AN: I wanted to get a chapter out today in honour of ole' Sev's birthday, so I published this one with a little less picking and poking and fiddling than usual. I hope it doesn't show too much. Unfortunately poor Sev isn't mentioned even once in this chapter. lol. I hope you enjoy it anyway, and fear not, the next chapter is a Severus chapter.
another AN: I've just been reading this back and am finding that Fan Fiction is somehow eating every 25th word or so. I've gone over the whole thing and added the deleted words back in. Hopefully I got them all. Let me know if you find any odd missing words please. This is making me nervous for the other chapters. I'm going to have to find the time to go back and re read everything that's been posted so far.
10- Wild Waters
Brie hacked her way through the dense green jungle underbrush with her machete. There were scratches covering her arms and legs, twigs in her hair, she was drenched with sweat and completely in her element. She had come to truly enjoy the feeling of knowing what she was doing and what was going on around her because at Hogwarts she was surprised and baffled by something pretty much everyday. Every once and awhile it felt good to be in a place where up was up and water was water no matter where you were or who you were with. The film crew followed behind lugging the mass amount of equipment needed for documentary making. Not that she really liked to call what she did documentary making. She preferred to say she was making educational nature films. Some people might argue that one was pretty much the same as the other, but she felt her term was much less pretentious for some reason.
She and Rogan had made their first films together to try to educate people about wildlife and to hopefully sell them to the local media to try and make a bit of money to fund their ultimate dream, their own reptile facility. Well, it had mostly been Rogan's dream but Brie wouldn't have stood in it's way for all the world. When she had met Rogan most of the planned out parts of her life had completely changed. Before they had met she had been considering a career as a doctor, or maybe a teacher, or something in research, or maybe even music. Venom and reptiles had been just about the furthest thing from her mind but Rogan had the special gift of enthusiasm for his interests and Brie's imagination had been captured by the possibilities that venom had in medicine so somewhere along the way she'd added her new dreams to his old ones and they had come up with the idea of a venom research lab fronted by a reptile education facility. Milking the snakes and selling venom had kind of been a natural avenue to explore when discussing funding and operation fees for the project. "There's gold in them there fangs!" Rogan often used to exclaim.
But before all that they had to get the whole thing off the ground, so in came the films. They hadn't made films for fame, so she had been thoroughly surprised when they had started to gain popularity with their shaky hand shot footage of their long weekend camping trips where they'd be out picking up anything in sight to make the films as diverse and interesting as possible. Even more surprised when a film company had shown real interest in a series of professional documentaries featuring 'The Wild Waters', as they had been dubbed.
The first few years of their marriage had still been incredibly hectic with Brie determined to continue her education and help Rogan realize his goals and Rogan determined to make his dreams a reality without getting in the way of Brie's. Being dirt poor newlyweds with thousands of dollars in student loans hadn't been fun. The interest from the filming company had made things easier in some respects and harder in others. They had expected to have to limp along with funding for many more years so the extra cash was great. They had also anticipated Brie being able to finish school before they would start putting so much time into the project. Looking back, Brie decided that it had only worked out because she and Rogan both had the mutant ability to function without sleep for long periods of time.
If you asked her, Brie wouldn't have changed a thing. She firmly believed that it was the sum of your lifetime experience that shaped you as a person and though her life had been full of hard work and some major sadness... well, maybe she would change a few things. She wouldn't be as strong as she was now, but she'd have the people she loved and that seemed an OK trade off to her. Love could make you strong just as well as tragedy could.
Rogan's death had boosted her own popularity by quite a bit. The press had had a field day with the story of Rogan and then the story of her family's tragic deaths six months later. Suddenly she was no longer part of the dynamic duo of 'The Wild Waters', she was a lone survivor trying desperately to overcome the untimely and tragic deaths of her loved ones while struggling to keep the life she knew on track. The press had hounded her for weeks after both incidences, camping on the edge of her property, all trying to get that exclusive interview with the bereaved widow and orphan.
She had been beside herself for weeks and stopped all filming and publicity appearances for over a year after Rogan died, despite threats of litigation for breach of contract from the film company. She funnelled all her energy into the facility that they had built together, the facility that they had been collecting the Gaboon viper for when Rogan had died. She would have been absolutely lost if it hadn't been for Evan who had been a close friend since college.
