Roxy

He takes a long nap, snoring the whole time. I take that as a good sign as I put together a small meal for him. I put bread, fruit, and a small cup of soup on a plate, and set it on my ratty old coffee table.

I stole that coffee table from I famous artist.

I sit and take small sips of my discount-rack scotch, watching his back rise and fall with his breathing. His face is smushed into the pillow, my sunglasses loosely on his face as he lays on his stomach.

I get up and unwrap the bandages on his back, seeing the gross white-yellow gunk all over his back.

He needs a shower.

I quickly run to my bathroom, remembering that all I have is a dumbass sink with a shower head as the faucet.

I decide on just grabbing a wash cloth and a small bucket, since he is still sleeping.

Once back over to him, I wring out the wash cloth and pull the bandages off his back. I carefully wipe off the crusty blood and gross puss stuff and rinse out the cloth. Once I feel like his back is clear of most of the bad stuff, I get the burn cream I have in the kitchen. (I'm not the best cook... Hence the burn cream...)

I gently put some on his burns, hoping they'll get better, and I won't have to take him to a hospital.

It looks like they stopped bleeding, so that's good.

I'll have to clean his arms later, since he's sleeping on them.

I clean up the left over mess, and as I wash my hands in the bathroom, I hear him groan.

"Up already?" I ask, turning off the sink.

He coughs.

"Well, I hope you don't mind, I washed your burns a bit. They were totally gross."

I hear him clear his throat when I leave the bathroom and go back to the living room.

"No-" cough "problem... Jesus, they hurt like hell..." He shifts, noticeably uncomfortable.

"Yeah, I know... I'll get you some non drowsy pain meds when I hit the store soon, Okay?" I ask, looking down at him.

"Sure..." He notices the plate of food on the table. "Is that mine?"

"Sure is. Need help eating it, or can I run straight to the store?"

"I'll be fine..." He slowly sits up, wincing at least three times. "Is the soup hot?"

"Yep! Be careful." I grab my weird cloak hoodie thing and tie it on. "I'll be back in, like, twenty minutes."

"Okay..." He nibbles at the bread when I leave, locking the door behind me.

The sky is getting to be a beautiful orangey grey, and I can see the sun dipping into the horizon. The clouds are slowly drifting across the sky, gently and gracefully.

I walk for about five minutes until I reach a small corner store.

I walk inside and pick out everything I need, asking the pharmacist for non drowsy pain killers (and promptly ripping down a wanted poster of a certain thief...)

When I'm all ready to leave, I wait until the cashier is done bagging my items before I grab them and suddenly look out the window in surprise.

"Oh my God! Is that a meteor?!" I yell.

"What?!" The cashier turns around quickly to see.

I'm already out the door by the time he realizes it was a trick.

I hear him yelling at other people, telling them to go after me, as I run in the opposite direction of my house.

After about fifteen minutes of running in a huge circle, I finally make it back home.

"Wow. You weren't kidding when you said twenty minutes." My guest says as I walk inside, panting quietly.

"I like to be on time." I say simply, taking off my cloak thing and setting the bags under the table. "Do you want pain killers now, or later?"

"Now, please." He says, slumping a little.

"Okay!" I notice he ate almost all the food I gave him, so that's very good.

After I give him two pills, a bottle of water, and a candy bar, he settles back onto the couch, visibly relaxing.

"I don't think I introduced myself." He says after a while.

"You don't have to." I say, sipping a small glass of gin.

"Either way, my name is Dave."

"Nice to meet you." I smile.

"What's your name?" He asks, stifling a yawn.

"Roxy."

He chokes on his water and coughs for a while.

"R-Roxy?!" He stutters.

"Yeah? What's wrong?" I get up and rub his back slowly.

"Roxy-" cough "Lalonde?!"

"Yeah, why?"

Suddenly he looks like he's thinking really hard, scrunching his nose a little bit, in a way that seems sort of familiar.

"... Nothing, sorry..." He mumbles.

"That was so totally not nothing."

"I just- I thought I knew you for a second, but I was wrong. You remind me of someone else..."

"I remind a lot of people of a lot of things."

"What does that mean?"

"It means what it means."

"You're drunk."

"You're sober." I sit back down and hold back a giggle. "What game are we playing?"

He sighs and looks down at his half eaten candy bar.

"Do you know who your mom is?" He asks finally.

"What?" Confused, I look at him, the gin obscuring my vision a bit.

"Your mom. Do you know her?"

"Uh..." I don't normally talk about my life with strangers, or anyone really, but for some reason my brain makes an exception for him. "No... I don't think so. I don't remember her, at least."

"Hmm..." He scrunches his nose again, thinking.

"I don't remember a lot of things. My parents, my siblings, my family in general, what I was supposed to be doing here in the first place, who I was here for, what I was here for..." I trail off, getting a little depressed.

"Really?" He looks interested.

"Yeah... I remember that I had a family, that I had siblings. I remember that I was here, on Skaia, for a reason. I remember that there was something important I was supposed to do, and something I was here for... But I don't remember what."

"Huh..." He looks down.

"I think it has something to do with me being an alcoholic, but who can be sure..." I take a sip of my drink, sighing.

