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Post by 0 on Nov 21, 2017 0:23:11 GMT
There was an inconsolable "bwip!" Walsh squinted. That was the sound his watch gave when someone had just sent him a message.
God damn it he thought he'd put that on vibrate! Stupid feckin' technology couldn't even get its own controls right.
His eyes flickered to the side, checking to see if anyone had noticed his mistake. Everyone seemed busy with themselves, and so, after a second's pause he lifted the sleeve of his shirt, tapping one of the buttons beneath the narrow screen. He wasn't exactly social, so he expected the message to be in some manner official.
Instead, the message showed an unknown name and number for the sender. Walsh squinted again. A hacker? Or a technological possession--no, couldn't be: no energy signatures were going off.... Maybe a prankster who was just sending random messages to random numbers. A scam artist would usually be less subtle, wouldn't they...?
The most important question, however, was undoubtedly: should he respond to it? Under normal circumstances he wouldn't, but...these weren't exactly normal circumstances. He was dead bored.
Glancing up for a moment, Walsh lifted his other hand and typed back a simple reply through the numerical keypad: >>No. He had been tempted to answer otherwise, but his fingers soon showed him that he couldn't deny his job, much as he might despise standing around and doing nothing.
Although he halfway hoped that the sender was a stubborn sort and try to prod him for more.
After trying to turn it onto vibrate (and uncertan of whether he succeeded), Walsh turned the screen off, slid his sleeve back down, dropped his arms, straightened his back, and returned to the stiff at-attention stance he'd been holding for a while now. His break should be soon, but whoever was to replace him in the meantime was taking his sweet-ass time.
He glanced over towards the front desk again, noting that the man who'd waved the papers around was now pushing his way past the workers who were busy arguing. He watched his movements carefully, noting his position before letting his gaze drift again.
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Post by 0 on Nov 20, 2017 16:56:27 GMT
He glimpsed someone across the street. It was a split-second look, for a split second later his poor, marvelously long, pointed nose was being smashed into the pavement.
SunnyD squinted back against the pain, his muscles twitching at the sound of gunfire, shouts, and a body slamming against the sidewalk. Subtly he tilted his head a few centimeters back, peering out from beneath his brow. He could see the crease of a shoulder pressed against the concrete, a knee shaking behind it, and beyond that someone's shoes stamping across the asphalt across the street.
Said shoes were being torn apart as their wearer began to increase in mass and sprout thick hair.
While the stranger charged forward with a growl, SunnyD popped up to his feet, turning. He glanced over the one who was on her knees, four pairs of eyelids fluttering as she struggled to stay awake. Then his legs were churning, pushimg him back into the alley.
He hoped both things were enough of a distraction to make his escape, but, oh, if only fortune would favor him that day. Two more individuals appeared at the end of the alleyway, one donning plain clothes, the other in clear enforcers' attire; both holding weapons in front of them.
A stray shot was fired across his shoulder as he was ordered to stand down. Stand down? Why, that was a physical impossibility!
His eyes--and his feet--went instantly to a nearby dumpster. It was time for...HARDCORE PARKOUR! He bounced off the dumpster, fingers hooking around the fire escape across from it.
His legs flailed for purchase, and beneath his breath he was muttering, "Fuckfuckfuck."
Another shot screeched off the metal. The third didn't miss, but at least he finally managed to pull himself up, wincing against the brief pain in his shoulder. Unfortunately he was already starting to feel the effects, his senses starting to numb, his muscles weakening or outright disobeying him.
SunnyD started to pull himself up a flight of stairs until finding that was simply too much. He broke in a window with his elbow and dove through it, somersaulting across a shag rug and probably getting cut up along the way, but how should he know with the drugged bullet lodged in his flesh? He resisted the urge to give into the temptation to pass out as he pushed himself back up to his feet, looking for the exit.
If he was lucky, the enforcers would have to take the usual way to reach him (or some stroke of greater LUCK, COUGH, would reach the realms of possibility, HINTWORLDHINT), giving him ample time to make his escape--assuming he didn't faint first.
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Post by 0 on Nov 19, 2017 1:41:40 GMT
Crimeycriminycrud.
Removing itself from the empty object, the cloud flipped over itself at the ensuing silence, waiting. Nothing.
Alone again. This was depressurizing.
The number sighed, and after a moment more of staring at the dead metal, continued along the road, particles diffusing until it vanished into the fog.
