Tribe?"
"Yeah... tribe? You know, me and my family and the rest of the Yoshis?" she explained as though she were talking for the benefit of a small child. "Everything was great and then some weird fat guy in red pants came through on some kinda quest. He wanted our help, and things just turned to chaos from there. There was a big scramble of people who wanted to help out and a bunch who didn't who went off into hiding. By the time the dust cleared, I had no idea where everybody went." She ended her tale with a shrug. "Looked for 'em for awhile, then gave up and just drifted around ever since. There's benefits to being half-Yoshi, you know... you can eat next to anything and stay alive."
"I'm not going to ask," Ludwig grumbled, feeling slightly ill.
"Good, because I wouldn't answer," she replied. "I've had to eat a few things I'm not exactly proud of."
"If I'd known there had been a nest of Yoshis on that rock when I still owned it, I would have increased my roving guard populus," he remarked distastefully.
"Owned what? Cookie Mountain?" she asked, looking over her shoulder at him curiously as they dismounted the staircase and meandered into a dank hallway where the torches were fewer and the atmosphere was generally miserable. He gave a nod. "Guess that makes sense. My dad was always complaining about how the kook who lived in that castle was always blowing stuff up or making music that sounded like someone had a weasel in a headlock," she laughed. Ludwig, however, wasn't amused as he stopped at the first vacant cell on the right and thrust the door open, shoving her inside as he roughly grabbed the iron ring of keys from where they hung on the wall.
Karma stumbled forward a few steps, looking behind herself in bewilderment as the door slammed shut with a resounding clang.
"See you around," Ludwig said briskly, fumbling with the lock.
"Yeah? Well you have a nice day too, jerk!" she snapped, grabbing up the nearest thing she could reach, a skull left over from a previous unfortunate inhabitant, and hurling it full force at her prison's door. It shattered upon impact against the bars, showering Ludwig in bone fragments. He squinted his eyes, sneezing as the dust invaded his nostrils, and then returned to his task of attempting to turn the key in the old iron lock.
At last, with an accepting click, it latched firmly and he backed off a few steps, favoring Karma with a venemous look before stalking back in the direction of the stairs, attempting to brush the remaining debris out of his hair.
The hybrid watched after his retreating back for a moment, glaring daggers as though she hoped the mere hatred in her stare would be enough to strike him dead. As she heard him begin to pad up the stairs she gave a roar of rage, slamming both fists against the bars, rewarded with only a slight "kwong" and an aching pain in her wrists. She glared at the door, rubbing at her forearms irritably for a moment before crossing her cell to the far wall and slumping against it.
This was NOT how she had wanted to spend her evening.
Having left a message with one of the guards to give to his father saying he had caught an intruder, Ludwig returned to his laboratory, nearly slipping and falling in the oil he hadn't cleaned up from before. He reached for a rag and began to mop it up, his mind recalling the hybrid with much resentment.
"Stupid female," he growled. It was bad enough that she was ill-tempered, but the fact that she turned his stomach to look at as well gave her NO redeeming qualities whatsoever. How DAD could have allowed such an abomination to be concieved, let alone live long enough to talk back, was an utter mystery to him. He had no doubt that Bowser would order her immediate execution upon seeing her, and that was perfectly fine as far as he was concerned.
Satisfied that he had cleaned the mess to the best of his ability, Ludwig deposited the oily rag in the trash where it fell with a wet plop against the casing of the failed transmogrifier. As he got to his feet again, moving to return to his workbench, a thought arose in his mind quite out of nowhere. She's been wandering around in the wilderness for DAD-only-knows how long. You should have just let her go and not given her such a hard time. The mental sentence made him feel a brief stab of pity for the strange creature before he angrily shook it off. He didn't care. There were plenty of places she could have gone and probably been taken in by at least one of them. It was her choice to wander around like a homeless waif and eventually end up in Dark Land.
However, a feeling of guilt that was completely unbecoming to him had begun to take hold and settle in, making him feel uncomfortable and unable to erase Karma from his mind. Frustrated at his sudden one-trackedness he quickly looked for something to occupy himself with.
