BEGIN SESSION: TRAVELER'S SONATA

I'm wishing on a star...

To follow where you a r e...

4th Kingdom 11 AM

He sang the words idly, as they had become second nature to him, as he walked through the high wheat field that came up to his chest. Tilting his head up to the sun, he tried to estimate what time it was, but all that came from it was a quiet "aagh" from the pain of being blinded momentarily and him having to raise his arm over his eyes to shield.

"Noodles!" He swore, "Crispy noodles. That hurts. That last run got my wires crossed...have to check that.."

The man continued to mumble as he twisted his arm about in vain, as one can't twist oneself in the way he wanted to. So he walked along, swinging his key with one hand, and holding his other arm at an inhuman angle in attempt to get it to stretch further. Eventually, the mumbling stopped, and he went back to singing the same old song.

At which point he was bowled over by a blur of fur and flesh. "ExcusemeyoumightwannarunIdon'tthinkthey'llbehappywithyoueither." Could faintly be heard as the blur picked itself up and started dashing away. He was being pursued by very loudly yelling-and apparently not very happy- trolls. They were shouting something about scuffed shoes and waving various weapons at the blur's disappearing and occasionally stumbling figure.

"Oh, that's ver-very kindaaaa of you siiIIr..." The first man said rather tipsily from the impact, as he tipped his hat to the blur. And then, it all sunk in and his vision suddenly cleared just in time to see said trolls advacing very quickly. "AHHH! Trolls? I thought they were...oh bugger it..." And he took off running too.

The blur headed towards a clearing, swinging his pack around and pulling something out of a small side pocket. He swallowed it and disappeared into the oncoming forest. As his follower reached his hiding place, he grabbed his arm and yanked him out of sight. He looked quite nervous and was rubbing his hands together. His calico ears twitched, and his tail snapped back and forth. He grabbed it to keep it from giving away their position, and the trolls ran past.

He blinked. "Um...Hello. I'm Kit. Kit Bootz. Sorry about that; I can't help it that my boots are old, but they wouldn't listen." He sighed played with his tail nervously. "Who're you?"

"Tock Tsian--I mean...Tsian. My name's Tsian Tock," The man looked around and sat his key, and its gold trim glinted in the small patches of sunlight that fell around them. "And boots? Why are they chasing you over boots?"

Tsian looked down at their feet in comparison. On Tsian's, there were fine silk slippers. If it had been anyone else, they might've said they were sleeping slippers, but not Tsian. No, these slippers were made for traveling. Besides, who wore shoes when they slept? And then, he looked at Kit's dirty, worn out old boots. "Surely they weren't trying to take them, were they?"

"Well...I don't think so. They started yelling at me for not taking care of them properly. How rude! And ME of all creatures...I polish them every day! Mum yelled at me for it, even! They're just OLD is all. But nooooooo they got all bent out of shape over it. It's not as though I haven't been looking for new boots for ages, too. You'd think I'd set them on fire and ran around screaming that all shoes were evil and should be destroyed for how THEY acted. And look at THEIR shoes. I mean, they've no room to judge! How UGLY!" Kit blinked. "I'm ranting aren't I? It's just that..." He looked down at his feet. "I need new boots."

You couldn't see it, but Tsian was slowly edging away from the cat person. He nodded and smiled as he thought one should do when you're with a potentially dangerous ..cat..person..thing.. but in the back of his mind, he was plotting ways how to put the poor cat out of its misery using only a five foot long key, a bit of twine, and perhaps a passing furry woodland creature.

The cat person in question was yanking on his tail nervously, and then blinking at it as though dubious that that was the cause of the sudden jabs of pain in his...Nether regions. He looked up at the person in front of him, and really looked for the first time. "...What are you?" This question, which in any other world would seem rather rude, was actually legitimate in the Nine Kingdoms, and Kit didn't think twice of asking it.