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Post by 0 on Nov 18, 2017 19:57:12 GMT
Walsh remained still while Stewart set down his tools and reached for a walking stick. He made no move to stop the man from using it to push himself up.
"I don't believe it is," Walsh answered, then explained, "There's a warrant out for your arrest. You're slated for investigation, so I need to bring you in for questioning."
He kept his eyes on the man as he backed away a few paces, carefully adjusting the distance between the two of them. Unlocking the rear passenger door by pressing his thumb to a small black pad hidden on the underside of the silver handle, he pulled it open and said, "You'll learn more once we're back at the station."
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Post by 0 on Nov 17, 2017 21:57:09 GMT
Hrmhrmhrm. The bat eyed the small beast carefully as it began to curl up, pulling its fluffy tail around it as it became that distinct doughnut shape many small mammals of the land took when they were ready to sleep.
Her nose twitched, snuffling. She might now have the perfect opportunity now to exact her revenge, but...nah. She'd done enough, and who knew what other instant surprises could unfold should she make yet another attempt.
A bloodied tongue was passed around her lips, the stains rubbed from her face as the bat made herself more comfortable, folding her wings loosely around her body and letting her head hang for a few more moments, eyelids fluttering as drowsiness began to overtake her, before finally tucking her nose behind her wings.
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Post by 0 on Nov 16, 2017 22:15:27 GMT
"Sure are," he answered truthfully as the man glanced over with the question, hoping to keep the situation a calm, friendly one. Despite what he had to do next.
While his gaze was directed primarily at Stewart's face, out the corner of his eyes he kept a careful watch on the man's hands. After a beat he continued, "Mister Stewart, you're under arrest. You need to come down to the station with me. Will you drop what's in your hands and step into the back of the cruiser?"
Walsh didn't move yet, not until he saw what the other man did first. If he appeared to be cooperating well enough, Walsh would lead him over to the passenger side of the vehicle and open the back door for him.
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Post by 0 on Nov 16, 2017 18:12:20 GMT
Walsh noted the stairway beside the front door. Passing the detector to one hand, he pulled out a small square device from his belt, and set it down on the floor a meter off from the stairs, angling the face of the object upwards. It was a small motion tracker that would alert him should anything start to head down the stairs.
With that in place and activated, he headed further inside across the first floor. Books fallen from collapsed shelves rustled, stray papers and posters rolling like tumbleweeds across the floor. Aging electronics had crashed against shelves and walls, and some lighting fixtures had even been ripped from the ceiling, shattered bulbs and lamp casings littering the floor and small holes with wires left where the ceiling lamps had once been. The library was dark and silent, and the lingering energy was dissipating, if slowing down in its degradation.
His eyes were drawn almost immediately to where the floor had buckled like a crater near the front desk. It was as good a candidate as any for the core of the explosion, and it m if the library had a basement in addition to the second story. After passing the detector over it, he once more shifted the bulky object to a single hand, and lifted the sleeve of one of his arms. He pointed his watch towards the crater as he started to sidle around it, snapping a few photos from several angles.
He ended up behind the front desk, glancing over at whatever lay behind it. His gaze was caught by a light switch. Had the electricity possibly been knocked out by this, too?
Before he flipped it, he paused.
He hadn't given much of a glance to the parking lot on his way in, but with the sun close to rising he was sure the library would be opening within the hour, which meant two things: someone of the staff had to be around or would be arriving soon, and he'd need to set up some barricades soon so that no one, staff or visitor, tried to enter the library. He had a whole other floor to investigate, after all, and he hadn't gone through all of this one yet.
Walsh passed back around the desk, tugging some yellow tape from his pockets to pull across the opening that was left behind by the doorless front, and using that opportunity to give the parking lot a better look-see, his gaze passing from one corner to another before settling on the bicycle rack near the front. There was probably a back door staff used somewhere, but he'd wait on that one for the moment.
Circling the crater once more, he moved behind the front desk and set a device down upon its surface, this one a simple 360 degree magic detector.
Then Walsh flipped the light switch and waited for about fifteen seconds, no matter whether the few remaining lights turned on or not, his ears pinned to the silence. He kept his finger on the switch, expecting some of the exposed wires in the ceiling to spark, preparing to shut the switch off early should it prove too dangerous to be kept on.
After that test had been conducted and the switch was flipped back, should nothing too remarkable have occurred, Walsh would call out: "Who is that?" The question was carefully posed to make it seem as though he already knew or suspected someone to be present, a minor trick that the force liked to teach its officers. But of course he had no clue as to whether or not the library was actually inhabited at that moment.
