://Beginning//:

..Far within the Lesser Altadorian Range, a small clan of mountain ixi lived, their hooves hard and tough, and their fur thick. Amongst their clan, all of the ixi had been born and raised in the mountain pine forests, the people of the sky. They worshiped the sun and the moon, and were nomadic, traveling south in the winter into the foothills where toadstools and shriveled berries sustained them over the long winter. In summer they moved north to their traditional gathering place where they stayed throughout the short summer months feasting on the spring growth. The leader of their herd was a buck named Calaster. He had dark, russet fur sprinkled with pale blue, and piercing blue eyes, his underfur the color of old straw. His son, a young buck by the name of Barritone, would take his place one Calaster had perished. His so was a well-mannered, strong, brave, dashing fellow, exactly the kind of buck that the Mountain herd valued.

..But, one day, a tiny, delicate little Plains Ixi arrived on the scene. Her herd had been obliterated by the brutal wildfire season, and she was alone, scared, battered, and had no idea how to live on the mountains. Her fur was pale pink, and she had chocolate stripes. Barritone fell in love with her. His herd grew resentful. But one dow in particular grew more and more bitter. Revina, the doe who was arranged to rule the herd with Barritone. She loved him, yet she felt nothing but bitter hatred towards the doe who had stolen her love from her. She took on the open post of herd healer, and her heart turned as cold as ice. Secretly, she hid in the woods practicing witchcraft and consorting with all kinds of despicable beasts. She was determined for revenge. She festered in her envy and anger and pity, it turned inward and destroyed her soul. One night, she knew she was now strong enough to do the deed. She cursed the union of Barritone and Alinea. So one day when Alinea grew pregnant, Revina knew that revenge was close at hand, she felt the darkness flowing through her veins. The anger.

..Deep within the labyrinth of the dim, quiet, murky forest, unknown to the world, and alas, unnamed, a plump doe cried. Her stomach was rounded like a well-watered pumpkin, and streaked with dark sweat. Her sides heaved and the doe staggered, her knees buckling as she let out another raking cry, that brought tears streaming down her face. Beside her, stood a tall, proud-looking buck, his pelt a light maroon speckled with pale cream like a fawn. As his doe cried, the buck bent down, peering at her with harried eyes, his expression stricken.

.."The herbs!" he gasped, a blank look of shock degenerating his composure as he stood there, "The witch mixed them up!"

.."Barritone!" the doe yelled, panting for breath, "I need, I need shelter!"

..The buck jumped, suddenly alert he spied the jagged, gaping entrance to the cave. With a start, he nudged Alinea to her hooves, murmuring softly to her, "Just to the cave, that should be safe, come dear."

..With a heavy groan the ixi staggered to her feet and meekly she picked her way up the stony path and to the cave. Inside, she collapsed upon the carpet of thick, dank leaves, her chin hitting the floor, her eyes wide and panicked.

..Darkness descended upon the small forest.

://Part Two//:

..Ten years later, a young doe sat in the middle of the forest. The fateful night that she had entered the world was far from her mind. She sat in the clearing with the one forest ixi who had found her, mewling in the brush. Her friend Blasche perched beside her atop a rock. Together they gazed up at the stars. The young doe looked nothing like either of her parents, with sky blue, fine, silky fur, pale pink lateral stripes, three on each leg. Her cheeks were a silvery-raspberry hue, that gleamed metallically in the moonlight. She bore a star-like symbol on her forehead, and lilac streaks licked her ankles and up her lower legs like slender flames. Of the same color, a massive snowflake-like insignia decorated the middle of her back. Her hooves and horns were pure, gleaming silver, and a mop of dirty fawn-colored hair trailed down a long, stringy braid, the tip decorated with beads and feathers.

..Her friend, a young forest buck, was the purest white, his back flecked with chocolate and pale green rosettes like those of a cougar. Down his spine, was the unusual decoration of a row of raised feathers in alternating shades of brown gold and dark blue. His budding horns were gold, honed to sharp little points, the fur around them dark blue. His ears were colored with a dark blue cross at the center of each ear, and his ankles and tail too were colored the same shade. His eyes were thoughtful and golden, and his cheeks too were silvered.

.."Have you ever heard of the tale of the great tree?" Blasche asked his friend.

