Here we are, what about two months since I last published a chapter. After, this chapter I will be putting AA on hold for several reasons.
1) I need to go through and rewrite some of the stories, themes and back stories-including Ebony's Ala and Eila.

2) I've been working on a new story, I know I never finish stories. I just get new ideas and the ideas I pursue never get finished because I get a new idea and so on...

3) This isn't a reason just merry Christmas.

So, on with our beloved story and characters. In the comments write your favourite ship for the characters.
Including.
Mandasia
Ebony
Rananei
Angolio
Alilyah-you'll find out. ;p

(Unedited.)

-/-
The girl looked at us and we looked back at her. As I looked into her eyes, all I saw was the forest reflecting out. We were all wary of one another. Who is this strange, mysterious person? What was she doing here? Was she the one that set the traps? Questions were racing through my mind.

She wore a dark green dyed dress that had one full sleeve that went from her left hand all the way to her left shoulder. Instead of having another sleeve on her right side, the material went underneath her right armpit.

The dress went down to her mid thigh. At the end of the dress she had small tears in both sides of her dress. The tears were only went up about four centimeters.

Underneath her dress she had brown leggings that were the colour of the nearby tree trunks. Her feet were clad in shin high grey/black boots. She had a belt around her waist with a saxe knife hanging off it.

On her back i could see a quiver, full of arrows with grey tips. Next to the quiver was a bow, hanging over he shoulder.
We could see the hilt of two daggers sticking out, behind her back. Her long, flowing golden brown hair was done up in a elegant but simple plait.

It was very different to my hair, which had two braids on the side of the hair which then contributed to a larger braid going down my back.

"Woh od uoy wonk hsit egaugnal?! S'ti tnaem ot eb a terces. Ylno owt secar wonk ti, dna eno fo mhet si tcnitxe!!!" 
(How do you know this language?it's meant to be a secret. Only two races know it, and one of them is extinct) " I yelled at the girl and tried once again to get out of my ropes.

"Woh od uoy wonk hsit egaugnal?!" the girl yelled back, snapping R out of his creepy staring.
(How do you know this language,)
The rest of this will just be in English,.
The three of us stared at each other. We didn't answer until R let out. "We are the Alksa, although I'm sure you don't know what that means..." I kept my eyes glued on him.
The girl spoke, "You are the guys we made weapons for. My Eila fondly spoke about a man named Ruffian."
My eyes snapped wide, "How... What trickery and sorcery is this? My Eila only talked about one Gana."

"Was his name, Devlilm?" She fired back. I didn't bother looking at R my eyes were fixed on this girl.

I gulped before replying, "Yes, he was married to an Alksa named Mdydl, -"

"And they had three children." I nodded as she finished the explanation, tears welling in her eyes. "Ruffian was married and I'm guessing to a woman named Mala. And they have one, two, three kids?"

"Eno, me but only through adoption." I commented back and ignored R as he laughed and commented "Bastard child"

"This is all well, but we could read up about you people" R commented, Alilyah and i both told him to shut up. "There must be a word?' he peeped out, while being death stared.

"Eht dirb taht sdliub s'ti tsen tuo fo ytsenoh dna egaruoc lliw evivrus regnol-" i began and had the girl finish with
(The bird that builds it's nest out of honesty and courage will survive longer than. A bird that builds it's nest out of vanity and pride.)

"--naht. A drib taht sdliub s'ti tsen tuo fo ytinav and edirp" we looked at each other and smiled.
"My name is Alilyah"
"Mine is Ebony" We smiled towards one another, i tried to keep the blood from rushing from my head.
"And i'm Rananei" we looked over to him and cursed him in Aku.

R was staring at Alilyah, to the fact that dribble was coming out of his mouth. He had been doing it for the last five minutes.

And all of a sudden the Alilyah spoke, "ugh, look at your face" she had her face on the side.

I let out a laugh and looked at her, I nodded to her and she nodded back.

She bowed towards me with her full body, while only bowing her head for R. " I apologise Ebony, let me realise you from there and we can travel to my camp"
I bowed back as best i could, she disappeared and we fell to the ground,

i managed to land on one foot while show off R landed on two. We were wobbly, as the blood rushed from our heads down our bodies.