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Post by 0 on Nov 16, 2017 6:52:12 GMT
A great battle was occurring in the harbor. While many ships already were or had set sail for the sea where they could fight at full force, others didn't have the chance to cast off.
Some ships had been sabotaged, pirates fighting against the light of fires and tromping across the docks
Pirates fought each other as they did out on the open ocean, sabotaging each other's ships or trying to move their vessels to more advantageous positions. Besides each other they had other demons to contend with, and, most recently, a flock of invaders upon the plane itself. Many bodies fell or were thrown into the waters.
The giant fish remained unaware of and uncaring for all the squabbling in the air and the land; all he wanted was the dying. He swam slowly, his pressure sense going off every time a ship began to split apart, its sound sending ripples through the ocean, or another body plopped beneath the foam. An oil spill in depths of ink, thin tendrils of shining mercury trailing from his wounds, he kept his mouth ajar, filter-feeding among the dead.
Although some bodies had become bloated enough to sink (or were simply naturally dense), many more floated upon the surface. Slowly he rose until his back began to crest the dark waves, moving in the languid arcs and swerves characteristic of many such sea serpents.
He didn't bother with the ships; there was no need to with so many bodies already drifting. He ignored any stray attacks that scratched his hide; when something hurt more than it itched he simply submerged for a few minutes, waiting for whatever it was to pass over.
Apparently not everything was so keen on ignoring him as he was of them.
A crest of light dove down beneath the waves, shining brightly through the murk like the beam of a lantern. Amber eyes turned to stare at the haunting glow as it bobbed and weaved among the currents like a dust mote against glass.
Whatever it was, it was clearly not suited to swimming. He began to swim towards it, but it had already kicked out, popping out of the ocean.
Seconds later and he was twisting against searing pain. Columns of bubbles roared out from his gills, the serpent turning immediately and snapping his jaws at the [relatively] tiny offender. He managed to catch a chunk of marble and a tooth clustered with feathers.
A line of light slid back out of sight, but a bright foreign glow remained in his back, golden instead of the silver of his blood. He twisted around, nosing at the wound while mercury poured out of it, its own dim glow dashed by what had been scraped and then shoved into his flesh.
The frilled shark pulled his mouth around the shining spear, gripping it with his strangely shaped teeth. He jerked back when the object touched his jaws, the light burning his maw.
A flicker of motion, light, and pressure alerted the serpent. He swerved out of the way, and the ray of light sped past him, down into the darkness.
The serpent swirled, rotated his body into a spiral, pinching his sides together into a tight, coiled loop. He expected that whatever was making the light to have its buoyancy bounce it back up as it had seemed to do before, and kept himself tense, ready to snap out like a spring let loose. Instead the ray shrunk into a sphere of light and the darkness slowly began to close back in around him. The dot began to sink.
Perplexed, the serpent relaxed his muscles, and slowly began to dive after the object. Second by second the light started to fade, the eel closing the distance between them.
A few bright lights knocked him across the face and the fish reeled back against the pain, swinging out with his tail. The light went flying and then it blinked out entirely.
The animal writhed in the water until the pain began to subside, whereupon he started to search for what had done it. A faint chemical trail led him deep to where the waters of the bright and the waters of the dark met, the stony body caught sinking between the two deepest points of each, its rollings and tumblings egged on by shifting currents.
Tentatively he nosed it, and when he felt no pain the serpent swallowed the carved marble. Then he spun about once more, searching his back. The light there had also faded, little more than a stone spear stuck in his spine.
He left it alone and returned to the surface of the darksky, gills fluttering as his head poked out above the waves. After snapping at a bat that flew too close he resumed feeding on the drowned, the sounds of conflict that traveled through sky muffled to a beast so at home in the sea.
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Post by 0 on Nov 14, 2017 19:27:00 GMT
shit. Shit. SHIT.
SunnyD wasn't easily upset. But this irked him. This really, REALLY irked him.
Reports were coming in left and right. Those aligned with Eden doing their job as they always had, only to vanish off the radar. Stories from the rare few who were able to escape by the skin of their teeth. Many of their people unable to reach their current hideaway in the capital city, stuck in the wilderness--or worse.
New procedures, new technology. Evasive maneuvers had to be taken fast, a retreat, a full stop ordered, but it was hard to get the call out in time. It was already too late.