..After she had been found, the young doe had been taken in by the forest ixi herd and had quickly befriended young Blasche. He was rather odd, unusual, distinctively dreamy and yet with a heart of the purest gold. He had been kind to her, and seemed a lot like her, so the young ixi had quickly befriended him.

..Kyla_Desmond responded with a sigh, "The great tree, what do you mean Blay?"

.."Well," Blasche explained, "Marionna always used to tell us about the Yggdrasil, or the world tree."

.."Oh, I know!" Kyla exclaimed, "The tree that's as tall as the stars and as wide as the sky!"

..Blasche nodded, "They say that a tribe of ixi live in the crown of the tree. It's branches are actually other trees, growing from it's trunk!"

.."I know," Kyla grinned, "It's like a forest within the tree, and the tree within the forest."

..Blasche shrugged bashfully, "I'd love to go there, you and I. We could be the first forest ixi to climb the Yggdrasil. We would be famous! We could actually meet the Tribe of the Elementals up there!"

.."Really?" Kyla smiled shyly, "I'd love to see the giant tree. Maybe we could jump from it and fly."

.."You think?" Blasche asked uncertainly, "We'd fall like rocks!"

.."Not if the Elementals taught us to fly," Kyla retorted. It was the young doe's greatest ambition to fly. She longed to fly. To soar with no earthly restrictions to hold her back.

..And something, something more tugged at the back of her mind. But whenever she tried hardest to grasp it, it slipped away.

Three Years Later . . .

..Now Blasche had matured into a fine young buck, a member of the herd's honorary guard, brave strong, yet inside, he was as sweet as nectar, although he tended to get more excitable around his best friend. Kyla two had grown into a beautiful young doe. She was the pride and beauty of the herd, her stunning coloration baffling all and awing them besides, her deep, twilight sky eyes filled with stars. She was turning fast into a bookish, stubborn, but placid young lady. She too had begun to start shaping up to her place in the clan, and her quick learning and nimble hooves had set her up for a front-line place as healer/hunter, an apprentice to the current healer, she also accompanied the herd's gathering and tracking patrols to find food.

..However, both young ixi had a secret that not one member of the herd was aware of. They had a plan. Around mid-summer, the pair would run out on the herd in the dark of night, forging a living in the depths of the forest, picking their way one hoof at a time, closer to the Yggdrasil. After three years of spending countless hours researching the subject, Blasche and Kyla had finally uncovered the location of the World Tree. The home of the elemental clan of high ixi.

://Mid~Summer//:

..It was the middle of the night, tree frogs croaked throatily in the moss, and the trees whispered quietly in the moonless night. Kyla Desmond stood outside of her shelter, gazing up at the tiny, pinprick stars gleaming bitterly down from the pitch black sky. She waited in silence, ears pricked and alert, her braid wrapped around her long, curved horns. Her eyes gleaming in the darkness. At last he stepped out of his own small fir-bough abode. Blasche, his fur as white as the stars Kyla watched, the row of feathers along his back bristled, his sweeping tail of peacock plumes, tipped with the colors of the rainbow. Blasche lowered his head, and playfully butted his friend. Kyla snapped around, her expression changing from alarm to joy.

..Together they set off across the hills, towards their dream, towards the Yggdrasil.

://Late~Fall//:

..After months of traveling across the world, Kyla and Blasche were at last coming tantalizingly close to the Yggdrasil. The forest that they walked through now was of the biggest trees that either ixi had seen in their lifetime, massive redwoods towering up, as tall as the sky. These trees themselves seemed to be giants, but according to myth, they were like toothpicks before the Yggdrasil. Kyla bad Blasche were in euphoric moods, both ixi had spent the day traipsing across the forest, through grassy meadows and groves of massive redwoods with trunks as wide as ten normal trees.

..That evening they sat on the edge of a lake within the cone of a long-extinct volcano, admiring the cerulean waters, and the beautiful setting, and the taste of victory that was just beginning to form in their mouths.

.."It's such a beautiful night!" Blasche grinned, flicking his tail feathers in the water so that droplets flew into the air, against the sunset sky.

.."Just think!" Kyla exclaimed jubilantly, we're almost there! We might be flying in less than a week!"

.."You might be flying you mean?" Blasche returned with a laugh.

.."Never mind," Kyla shrugged, dipping her hoof in the placid water, "Let's go for a swim!"

