at once, there's a screeching roar. Another griffin comes rushing forward, its rushing blue giving the impression of a great stormcloud bearing down. It slams into the black griffin, equaling it in size and dreadful in its ferocity. A weight slams into my shoulder. "Move!" Sylus shrills in my ear, dropping my knife into my hand before taking flight. The middle griffin slashes into the thug nearest me, and I smell blood and the stink of spilled intestines. I grin fiercely, and grip my blade.

The thug on the other side tries a rush, and I hiss as I bring my knife up his arm, blood fountaining. He howls, and in that moment I bring my blade around and up and into his gut. He makes a nasty little noise in his throat, and I hiss again, twisting the blade before pullling it free. "Touch me, touch my kith, you pay." I snarl as he falls.

It's fast... almost before anything can move, Sylus' kin explode through the gap and take the figures before. I duck behind a chair as Sylus settle's on my shoulder. Peeking over the arm, I see Liv lash into her tormentor before the largest of the gryphions pushes her back with a hind paw the size of a dinner plate.
"Get up," Sylus hisses, "Grab Liv and I'll do the rest."
Rising quickly to my feet, I seek Liv, now struggling against the huge, unrelenting limb. I grab a shoulder; the world swirls a moment and I feel Liv sink her teeth into my hand as she turn to face the new 'attacker.' I yelp and fall back into the tall grass, disappearing from sight.

I drop to my knees, eyes wide, panting hard, looking about me. Enemies, where...no, gone. Sun. Grass. That smell...home! I gulp, closing my eyes, quelling the shaking in my chest. Slowly, I open my eyes.
"Is everyone allright?" I ask, looking about. Sylus is ruffled, and his middle brother's feathers are bent and rumpled. His largest brother hasn't joined us yet. Djhuety is sprawled in the grass, giving me a hurt expression. "Did you get wounded?" I ask as he sits up.

I grunt and dig in a pocket with my uninjured hand, pulling out a roll of surgeon's tape and gauze... "Its nothing," I murmur and start binding the wound. "Scratched myself on the way out."

"Let me see." I say, taking his hand. I blink at the deep, bloody ring of marks. Teeth marks. My teeth. "I...bit you?" I say, puzzled...then I realize. "You grabbed my shoulder. Oh, I'm sorry lad, gods I'm sorry! Here..." I run my tongue over his hand, mixing myself into the wound to ensure the healing, then whistle over it. The wounds close, leaving only drying blood. I sit back, and smile sheepishly. "I get...a little caught up, when I fight. But don't worry; I brush my teeth." Then I look around. "Sylus, you've taken us...here?"

Sylus gives an odd shrug. 'It was only one space over... given that a Noir is allied with them, that's probably on purpose, but I closed the gate I came through on the way out." He blinks and scratches behind his ear, reveling a pale pinion tightly braided into his ruff at the shoulder.

I sit up, taking a deep breath. I'm Home. Kindred land. The very air tells me so. I stand, looking out over a long, rolling plain dotted with low hills.
"Hmm. Haven't been here in a long while." I murmur. I turn. "We're all a bit worse for wear. From here, I can get us to my mother's holt. That all right for you?"

Sylus nods absently before perking a moment... "Do you know what an egg, a lamp and a coin have in common?" he queries. His brother's step out of the world upon hearing this, shaking their heads.

I smirk. "So that's what Sphinxes use for pillow talk, is it?" With a laugh, I take Dhjuety's hand and Sylus's paw, and step forward. The smell of the river fills the air. I smile a little.