SunnyD slipped down the cracked manhole, closing it up behind him, and crossing swiftly through the sewers until he found the way into their present subterranean base. He hurried past throngs of milling folks in the first stony room, human and inhuman alike.
Not many down there were unaware of what was going on, yet it only made the chaos seem even worse, many running round like chickens with their heads cut off, panicked workers rushing with no direction, no clue as to where the fire escapes were. Brushing past some familiar faces, he disappeared down a squared corridor, poking his head into a dark room filled with flickering blue screens and a trio who looked positively at a loss. Even SunnyD couldn't hide the worried crease to his brow.
His first instinct was to ask for the numbers, but he knew it would be no good. They were experiencing their own blackout.
His eyes snapped to one of them, her face more forlorn than ever. "You need to get out there," SunnyD ordered. "Everyone human needs to be out on the streets right NOW. Everyone else needs to be ushered out of the capital or lead here--"
There was a sound, a clatter of footsteps and shouts quickly rising. "They found us!"
"Shit!" The monitors in the room snapped, and bulky hard drives began to overheat. One was left behind while everyone else simply fell into flight-or-fight mode, trying to find their own way out of this mess.
This was what happened when they didn't have a leader, when they weren't able to keep on top of things while Sanctuary was continuously upping their game.
A cursing SunnyD was quick to slip out through a back way, dodging the beams of flashlights and reemerging from another manhole into a dusty alley. He wiped his fingerprints off the metal with his shirt, but left it open for others as he began to jog down the various side streets criss-crossing the capital city.
He didn't stop to catch his breath until a few blocks later, glancing around for any hint of cameras or enforcers.
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Post by 0 on Nov 13, 2017 18:52:47 GMT
The security raffle.
Every once in a while businesses liked to hire out for security, for whatever reasons; perhaps they didn't have their own security in the first place, or perhaps they needed an extra hand. Whenever such a call came to Walsh's district, they held a raffle. Every officer got their name put in whether they wanted it or not, and the police chief himself was the one to pull the name of the lucky man.
Lughaidh Walsh.
He tried to be cheery about it. Tried to see it as something new to try, but...SECURITY? Really?
All he had to do was stand around all day. It was easy money, sure, but it was going to be so. damn. BORING.
Not that wasting gas in a patrol vehicle pacing around such a peaceful, nothing-ever-happens-here district was much better--but at least he was his own man out there!
The newborn security officer stood at attention near the front doors to the building for repairs, stationed on the inside while another officer was stationed just outside, one brow twitching at the arguments of what were painfully obvious failures of mechanics. Great, and he got the GOOD posting too, didn't he? Man out there got to stand in the cold, but at least he didn't have a damn headache.
A man walked through the doors, splatting a series of papers upon the desk. Walsh gave him a glance, a subtle, suspicious glare that he often gave to just about anyone, before returning his gaze back on the glass doors, waiting for the clock to run out.
Happy days, happy days.
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Post by 0 on Nov 13, 2017 18:38:08 GMT
<'s eyes trailed back over to the large quadruped.
"No, no," he said with a shake of his head, "I am merely a visitor." He was no employee of the library, although...such work wouldn't be a bad secondary job, he reflected, IF he could read the darn books. He might have to give it some thought--later. "I speak of my personal stores."
While the beast brought down a book with some manner of magic, the crane straightened a few buoyant feathers upon his body, listening to the kemonomimi.
The last sentence brought a smile to the avian's face. Ah, children...a rather well-spoken child, but still.
"Would either of you be kind enough to point me towards the mathematics section?" he queried, not too interested in the other options that had been brought up. Although he knew he probably wouldn't be able to read the books, perhaps he might still be able to recognize whatever mathematical notation these languages used.
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Post by 0 on Nov 13, 2017 5:57:27 GMT
Dreams drifted, a wave of restful sleep returning him to the carnival.
The orange mouse stood atop the body of the snake he'd defeated in the fire, dancing joyously upon the flattened head of the fainted reptile. Once his jig was over, the rodent hopped off, pulling aside a few popcorn kernels to leave carefully scattered around the snake's jaw. Then he made a little raisin and went off on his way.
His nose directed him closer to the popcorn stand, and as he began to pick apart the crunchy white pieces with his teeth, a voice seemed to come out of nowhere. Distant, hissing, the words unheard and unspoken. His ears stood tall, but his whiskers twitched in an unworried fashion, the mouse enjoying his snack. Yet a minute kernel of...something began to wrap itself abreast.
