AN: Hello again, my freaky darlings! Continued thanks for your reviews. I must let you know, posts may be a little bit erratic from now on, as school starts tomorrow. I will keep working on this, and it is my intent to be able to post on Tuesdays. You may throw rotten fruit at me if I miss an update.
Zai'hwetha, my freaky darlings!
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Chapter Seven: Guns, Gryphons, and Gray
The Nautilus
The League- or most of it- gathered in the conning tower of the Nautilus as it cruised the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Portugal. A salt-scented breeze blew, delightfully refreshing when taken with the bright sunlight.
"This is a whole lot different than riding a paddle-boat," Tom Sawyer said conversationally.
Quatermain sat behind him, cleaning his big elephant gun in silence. Sawyer, fascinated, turned around to watch.
"So, you named your gun, Mr. Quatermain?" he asked in an attempt to make conversation.
"Matilda."
"Who's Matilda?" the young American asked eagerly. "Somebody special?"
"My gun."
Sawyer swore he heard a soft chuckling, but no one was around to have made it. The sound was an odd one- it seemed like it had gone straight to his brain while bypassing his ears entirely.
You walked right into that one, pup.
Sawyer looked around for the soft voice with its distinctly feminine overtones, but saw no one who could have made it.
Right into it, with eyes WIDE open. The "words" were accompanied by a mental image of himself, eyes wide and with an idiotic grin on his face, walking straight into a pit trap.
"Who's there?" Sawyer asked sharply.
"What's that?" Quatermain asked, looking up from Matilda.
"I could have sworn I heard someone talking to me…" the young American trailed off as Quatermain smiled.
"Look up for your culprit," he said.
Sawyer heard a birdlike chittering noise from above him and looked up. Perched on the very top of the conning tower was a bronze-colored, half-avian creature with leonine hindquarters and black markings. It- or rather, she- clung to the hull with four sets of sharp talons. One labradorite-colored eye winked at him, and then she leapt down to the surface of the deck and landed with a thud.
"Did I fail to inforrm you of my ability to communicate mind-to-mind, Sssawyerr?" Daria somehow managed to force the human speech from her large hooked beak. It was intelligible, but marked by hissed sibilants and slightly growled r's.
"Uh, yes Ma'am," Sawyer said. He hadn't gotten a very close look at her last night when she'd taken the form of a large bronze-feathered gryfalcon, but now he realized just how big her chosen shape was. Standing on all fours, her head was easily on a level with his own, and her falcon-like beak was a good nine inches long- plenty long enough to decapitate a human. Her talons –nearly as long as Sawyer's fingers- would be nothing to mess with either. It was a testament to her skill and reflexes that Hyde had managed to avoid being sliced the night before. Black tipped the feathers of her ear and tail, and her ear-tufts were of the same color, while metallic bronze with hints of gold glistened in her black-barred crest, and the last eighteen inches or so of each of the great wing primaries were black as well.
Daria dipped her head in acknowledgement. "How rrrude of me to do sso. My apologiesss." she said, her beak open in a grin. "Now you arrre informed. Ssstand back."
Sawyer complied as Daria spread her long pointed wings and leapt off the side of the Nautilus into full flight, pulling up well away from the surface of the water. The young agent glared after her. "I'm not a pup." he muttered rebelliously.
All right then, kid, came the playful response.
"Ya just can't win with some people…" He turned away and spotted Mina further down the deck. He watched her surreptitiously.
"She's out of your league." Quatermain commented, noting Sawyer's object of interest.
The young agent smiled with more than a hint of good-natured American cockiness. "Fortune rewards the bold, Mr. Quatermain," he said cheerfully. He stepped toward the graceful vampires with his disarming grin firmly in place.
"If you require help during the voyage, Mrs. Harker, just let me know," he told her as he opened the hatch for her.
Mina, aloof as ever, let him work at the heavy contraption. "Help? I'm curious as to how you think you could assist me, Agent Sawyer."
Sawyer struggled with the wheel, still grinning. "Oh, heavy lifting. Light banter. Whatever you need. I'm a useful kind of guy."
She studied him coolly as he finally managed to haul open the hatch. "You're sweet. And you're young. Neither of which are traits that I hold in high regard."
Sawyer, to his credit, maintained a straight face as Mina descended into the interior of the submarine ship. "Well, you're sure to the point, Ma'am. I'll give you that."
Gray followed a moment later with a smug smirk so refined that one would have to be an immortal to have cultivated it, clearly enjoying a moment of enjoyment at the agent's personal expense.
