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Two silhouettes moved quickly through the moonlit glade, the soft swishing of long blades of grass breaking the deathly silence of the night. One stood around 6 feet in height, the second at his side the size of a very small horse. The breeze was cool and the moon high, brightly illuminating the mist shrouded emerald feild and giving the myst and the air just above it a soft green aura as the eye could see. The stars glistened above them like an endless sea of ivory against a midnight blanket, their distance from any towns or villages allowing them to see each and every twinkle with relative ease. The mist settled low on this eve, engulfing the elemental only up to his waistline-this fact made his face wrinkle with irritation.
"Cheater," Dairou grinned, quickly drawing two curved scimitars from either side.
The whites in the elementals eyes swelled like two cloudy pools until becoming a solid bright green that eventually even overwhelmed his pupils, his arms held to his sides, his skin feeling through the blades of grass and silently whispering to the grass for the wolfs location. Smirking, Dairou lunged forward with his right blade, a crisp crackling sound thundering through the valley, and a sharp pain in his shoulder combined with a momentary vibration of recoil. He'd struck a massive stone replica, an almost perfect replica of his wolf brother that had been shaped from the earth. Turning quickly Dairou spun, driving his elbow hard into the maw that threatened to clutch his shoulder, slamming the wolf down to the ground then pointing his sword at the beasts head.
"Two nights in a row? Come on Stamos, you should know better," the elemental laughed with a slightly cocky post-victory tone.
A massive boulder struck him sharply in the back of the head, his body slumping in a heap to the ground.
Dairou stared down at the wolf, a massive toungue hanging over razor sharp teeth as he panted, and as much of a grin as a canine could muster upon Stamos' face.
"You're a real bastard, you know that?" Dairou scoffed, shaking his head as he pushed down playfully on the massive black wolfs head. "You're damn lucky I don't get as serious as you do. Just you wait until tomorrow."
Dairou sat in his home looking out of an open wooden window, rubbing the painful crack on the back of his head as his fingers glowed white with healing energy, the pain subsiding over time. His home sat atop a mighty oak that stood alone from the rest of the forest, an ironic symbol of his own exile from the rest of the village. Much to his luck, the mighty oak offered its branches as refuge. While the elves, dryads, and elementals may not have shared Dairou and Stamos' thirst for vengeance, the beasts of the forests and the great trees themselves understood the blight of the two Shen and often offered their aid.
Dairou couldn't help but look out at the beautiful glade. There was great solace in living the loner life they lived, and there was always a great feeling of fullfilment when they were able to protect their home. However, it had been a few years now since any creatures of darkness had attempted invasion, and the pairs enthusiasm naturally began to fade over time.
Dairou let out a long drawn out sigh, his wolfen companion stretching out in unisen and laying his head down against the hard wood floor.
"One day," he muttered to Stamos in quiet contemplation, his eyes deep and full of thought as his arms stretched lazily across the table, "One day, we'll leave this place. We'll see the great cities and the other forests that the traveling merchants often spoke so highly of before the accident."
He turned to the wall, a display of his mothers jewels and his fathers massive sheild hung proudly. "We'll leave...But we'll never forget." He turned back out of the window and idley played with a knife on the table, his eyes dancing in their own reflection on the metal. "Nor will we forgive....."
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Guarded