When they first started discussing staffing, neither Brie nor Rogan would hear of anyone but Evan Conifer to manage the facility and he had jumped at the opportunity, relocating from Oregon. Together the three had designed and built Wild Waters Reptiles, more commonly referred to by employees as Venom Lab, a facility dedicated to venom research and extraction, and reptile education The facility boasted not only an ever growing collection of venomous and harmless reptiles but also a large viewing and education area where the public could come to learn about all reptiles.
Rogan had liked nothing better than to teach people about what he loved and the education center had been his baby. Brie, with an interest in venom uses in medicine and a Masters and PhD to complete, had stuck mostly to extraction and anti coagulant research in the lab whenever she had time between school and filming. Conveniently, her thesis centered on her work in the field and research in the lab since she believed in working smarter, not harder. Evan, with a vast knowledge of many many reptiles and a natural way with people, fell right into his managerial role like he had been made for it.
After Rogan died Brie and Evan had temporarily closed the educational center and relocated all the reptiles there into the lab portion of the building because neither could bear to even think about entering it. After nearly a year they had been working side by side in the lab one day when Brie had said, "I think its time to start making films again. He would have wanted it." at the same moment Evan had said, "I think its time to open the education center again. He would have wanted it." They had done both the very next day, in turns planning a film about local reptiles and a re-opening/dedication of the educational center, both in Rogan's memory. Her life had just started to even out and return to normal, or as normal as it was going to get without Rogan, when Dumbledore had contacted her about a professorship at Hogwarts. Sometimes she suspected that part of the reason she was so keen to do such a strange and daunting thing was because she had been starting to fear that the pain of losing Rogan wasn't going to go away unless she started doing something that they hadn't shared. It made her guilty and she had wrestled with herself over it for a long time before making her final decision.
Brie smiled as she hacked her way through the thick undergrowth. Her contract with the film company was 'nearly' up, she only had to do a few more films before she would be free to use her spare time as she liked. After Dumbledore had contacted her about teaching at Hogwarts, and after she stopped scoffing at the idea that magic really existed, she had fought tooth and nail with the production company about the time line around her filming schedule.
They wanted the films one after the other after the other as fast as possible, but, because of Brie's school, Brie and Rogan's original contract hadn't actually specified a time line as to when they were supposed to provide them with the films. It had only specified the number of films they were to produce. Because they had been happy with the speed at which Brie and Rogan had been filming after Brie finished school they had never renegotiated and had just added more films to the original terms. They had also neglected to contact her with new terms after Rogan's death.
When she had pointed this out to them, they had fired up their crack team of lawyers and wasted a good amount of her time in deliberation. In the end though, Brie was correct, there was nothing they could do about the time line of the films because of the original contract so she had avoided being sued for any sort of breach. They had required her to sign a new solo contract. She had agreed as long as she was allowed to set the terms of the time line of the films. She had agreed to no less than one a year. 'Nearly' up meant 5 more films, which essentially meant five more years if she kept up this pace.
Her professorship at Hogwarts made life at Venom Lab difficult for her and for Evan in other ways as well and certain sacrifices had been made. Brie completely stopped all her anti-coagulant research and began collecting and releasing around and during filming, steadfastly refusing to rely on others to stock her facility for her. She preferred to know that the specimens she brought home were not further funding the illegal animal trade. Filming itself had become a marathon event now that she had only four to six weeks out of each year to get it done, always striving for just a few more shots, a few more angles, another species. Evan stopped coming on filming trips and took over contact with the film company, basically becoming her agent on top of essentially running her facility while she was away. After the first year they had hired on more staff to help with the day to day running of things and eventually found a rhythm that worked.
'Or works well enough.' she thought to herself as she climbed over some gigantic tree roots. Evan was doing what he loved and she paid him well for it, but that didn't stop her from feeling guilty from time to time about taking off to, basically, delight at magic. She loved what she and Evan did but the allure of real magic had been too much for her and she had been unable to say no to Hogwarts.