Of course, it would be rather hard for him to tell what Tsian was. For the most part, he looked human, but something about him was...not right. His eyes, his skin, his hair... it was all too planned, too polished. And then, Tsian shrunk back as he realized for the first time what the situation was. Slowly, gold-plated wires stretched from his back to form wings, and he stuttered, as he leaned himself up on his key to run.

"I-I...I'm a nightengale..."

Kit blinked at the newly formed wings. "Do they work? I mean...Can you really fly? I mean..Wow. Nice." He smiled as friendly as he could and reached out a hand. "Nice to know there are other kinds of halflings around. Mum told me cats were the only ones I should worry about."

"You're not gonna eat me? Well, I mean, you can't actually eat me seeing as I'm made of stainless steel but there's no threat of you biting into me and getting electricuted, is there? I mean..uh." He stopped and looked stunned, his small eyes, one blue and one green, narrowing at him.

There was a repeat performance of the blink. "Wha..?" And then, the light dawned over Kit's horizon and he started laughing. "I'm a...Vege...Vege..Vegetarian!"

"Oh... you're a vege...vegget....veg...one of those things," Tsian grinned too and started to laugh, but then he remembered that there were some very perturbed trolls after them, and laughing was not the best thing to do right now. So he slipped his puppet-joint hands over Kit's mouth. "shhh."

Kit looked around. "Mmmf? Mmfmmfumifmmfmmfmef."

Tsian released his fingers from Kit's mouth. "What now?"

"They're probably far away by now, I said!"

At this point the trolls decided to jump them.

....And Tsian was already out of the bush, one very loud, mreowing ct person under his arm much like you'd see a football player carrying a football for a touch down. He pole-vaulted over a large log, using his key as the pole, and then there was a loud 'splash.'

"GETMEOUTTATHEWATERI'LLDEALWITHTHETROLLS!!!!!!!!!!! GET ME OOUUUUUUUUUTTTTT!" Kit flailed, splashing everywhere and smacking Tsian with his tail. "I HATE WATER!"

A spark emitted from Tsian's touch as he grabbed Kit quite roughly and then hoisted him over his head, carrying him like a canoe. A few more sparks rose from the water as Tsian carried him across, and all he could say was "mmph" as the sparks hit him. Occasionally, he hit Kit's head on a log, but eh, that was to be expected.

Kit's initial response was "Oh...Well that's okay then...Ow." The logs were not exactly soft, as opposed to Kit's head. "Ow. Could you stop OW doing OW! That?"

"Sorry, they just seem to get in my way at the last minute," Tsian finally said with a grunt as he sat Kit down within two feet of land. His shoulders sank, as his biege tunic turned mud brown from the water. He breathed heavily, gasping occasionally as a spark hit him. He looked up at Kit, and grinned a small smile. "But I got you out, right?"

Another blink followed, before Kit realized his boots were still not on solid ground. "Umm...Yeah." He started inching as quickly as possible towards land, and was grinning like the idiot he was.

Tsian slowly heaved himself out of the water, and laid at the side for a moment, as electricity criss-crossed its way over his body, and then shook his head. Platinum colored locks flew from side to side and hit him in the face. "Ow. Remind me not to do that anymore."

"Don't do that anymore," Kit said absently. He sat down against a tree, taking off his boots and dumping the water out of them. Fish and frogs and one unhappy turtle fell out, and he had to dig the various water plants out by hand. A cloth was produced and he began shining them vigorously, taking off more than he was spiffing up.

"Looks like you're winning a losing battle there, Kit," The nightengale said as he pushed himself up and looked at him, blinking a few times as his eyes focused on the catboy, and then on the key that sat beside him. Slowly, the bog came into focus too. "Now what..."

Kit looked up from trying to shoo away the turtle. "Hmm?" He looked around. "Oh...I dunno...I've never left home to be honest. D'you think there are any shoe shops near here? Any cobblers?" His eyes traveled back to his poor shoes, and he had to shove away the turtle again. The thing was trying to crawl into his boots.

"I don't know... what kingdom are we in?" He laughed, trying to take some of the oddity out of the situation. It didn't help.