"You guys down?" was what we heard, i didn't hear much over Aazen's neighing as i walked over and hugged her soothing her.

She ran over to us, spooking the horses we calmed them and showed them we could trust her. "Follow me" she led us round the bushed that prevented our horses.

R walked behind us, as we asked each other questions about one another. Knowing that our Eila's were close.
"16, 17?" she asked and i nodded my head
"16, turning 17 in 9 months. How about you?"
"16 as well"
We walked for  ten minutes before we reached her "House" the was a clump of trees, underneath the first layer of leaves and what looked like wood was a campfire and a prey hiding leave mound. It was quite dark in this forest, but light shimmered down from holes in the canopy.

"Well welcome to my abode" she said, we were a lot more comfortable and trusting with each other know.

There was a pile of wood on the campfire, it looked as if it was still burning but only within the ashes. "Let's get this fire going more, it's 5 or so it'll be getting darker then this."

R finally being useful lead Aniie to a tree and plunked her reins down. I did the same as well, but going to investigate more.

"We'll need water, Ebony could you get some from upstream" Alilyah asked checking her prey mound.

I nodded, within ten minutes we had the fire blazing brightly with a pot on top. We sat around the fire, soup being cooked slowly over it, we were talking waiting for it to cook.

"One thing i miss is my home village and family" Alilyah said looking into the pot of stew she was stirring.
"What do you mean?" R asked his legs crossed over, while I leaned against Aazen.

"This isn't my true home, I used to live in a large village, it could have been close to your monastery." Alilyah looked into the pot as if it was replaying memories of her past.

"R and I found a building once..." I started going into a flashback as I told Alilyah the story...

(Flashback, so she tells A about it but doesn't give her all the details. The flashback you're about to read is Ebony's memory)

R and I were around 9. We were walking around the grounds of the monastery. Our inquisitive minds were working overtime as we tried to find a "Secret Spot".
"What about down there?" I asked putting my feet close to a steep, short deep slope.
Rananei came over and looked at me, "Nah i don't think so Eb"

"Why don't you have a closer look? Try and see what is past the slope." Rananei shrugged his shoulders and leaned as far over as he could without losing his balance. 

I gave him a quick push with my foot and sent tumbling down head first. His body flipped in the air and he got air time. Then he would fall occasionally on the ground landing with an 'omph'.
I started laughing as soon as I pushed him, slipping down a hill that sloped at a 60-70 degrees angle that went for 35 feet.

Rananei screamed as he fell down the hill. He was half way down when he hit a large grey rock. Which sent him higher in the air. When he fell down his head hit a rock. His face being pounded by the ground..
I yelped as he first hit the rock and began running down the hill after him.

Rananei landed at the bottom with a loud scream and thud.
"Ran are you okay?" I yelled panic rising in my voice.

Ran just grumbled and let out a deep groan. It took him two tries and roll over. His hands and face were dirty and there was short but deep cut was on his face near his right eye. It curled around the side of his eye. There was another short cut on his left jaw. He had a few more deep scratches on his hands.

When he got on his feet he stumbled and I reached forward and helped steady him.
"What the heck, Ebony?" Ran asked. I detected anger in his voice.
"I didn't realise you were going to get hurt so much." I told him, crossing my arms.
Ran punched my arm, "You owe me" He smiled at me mischievously.
"Well, now that we're down here......" I said and Rananei sniffled a laugh, "No thanks to you!"

------"Wow, i didn't think you had sarcasm" i told him, "Now that we're down here we may as well explore it."

"Whatever" he stumbled slightly
"Are you alright, can you stand?' i asked him, concerned that i'd hurt him severely.
'Ooh now you care about me?" R asked smirking
"Why would i do that?" I said beginning to walk away from him.

We walked into an area, left of the slope, the grass in the area was very long-knee length. Vines twisted and turned around the trees, as if it was hair.
The area looked like it had once been severely burnt.
"Hey Ran look at this" i took in a long breath of oxygen, in front of me was a building made of large stone bricks. Only two walls were fully standing up, there was a third but it had several "Bricks" missing.