He ignored it--until a shadow fell over him.
Something swift flashed to one side of his face, the mouse barely managing to roll out of the way and hop back to his feet. It came at him again, a blur of slashing claws and snapping jaws. His tail flared to life with blazing flames, and all at once it seemed as though everything became much clearer.
The smells of popcorn became stronger, the colors of the festival grounds flared so much more vivid, and the sounds of slowed laughter and dissonant music were now far louder in his ears. He could feel the dirt beneath his paws, a pebble pressed up against his heel, threatening to trip him up. A strong wind stirred up, blowing dust into the air, pushing that pebble into his back, and he could feel it all, from the breeze streaking his fur to the grains stinging as they pressed against his eyes.
As his foe struck out once again and once more the mouse leapt out of the way, ferns and grasses, rocks and trees sprouted from the soil, burying the sights and sounds of the circus, replaced by that of wood and wind and the blood pounding in his ears.
Dirt was kicked up from the last impact his opponent made with the ground, which was vibrating when the mouse landed. His tail swung out for balance, and in the next second he was knocked back by a powerful swipe that sent him flying between the leaves and stems, and extinguished the fire from his tail.
The mouse hit the ground hard, bouncing and rolling until his body slid to a stop. He pushed himself back onto his four paws, registering some scrapes from his tumble, and a few new scratches marring his body.
His gaze rose-- something sleek and brown flickered in front of him. Instantly the mouse shot straight up into the air --and his opponent did the same.
It hovered for a moment, brown and crooked, lean and hairy, a soft round face bearing a locked jaw, and two paws wielding wicked blades. Then it swung one of its stubby legs around, twisting its long body in the air, and the mouse was thrown back to the ground by both handles dug into his skull.
The force knocked the breath right out of him, and the mouse lay stunned for a moment, fingers curled up in the dirt. Nimbly the weasel landed in front of him, silent, a stoic face staring down at the dazed mouse. A slight smirk teased its lips, and it struck the blades together with a terrible sound.
Then it swung its arms back, and dropped one of the knives with a noise squeezed out from its tightened mouth. The mouse felt the other blade slice clean through one of his ears, and gave out a shout as he rolled away, tearing it off.
Dust fell from his paws as he stood himself up on two, blood running the ragged length of his ripped ear, ember eyes focused in a glare towards the weasel as it furiously began rubbing at its eyes. The mouse's muscles tensed, his whole body bursting into flame. The weasel squinted through an eye just in time to see a fiery column smash into its chest.
The weasel was knocked flat and the mouse bounced away, gaining distance behind a clump of tall grass. Between the blades, he watched the mustelid carefully. A foot twitched, but it was otherwise still.
The mouse straightened his spine and smiled, wiping the dirt from his hands. Just another day in the life of a mouse.
He kicked out with a foot, swung his body around, and started off, back on his merry way.
He gave a shudder; all of a sudden he felt all around cold.
Eyes drifted down- -a shiny silver blade. Struck through his abdomen, his chest, his throat longer than his feet, his tail.
The mouse tried to take a breath and instead swallowed blood; choking on it, he hacked, and a river of red ran out of his mouth. He stumbled, but couldn't fall; instead his body simply slumped forward upon the sharp edges of the knife, cutting into his lower jaw.
He didn't completely black out, yet a part of him seemed to float, allowing him a wavering view of the scene, as the weasel manipulated his limp body, drawing its other blade forth. It split his body into two jagged halves, flesh and organs spilling out onto the ground, then left it all there as it disappeared into the foliage.
Drearily the mouse's vision returned to his eye sockets, and he struggled to pull the pieces of himself back together. He didn't feel pain so much as simply...sick.
[ . . . ]
It took him a while, and beyond all sensible reasoning, but eventually he managed to pull himself back together, enough to start dragging his body across the ground, leaving a trail of blackened crimson behind him.
He felt dizzy and drowsy. His head burned, though his body was cold.
Somehow he drug himself out of the grove and back into the fairgrounds--no...somewhere else. He blinked a few times, the landscape wavering around him, shifting. In a few moments he was sitting on a boulder up on a hill, dead tired, weary beyond belief.
Muscles ached, and he could feel a sharp pain whenever he tried to move, as though all the tendons in his body had been pulled or torn, leaving him stuck in this one specific position. The mouse managed a sigh and sat still, eyes staring at what lay ahead of him.
