Partal NaNoWriMo09 sct. 1

A long, foggy mountain valley is filled with nothing but silence.  Four forms can be seen moving through a light snow, their feet, paws, and wings barely touching the hard ground before them.  The first two travel swiftly, and upon further examination a green eyed snow leopard can be seen pulling away at the ground with great paws, her claws ripping away puffs of snow behind her.  The she-leopard's companion is a faerie with equally green eyes, long slivery-blue hair, and soft wings that shimmer with silver and green accents.  Unfortunately her wings are useless to her and her species, and have been useless many decades.  Few of the faerie population are left who can lift their bodies off the ground and soar as they once did daily.  
Besides this pair are two who are literally flying.  A golden skinned faerie boy sprints a good inch above the ground, his wings only able to lift him so high.  His animal companion appears to be a golden eagle, and the eagle's eyes flit restlessly over the terrain while his wings beat powerfully to keep his body aloft.  These males are instantly spotted as predators, while the two females are harder to spot as such.  All move with grace and stamina, power and precision.  It is clear that their movements are deliberate and well planned out, as if they have been preparing for this moment for several months, preparing for an escape.

Venosa is patted awake by the strong paws of her Partal companion, Grajay.  The she-leopard pushes consistently at her side, and finally the faerie rolls over to look her in the eye.
'What?'  She uses her mind to speak to the big cat, not feeling in the mood to wake the other two beings in the room.  Grajay tips her head to the side in frustration, pointing her nose towards the opening of the small room.
'They want to see you now.  They want to see all of us.  Should I wake Damal, or would you like that pleasure?'  Grajay looks over at the snoring form of Damal, whose gold wings flit side to side as he dreams.  
'I'd rather not.  I will wake Keelan, he's a much better sport in the morning that Damal,' Venosa quickly stands, shaking out previously folded green and silver wings as well as pulling long blue and silver hair back into a tie.  She walks silently over to where a golden eagle is perched; his head tucked under one wing.
'Keelan, wake up, they want us to come now,' Venosa pushes softly at the bird's mind, hoping that he can hear her over his dreams of hunting and flying.  Thankfully the eagle opens his wide gold eyes and blinks in slight confusion.  He glides down to the floor from his perch, his easy two foot height landing with a slight thump on the floor.  He looks at Grajay in amusement, who is carefully sneaking towards Damal, getting ready to pounce.  
'Grajay, he won't wake up if you do that.  He's more likely to strangle you in his sleep than let you jump on his back.  Just growl in his ear a few times, send rude thoughts into his head, that will wake him up,' Keelan makes an expression equal to that of a wry grin.  'Or, like a normal being, you could shake him as you did to Venosa here, or send kinder thoughts into his head, like Venosa did for me.  You wonder why he hates mornings so much?  It's often because you are the one to wake him, and not all too kindly either.'  Keelan hops closer towards the tip of Grajay's tail, and Venosa suddenly flings herself at the bird, keeping him from once again taking a bite at the tip.
In the commotion, Damal sits bolt upright, probably after hearing the select choice words of Keelan and Grajay as Venosa attempts to keep the two apart, and from Venosa's outburst as Keelan takes a swipe at her face with long wings.
'What on earth are you idiots doing?'  Damal shouts, giving Venosa and Grajay death glares before allowing Keelan onto his shoulder.  'Sorry Keelan, but you're an idiot too, at least for the time being.'
He looks around at the three surrounding him.  'The elders want to see us already?  I thought that the meeting wasn't until tomorrow!'
Both Keelan and Damal have a cunning ability to read the other's thought like an open book, while Grajay and Venosa are less able.  Quickly the two partal groups get ready for a meeting with the elders, where they will determine if the four will be allowed to stay with the tribe they have lived in their whole lives.  
The elders are a group of elected council members who lead the bands of Tribal Faeries, and often call upon Damal, Venosa, and their partners to act as peace keepers.  In Damal's opinion, this is because the elders cannot do anything for themselves, but Venosa feels that it is a fair enough task, after all, they have asked for protection from the tribes.  Now, unfortunately, the two faeries are coming of age, and in Tribal laws, that often means being sent to another group for more experience.  In the Partal groupings, however, no one wants to bring in a risk factor to their home.  
