Dinn sat in his lab, reading away at a report from one of his research teams. He sighed as he pushed one of his red locks out of his eyes. So far all of their research was inconclusive. The rabbit sighed as his red eyes turned to one of his flopped over ears, and the green marks it bared.

“Am I ever going to figure this out?” He closed the file and set it aside, stretching as he stood. Dinn looked around his laboratory, brightly colored test tubes containing various bodily fluids cluttered his desks. He lifted a bright green colored tube in his hands and examined it, as though he could unravel the mystery of it by just the naked eye.

It had been two years since Dinn’s mentor had died, leaving him in charge of all of his studies. Since then, Dinn had collected over two hundred samples. Dinn’s mission that he had inherited from his late master was to unravel the biological secret to people’s connection with the elements. After the time of the Temples, a hybrid age of science and magic began. The people became reconnected with the spirits, but they had figured out that spiritual power is not the only reason they could do the things they could. Each person has two elements, these elements are determined by the time and place you were born under, just as they were in the days before the temples.

Dinn placed the tube back in it’s holder and looked around his lab once more, his hands on his hips. So far all that has been discovered is that people of different species somehow connected more strongly with one element more then others, even if they were not born into the sign of the element, but the reason why has yet to been determined.

Dinn turned his head toward the entrance of his lab as Jolt, a tall gold and black lighting dragon, entered. Dinn slowly walked over, extending his hand to the dragon. Jolt gave a weary smile and clasped hands with the considerably smaller rabbit.

“What brings you to my lab, Jolt? I haven’t seen you down here in over a year.” Dinn smiled up at the dragon.

“Believe me, I’d rather not be here,” the dragon sighed. Dinn did his best to stifle a bit of laughter. He knew Jolt hated science, and was fond of the old ways. “However,” Jolt continued, pushing his hair away from one eye, “Jiji is, yet again, among the missing. Cryptic asked me to check down here.”

Dinn’s ears stood up. Jiji? The Prince? Down here?! Gods save me! Dinn wearily looked around his lab. “I’ve been down here a good long while, and I haven’t seen him.” The rabbit’s tail twitched nervously. The Prince, Kwan-Ji, had a habit of sneaking up on poor Dinn, and had a great love for pouncing on him and embarrassing him in front of the Gods and everyone.

Jolt looked over the rabbit and smiled. It was quite comical how flustered Dinn became whenever he knew the Prince was lurking. Jolt looked around the room for a moment. Nothing seemed out of place, then again, he’d only been down here perhaps twice, and the last time was over a year ago, but to his Dragon eye, it seemed normal.

“I’ll leave you to whatever you’re doing then. If you see him, just do the normal, and we’ll come get him.”

“Ah yes, the Normal, quite good at that.” Dinn sighed and walked back to his desk. The “normal” was basically Dinn yelling his head off about whatever Jiji had managed to offend him about. Jolt turned and squeezed through the small door, his wings straining against the frame.

Jolt continued up the stairs, happy to be leaving the dismal lab. A sigh of relief exited his lungs as he reached the top of the stairs and walked through the door, into the court yard of Kwan-Ji’s Palace.

Jolt looked around at the odd teal shrubbery that Dinn had given to Jiji as a gift, he said they were found in Asia, and that Jetta, the red panda that ruled the area, claimed they were good to have around for positive energy. Jolt ducked under one of the branches as he walked through the grass, toward the fountain in the center of the court yard. The fountain was a project that Jiji had worked on with one of the citizen crafters, they had a grand time building it, and became quite close, Jiji was very upset when the elderly man passed.

Jolt sat on the cold granite of the fountain, looking up to the dark sky, the many stars filled it with small shining flecks. He looked to his right as he heard foot steps. A tall white wolf with many markings of many colors walked up to him.

“Any sign of him yet?” The wolf’s eyes showed worry. Jolt shook his head and smiled. He knew how close Cryptic was to the Prince.

“’Fraid not, Cryptic.” The large white wolf sighed, running a hand through his red and white hair.

“He’s going to kill me, I swear he wants to kill me.” Jolt laughed.

“You know the Prince likes to play around.”

“He could at least tell us where he’s going!” Jolt shook his head at the wolf and stood, walking toward the gate. As Jolt looked on the gate he noted that Jiji’s home wasn’t really a castle so much as a manor with six foot high brick walls surrounding the Victorian styled home.