"Eb's let's go look at it" Rananei said so we both walked towards the building.
When we got to the building, we realised how big the building was. I crouched down, investigating the ground underneath the 'building'. With the nice, bright sun i saw a flash of metal. I picked up the shining metal which looked like a sword. The hilt was dark and parts of it easily fell off.

"Oi, Owl look at this" (Owl was Rananei's favourite animal so i often called him that. My favourite animal was Hawk, so Ran often called me that) I waved the former sword around.

Ran came over to me and also looked at the sword, out of the two of us, he was the best at recognizing weapons. Ran kneeled down and took the sword o=out of my hands.
"That looks like one of ours" R commented as he held the sword still, he ran his finger up the side of the blade. "It's blunt" i told him, he looked up at me and smiled.

"What is this place?" We asked and looked around and saw several more of these 'Walls'.

I finished telling the story, R and i were staring at each other, Alilyah coughed and i was brought out of my trance. We still bore into each other's eyes, trying to guess the other ones thoughts.

He touched his check, where there was still a thin scar. "I can't believe you still remember"

I looked into the fire, it looked as if there were dancing figures of fire and smoke. "Of course i remember, when we got back we got in trouble. And everyone fussed over uoy, the healer and of course Mandasia" i rolled my eyes as i thought of her fussing over my best friend.

I used to get annoyed by her, not jealous back then i knew i was his only best friend. Sure he had his other friends, but he told that i came first. How this has changed...

"Yeah, and you were there just telling me to suck it up" R said his feet making no sound as he kicked dirt into the fire.

No one really made much sound, which didn't surprise me. The three of us obviously like being lost in our own thoughts.

"Soup's done" i looked up to see Alilyah over the fire, stirring the pot of soup. We eagerly dished up the soup, i took the bowl i was given and started blowing on it while stirring it with my spoon.

After tew or so minutes, i took a sip of my soup. It used the herbs from our horses, but the meat was from a successful hunt Alilyah had finished half an hour before she found us. We only used to large rodents, she still had three left. Alilyah looked like someone i would easily become friends with, we were quite similar.

Aazen was chewing loudly, i whistled slightly and Aazen's head came straight up and she walked closer to me, her nose touching my shoulder.

I patted her then send her back, she seemed disappointed that i hadn't given her a treat but if i did that she would become fat like Cough, Aniie cough.

"You have a very loyal and well trained horse" Alilyah commented and i nodded my head towards her.

R sat forward, he rested his right arm on his left knee.
"Her horse? Pfft... her horse is nothing compared to Aniie and i. All she does with her horse" he paused for a minute before smiling smugly, oh great he's going to insult me.

"Is also teach it to be emotionless. No one needs, an emotionless pair of bastard children."

Alilyah looked at him and then at me, her eyes restless but they fixed on the fire. I just acted like it didn't hurt, like normal.

R smirked at his insult, i took a sip of my bowl. Alilyah didn't say anything she just got off the rock she sat on and leaped into the trees above.
Oh how many times i've wanted to knock that smug look of R's face. The same look he showed on his face as he too climbed up into the tree above.

I stretched and yawned before kicking out the fire, turning it only to a pile of embers and ash and jumping into the trees.

Above me, in the wooden platform Alilyah had built, which just proves her gana ancestries. It wasn't big, but it wasn't small, it was a square shape it also had five big trees supporting it, wrapping around one tree which grew in the middle. Which was what we all climbed up,

R was sitting in the right corner of the square, joking around with Alilyah who just shook her head at him, when she saw me. She stood up and moved further away from him lying down using a blanket as a pillow, another blanket covered her slim but sturdy frame.

The pillow was against a tree as well. She had given one of her four blankets to R, he was snuggling up quite nicely-to himself-. R's head was against a tree, his body at a 90 degree angle.

She was , i walked over to her and lied down as well, she handed me one a,. I covered my body with a blanket, and leaned against the closest tree behind me.

I was an arm's length away from Alilyah, and four metres away from R. I sighed, adjusted my position and closed my eyes to the world.
--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--//--
A/N: So what do you guys think? Please don't be silent, please tell me what you thought about it. If you liked it please hit that 'Vote' button and if you really liked it add it to your reading list and share it with friends. :)

Sorry about the wait, but it's here now so, enjoy it.
Keep howling at the moon
Grey_Wolf_90
Out.