Pushing aside a fabricated door, Grajay is the first to make her way into the elder's meeting hall.  Keelan is next to follow, while Damal and Venosa follow farther behind, none too eager to hear their fate.
"All right, we can begin now," speaking is the head tribal elder, Salvik, and he gives the Partals a deadly glance as they take a seat before the council.  Only three members have bothered to show up to this meeting, as it would only take three of the seven council members to overrule the Partals staying anywhere near the tribes, as unfair as that may sound.  The other two elders in the room are Gabrielle, the only female elder, and Dominic, who is the youngest elder at nearly fifty years old.  
"You four are here as you are coming of age and yet have no place to be.  This tribe is unable to keep you, for they must stay in ordinance with the Tribal Laws, and yet none of the others would like to have you in their camps.  It is actually not too hard to think of why it is that they do not want you; I myself am uncomfortable with vermin in the camp."
Grajay lets loose a deep rumble, one loud enough to cause Salvik to stop his tirade.
Venosa politely raises her hand, hearing Grajay's thoughts.  Salvik just nods, and Venosa looks once more at Grajay before continuing.
"Elder Salvik, Grajay would like to know why you call two dangerous predators and their partals vermin when we have done so much for this tribe, this camp."  Grajay visibly rolls her eyes, an act uncharacteristic of a typical snow leopard, but vary normal coming from her.
Salvik looks shocked at the expression and instead of looking at Grajay to respond, he looks at Venosa.  "I call you vermin because you are unnatural.  You do not belong in this place, in this world even.  I call you vermin because I would like nothing more than to see you wretched creatures skinned and hung up somewhere as a trophy catch.  I call you vermin because you are just another animal worth hunting down and wearing upon my back."  He spits his last words, and Grajay again growls, this time a snarl accompanying it.  Her front left paw strikes out at the wooden flooring before her, easily uplifting three of the panels in one swipe.  Damal snorts in anger and Keelan emits a high pitched shriek of disbelief.
Venosa takes a long, deep breath, trying to remain calm while her leopard instincts tell her to rip the elder's throat out.  "Thank you for answering the question in such detail elder."  She sits besides Grajay now, running one hand through the thick spotted fur.  Grajay's tail flick back and forth in anger, but she stays where she is below the elders' desk.
"And as Elder Salvik was saying before he called you all vermin," Gabrielle is speaking now, looking shocked at Salvik's outburst, "It is easy to explain why none of the other camps want you to stay with them.  They feel threatened by your infamousness, if that makes any sense to you at all.  They are made uncomfortable by the idea of having two faeries and two animals, excuse me for the brutal sound of my words, to feed.  Now, now," she speaks again, seeing Grajay move to disagree with her words, "I know, we know, that you four are perfectly able to feed yourselves, but try telling that to the other camps, where they are barely able to catch enough to feed their own people.  They do not want the responsibility of caring for you, or in effect competing with you for a catch.  They also do not want to accidentally shoot one of you down during a hunt, after all, you two, Damal, Venosa, are often either in them," Gabrielle coughs at the true idea of the Partal Gift, the ability for the faerie companion to morph inside of their animal companion, and continues on in a slightly quieter voice.  "They just do not want to take on the risk.  Can you understand that?"
Grajay is sending viscous glares in the direction of all three elders.  Venosa is looking nervously at Damal, who seems to be attempting to think of something to contradict what the elders are saying, but not coming up with anything.  Keelan is softly calling, the sound his attempt at calming the tempers that are quickly escalating.  Dominic looks them all in the eye and leaves a long stretch for the four to think over what may be coming their way.
Damal finally gives up on trying to make a point.  Grajay lies down on her stomach, content to lick her paws clean once more.  Her rasping tongue is the only sound in the room save for shallow breathing.  Keelan has stopped his singing, and now stands protectively on Damal's shoulder.  Venosa chooses to study the elders.