Go let her out.
'Shut up,' he thought directly, trying to clear his head of the alien notion of compassion. He wondered, idly, if this was what the ever-fabled "love at first sight" felt like and immediately pushed it out of hand. It couldn't be love because frankly, he didn't even remotely LIKE her. That was the long and short of it - he found her a repulsive and trollish monster and was glad she was locked in the dungeon where she belonged. It would be a relief when she was handed her execution sentence as well, he thought bitterly, so why in Plit's name should he feel guilty?
Simply, he told himself, he shouldn't. And furthermore, he went on to himself, he wouldn't. With that settled, he scanned his workbench, picking up the first thing he could get his claws on and examining it.
His father's birthday was coming up soon and it had been Ludwig's tradition, since about the age of twelve, that rather than buy Bowser something, he would make it instead. The devices varied from year to year, some of them functional and some of them not. This year, however, his invention was a fairly simple one. Due to his father's constant complaining that, in the time it took the kitchen staff to carry his coffee into the dining area, it was too cold to stomach, he was setting about crafting a mug that would keep its contents perpetually warmed. Unfortunately, its main drawback at the moment was that it made the mug too hot to handle as well. Deciding that sorting out that minor detail would be the perfect thing to playcate his mind, Ludwig set to work. "Where's that socket wrench?" he wondered aloud, sifting through the desktop's contents.
Even as he located the wrench and reached for it, he felt his stomach lurch as the greasy fingers of nausea began to wrap around the base of his throat. He blinked, bracing himself against the corner of his bench and counting slowly backward from one-hundred as he willed the feeling to pass. Slowly, he began to feel better, if somewhat confused. Usually when he was ill, the symptoms built on themselves gradually... this had come out of nowhere.
As the thought completed itself, a wave of dizziness overtook him, making him hold the table tighter for support as the room tilted and spun. Stumbling slightly, he squinted his eyes shut, concentrating on breathing deeply and evenly until that, as well, passed. He winced as his temples throbbed with an onsetting headache and took a staggering step backward.
Go see her, the strange voice spoke again.
"Not on your life," Ludwig grumbled, rubbing at his forehead as he cast a weary look across the laboratory. He had his own bed chamber upstairs with the rest of his siblings, but given that he spent so much time working in the laboratory, he had eventually coerced his parents into moving a spare bed into the far corner. They weren't exactly thrilled with the idea that it enabled Ludwig to hole himself up in the laboratory for days at a time, surfacing only to eat, but it ensured that he kept himself on a tight schedule, at the least.
The dizziness seemed to show no sign of loosening its hold anytime soon as he groaned and half-walked, half-stumbled across the laboratory where he collapsed on the mattress gratefully. A high-pitched whining awoke in his head as he closed his eyes, pulling the green quilt over himself and willing the odd sickness to pass as he drew his knees to his chest. The whine intensified, becoming a thrumming buzz that complimented his headache agonizingly as he clutched at his temples, whimpering softly. And then, as though someone had hit a switch deeply in his head, all traces of the symptoms suddenly vanished again, leaving Ludwig momentarily overcome with relief.
Somewhere between being grateful that it had passed and puzzling over what could have caused it, he slipped into a light and fitful slumber.
Karma, having resigned herself to her fate, sat in the corner of her dungeon cell, staring blankly off into space. She'd spent a good hour pacing every square inch of the small enclosure and searching the walls for even the slightest of faults or cracks she might have used to her advantage. Nothing... not even a loose stone. When she'd grown exhausted trying to be logical, she'd spent her remaining energy in the throes of a rage, cursing at the top of her voice and lunging at the barred door, rattling it with all of her might.
With the exception of producing some noise, she'd accomplished nothing and had eventually sagged to the floor in a state of exhaustion. After she had recovered, she'd scooted herself up against the wall, propping her back into the nook of the far-right corner which was where she had remained since. The hybrid had decided long ago that she was the only person currently residing in Castle Koopa's dungeon as, before her voice had given out, her yelling hadn't brought an answer of any sort, save for her own outraged shrieks echoing back at her.
