Is this corridor never-ending?
Her eyes searched for something she could cling on to, but, as she spun along with the current, surging down the Zarantulus corridor, it didn't give her much time for sightseeing.
A splash somewhere off to her right caught her attention, and dragged her eyes away from the direction that her tears were pulling her. A creature - pink in colour, with rounded mouse ears and a long tail - was paddling through the flood, muttering to itself under its breath. It must have been tiny in actual fact, but, with Lexi's height of three inches, it looked more like a walrus crossed with a platypus.
"Excuse me!" Lexi called out, causing the creature to glance over at her with interest in its eyes. Now that she could see its face, Lexi decided that it now looked like a mouse crossed with a hobgoblin. "Is there a way out of this pool?" She kicked her legs harder to try and catch up with it.
"A-swimming to the bank, be I!" It raised an arm out of the water and pointed off to a spot in the distance; Lexi could see the shapes of other creatures, convening together on the raised surface, out of the way of the flood. This seemed to be the best course of action, given their situation, and so, trying to ignore the aching that was starting to attack her arms, Lexi followed the hobgoblin-mouse towards the shore.
It was a strange party that had found its way to the bank, to say the least. Lexi wrung the water out of her skirt, watching the collected creatures huddling together, yelling angry notions at each other about being wet and cold and cramped. Each one had something familiar about them - a face she'd seen at one point, wandering around the human world. She picked out one of her unsociable neighbours amongst the gathering, and felt bitter satisfaction at the fact that the horrible Mr Winter had been given the beak of a chicken in this most puzzling place.
"You'll be a-shushing, you will!" The hobgoblin-mouse - Mousegoblin? Hobmouse? Lexi pondered - cried, before he cleared his throat. "We will be needing a method for drying ourselves." A hushed murmur fell over the gathered people.
"I could speak!" One of the group suddenly spoke up, making Lexi jump. "I be knowing the very thing to dry us all!"
"What will be that?"
Instead of answering, the owner of the voice - another mouse creature, but more humanoid than hobgoblin, Lexi reasoned as the speaker pushed strands of blonde hair out of her eyes - rose to her feet and began to recite in a monotone.
"The Kingdom of Eng-a-land would be found eighty thousand years ago, by a man of great power named Zebulon. He be creating the Kingdom because of the terrible conditions in other kingdoms - there be a burning sphere of flame in the sky one minute and then a pearl in its place! Have you ever heard of such a thing? - and he will be deeming Eng-a-land to be the land of the free to all who be living there."
Someone yawned loudly. Lexi rubbed her forearms, trying to generate some heat, for she was sure that she would freeze by the time this inaccurate lecture was over.
Thankfully, it did not last much longer.
"Aha!" The hobgoblin-mouse called suddenly. "A race! We must be a-having an Unpossible race!"
"You mean impossible," Lexi corrected automatically. The hobgoblin-mouse cast a confused glance over at her.
"Unpossible. I be meaning Unpossible." He scratched behind one of his pink ears. "Nothing is impossible."
"Of course it is!" Lexi protested, being hauled to her feet by one of the other animals. They all seemed very excited at the prospect of an Unpossible race. "A lot of things are impossible, such as humans being able to breathe without lungs, or humans suddenly evolving to be able to take in carbon dioxide and still able to live, or -!" She was cut off by a flurry of feathers and squawks, as the group bustled to one end of the shore, ready to start the Unpossible race.
It was a few seconds later that Lexi realised that the Unpossible race wasn't exactly a race in the human sense of the word. It was a cross between a race and a form of expressive dance; the creatures spun round and round in a circle, taking her with them, waving their
humanoid arms as they went, letting out squeals and snorts in some kind of rhythmic tune that Lexi herself could not follow. The hobgoblin-mouse stood in the centre of all of them and shouted encouragement at some of the younger animals, tapping his feet in time to the strange, uneven humming of the other partakers. Just when Lexi, her head spinning from being pushed and prodded around the circle too many times, thought that she was about to lose her balance and topple over, someone from the back of the line called out "The race will be over!" She collapsed down on the spot, dragging a hand across her eyes to stop her vision from wavering. She was much dryer and warmer than she had been previously, however - a bonus she had not been expecting.
"Who has won the race?" The blonde mouse from earlier cried out. "Who will be giving out the prize?"
"Why, she, of course." The hobgoblin-mouse fixed his beady eyes on Lexi, causing the other animals to turn and look at her. Lexi recoiled backwards slightly under the intensity of so many gazes. "She will be a-giving of prizes."