"Yeah..." He glances up at me, like he's studying my face.

"I think you should sleep." I say, standing.

He nods, carefully setting himself back into his earlier position on his stomach.

"We'll talk more tomorrow..." I close the blinds, making sure the door is locked.

"Okay..." He mumbles, already half asleep.

Man, what am I going to do now? I have a kid on my couch, bad burns all over him, and I've never been able to take care of a fish! I am way in over my head right now! What was I thinking?! I should've let him die or something! It would be better than being known as the girl who kidnapped him! Jeez, what am I doing?!

I flop onto my mattress, groaning. I stare at the glow in the dark sticky stars on my ceiling, and wonder how long it will take for someone from Derse to come for his corpse.

If they came and saw he was alive, I'd be arrested for kidnapping, and thrown in jail for sure. I might even get sent to Derse to rot in their prison.

Shit dude, everything sucks!

Ugh... I guess all I can do is wait it out...

Or... Maybe... Maybe I could convince him to... No! That's crazy. There's no way he would do that...

I slowly drift off to sleep, drunk-dreaming of tricking him to stay with me and become my thief sidekick. I dream of us robbing the biggest bank on Skaia, and retiring to the countryside with truckloads of cash.

And the next morning, I am woken up to the worst sound I've ever heard.

Jake

Goodness, lying feels terrible. Especially now that the Princess has fallen into a deep dark sleep. I feel responsible for this. I'm sure the Troll in here feels the same way, the way they were yelling at each other.

I sit at Rose's bedside, watching her peaceful face as she sleeps.

Guards found her at the bottom of the stairs, bruised and out cold. We feared the worst until the doctors got here. They say the Horrorterrors have pulled her into the darkest depths of her consciousness and have trapped her there. They said that there was no foreseeable time at which she would awaken, but they knew she had to do it herself.

They told us that no amount of drugs or methods could wake her.

Absolutely hopeless, I know.

"I have to get her brother back now." I say quietly, still staring at her.

"She would have wanted it." One of the maids says as she fluffs a new pillow for Rose, switching out the old one.

I stand up slowly, still keeping my eyes on her closed ones. I feel so upset at myself for some reason.

As I leave the room, that Troll follows me.

"Please. You Have To Let Me Come With." She begs, clasping her hands in front of her.

"What?" I look at her, surprised. "No way! Rose didn't trust you, why should I?"

"You Should Not Trust Me, I Understand That. But Please. If I Stay Here, The People Will Kill Me Themselves."

"Good for them."

"No! Rose Promised Me A Fair Trial, But No One Will Believe That If It Does Not Come From Her! Please!" She looks absolutely desperate now, light green tears pricking in her eyes.

I take pity on her. I realize what leaving her here will mean for her, and her life. I figure if I take her with, not only will she live longer (which is her plus side) but I might get to find out some more about her actions and why she carried them out.

"... Fine." I say, and she looks relieved. "But you have to give me information in exchange."

"Agreed. Information I Can Do." She smiles.

After having called Jane and set up a meeting point on Skaia, (and after figuring out the angles to shoot so we would end up close to each other) I found a line for the Troll and we readied our departure.

I made sure the Trolls and my harnesses were tight as I talked to Jane over walkie talkies.

"Three..." I say.

"Two..." Jane says, her voice distorted by the bad connection.

"One." We say at once.

I pull the trigger on both my and the Troll's lines, and we both stumble back a bit. I secure my helmet, making sure it's airtight. The Troll mimics my movements.

Soon enough, we feel a tug at our waists, and then- OOF!

We're yanked off of Derse and are zooming toward Skaia at alarming speeds. We should be there in half an hour. I fix our angles and talk with Jane again, making sure we're all in the air at the same time.

Once we're sure we're heading to the same area, we relax a bit. The Troll looks terrified, but also like a child on a roller coaster.

Soon we break through the atmosphere, my helmet telling me how far up we still are. I watch the numbers drop like flies and turn on the shields.

This keeps us from becoming cooked steak.

As soon as we're close enough, at about five thousand feet, I stop the line. The Troll shrieks, but it's cut off by my hand on her mouth.

"Don't keep your mouth open, you'll bite your tongue." I say over the wind.

I yank the parachute cord and we go from one hundred miles an hour to five miles an hour.

Then we gently float down to the ground and the Troll looks even more terrified.

"Th-That Was Ins-sane!" She yells after hitting the ground with so little grace that she rolls and gets tangled in her ropes.

I hit the ground on my feet, cutting the parachute off from me and letting it crumble on its own.

"That" I say, walking over and helping her out. "was not bad for a first flight." I help her up, and her hair is windblown and crazy around her horns. Her eyes are wide and slightly scared.

"I do it all the time, and that wasn't as bad as my first landing." I smile at her.

"You Do That All The Time?!" She looks at me. "You Must Be Crazy To Do That So Casually!"

"It gets fun after a while." I shrug, packing our harnesses. "Let's get going, we have to meet up with Jane before midnight."

Author's Notes

Yo! One chapter left to post before I go straight to working on the story and characters.

I love you.

'u'

-MKZ