As she'd sat, getting ahold of herself, her thoughts wandered back to Ludwig. Him... it was his fault she was here, she thought spitefully. If she'd known that he'd have taken things this far, she would have left while she'd still had the chance instead of even bothering to indulge his questions. Better yet, she would have done a better job of pummelling him into submission.
"Would you like to see how well you fight with a pair of broken arms?" she growled in a mocking voice, imitating his threat from earlier when he'd still had a hold on her wrists. "Like to see how well you ask stupid questions with a mouthful of broken teeth, you ugly jerk?" The threat, though it felt good to make, was an empty one and did nothing to comfort her as she sighed deeply, the tip of her tail lashing in frustration.
The dankness of the cell was beginning to creep into her bones, making her feel cramped and chilly as she drew her knees to her chest, shivering a bit. Her rage, while it stoked her mind into a blazing inferno, did little to keep out the physical cold. So lost in her anger was she, that she didn't hear the sound of approaching footfall, nor did she notice as someone paused outside of her prison until she heard the stout Sledge Brother clear his throat, shaking her out of her angry reverie. For a moment, they regarded one another in silence as he gave her a long scrutenizing look.
"Heh... what're YOU supposed to be?" he asked snidely. Karma only glared back, deciding she'd gotten in enough trouble for one day by answering questions for strangers. And she was fairly sure she knew this type pretty well... ugly, brawny, and pea-brained. He'd taunt her for awhile if she let him, and then if she talked back, he'd come in waving one of those stupid hammers of his and-
She jolted, hit with a sudden idea. It wasn't a very good idea, per-sey, but if this guy was anywhere near as dumb as he looked, it was most definitely worth a shot. Rolling her eyes dramatically, Karma pressed a paw to her belly and groaned loudly, pretending for all she was worth that she had suddenly been seized by debilitating pain.
"Hurts..." she grunted, rolling onto her side and curling up, trembling. "Mnnh..."
"Hurts, huh?" the guard smirked knowingly, well-accustomed to prisoners inventing illnesses in an attempt to escape. "Sorry t'hear that. Maybe if ya'd put half the effort into not getting caught that you're puttin' into that fakin' you're doing, you wouldn't have that problem."
Realizing with some annoyance that he was going to be a hard sell, Karma upped the stakes a bit. "Doctor..." she wheezed, making a great show of rolling over to face him, as though it had taken all of her strength. "M'sick... I need to see a do..." The hybrid purposely let her voice trail off as she rolled her eyes back into her head and began to shake spastically. She thrashed and twitched until she felt dizzy and then laid dormantly, trembling and wheezing.
"Yeah right, and as soon as I open that door to check on ya, you'll run, right?" the guard growled.
'Drat!' she thought to herself, but remained motionless as she hoped she might still have a chance. She didn't know how long she laid there, careful to keep her eyes focused vacantly into nowhere in her false catatonia as the guard stood outside, observing her carefully and debating. On the one hand, it would be all-around safer to leave her where she was. If she was faking, the last thing he needed was to give her a means of escape, but if she wasn't then he faced a new problem entirely. King Koopa was rather adament about getting to individually torment prisoners as he saw fit and he had very little patience for them mysteriously meeting their demise before he had a chance to get to them. And one thing that he had learned since he had come under Bowser's employ, was that underlings were ALWAYS expendable.
Sighing as he made his decision, he fetched the ring of keys from his belt and fumbled one into the cell's door. As it creaked open, he kept a careful eye on the hybrid, but she made no show of moving. He edged toward her, holding a hammer at the ready in case she made a sudden break for it, pausing when he stood directly over her.