Dry, pale grasses in the throes of autumn's end wavered in a light, chill breeze. Silver clouds rolled through a faraway sky, through which only the slimmest of golden rays could slip.
Down the hill was a long stretch of grassland, where between hill and horizon a small cluster of canvas tents had been pitched upon the landscape. Vardos and covered wagons sat in a loose circle around the tents; some of the uncovered carts were filled with hay bales or straw, others were piled high with pelts tied together, or various strange objects that had been roped down so they wouldn't roll out during travel through rolling wilderness. A menagerie of animals big and small mingled around the campsite; some carried boxes and crates, others seemed to box, dance, or perform various acrobatic maneuvers.
The mouse's ears and whiskers pulled forward in recognition. He knew this hill, that arrangement of tents. This was a time and place pulled right from his memories.
A blunt nose poked over the crest of the hill. The strain seemed to ease from his muscles, and the mouse stood up. A familiar shape made its way across the hilltop, sleepy grasses parting in his wake, rustling around the moving figure. An aging yellow-bellied marmot climbed laboriously up onto the boulder, followed close behind by a large number of much smaller rodents, and even a few who weren't rodents.
The woodland jumping mouse gave a short happy bounce. It was his old troupe!
The marmot deposited an armful of dry grass and firewood onto the stone, while others carried food to cook or eat, drinks to enjoy, or pebbles and woodchips to sit on.
A rough wind tossed everyone's fur about, and heavy objects had to be set upon the items so they wouldn't be flung off the boulder. The sunlight that passed through cracks in the clouds became slanted, nearly horizontal, and redder in hue, the evening wearing thin.
Everyone took their place around the piled wood, the marmot sitting tall with a piece of rolled tinder held high. "Here's to a warm winter, and another year of amazing performances!" rumbled the sciurid in a low, rough voice.
"Hear, hear!" clamored the rest.
The marmot struck the tinder with his teeth and dropped it into the firewood. White smoke began to rise in a steady stream, and within moments the fire burst into life. A strand of grass was tossed by each beast into the blaze, and the boulder exploded with activity.
The orange mouse's eyes were drawn to a fellow dipodid, a grayish brown southern birch mouse. He slid smoothly into place beside her, pulling a bowled rock from a pika as he did so, and putting it to his lips to sip the sweet juices from its cupped surface.
Swallowing, the jumping mouse began to chatter, "'Ey, 'ey; so did ya ever pull one over on ol' puffcheeks?" He thumbed in the direction of a European hamster, who sat alone with hunched shouldered in one corner of the rock, glaring daggers at anyone who drew too close to him.
The other gave him a look that caused his laughter to stumble. One glance through him and then her gaze was focused elsewhere. It was as though she didn't see him.
The mouse furrowed his brow and went on to drink the rest of the liquid--only to spit it out seconds later, the taste suddenly horribly bitter on his tongue. He dropped the stony cup, pulling himself over to where much of the food had been set. He began to peel the shells from seeds, popping them into his mouth one by one...no-go--he let them fall out of his jaws before they could slide down his throat.
He stared at the saliva-smeared seeds, which looked positively normal, yet they tasted so--so BAD. Tentatively, he tried a slice of pumpkin.
No--!
His heart nearly burst from his chest, his stomach nearly ruptured as he forced himself to swallow it, for he could not bear to let a pumpkin go to waste. Tears streamed down his face.
Oh, this was an absolutely terrible travesty!
The mouse wiped the tears from his cheeks, and as he looked back around at the dancing and talking animals, a flash of brown tore through the crowd. The mouse blinked. No one showed any sign of seeing it.
Perhaps he was just tired..., the second the thought crossed his mind, the flash reappeared, swooping in a downwards-upwards arc, and when it was gone, two shrews had vanished with it. Again, no one seemed to notice. A vole that had just been conversing with the shrews simply turned away, ambling over to a mole. They were the next to disappear.
The mouse's fur began to prickle. Second by second and two by two the congregation's numbers were reduced, and within a mere minute there was nary a beast left. And still no one appeared to care.
The orange mouse jumped into action, his tail alight, standing between the few who remained as he kept his eyes on the sky. Two more gone; one lash of his tail, hitting nothing but air.
Three remained, himself included. He shoved the birch mouse close to the marmot, and then stood tall on his toes, tail arcing and circling around them. He drew a whirlwind of fire just before the blur came again.