Salvik is the shortest of the group.  His body is quite literally short and thick all the way through.  He has cruel, calculating ice-blue eyes and murky colored wings.  Besides him is Gabrielle, and all four partals cannot help but wonder how she got into this council session.  Her soft brown hair, heart shaped face, and light green eyes all seem to soft for the kind of thing the elders have to do.  Her wings even, just the palest of pinks, seem to be deceiving.  She looks uncomfortable sitting with these men.  Last of all is Dominic.  He sits straight in his chair and black dreads hang to shoulder length.  His face is not lined with age, but stress and violence.  Dominic is the war general for the Tribes, and controls all aspects of a camps success or downfall in battle.  To say the least, Dominic is well cared for, living off of bribes received from individuals to entire communities.  His power is greater than even that of Salvik, and it is he who will decide their fate.
Dominic takes in a deep breath at this point, stretching his dark green wings flex to their full width.  "It has been decided by the council of elders that the Partal companions will have to leave Tribal land by the first of the year.  At two weeks to the year, you will no longer be acknowledged in the community, at one week, if your belongings are not packed they will be burned in a great bonfire, and at the year, if you all are not gone and off of our land, you will be hunted down as nothing more than another prize trophy.  If you come back onto this land ever, without the consent of the elders, you will be tracked throughout the rest of your lives and treated as criminals."  His low voice echoes in the deathly still room.  The partals are speechless and it shows, their mouths hang at various levels of open.  
Damal speaks up, "Where will we go?"
It is Gabrielle who answers him, "There are two cities willing to take you in.  Venosa actually has family in one, though the other is a bit more rural."
Venosa scoffs, "No one in my family wants me.  The only person who put up with me was my mother, and she was killed years ago by a rogue band of rebels on her way back to the city.  Who would take me in?  Who would accept the girl who can just as easily be a part of her leopard companion as her natural form?"
"You have an aunt and uncle, a younger cousin as well.  They offered to take you in, to let you and Damal live with them.  Of course they also said they would care for Grajay and Keelan as well," Gabrielle continues, taking pitiful glances at Keelan and Grajay, who would be uncomfortable elsewhere, "Of course, you could also fend for yourselves, I am sure that no one would mind that, just as long as you stay of the Tribal lands."
Damal snorts indifferently.  He would not fare any better than the animals in a city.  Venosa is the one with city experience, not him.  Not the boy without family.
"That is all.  Leave and prepare yourselves," Salvik stands, and the other two elders follow him, Gabrielle looking back once over her shoulder, a saddened expression upon her face, before making her way out a side door into the sunlight.
'Come on, let us go figure out what we're going to do about this,' Keelan floats out the door they came through and Damal and Venosa follow behind.  
"Grajay?  Are you coming?"  Venosa turns to see Grajay leaping up onto the elders' desk and run her thick claws through the perfectly stained wood.  "Grajay!  What are you doing?"  The faerie runs back to her companion, eyes wide as she watches the big cat leave a message for the elders.
'This abandonment, this betrayal, this decision will have its consequences.  The Partal Gift does not disappear simply because you ban it from your lands.  It does not run and hide like you expect it to do.  If anything, the Partal Gift gets mad, and then it gets its revenge.  Do not expect to live happily ever after without us. You will regret this choice.'
Grajay leaps down from the ruined desk and turns to Venosa.  'You understand why I did that, don't you?'  Her voice is filled with sorrow and regret in Venosa's mind.  
"Yes," Venosa barely makes a sound with the last word.
'Shall we merge then, take one last free run through this wretched place?' Grajay looks inquisitively up at Venosa, and the girl nods her head once, then twice.  With that conformation, the two looks directly into the other's same colored eyes.  Barely a second passes before the faerie is seemingly pulled into the leopard.  The merge is complete.  They have become a being of one body and two minds that work together perfectly, as one.  Thoughts are simple, shortened by a primitive animal instinct.
'Damal, we're taking a run, are you and Keelan joining us?'  The thought rushes its way through both Damal and Keelan's minds and back in their room the two step back out into the sunlight, stare into the others eyes, and with a slight pop, Damal's limber form is pulled into the powerful body of Keelan.  All four have their thoughts together now and make for the front entrance of the camp.