[hr][center][color=808B96][color=00BFFF][h2][b]T a f f y[/b][/h2][/color]Southeastern Mir [b]-[/b] The Fall[/color][/center]
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[i]Finally, words that actually make him sound he's got a real brain inside that prickly skull of his![/i] thought Taffy as Max suggested the group move along.  She had started to get annoyed enough with Xell's veiled stabs that she was glad the Draconi was keeping his distance from the group proper, or she might've tweaked his ear rather soundly...or worse.

Not that she hadn't had her own heart leap into her throat the moment that the newcomer stepped out of the underbrush and trees.  Her own experience with the Fall had left her less superstitious than most, but it also put her on edge in case she ran into [i]that thing[/i] again, and the newcomer had been big enough with her wings wrapped around herself to give Taffy a momentary flashback that made her want to stab something.

Fortunately, very fortunately, the moment passed quickly, and Taffy was almost relieved to see the mutant wolf girl there instead.  Medically speaking, such hybrids were still quite rare among Novans, whose genetics usually tended to firmly favor one of the parents' species or another, rather than muddle the two up.  But the hybrids occurred with enough frequency that it was a requirement of study in case a doctor needed to treat one - and that could be tricky indeed, since more often than not, the hybrids had quirks that made their innards as much a hashmash of features from different species as their outer selves showed.

As far as Taffy could tell, though, the new arrival looked fairly harmless in the flashlight beams leveled at her.  The fact that she held onto what looked like a map also indicated she was probably lost, which further tempered Taffy's reaction.

The raccoon girl opened her mouth to say, "Max is right," but her teeth ground shut the instant she tried to say that, and she sort of gurgled instead.  Then she unclenched her teeth and changed her tack by saying instead, "Come along with us, we can figure out how to help you find where you're going once we get to safety.  My name is Taffy Tanner - what's yours?"

Some more introductions were shared, and Taffy got the impression that the demure newcomer, Sashrya by name, wasn't going to be causing any trouble for the group directly.  She seemed nice enough, and Taffy felt automatically a little protective of her, though she couldn't quite put her finger onto why.  Nevertheless, Taffy continued to lead the way, as the night's darkness seeped through the leaves of the thick canopy above them.  A small worry at the back of her mind nagged at her that the group was making far too much noise and attracting too much attention, but there wasn't much she could do for the time being - at least, not without screaming "SHADDAP!" and that would just be counterproductive, so she grumbled to herself instead.

It did not take long for the group to arrive at a small clearing Taffy had run across before.  A peculiar set of sculptures dominated the middle of this clearing, lit enough by the moon to cast long shadows across it from each sculpture.  These vaguely humanoid statues were crafted by some unknown hand long ago out of a mix of metal scraps and woodwork, and were a bizarre enough landmark that Taffy knew where the group was exactly just by seeing them.

A chill ran down her spine, though; seeing the statues with their bizarre, almost meaningless poses in the dark made her feel a little on-edge despite herself.  Some of them were posed like dancers, while others merely stood at attention or squatted in place.  Some of the statues had tails, while others did not, further obscuring the original artist's possible identity as to whether they were Miran or Novan.  A breeze whispered through the chinks in the framework of the sculptures, creating an eerie noise that whistled and moaned before it died down and left a silence almost as spooky as the noise had been.  And in the night, with only flashlights to guide the way, it only added to the surreal quality of this strange landmark.

"We can take a quick break here," Taffy announced after walking up to the statues and turning around to face the group, her back to the statues and her own body partly covered by the shadow from one of them.  "It isn't that far now, maybe another mile before we see-"

She was interrupted by the looks on the faces of the others as they tensed and looked slightly [i]past[/i] her.  At the same moment, she saw one shadow move around on the ground and heard movement behind her, and realized too late that one of these statues [i]wasn't[/i] a statue!  She whirled around, one arm lifted to guard herself while the other raised the flashlight she carried like an all-too-small club, and she found herself facing...