Truthfully, she missed Evan a lot when she was away. When they were together he was her best link to a life she had been enjoying immensely and sorely missed. That life seemed further and further away the more time she spent without him. 'Which is probably good.' she thought to herself, but it didn't mean she had to like it. If she wanted to be completely honest with herself, which she did mostly, she knew that while the facility hadn't started out as her personal dream, she'd fight with everything she had to keep it open for Rogan. She believed in what they did there. They helped save lives. Human and animal. It wasn't what she originally had envisioned for herself but she was in it now and would stay in it as long as she could. It was just a good thing that venom and documentaries paid well enough for her to do that and indulge in some folly as well with no hardship on anyones wallet.
As she hopped down off the last root a movement in the bush caught her attention and she was on it with a shout for the camera men who where assigned to follow and film whenever she had to run after anything. She sheathed the machete as she jogged through the underbrush, listening for rustling and keeping her eyes peeled for movement. A flash of green and black ahead of her in the bush and she went for it, pulling out a green spotted lizard with striped arms, legs, and tail. It thrashed in her hands a little. "Hang on buddy hang on. I only need you for three minutes, tops, I promise." She made her way back to the camera crew, who had fallen behind. "Alright guys set it up." she said and the crew hoisted their cameras onto their shoulders as the sound guy fiddled with the mic pack she already wore at the small of her back.
"Good to go Brie." said Jillian Aru, the director.
Brie nodded and crouched down so that she could hold the lizard near the forest floor. She listened to Jill countdown from five, going silent on two while holding up two fingers, the same with one, then she pointed at Brie who took her cue and started talking.
"What we have here is the Malayan crested lizard or Gonocephalus grandis. It is a common and widespread species across Southeast Asia. You can find these guys in Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Indonesia and Borneo." She turned the lizard toward the camera as she spoke, pointing at various features. "It gets its name from the ribbon-like crests found among males, like this guy here. Now these spots can range from yellow to brown and females are significantly less colorful also they don't have this crest here. This lizard is diurnal and lives in the rain forest among shrubs and trees where they find and eat little insects." She shifted her weight slightly to let the camera men know she was going to stand, then stood and continued. "We'll just let him go in the brush here and he'll be on his way." She released the lizard and it streaked away.
As she turned back to the cameras something caught her eye on the trunk of a nearby tree. "Oh hey look at this." Brie said to the camera as she darted over to the tree and cupped her hand over a bluish brown gecko with bright orange spots. "These guys are neat." she said as she plucked the gecko off the tree and brought it closer to the camera.
"This is a Tokay gecko, it is one of the largest gecko species in the world. The name 'Tokay' comes from an onomatopoetic description of its call." Brie grinned into the camera. "Hows that for a fancy word, huh?" The gecko obliged her with its loud call. "And there you go!" she exclaimed with a laugh. She loved working with animals. "Hey buddy, I'm running the show here, alright?Its color is usually bluish brown with orange spots. Tokays are fairly robust and large in size. They also boast a feisty temperament." At precisely that moment the gecko trashed around and latched onto Brie's finger. "And there you go!" she laughed again. "This guy has been on camera before, he knows his cues." She pulled the gecko off. "They have some pretty good jaw pressure." she said as she flexed her finger. "Lets just put him back on his tree and let him get back to his day." She placed the gecko back on the tree and released him when one of the camera men found a good angle to shoot from as it ran away up the trunk.
"Wow." Jill said as she walked up to Brie and handed her a towel so she could wipe gecko poop from her hands. "The animals are out today for you Brie."
"They really are." Brie said as she handed back the towel and calmly reached over Jill's shoulder to pluck a thin bright green snake covered with black and white markings from the low branches of a small tree. "Over here guys." she called to the camera crew. "Jill got in my shot so I'm going to do a fake pick up." she grinned at Jill who had moved away, and Jill grinned back. "Count it down Jill." she placed the snake back on the tree where she had found it, keeping a sharp eye on it until Jill was finished with the count and the cameras were rolling.
"And here," she began as she picked up the snake like she had just found it, "we have an Oriental whip snake. Look how skinny and whippy he is. These guys are found throughout Southeast Asia in lowland to mid-level rain forests. They are arboreal snakes so they like climbing trees to feed on geckos, agamids and other small lizards. Their slender bodies and sharp snouts are suited for moving through vines, branches and other jungle foliage like lightning. They are almost perfectly camouflaged as a branch and leaf. " She moved the snake's head closer to the camera and continued, "My favorite thing about these guys are their eyes. Check this out, they have horizontal pupils, while most other snakes have vertical or round pupils. