Beyond Our World

Chapter 3 - Part 1: Watch Me?

"Dearest Falkern. Would you not participate in the light banter that would make a proper and polite greeting?"

"No, Tallarine. Just hurry up and get on with it."

"Of course. Even though there need not be such gruff behaviour."

"Tallarine, we do not have all day." Interjected a smooth and rich voice that belonged to the only North American male elk standing directly in front of Raphael.

"Forgive me, your highness, for stalling. It has been long since I last joined a meeting and I just remembered the wonderful feeling of intimidating you all. With yourself as the exception of course."

The elk nodded while staring at Raphael. Tallarine then changed to a more serious facial expression and the mood of the area became very tense.

"Well now, there are two."

"How do you know that?" Challenged a grey she-wolf. All heads turned to her.

"Laenysia of the Malka Rue, hello again." Tallarine had obviously been irked by the fact that someone had questioned her knowledge. Her cold tone suggested that she disliked this being more than the others.

"I'm just curious as to how you know these things, that's all."

"Then I would ask you to keep your curiosity in check. As they say, 'Curiosity killed the cat'."

Laenysia bristled. "You did not just call me a cat!"

"What iz so wrong about being a cat? I zertainly see no reason why you would not want to be one of us." Lowly murmured a cheetah that was lazily lying on a tree branch above. Her tail was flicking back and forth in fluid motions.

"There's nothing wrong! There's absolutely nothing wrong! It's just...the way your pupils dilate..."

"Like zis?" The cheetah's irises glowed gold and then her pupils dilated. She cackled at Laenysia's reaction.

"ENOUGH!" Bellowed the shaggy, brown grizzly that stood obediently by the elk's side.

"Thank you, Brizingor. Since there are 2, I would like a pair of you to watch each of them. Thank you Tallarine and Laenysia for both volunteering to observe Arelisiana. And thank you too, Gnaw and Felicity, for kindly opting to watch Clorannis." The Prince smiled and nodded at each of the Council's members in turn. "You are dismissed."

Felicity, the cheetah, winked and grinned at Laenysia before disappearing like the Cheshire Cat would. Gnaw, the mouse, scurried away into the undergrowth. Falkern beat his wings and hovered in the air.

Tallarine meaningfully stared at the pocket owl and it's eyes turned a translucent, foggy white. It flew over to lightly touch the she-wolf's shoulder before flying back to Falkern and latching onto his back. The Prince had seen this exchange and raised an eyebrow at Tallarine that she refused to acknowledge.

"Alright, Rina! Beavers' Lodging it is!" Laenysia started bounding through the brush in search of a shadow, however they seemed to be rather elusive at the moment and she was zigzagging randomly in search of one.

Tallarine chuckled deep in her throat and started slowly walking towards me. The last thing I saw of the council before we teleported back was the elk striding through a shaded path of bent trees, that were not there before, with Brizingor following by his heels.

The second time around, I found that I could recollect and balance myself out quicker. Although the pain had not reduced even a bit. I supposed I was getting used to travelling Tallarine's way.

I found Tallarine in her usual position beside me. "You wish to know how I know things, yes? Well, I shall tell you how. I have eyes in this world and on Earth and my tails, if in contact with the person, can access their memories. You see, I feed off energy and the energy I consume determines my powers' effects. I feed on memories most of the time, Laenysia eats dreams and nightmares. So there's quite a bit of competition between us."

"Oh. And the animals? Who are they? I only heard a few of you speak. I could hear Laenysia, even though she was speaking telepathically. Why is that?"

"Laenysia doesn't really take care of how and to who she projects her mind voice. That's why. Or it could be one of your powers, you'll need to develop them to hear more heavily guarded conversations. But that's not a power that's encouraged to be learnt in the H.E.L.P."

I nodded, deep in thought. I had filed away this new information for later use, in particular the one about my new power. "So about the Council?"

Tallarine frowned.

Laenysia decided to appear then and read my thought. She too frowned but then her frown morphed into a wide, evil grin. "You told her about the Council! Nice one, Rin! Haha! Wait till they hear that you blew it! For the first time in foreveeeerrr, I won't be alone!" She pranced around the clearing doing a weird, four-legged, happy jig.

"You can switch to normal speech?" I asked, confused.

"Yeah! And I'm the only one who can without sounding retarded like Tallarine." Laenysia stuck her tongue out at Tallarine. "Well, except for the Prince."

Tallarine daintily touched her paw to her chest in an offended manner. "How dare you?! How?! How can you just stand to be this way?! It's horrifying! And I only told her about the Council because she was wondering where Raphael went to. There's no harm in telling her about the animal party that governs the factions of the wilderness."

"Alright then, Rina. That checks out. I'll just take it from here then." Laenysia sat on her haunches and gestured with her paw to emphasize what she was saying. "Ok. So first off. We have the Prince. He's the male deer with the cool-looking antlers. His name's literally 'Prince'. And we all can understand why. All the does swoon when he's around 'em. He's pretty young to be a Council Head, the youngest really. He has the whole forest at his will."

Tallarine then interrupted and took the reins. "Then we have his obedient, lap-bear. Brizingor is his advisor of sorts. Although, mediator would be more accurate. Brizingor represents the advisors. The spiritual advisors talk to him and he gives judgement in the rare times when he thinks it's needed. He is rather mute. But his control over the ground is rather impressive."

[The end of Part 1. Chapter 3 will be further continued in Part 2.]