His whiskers twitched. The flaming twister dissipated, and no one remained.
The mouse bristled. "Come on out!" he shouted with a stomp of his feet, scanning the clouds, the grass. "Show yourself and fight me!" A sound like stone on stone sounded from behind him, and the mouse whirled around.
Leagues taller, a great horned owl loomed over him, yellow eyes gazing down its hooked beak. "And whoo are youu?" it spoke in a poised, staunch voice that almost seemed to purr from within its throat.
"My name's Pumpkin, and I'm going to beat you up!" His feet launched him from the rock at blistering speed, only to be knocked back to the stone by an imperceptible strike from the owl.
"Lucky shot," he growled, wiping a nodule of blood from the corner of his lips while he stood himself back up. "Try this!" He leapt high, trying to come at the owl from the top instead of the front, and was promptly shot down again.
The mouse rolled to his feet, crouching low. Maybe he could knock the owl off-balance by striking its legs--nope. His head spun.
"I don't fight mice," said the owl, watching the mouse with wide, staring eyes. "They're harrdly worth the moorsel they provide." It hadn't moved an inch from its position, not even shifting its head to keep an eye on the rodent.
He tried again, and once more he came nowhere close to actually coming into contact with the bird. His mouth cracked open for wider breaths, the blood pumping steadily through his veins.
"You embarrass yourself," the owl continued. "You cannot win."
"A mouse never gives up!" the mouse snarled, more so to himself than to the owl. Day in and day out, mice had to struggle to survive--they couldn't give up, in body as much as in mind...the second they did, it was over. He shan't be the one to put the lives of countless nameless mice to shame. "Stomach THIS!"
The owl sighed as it once more swiped the mouse back to the stone. "Your antics grow less amusing with every failed attempt."
The mouse was standing still now, his chest heaving. In cross-crossing stains blood, bruises, scrapes, and scratches littered his body. His legs shook.
On his next attempt he was left on his knees, struggling for breath, for strength.
The owl finally made its move, unfolding its wings as it took a step forward. "Your spirit may be strong, but your body is weak," it said. Shadows swept over the mouse as the avian's wings formed an umbrella overhead, walls of feathers closing in around him, the owl's sharp face pulled between the wings, eyes glowing in the darkness. "Why not let me help you?"
"I don't need it," he snapped, biting air when a feather came close enough for him to catch, but which, of course, blew out of the way before he could manage it.
"It's either that or I'll eat you."
The mouse was silent, glaring defiantly into the yellowed, shining disks that were the owl's eyes. He couldn't fear something he'd come close to so many times before. He refused to be intimidated.
"Suit yourself," the owl breathed, and a barrage of colors flooded the mouse's mind before everything went dark.
Pumpkin startled awake. He felt very sore...and wet. Why was he wet?
He blinked, whiskers turning about him. It was very dark, and he could feel walls surrounding him. He sniffed, nose met by the strong smell of earth.
Somehow he'd gotten into a burrow.
His muscles felt very sore. He could almost hear his body creak as he stood himself up, pulling his body out from beneath the ground.
A dark nose popped up from the soil, his bright orange fur following after. Cold air whistled through his fur, and a yellow moon struck pale light through the tree branches.
The mouse stretched, listening to the silence. He felt a twinge, and his gaze drifted, noting a few new burns across his body, blood...smeared across his body...and--he felt his heart hammer.
It looked as though a massive slice of fur had been cleaved from his body, a distinct scar running from the bottom of his chin and down past his stomach, looking as though it had only recently been stitched together by some unknown force. He gave a gasp and twisted about, trying to see if the same applied to his back, but of course he was unable to bend so far around.
He finally noticed the burning, and prodded lightly at one of his ears--half of it was gone, the ragged edges sticky with freshly clotted blood.
"Uh...uh--uh-uh," he stammered quietly to himself.
Impossible.
Had the two-headed snake done all this to him? Why? HOW? The giant scar on his body...that couldn't be reasonably explained. ...Had the winged snake itself even been real?
He peered about, searching for the serpent. He neither heard, nor saw, nor smelled anything that might suggest the reptile was nearby at that very moment, and within seconds he had fled into the foliage, searching for a safe place to bury himself, to bed down, not trusting the burrow he had somehow found himself waking up in. Not that he would be able to sleep so soon after this, what with his mind stirring and all his senses on high alert.