"Ugh..." he remarked, getting a good look at her as he stooped at her side, making a cursory check of her pulse and breathing. "Hope you got personality because there isn't enough Yoshiberry wine on Plit to drink the ugly off of you." Karma fought against a growl at the statement as he shoved a hand beneath her, hefting her up and over one of his shoulders. The hybrid focused on remaining bonelessly limp as he adjusted his grip on her as though she were a sack of potatoes and then lumbered out of the cell, carrying her down the hallway.
Karma felt herself being carried up the stairs a moment later, being jostled quite rudely in the process. 'Watch the bumps, big guy,' she thought to herself. 'I'm not made of rubber, y'know.' She breathed a nearly-unnoticable sigh of relief as they reached the top of the stairs and continued on their way to whereever the guard was now taking her.
There was the sound of a latch opening and a gentle breeze that smelled faintly of rubbing alcohol as they entered another room. "Oh dear! No more patients, I simply can't take anymore patients today!" a male voice protested.
"Sorry doc, but I think it might be serious. She ain't movin' or nuttin." Karma bit back a whuff of discomfort as she was dropped onto a cold, flat slab of some sort.
"No, I'm putting my foot down! I have a very important seminar I must attend and- Oh dear me, who is this?" the voice asked, its tone shifting from petulant protest to sudden interest.
"Prisoner," the guard replied without much interest. "She pitched a fit down in the dungeon and I thought I'd better play it safe since the King ain't met'er yet."
"Dear me," he said again. "I've never seen anything like this one..."
"Thank DAD for small favors, eh?" the guard chortled. Karma made a mental note that if she managed to get out of this fiasco alive, the first thing she'd do was hunt down this particular moron and rearrange the geography of his face. A caress, cold and unsettling to the touch, brushed over her cheek.
"Hrmmm..." the other's voice murmured, quite close to her. The same strange touch invaded one of her eyes, pulling back a lid and giving her a brief glimpse of something cloudy and gray. "No pupil dilation... heartbeat is normal... are you sure something's wrong with this one?"
"Look, I've seen enough fakes to know better, alright?" the Sledge Brother said defensively. "This one was keeled over on her side shakin' and gurglin' like she was gonna die. YOU'RE the doctor here, not me."
"Yes, and as a doctor I'm saying that I don't see much abnormal with her... so either we're dealing with a rather good actor here or there's something I'm missing."
"I gotta get back to my post. If King Koopa catches me here, he'll have a bird," the guard replied irately. "Just give'er a once-over, fix 'er up, and send for me when you're done."
"But-"
The protest was cut off as a door sharply closed. There was a moment of silence and then a deep sigh. "I am NOT missing my meeting for this," the stranger's voice huffed. Karma, befuddled by the lack of footsteps, cautiously opened one eye. Hovering a short distance away, his back turned to her, was a large Boo Diddly, a pen tucked up in the viscinity of where his ear should have been and decked out in a small labcoat that fit his form perfectly. He was sifting through a cupboard that contained an enormous array of bottles and vials as he muttered angrily to himself. "Crisis this, emergency that..." he grumped, finding what he was looking for and gently closing the cabinet as he turned, working the cork out of a small bottle. "No one ever worries if I have something that needs doing..."
As he neared, Karma quickly closed her eye again, hoping she hadn't been noticed. She repressed a shudder as the cold grasp from before settled over the back of her neck, pulling her forward slightly. Suddenly, a powerful and horribly sour smell assaulted her nose, making her gasp and her eyes fly open as they immediately began to water. Karma recoiled slightly, embarrassed to see the small bottle of smelling salts being held closeby.
"Just as I thought," the Boo said knowingly, with some exasperation. "You put on a good show, young lady, but you're going to have to do better than that if you want to pull the wool over these eyes."
"Fine..." Karma sighed, realizing that any semblance of a plan she'd had to escape was now thwarted. "So now what?"
"Now you get back to where you belong and I get to where I'm expected," he informed her as he hovered toward a small intercom unit, punching the button. "Number 24463, please report to the west medical ward for an outgoing," he said clearly into the reciever before releasing the button. "You'll excuse me if I'm a bit brisk, but I really MUST be going now," the Boo informed her. "Your guard will be with you shortly, wait here." And, saying so, the Boo faded from sight completely, leaving her by herself in the small and cluttered office.
