<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-size: 175%; line-height: 116%;">A Tale Of Time Untethered</span></span><br/><br/><br/>The castle was dead silent. Most people would find it eerie and unnerving. Out in the courtyard, everything seemed that same apart from being a little more overgrown than normal. Inside however, it was chaotic. There were statues everywhere, in the most inconvinient of places, and not the normal kind, these were all extremely detailed and lifelike. Most were frozen in fear, alarm painted across their faces.<br/><br/><br/>At least Lily didn’t have to look at the poor souls, sitting in the high up rafters of the castle, away from their lifeless forms. If anyone were to catch a glimpse of her crouching up there from way below, they would assume she was a regular statue, a gargoyle. It was probably the wings. They were quite large and leathery, rather like a bat’s. Right now, they were folded at her back but they were definitely noticable. Sighing, Lily blew a tuft of brown hair out of her face and leaned back, dangling one leg over the edge of the roof. She knew it was extremely selfish but a small part of her was glad that all of the people were gone. She could roam without worrying about being hunted or having arrows launched at her midair. And there was no more screaming and running. Last time she’d gotten an arrow through the wing, it hurt.<br/><br/><br/>Of course, all of that peace and quiet could vanish in a mere instant. And vanish it most certainly did. There was a series of crashes and the unmistakable screeching, metallic howl of a grimwire. leaping to her feet, Lily dived off the rafter and flew  in and around the castle’s towers until she spotted the source of the disturbance. There was an entire pack of grimwires, at least six or seven of them and they were ramming themselves furiously at the portcullis of the castle gate. What they were trying to achieve, Lily didn’t know.<br/><br/><br/>“Stupid creatures…,” she muttered, landing on a portion of slanted tile roof. Then, she saw their reason and it became oh, so clear. There was a person in the castle gardens and they were on the other side of the gate which was moments from being broken through.