The Other Clans

Manhattan

Lilias sighed as she stood on the makeshift pedestal in the castle courtyard. It had been a little under a month since the group had met, and Faulkner had been busy getting everything sorted for the trip. They would be flown over together. Apparently the journey would take only around eight hours. All eight of them would be carefully packed and transported. According to Faulkner, they would arrive in the afternoon and be placed on the roof of the small headquarters of one of his friends. At the setting of the sun, they would be free to awaken without the fear of being seen. For now they waited till sunrise on their wooden pedestals, preparing themselves for the drastic change in scenery that would follow.

"Ready?" Faulkner asked as the sun started to peak over the horizon.

"Yes," Lilias replied before she was frozen in place by her own biology. Though unknown to the eight gargoyles, the trip over was fair and uneventful. The plane landed without any problems and the statues were carefully moved to their temporary home. A certain detective saw the statues as they were being driven to the building and did some investigating as to where they came from. She would tell her friend Goliath about the new statues and the oddity that they were, for now though she had work to get back to.

That night, Lilias and the rest of their small group broke out of their stone skins and stretched, preparing themselves for a long night of getting used to their new surroundings. New York City was more bright, noisy, and crowded than any of them had ever seen. Elspeth was bouncing around the rooftop with excitement. Gillian and Donnan gave each other the cold shoulder, which was better than them fighting. Shona had come out of her shell of shyness a bit and Lilias had discovered that she was actually a really good with food. Bonnie was still protective of her rookery sister, but she hovered less when it was just the eight of them. Ivar and Aileen had been very helpful with making Lilias more comfortable with her new position.

"Can we go looking for the other gargoyles now?" Elspeth asked. Lilias smiled at her enthusiasm.

"Yes." She turned to the older couple. "Ivar, Gillian. Can you two take the west?" Both nodded their heads. "Aileen, Elspeth. The east?" Two more nods. "Bonnie, Donnan. The north?" They looked at each other and sighed. That was agreement enough. "Shona, and I will take the south. We'll meet back here at midnight to report what we've found. Everyone ok?" There was a chorus of 'yes's and 'yeah's before everyone took off in their assigned direction.

"Are you sure that there even are others like us here?" Shona asked quietly as the two got ready to take off.

"I'm sure that there's something going on in this city." Lilias hopped up onto the edge and spread her wings. "Whether it's other gargoyles or not has yet to be proven though." With that she leapt off the roof and let the air fill her wings. Shona followed close behind her. The city was quiet in the gargoyle department. The two were about to head back when Lilias glanced behind them and saw someone following them through the night sky. Lilias tilted closer to Shona.

"I'm going to check something out. I'll meet you back at our home." She stated suddenly, loud enough for their pursuers to hear before dropping her voice. "Someone's following us. It may be the Manhattan gargoyles but I can't tell. Turn left at the next road intersection and find someplace to hide. I'll veer right and either lead them away or trail them." Shona gulped but nodded her head.

"Alright, I'll see you l-later," Shona said. Lilias gently turned to the right and watched out of the corner of her eye as her friend continued for a while before turning in the opposite direction. Sure enough, their mysterious follower kept on her tail and didn't bother Shona. Except their follower was actually followers. One started to trail her while the other went after Shona. Lilias cursed under her breath. She shouldn't have left Shona by herself, Lilias was better at fighting than she was and now she couldn't protect her friend. Lilias steeled herself, she would just have to take care of her stalker before going after Shona and her 'friend'. After a minute of two, Lilias made a move to land. She flared out her wings like she was slowing her decent and stretched out one of her feet to touch down. Her foot never made contact though. Lilias pumped her wings and shot up into the sky. She heard the faint flutter of wings as she looped around. She beat her wings once more and sped at her would-be stalker, tackling the winged follower to the rooftop that she had faked landing on. The creature grunted at they hit the hard surface. Lilias jumped to her feet, ready to fight.

"Who are you?" she growled. Her wings spread out behind her and her eyes glowed blood red.

"I could ask you the same question," he shot back, rubbing his shoulder as he stood up. Now that she could see him more clearly, he definitely looked like a gargoyle. He was red with two horns sprouting out of his head and a mane of white hair trailing down his back. His wings were black but weren't sectioned out like her own. He also wore a dark blue loincloth held up by a black belt.

"I asked first." Lilias relaxed her stance a bit and looked at him curiously. "Why were you following us?"

"We didn't know what you were," he said. "We protect the city and we've had problems with... a lot of different things."

"Is this city you're... castle then?"

"Yeah," he replied cautiously. "Now what are you?" He took a step towards her, regarding her curiously.

Lilias ignored the question and continued to interrogate him. "You are a gargoyle?"

"What kind of question is that?" He looked at her as if the answer should be obvious.

"A sincere one. So... are you?"

"Yes, now what are you?" Lilias smiled at his reply and fully relaxed her stance.

"A gargoyle," she said with a smirk and a shrug. "Like you and I assume your friend." He looked at her with disbelief and a slack jaw.

"You can't be. All of the others were destroyed a thousand years ago."

"And who told you that?" He tilted his head to the side curiously.

"I was there." It was Lilias' turn to gape at him.

"You're from Castle Wyvern?" she asked in awe.

"Yeah." He hadn't even finished saying the word before Lilias was actually grinning. "Why is that so cool?"

"My friends and I are descendants of the gargoyles who were in the rookery. It is an honor to meet you." She felt like Elspeth right now, but she didn't care. "I have so many questions for you about life back then. I don't even know where to start."

The red gargoyle chuckled at her excitement. "How about your name, if you have one?"

"Sorry," she said, composing herself again. "My name is Lilias. And you?"

"Brooklyn." He extended out his hand towards her. Lilias shook it firmly with a wide smile. "By the way, what's up with your wings?" Lilias ducked her head as she tucked her wings further back.

"I honestly don't know. No one else has wings like mine. The coloring that is. Over the centuries, we've gotten better at actually flying instead of gliding. No offence."

"None taken," Brooklyn said with a smile. "We should go get our friends."

"Agreed." The reality of the situation hit her like a freight train and Lilias groaned at her own stupidity.

"What's wrong?" Brooklyn asked concernedly.

"Nothing much. I'm just an idiot. Shona, the gargoyle I was with is shy and scared of a lot. I got so distracted that I forgot about her." She stepped up on the ledge as she mumbled to herself. "Some leader I am."

"You're the clan leader?" he asked. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you seen way too young to be the leader of a clan."

"My 'clan' consists of seven other gargoyles from three different actual clans. And all of us are the same age except two, and neither of them wanted the position."

"Three clans? Where?"

Lilias spread her wings. "We both have questions for each other. I think that we should collect our friends before we indulge." She paused. "But yes, three clans."