Nemo approached those who remained on the conning tower. "The solar panels are fully charged." he announced. "We'll be diving in a moment. Please come back inside."
"Ah, good," Sawyer said, trying to clamp down on his humiliation.
There was a rush of wings and a thud as Sawyer followed Gray into the confines below. Daria shook out her wings and folded them neatly, looking at the hatch with a certain amount of distaste as she shifted back.
"Do you dislike confined spaces, Miss Noclaf?" asked a timid voice behind her. The Tau'ka turned to see the nervous Henry Jekyll standing there, fiddling with a pocket watch he carried in one hand.
She nodded. "I tend to be a bit uncomfortable in them," she replied honestly. "It's funny, really, considering that my own ship has less elbow room than the Nautilus and that my people construct underground bases. I'm really an Air-oriented person, to tell the truth- not fond of water or being enclosed."
Jekyll looked thoughtful. "Is that why you take the shape of that…uh…"
"Gryphon- technically a gryfalcon," Daria supplied, hauling open the hatch to let Jekyll go in first. It took a few seconds of forceful mimed communication for the doctor to get the point. "Among my people, shapeshifters tend to only take on one or two shapes with any regularity. Those forms are called 'shapes of inclination' and they are directly related to the personality of the shifter."
"So as an 'Air' person, you take a form that lets you be in that element?" Jekyll asked dubiously.
Daria noted his unease. "Don't be offended if this all seems to have a pagan bent." she said. "My people never got Christianity. Anyway, your conclusion is correct. Gryphons- and by extension gryfalcons- are primarily Air creatures, with a good deal of Fire and Earth mixed in for good measure. I've been told that I have a rather dominant sort of personality-"
"You got that right, love," Skinner's disembodied voice floated out of nowhere.
"- and you can't get a creature much more dominant than an aerial predator, now can you?" she continued, ignoring the thief.
Jekyll seemed to have put his theological issue aside for the moment. "So, where do these 'Fire' and 'Earth' aspects come in?"
"We maintain the tradition of connecting Earth to stability, and Fire to protection and combat."
"Fire 'as other connotations as well," Skinner put in, a hint of amorous mischief in his voice. Daria glared at him, blushing slightly. She glanced at Jekyll out of the corner of her eye. The nervous man seemed to have not understood Skinner's reference, although she knew exactly what he was referring to.
She paused suddenly. She thought she had heard something- not a physical sound, but one on a telepathic 'frequency' that she rarely listened on. It was 'lower-pitched' than most mind-voices she was accustomed to, nearly at the lowest range of her psychic hearing.
-n't trusts her, Henry. She doesn't smell rig-
"Shut up," Jekyll murmured quietly. His voice was low enough that Skinner wouldn't have heard him, but a Tau'ka's ears were far sharper than any human's.
-enry, don't do it-
"Shut up!" Jekyll hissed again. Daria frowned. Evidently, whatever she was hearing, so was he. That was odd.
Jekyll looked up at her. "M-my apologies, Miss Noclaf," he stammered, "I have to go." He turned and fled down into the corridor, leaving Daria standing alone and confused at the base of the ladder.
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Gray padded quietly down the hall towards the engine room, observing the intricate details of the ship closely. The Nautilus was a beautiful craft, but its flowing, Hindu decorations were not really to the aristocrat's taste. He passed the area reserved for crew quarters and found himself in a lightly less elegant area, with fewer frills. This was one of the corridors that led to the engine compartments
Gray paused at a door and tested the handle. It was unlocked, and swung silently open when he pushed on it. Inside were arrays of pipes and conduits, all dimly lit. He reached for the black bag he carried at his side.
"Lost, Gray?"
The immortal jumped in surprise and looked towards the cool voice. Its owner was half-hidden in the shadows, but easy to identify nonetheless.
"What are you doing here, Miss Noclaf?" he wanted to know.
"Skinner took something of mine," the Tau'ka said calmly. "I was looking for him. The same questioned could be asked of you."
"I took a wrong turn."
Daria raised an eyebrow, apparently not convinced, but didn't challenge the statement. "Guest quarters are down the hall. Take the first left and then the fourth right." She strode over to the door and held it open. "Skinner isn't here, so after you."
"What were you doing in the dark?"
The Tau'ka paused. "It's easier to hear things when your eyes aren't getting in the way. You ask a lot of questions, Gray."
Gray arched an elegant eyebrow of his own. "Just… curious, Miss Noclaf."
She waited until he left before moving. As Gray disappeared around the corner, Daria pulled the door shut behind her. With a gesture, she triggered the lock on the door and returned to her own room.
Lost, my foot…