Prizes? "I give you, um..." She racked her brains as the rest of the gathering watched her expectantly. Her fingers searched through the pockets of her dress, until she pulled out a crumpled tissue, used to mop up a spillage of tea in her kitchen a few days previously. She silently commended her brain for forgetting to throw it away. "I give you all a piece of tissue to line your pockets with." This seemed to satisfy all the parties involved; there was a little scuffle when dividing up the tea-stained tissue - Should the little ones get smaller pieces because of their size? Should they have the fragments with tea on them, because tea seemed to be considered as something unheard of in this most strange land?
"You must be a-having a slice too," the hobgoblin-mouse insisted, handing back a tiny square of the tissue to Lexi, who, solemnly, placed it back into her pocket, so as not to upset anyone. It was probably best not to mention what happened to most tissues in human society. They were certainly not this valued.
When they were all settled once more, the blonde mouse called for more stories; the hobgoblin-mouse was prodded forward by Mr Winter, and made to stand in the centre of the circle which had formed once more.
"Tell us the story of the great flood!" Someone called out, making several others chime in with "The great flood, the great flood!", in voices of great excitement. Lexi briefly wondered what the great flood meant, before the hobgoblin-mouse began to talk.
"It be a sad and lonesome tale, the great flood! Before our time came, it is said that the great flood be a-caused by a giant, a monstrous creature who towered above the mere characters of the mirror realm. For thousands of years, the flood roamed, carrying many creatures towards their certain doom." Lexi frowned. The rest of the audience sat waiting with baited breath. "Then, one fateful day, poor souls who had been a-swept away by the villainous flood found refuge on an island larger than the sun! They were at last a-freed from the flood's vengeance!"
"That's just ridiculous!" Lexi jumped in. "The flood wasn't caused "before your time"! It was because I cried too much!" She couldn't stop the exasperated sigh from escaping her lips. "And I wasn't a giant - I was just...slightly taller than usual -!" Her outburst had sparked a flurry of panic to travel through the crowd of animals; several were already up from their seats and backing away at the knowledge that their supposed giant was now a three-inch-high blonde girl and that this had not happened hundreds of years ago, but no more than twenty minutes ago. Some had thrown down personal objects - fans, gloves, a walking stick - and were striding off into the distance, the flood and pool of tears clearly forgotten. It didn't take long for the rest of them to disperse, even the hobgoblin-mouse who had pointed out the shore to her, leaving Lexi once again in solitude.
Why did you have to open your mouth, Lexi? Why did you let your vocal chords free? She pushed strands of hair from her face as she pulled herself off the ground. Now what was she expected to do? She couldn't sit on this desert island shore all day; she should follow the path of the other animals. They wouldn't have gotten back in the water. The shore had to lead somewhere. All paths led somewhere.
She had not been walking for long - no longer than five minutes - when her ears picked up on the sound of footsteps approaching her. She paused in her step, straightening up, drawing herself to her full height - it didn't work as well as it worked when she was six foot - ready to greet whatever was coming towards her. Her shoulders relaxed when she saw the familiar scarlet Nekross-rabbit hopping towards her.
"Ah, Jathro," she began, even though she knew it wasn't really Jathro. "I'm glad you're here -"
"Hm?" Jathro's eyes narrowed as he took her in. "Why, Lucy, what on earth be you doing out here, in the middle of the great flood?" He sounded angry, talking to her with the same tone that Varg used to use when the technician couldn't fix something in the first five seconds. Lucy? Lexi opened her mouth to reply, protest, correct him, but he cut her off.
"Run home and fetch me my good umbrella!" He snapped.
"What's wrong with that one?" She gestured to the item hanging on his arm.
"What be wrong - This be the umbrella I use when I be visiting the loyal members of the royal court!" The look on his face told Lexi that this was something she was supposed to know. Although, loyal didn't seem to be the right word for a royal court. From her experience, she knew that there were many people who made plans to try and overthrow the monarchy. This peculiar world was not going to be different in that respect.
"Lucy!" He clapped, startling her from her momentary inner monologue. "My umbrella! At once!"
Is Lucy the name of his maid? Lexi wondered to herself as she hurried off in the direction that Jathro had pointed in. What if she's in his house? That could be hard to explain.
Although, given what he tried to do to her family, Lexi half hoped that this housemaid Lucy was there at the house so that she could give rabbit-Jathro the scare of his life. She wasn't kind enough to take pity on the murderous Nekross just yet.