"Fat chance," Karma growled, rolling over and scooting off of the examination table. As she landed on the floor, she found herself suddenly overcome with chills as she shuddered, rubbing at her upper arms to warm herself as she cast a cursory look about herself at her surroundings. Lining the walls were anatomy charts of various underlings, Koopas, and two framed medical degrees. A florescent light panel hummed nearby, X-rays still on it, and beside it was the door.
She stood regarding it for a long moment, the chills relenting only to be replaced by uncomfortable stomach spasms. Oddly enough, as the annoyance of the symptoms took place, her mind seemed to be focused on Ludwig. 'Figures...' she thought spitefully, rubbing at her belly and wincing. 'Guess I would rank him about as high as a bad case of gas...'
Realizing that, by now, the guard was likely well on his way to collect her, she forced herself to ignore the discomfort in her abdomen and moved toward the door, trying the knob and mildly surprised to find it unlocked as she eased it open. After satisfying herself that the Sledge Brother was nowhere to be seen, she quickly ducked into the hallway, keeping to the shadows as much as she could to avoid being seen as she moved.
At last, she found cover behind a suit of armor that had been put up for display and crouched behind it, collecting her scattered wits as she planned her next move. She was obviously at the disadvantage, she knew. She had no idea where she was going, how to get there, or what she planned on doing once she reached it. To top it off, the odds of running into a guard or, black horror, Bowser or one of his brats, were uncomfortably high. Therefore, she decided, she would just have to be incredibly careful until she managed to find the exit.
Her first order of business, she decided, would be to find somewhere better to hide until she had a better idea of where she was going. Her eyes skated the hallway, falling on a doorway that loomed across from her and slightly to the left. There could have been anything behind there, she mused. With any luck it would be a storage closet that she could lurk in until night fell and then creep off in the dark.
'Probably the conference room... and its probably full of Bowser and his extended family as we speak,' her mind chided her. 'Stay where you are.'
"Yeah, you can sit on that idea..." she grumbled in reply. True, the armor concealed her for now, but once the alert got out that there was a prisoner on the loose, it wouldn't be effective for very long. Deciding that taking a chance, in the end, would be better than being a sitting duck, she cast a wary look around before darting across the hallway and pausing a moment to listen at the door.
Silence. Good.
Wrapping a paw around the doorknob, she turned it and eased herself through the threshold, closing it softly behind her. Satisfied that she had not been noticed, Karma leaned back against the door and heaved a loud sigh of relief. "'Bout TIME something went my way..." she announced to no one in particular as she examined her new surroundings, absently rubbing at her belly where the cramps, momentarily subdued by the rush of adrenaline she'd experienced while in hiding, began to settle in again. She appeared to be in a laboratory of some sort, she concluded. Before her was a large workbench, littered with tools and various parts of machinery. There appeared, also, to be several unfinished devices that she had never seen before as she quirked a brow and ventured forward, picking up the one nearest to her and turning it over in her grasp.
If a can opener and an electric shaver were able to have a child, she mused, this was what it would look like. As she pressed the red button on its side curiously, it gave off a high-pitched drone before hissing and emitting a shower of sparks as she cried out and dropped it. Cripes, she wondered, what sort of kook would waste his time putting together junk like this that didn't even work?!
As though in answer to her question, nearby she heard something shift its position with a soft rustling noise. Karma froze, eyes snapping wide open as it dawned on her that she was not alone. Whirling in the direction of the sound, she realized for the first time that, not only was this room a laboratory but it seemed to be doubling as a makeshift bedroom for someone. And that particular someone was currently occupying it, to complicate things.