..Blasche gave her a funny look, "A swim?"

.."In the lake silly!" Kyla smiled, and with a running jump, she dove into the crystalline water.

.."Wait up!" Blasche called, an soon he too had plunged into the water, his tail feathers floating on the surface as he stood in the shallows.

..It was a beautiful evening, the sky thick and heavy with a kind of sluggish humidity, beautiful purple clouds accenting the horizon. It was perfect, happily the pair swum out the the little island in the middle of the lake, like the pupil of a big blue eye, and they lay in the sand, fur sticking together, sand caking their features. Kyla began to laugh, and soon both were laughing as hard as they could, an especially rare sight for Blasche who was usually a quite serious young buck. They laughed together until they were dizzy, heads spinning, sides splitting in the sunset.

..Kyla grinned dizzily as she let the sand scratch her cheeks. With a smile, she tugged Blasche back into the cool water by the tips of his tail. He followed her in with a screech, his hooves scrabbling in the damp, clumpy sand as he fell back into the lake water.

..Blasche gave his friend a twisted smile as he looked at her. She gave him a wolfish grin before turning and diving beneath the retreating sapphire tide. The scent of honeysuckle blossoms hung on the air. Suddenly the peace was shattered by a gust of icy air.

..Blasche and Kyla snapped around, exchanging a quick glance, they gazed at the sky. The glorious sunset was steadily being engulfed by a bank of quickly-approaching clouds that blotted out the last beams of sunlight like the darkness itself was eating the sky. Kyla began to paddle frantically towards the opposite shore. Their retreats grew more and more frantic as a sonic boom of thunder rippled the air and another gust of frigid, rain-bitten air washed over them, this time bearing on it the hint of ozone that preceeds any bad storm.

..With a scream of wind in the giant trees that surrounded the small caldera, the clouds engulfed the sky. Lightning crackled and the wind pulled the water into the rocks. Kyla's head burst above the water, and she let out an appealing scream, her heart thumped frantically in her chest.

.."BLASCHE!" she cried, swallowing water.

..Coughing and paddling frantically to stay afloat, she tried to propel herself out of the water to peer over the waves that seemed to increase in size as the wind grew stronger and stronger.

.."Kyla!" Blasche yelled, his voice faint, and nearly obliterated by the crash of thunder above their heads.

..Kyla knew it was no use, but as she swam for her life, she began to sob, cries raking her body, she pleaded to the sky,to the great ixi of the Yggdrasil, for her friend and herself to be spared. They were so close, so close.

..But her cries were in vain. With a scream like a dying lion, a frenzied bolt of lightning stabbed at the island, electricity ran down the massive trunk, through the water streaming down the roots, and into the lake. Kyla's head exploded with pain, she zapped out, somersaulting down and down and down to the bottom of the lake. Stillness. Paralyzing stillness. Death. The End.

://Grand and Destitute//:

..Kyla awoke with her head feeling like a bowl of soda. Her brain buzzed, painfully. Her limbs ached, what had happened? It felt as though someone had taken a mallet to her legs. Her forehead seemed to pulse with a head-shattering pain, her veins pumped pain, her blood was pain. Creakily she lifted her head, she seemed to be laying on a large pad of moss. She was rather surprised that her whole body wasn't in a cast or the like. With a small groan, she pulled one leg out from her body. With a small groan, she staggered to her hooves. Looking around her, she found that she was within a small, musty, cave-like shelter. The inside walls smelled like damp tree bark, and a shaft of glorious sunlight filtered through the large, round circular door, that looked out upon what appeared a long, long walkway, ending at, what was perhaps a group of green tents. Of to the side of the walkway appeared to be a large column of dark stone. Poking her head outside, Kyla let out a scream of amazement, followed by a beast of a sob.

..Suddenly she remembered, everything. Blasche's terrified cries, the jolt of lighting, the fire that burned down her veins. Kyla collapsed on the surface of the smallest twig of the Yggdrasil. Yes, the Yggdrasil. The young doe had finally achieved her dream, she had made it to the world tree. But she never would have done it without her friend. Her friend who was now gone. Gone forever. Tears streaked her cheeks, she gazed down the massive trunk that was indeterminably wide. Leagues below was the redwood forests, the trees were indeed as small as pinheads beside the Yggdrasil.

