Darkness had descended over the island. Used to living off of little sleep, I had been walking for almost an hour after it had set. Instead of following the usual trend, the sounds of nighttime calmed me. I would not deny for a second that I used to be deathly afraid of being caught without light, but now it empowered me. Of course, my biggest ally was the night.
She stood by me now I knew. I couldn't see her, but I could sense her presence. I felt her demonic gaze traced at me, examining every step I took with a keen eye. I wasn't sure exactly what she expected of me. She just sort of stood back and let me do my thing.
"You will be called upon when the time is right." I remembered Maxwell assure me.
"I've seen how you work. You are cunning... devious. You are perfect."
I straightened my posture, stopping as I felt gentle waves lapping against my paws. In the distance, over the sea, I heard the high-pitched noises of bottlenosed bolphins sleeping after a long day of play. A couple wobsters were having a mock fight in a patch of blueish bioluminescence, while- if I strained my ears really hard- I could hear the distant sounds of the tiger shark- Tiger Lily- put her four sharkittens to bed.
I wasn't sure how long I had been sitting there. The sun was rising when I found myself being flung from my stupor. Unsure of exactly what had caught my ear, I sat in silence a few seconds longer. I froze as I heard someone shout something. Then I heard him cuss. It was normal of course. I understood all languages native to this land, so I often heard animals say stuff.
This was in English though.
I had never seen a human before. I only knew the language from the broken tongue the wildbores spoke. My instincts kicked in and I fled up the nearest tree, hoping that the bark of the palm would help to hide my brown fur.
He obviously hadn't been here long, since he stumbled out of the bordering jungle looking like he had been pulled through a thorn bush by his hair. He had a curly mess of gray hair despite his obvious youth along with a patch of facial hair that surrounded his mouth. He wore a white shirt which had been all but ripped to shreds under a tattered blue vest. What might have been the most interesting thing about him though was the small red object on a strap around one shoulder and a white bag around the other.
"I do not like this one bit there's nothing good to eat here and everything wants to kill me!" He barked.
Just to prove him wrong and get some kicks I promptly ripped a coconut off of the tree I was seated on and chucked it at him before hiding behind some leaves. Apparently I aimed a little too well because instead of landing by him it actually hit him in the stomach. I cupped my hands over my mouth trying to keep myself from laughing.
"I told you so Walani! I told you everything wants to kill me!" He shouted into the trees. The blow had knocked him over but not driven the breath from him. "A coconut just fell from the sky!"
"Relax Wally!" Another person- Walani I assumed- pushed aside a branch to reach her fallen companion. "We've been here for a day and it was only a snake!" She had black hair put up into twin buns on either side of the top of her head with small red ribbons keeping them in place, two golden hoop earrings in her ears and a red shirt tucked into a belt with a large, tan buckle. She was holding an oddly shaped plank of wood with a red stripe in the center of it and a chunk taken out of the top.
"No- Walani the coconut just tried to kill me! And my name is Warly! Not Wally!"
I nearly fell out of the tree as I officially broke down in a fit of laughter. Well, it would have been 'nearly', but after a few seconds of trying to keep my cool I failed and fell into the sand ten feet below. Is it sad how used to falling off of such heights? The two must have heard my fall because instantly Warly had jumped to his feet and was looking around, terrified. "Sh-show yourself!"
"I'm not afraid of showing myself," I managed to reply between gasps of breath, finally scrabbling to my feet. "Okay, hahahaha, my name's Wilbur." They gave each other funny looks.
"You can speak?" Walani asked, not sounding particularly interested.
"Hardly!" I flicked my tail at Warly's exclamation. "Its English is so broken- it's hardly English at all!" His voice was really, really, really annoying.
"Is it? It sounds perfectly normal to me!" I protested. "And for your information, I am in fact a 'he', not an 'it'. So, you're new?"
"First day," Walani answered. Judging by the tone of her voice, she really didn't care.
"Lucky for you, you ran into me before you ran into anyone else."
"We ran into the accursed snake!"
"A snake isn't going to kill you." I puffed my chest out. "I might. Depends on what the voices say." Silence greeted my words as I let them sink in for a few minutes before continuing. "I am the boss around here. What I say goes. I am known as the Monkey King. Which means I am the king of this place and everything on it: That crabbit, that wobster... you."
"Wait... excuse me?"
"Actually, now that I think of it, I'd better stick with you two to make sure that you aren't going around breaking my island."
"So what if we break one of your 'rules'?" It sort of erked me how calm Walani was acting around my barely concealed threat. "Don't worry, I'm not going to be doing much rule-breaking... actually, I don't plan on doing anythi-"
"You were the one that threw the coconut at me!" Warly cut her off to shout at me.
"Guilty," I grinned. "Hey, you were the one complaining about food."
"I don't understand much of what you are saying, but I understood food. Do you know where to get some of that?"
I stared at him for a few seconds. "Um, crabbits? Wobsters? Berries? Aren't you looking around here? Okay, you know what? You stay here, I'll be back in about two minutes with a full meal." No wonder humans don't survive around here. They have no instincts!
By the time I got back to them- they actually listened to me. This'll be so fun- Warly had placed his metal red thing on the ground. The top of it was off and there was the starting of a fire under it. "What is that?" I asked him as Walani retrieved the berries I had collected.
"I'll show in you a second if you don't throw anymore coconuts at me," he replied defensively with a semi-hurt look.
"Trust him. He showed me it yesterday," Walani assured me. I flicked my tail, slightly annoyed that they wouldn't tell me but interested nonetheless.
"Hey, I said nothing about throwing no more coconuts," I pointed out as he poured the berries in the weird metal crate thing. "I like coconuts. And I like throwing coconuts."
"Uh Walani? Do you want some?" He offered, sounding the slightest bit embarrassed.
"I think you're the only one hungry, Wally."
"Um, I think it's Warl-"
"Wally, Wally's fine," he interrupted, and I couldn't help but laugh a bit again. I wasn't going to deny the way he seemed to pay more attention to whatever he was doing as if he was hoping to hide the way he had blushed at Walani's nickname for him. Oh how cute.
Apparently this was gonna be what I was stuck with for awhile.
It doesn't matter. I have a feeling this will be...
entertaining.
A/N: Hmm... anyone else hearing 2D's speaking voice from Gorillaz for Warly's voice...?
