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"Geryon, huh? Now that is one I wouldn't have thought of... never expected him to go that far. He's warped enough to try it, yeah, but more perverted than anything. So who got to him? Someone is twisting his arm no doubt, like you said, but he tends to stay out of the political arenas, preferring to toy with lower folk as he calls us, ignoring his kin." sighs Emnast shaking his head.

"Politics... this has to do with politics?" echoes Mara in affronted confusion.

Ari's eyes get wide with fright as she gets a brief internal download on demonic conflicts. "Why... why would they try taking us on, we... we're not demons... are we?"

Her worry seems to have drifted through to Ai for he looks down with a sigh and shakes his head slowly.

"No... no demons are we, though once long ago they were as we are now.... it's a long story, Princess, and I thought your father told it to you. He was supposed to have done so...."

His broadcasted sending reaches everyone but Mara, who looks confused. Almost she can hear him, like a voice far in the distance, faint and indecipherable, but there all the same.

"What did he say... what did he say?" she demands worriedly.

"Oh, that...." mumbles Mara softly, looking a bit put out. "Daddy tried to tell us some really strange story about how he and Mama lived far far away from here so long ago none of this was here... and that there was a big fight and all and he did something very bad that got him banned out of their homeland... but who is going to believe all that? I mean... he's not that old... really... is he?" He was really upset and it didn't make a lot of sense, so I kind of thought he was trying to tell a tale to explain something, but that it really wasn't true."

Emnast chuckles sourly. "Let's put it this way... yer Mama and Daddy are older than dirt... actual... factual... no kidding."

Then he turns to Kero with a troubled frown. "I could have thought you told me she was imprisoned...."

"Didn't I say that putting him in charge of her punishment wouldn't work? Sheesh, she has him wrapped around her little finger. Oh he'll get angry enough to fight her for a bit, but she bats her eyes, looks so convincingly put upon, moan abut how no one understands her and bingo, back to square one." grumbles the dragon angrily.

"Ye should have tossed her into the deepest pit, give her a taste of her own medicine for a change. Humiliation only angers her. So I take it, she was after you and not the kids?"

Ari looks distant for a tiny bit, then laughs nervously. "Mama says to tell ye to have the pain killers ready. You ripping down his shield is going to give him one hell of a headache."

As they enter the cave gently leading Ai, who seems a bit befuddled still, they can see Bez circling high in the air over the island. Suddenly he darts off to the north causing Emnast to stumble to a halt. "I surely hope he hasn't spotted another wave."

Kero shakes his head. "I don't feel anything untoward. But then I didn't feel anything to begin with either. Go on in, I'll check it out. Ari tell Ai what I'm doing, ok, so he can be ready to raise his shields again if necessary, but tell to wait until I find out what's wrong.

He finds the dark skinned giant hovering in place staring off at the horizon, at a storm front slowly moving their way, that looks anything but natural. It spans the entire horizon, with dark massive clouds, whose darkness is broken upon occassion by red flashes of light.

Bez gives him a serious look. "I don't like the look of that, not one little bit."

Bez gives him a troubled frown, then darts off to where the fighting took place. But no one is there. Frantic, he stumbles about calling for them, then suddenly a small dark lioness darts from the underbrush and crashes into his leg.

"Daddy, Daddy... come quick, Mama not well, Mama not well at all." cries Mara the urgency in her voic cutting through his panic like a hot knife through butter.