.."ITS NOT FAIR!" the young doe screamed, "IT'S JUST NOT FAIR!"

.."Life isn't fair," came the unexpected response.

..Kyla spun around, angry tears in her eyes, "Of course it isn't fair! I've just lost my best friend!" she cried mournfully.

..The ixi standing behind her was a picture of beauty, she was a purer white than even Blasche, and her fur was decorated with a pattern that resembled a simplified swan, traced in ebony on her white fur, her hooves, tail, and ears all a sharp-granite grey, her eyes as black as night, and yet filled with the heavens.

.."Hi!" The ixi smiled,"Welcome to the Home tree."

..Kyla nodded miserably.

.."I'm Life," the strange ixi grinned foxily, "You can call me Liff though!"

..Kyla gasped, her mouth dropping open, "You're the life elemental!"

..Liff gave a twisted half-smile, "What of it, I'm just a little older than you, I can be mature when I want of course. I can control the throes of life, and accompany the strains of death, but I am, or once was at least, a normal ixi."

..Kyla nodded, she felt like crying again. She didn't think that she could go on without Blasche.

.."You and your friend, well, you may find this hard to believe," Liff smiled nervously, "But, we, well, Aqua was watching when you got pulled into the lake, we, you, you're lucky she found you," the ixi stammered.

.."I'm not so sure," Kyla frowned bitterly, "I'd rather die again than enjoy this without Blasche. He was the one who inspired me, he led us here, it was his dream above mine. Now he's gone."

.."Gone?" Liff asked, "I think you'd better come see."

..Kyla stepped back up to her hooves and quietly followed Liff as the ixi made her way back into the room within the tree. Liff grabbed a pine-sap torch in her mouth, and, with a prod of her hoof, opened a hidden door. Kyla followed Liff down the cramped hallway, decorated with strange artifacts, and with many separate corridors branching off into the light outside.

.Kyla lost track of how many turns and twists they took as they wound their way deeper and deeper within the World Tree. Finally they reached a large cavern where no light from the outside reached, and the air was still and as chill as death. The room was lit with several massive mushrooms that glowed in blues and greens in the darkness. At the center of the cave was a large, still pool of water that seemed to glow cerulean blue from some source deep below the surface. Laying on a pillar at the center of the lake, surrounded by all of the clan of elementals was Blasche, his body still and unmoving. The elementals stood around him in a circle, hooves half in the water, yet strangely suspended on their hind legs, front limbs branching together to form the points of a star as they circled him, chanting some strange rhythm.

.."Blay!" Kyla yelled, the tears falling once more down her cheeks, she ran to her friend, breaking through the circle of elementals, she skipped over the water as though she were as light as air, and she stopped before her friend. She crouched before his unmoving body, tears falling freely onto his fur, her tears glistening on his cheeks.

.."Blay, my best friend," she moaned quietly, stunned beyond comprehension, her heart numb, her head blank, "Blay, I'm here, at the world tree, like we planned. I'm here."

..She broke down, she shattered, she crouched above him in disbelief. At last she turned to Liff, "Do something!" she croaked.

..Liff merely shook her head. Kyla sat there until she could bear it no longer, and looking down upon her friend, she planted a small kiss on his cheek, and, without a second glance, she ran from the cavern, not caring which direction her hooves took her, only wanting to escape.

.."Kyla, wait!" Liff called.

..When at last Liff had caught up to her friend, she persuaded Kyla to return, "Please Kyla, you need to see what you've done!"

..Resignedly, Kyla followed, determined not to look anyway.

..This time, as soon as they had rounded the turn, something knocked the breath out of her. Something was squeezing her so tight that she could hardly draw breath. Then she saw the gleam of white fur, she smelled the forest ixi scent.

.."BLASCHE!" she screamed in delight, jumping up and down she hugged him as hard as she could, jumping up and down in joy.

.."KYLA!" Blasche cried, echoing her amazement, "What happened!"

..Liff grinned broadly, "Come in, and we'll explain everything!"

..As it turned out, the two ixi were the fated pair of legend, the two supreme elementals. After their death, the other elementals had no choice but to infuse them with all of the elements to save them, making Kyla and Blasche both elemental, and immortal. The last element that Blasche had needed to be revived was love, and Kyla's intense bond of friendship had saved him.

Aah! Thank you so much! They're beautiful! I love them so much =D