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Post by 0 on Nov 12, 2017 22:14:56 GMT
Feathers bristled briefly from atop his shoulders, the crane quickly glancing down the aisle of bookshelves, away from the conversing duo. Apparently his move wasn't as subtle as he had tried to make it seem.
After a moment the bird removed himself from between the shelves, stepping back out into the open. A meek grin creased the corners of his bill as a wing was lifted, brushing against the back of his head.
"Sorry, sorry," he said with a laugh, hoping to ease any tension. "I don't mean to eavesdrop, I only...." Actually, he didn't have a good excuse; he had simply been curious.
The avian cleared his throat, apologized again, and pulled at the feathers of his chest with the primaries of his wings, as though he were straightening the lapel of a suit.
"Perhaps I can help?" he offered as an amendment to his misstep. He wouldn't mind in the least; quite the contrary, he'd be delighted to offer his assistance. Yet, for all he knew, the library possessed the knowledge which the two sought, and his offer was far from necessary.
"I possess private scrolls charting the geometry of various dreams, and books relating operands and operations." Dreamscapes tended to be very shifty and unpredictable places, and yet patterns in the permutations weren't entirely uncommon. Unfortunately the way he worded it made it sound more like he was talking specifically about mathematics, or only mathematically based dreams.
"And I'm sure I have a page buried somewhere for what you seek," he continued, turning towards the child with beastly ears and tail. He didn't know much about souls himself, but he had always liked to collect odds and ends when it came to disciplines besides the subjects he specialized in; there was some likelihood that he had something on the matter somewhere. In fact, he thought that he could recall reading something similar before while rifling through his pile of gathered documents...but had it been on soul contracts, or was it instead on crooked contracts?
There was a pause before he added, "But I could also tell you that you should simply find the one with whom you've drawn up the contract. Better to dissolve it mutually than risk breaking it and ruining yourself in the process. It would be such a waste."
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Post by 0 on Nov 12, 2017 19:14:54 GMT
The rabbit grinned at the feline's comment about burning out. "I'm used to it," she said.
She'd run all the borders of the entire island, after all. --Well, not in one day, of course: it had taken her a whole season to do that. She was sure she could handle a mad dash to mountains she could see just on the horizon. Now, whether the feline could....
The rabbit's ears pulled forward as the feline took her up on the offer to lead, and began to jog at a steady pace. Oh...so THAT was the speed she was going to take up.
Awkwardly the rabbit tried to keep up, shifting between an oddly fast lope and a painfully slow dash. Her long feet beat an inconsistent rhythm on the hard, sandy soil. She shifted constantly between meeting at the feline's side, then falling behind as she tried to match the pace, only to do it all over again. It quickly began to wear on her nerves and patience.
Dumb bunny anatomy. She wished she was a hare, although she might just find the same problem waiting for her there, too.
She was soon trying to think of solutions.
The last time she had traveled alongside someone else, it was with an albatross flying high in the sky at speed, and she'd been able to keep pace with him from ground level at an easy run; 'course for the bird he was soaring, no effort being wasted on his part. They didn't always maintain sight of each other, but managed to meet up in the end regardless.
It seemed strange having to suggest a similar course of action to a fellow land-runner, but she couldn't think of another strategy.
--Aside from asking to ride the feline's back, a passing thought which she quickly pushed out of the way. And she'd considered herself embarrassed before...hah--if she made such a request--! Her paws were perfectly fine; she didn't need to be carried around like a limp lizard.
With that in mind, when next she came up beside the feline, the rabbit gave her a glance and said, "Maybe I'll just run on ahead. I'll keep a straight course and meet with you at any noticeable landmarks." If anything cropped up in the meantime, they could discuss plans there, or otherwise wield their own wits about them.
Golly, who knew wandering with someone could be an expedition in its own right?
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Post by 0 on Nov 12, 2017 5:29:49 GMT
The gorilla is late. Everything is late. Even the rain is late...in stopping.
Hopefully that message of import does not have an expiration date.
You might notice the pigs from before walk past your lean-to, holding high on a plump purple pillow the banana with the yodeling snail. They soon disappear, the rain drowning out the snail's singing.
The barrage of bakery produce continues, storming into a series of baguettes that rattle across your candy cane lean-to. When the wind picks up and heads sideways, you have to be careful to not get knocked out cold by the hard-packed bread passing under the lean-to's roof. Eventually, however, the rain eases into a soft shower of rainbow sprinkles.
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