Cryptic followed him, sighing. His nerves couldn’t take this. The Prince, the one he dedicated his life to protecting, never seemed to stop or slow down. He just carelessly ran about the city, sometimes the country, acting like a cub.

The youthful wolf looked to the large redwood tree that stood just outside the wall of the manor. It had been there for a very long time, some say it is the last in the world. Cryptic smiled slightly, remembering the day he realized his duty to the young prince.

“Cryptic, don’t do it! You’ll get hurt!” The snow leopard cub called from the ground, to his friend on a high branch, halfway up the astoundingly tall tree.

“It’s my Dad’s Favorite hat! I have to get it!” The white wolf pup looked down to where the prince stood and gripped the trunk of the tree tightly, his claws digging in as his vision swooned.

“Cryptic!” The Prince called from the ground, seeing his friend’s grip wobble.

“I’m okay! Stop distracting me!” Cryptic looked up, his green eyes setting on the white beret that was a good twelve feet above him caught on a branch. His father had it blown off his head the day before while patrolling the outer wall of the mansion. The hat was a gift from his late wife, and he was very upset to have lost it to the great tree.

The small pup gathered all of the courage in his body and swiftly began to climb the last stretch. As he reached for a branch with his right paw, his left propped on the branch his feet were set on, the branch beneath him cracked. The young wolf let out a scream of surprise and fright as the branch broke and he began to fall. This was his end, he was going to die, and he knew it, tears swelled his ears as he hurtled toward the ground.

Suddenly he stopped, he felt the small paws of the prince gripping his left ankle. The tiny prince had climbed the tree, about a fourth of the length Cryptic had, just to make sure his friend was safe. When he saw the branch break and his friend begin to fall, he scrambled his way up higher and braced himself to catch the falling pup.

“J-Jiji?” Cryptic looked at the straining face of his friend.

“I got you! I promise I won’t let go!” The young cub’s arms trembled, he was hanging from the branch by his knees, barely holding his grip. As the young wolf pup began to swing his body to try and gain a grip on the branch, Jiji’s legs gave out and they began to fall again, Cryptic, in a state of rushed panic, pulled his friend closer to him, pushing his head against his chest, wrapped his arms and body tightly around him to shield him from the fall.

The pair of young ones fell to the ground with a loud thud, the wolf pup had landed on his right shoulder, the impact broke his shoulder blade and fractured half of his collar bone. He whimpered softly as he looked down at the prince. The prince whined and looked up at his friend, then in horror sat up.

“Cryptic! Are you hurt?!” Tears swam from his black and teal eyes as he jumped to his feet. “Don’t worry! Stay right there, I’ll get help!”

The young snow leopard darted off toward the gate of his home. Cryptic laid there, holding his shoulder in pain, tears leaking from his eyes as he waited for Jiji to come back. It hurt so much, and he didn’t even get his father’s hat.

A few moments later the sound of a heard of feet came running up, the light pitter patter of Jiji’s leading the troop. Cryptic looked up into his friend’s worried eyes and smiled. He hoped that Jiji would always be there for him and that they’d never be apart. The pup’s smile faded as he gazed into the angry grey face of his father. As his father lifted the small pup into his arms, Jiji clung to his leg.

“Is Cryptic going to die?” He sobbed, nose and eyes running. The stern face looked down at him.

“No he is not but you are both lucky that you aren’t dead.” The elder wolf raised a paw and one of Jiji’s nurse maids collected him. Cryptic was silent, his ears laid back against his head, eyes set on the floor as his father scolded him harshly while the doctor set his cast.

“You could have killed yourself! And what’s worse you put The Prince in danger! Your duty, your life, is dedicated to protecting Kwan-Ji!”

“I didn’t ask him to go up the tree!”

“But you know he doesn’t want you to get hurt! You know he’d put himself at risk for your sake!” The wolf turned and looked at his sobbing son. He sighed and moved over, hugging his son. “You’re my son, Cryptic, I love you, and I don’t want to loose you.”

“DOG BREATH!” Cryptic shook his head and looked over at the dragon. “Jeeze stay focused, will you? I said we’ll look for Jiji at the pub.” Cryptic nodded and followed Jolt out the gate, hoping they’d find the prince there.


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© Jiji and Danny Darkpaw