"Who knows...Stop it you stupid reptile!" He shoved the turtle away again, knocking him against a tree. The turtle then started walking somewhat drunkenly and plopped down on the ground, obviously dazed.

"I think he likes you," Tsian commented, before looking up towards the canopy of gnarled tree branches that almost blocked out the sun entirely, except for a few glimmers of light here and there and the reflection of it in the water.

"Why me? Oi...You okay?" HIs ears twitching, Kit prodded the turtle with a finger and had to pull his hand back from getting bit. He grinned, and started dangling his tail in front of the turtles face.

It took all of two seconds for the turtle to catch it and a yelp to echo throughout the area.

The echo was followed by a large bout of laughter, particularly Tsian's laugh, which sounded oddly metallic. He fell over comically and twitched a few times, and was quite sure that his sockets were going to blow.

This response was met with a glare. "I am not comic relief." KIt tried his best to look un-comical, but the effect was lost with the turtle dangling from his throbbing tail. "Owww...."

"Sure you're not. And there's not a turtle attached to your tail, either." Standing, Tsian extended his hand to Kit. "Come on, no use staying around here, is there? This doesn't look like a cobbler's."

Kit pried the scaly shelled creature from his tail and set it on his shoulder. He hastily put his boots back on and took Tsian's hand, standing up and then brushing himself off. "Well, where should we go?"

"Someplace, anyplace. We could at least find out what kingdom we're in."

The turtle did a flying leap off of Kit's shoulder and started walking down a path. Kit blinked. "...I guess we follow him..."

"I guess so. Looks like we've found our navigator," Tsian said as he began walking down said path, which he swore hadn't been there five minutes ago. As he walked, he swung his key beside him, accidentally hitting a tree with it.

"Oi!" cried the tree. "Watch that thing!"

Kit dashed to catch up, almost stepping on the turtle when he did. The turtle just kept lumbering onward, making vague humming noises.

"Onward, into the setting sun we go!" Tsian cried, and then his attempts at being dramatic were foiled as he realized it was still very much daytime. "Or...we could just find a city, who knows?"

As the bog cleared and the path broaded, Tsian stopped for a moment. The sound of Kit and the turtle arguing was momentarily drowned out from Tsian's ears as he looked at moutains that seemed to begin just where the forest ended. He focused on a patch of red, just at the very top, and smiled.

'Don't worry, Ayame. I'll be home soon.'

"But I don't see any city! YOU'RE GETTING US LOST!"

Tsian laughed as he turned back to see Kit about to strangle the turtle. He would have succeeded, if the turtle had not latched onto his nose. There was much screaming. Tsian shook his head. "A catboy and his turtle.."

END SESSION: TRAVELER'S SONATA

PREVIEW SESSION: Electric Lullabye Due to a ...slight miscommunication with the local inn keeper, poor Kit and Tsian are tossed out into the cold, rainy streets! Everyone knows cats hate water, and Tsian just hates rusting, so our heroes search for some place else to stay. But where? And is that lightning? Wait... Kit...what're you doing with those wires?

Kit: Why are we still here?

Tsian: We're supposed to read something.

Kit: Why?

Tsian: I...dunno. It says here, 'Kit N. Bootz, Tsian Tock, and the Turtle are © The Two Coconuts.'

Kit: What does '©' mean?

Tsian: I think it means don't steal us.

Kit: ....Why would anyone wanna steal us?

Turtle: Hmm?

Tsian: 'The 10th Kingdom, however, does not belong to the Two Coconuts. It is © someone else...those important Hallmark people.'

Kit: Um...there's that stupid © thing again...

Tsian: Just nevermind it, Kit. Nevermind it.

Turtle: Hmmm-mm.

Kit: Won't that turtle leave us alone?

Tsian: You know, he'd make a lovely turtle soup.

Turtle: Hmm! HMMHMMHMMMMM-MM!

Kit: Sorry, not with ya there...Although we COULD use him as turtle wax..

Turtle: -faint-

Tsian: ...Well that went well.

-End-