A moment of awkward silence passed before the sound of deep breathing issued from somewhere off to the left, making her relax a bit. Whoever it was, thankfully, was sleeping from the sound of it. Still... who in their right mind would want to shack up in a laboratory of all places? It wasn't exactly the most comforting place to sleep, she thought distastefully, casting a sweeping look at the beakers of stagnant liquids, the cupboards that contained vials and jars of various acids and bases, and the immeasurable amount of machinery that was arranged haphazardly, some of it functional and some of it not. It would be like waking up to some horrible B-rated science fiction movie every morning, she mused.
Her curiousity getting the better of her, Karma edged forward, careful not to make a sound as she neared the bed. When the head of it came into view, she drew in a gasp and scrambled backward, nearly knocking into the table behind her as she saw Ludwig curled up on his belly and sleeping soundly. When the initial shock of seeing her earlier tormentor had passed, she found herself left with annoyance and anger. It was so deliciously ironic, she thought seethingly, that this was the one person on the face of Plit that she would have moved the heavens AND underlands to get away from, and yet it was like some unseen force had drawn her back to him.
As she glared at the eldest Koopaling, he listed onto his side, the covers slipping off of his shoulders as he let his breath out in a sigh. The hybrid noted, as she watched him, that her left hand had curled itself tightly into a fist and that her claws were currently threatening to punch into the ball of her thumb. She wanted, very badly, to attack him and find closure from their fight earlier through a swift defeat with an unfair advantage on her end. It would be gratifying to pay him back for the insults, the threats, the time in the dungeon, the stomach cramps, the- but then, as the thought crossed her mind, she realized that the cramps were gone. In fact, she felt good. Too good to hold onto her homicidal thoughts.
With aching slowness, she managed to unclench the fist she'd been making and drew in a deep sigh as she continued to stare at Ludwig for a moment. It was criminal how innocent he looked when he slept, given what a jerk he could be when he was awake, she thought half-heartedly.
Oh well... No sense in letting him prove that point if he wakes up and catches me standing here...
With that, she turned to leave the laboratory and locate a more obscure hiding place. She hadn't gone three steps when, as though they had never left, her stomach cramps flared again with doubled ferocity.
Stay, an alien mental presense spoke, startling her. Choosing to ignore it, she continued to the door, finding that with each step she took, the pain grew worse until, as she reached for the doorknob, she was nearly doubled-over in agony. Confused and frustrated, she retreated from the door, back in the direction she'd come. As she drew nearer to Ludwig, the feelings faded and dissipated completely.
Great... Apparently, to add to her list of inconveniencies, now there was some sort of tractor beam between her and Whatshisface von Koopa. As she crossed her arms over her chest, setting her jaw in annoyance at this latest development, her mind twinged with remembrance... something she'd been told about in the past that would explain all of this...
But even as a clearer mental picture began to form, she pushed it out of hand. No... she refused to believe she could be that unlucky as she sighed and padded nearer to the bed, puzzling over what to do next since, apparently, she couldn't leave. She wondered idly if anybody had noticed her missing yet... or if they'd even think to look for her if she were to hide here for a bit longer. Hide... sure, but where? The bed was set too low to the ground to squeeze under and she didn't trust any of the machinery enough that she thought she might be able to lurk safely behind it.
As she mulled it over in her head, she yawned a bit. It occurred to her for the first time, now that she had a moment to actually consider it, that she was exhausted, both mentally and physically. Her interrupted nap, followed immediately by the current fiasco, hadn't helped matters much, she supposed. Her gaze settled on the bed Ludwig was occupying and it occurred to her that there was easily room for another person therein.
"No," she whispered to nobody in particular. "THAT is where I draw the line."
On cue, the tired sensation increased itself, as though forcing her not to have a choice. Blinking heavily and stifling another yawn, the idea of muscling into the bed with Ludwig was starting to look less and less repulsive. At length, her knees threatening to buckle, she made her decision.
"Shove over, pal," she said quietly, climbing in beside him and wriggling under the blanket into the pocket of warmth his body had created. He muttered something but didn't wake as she made herself comfortable. As she did so, an odd sense of completion filled her, bringing with it a sick realization as her twinges from earlier began to form complete thoughts and memories. Before they could take real substance, however, she had fallen asleep.
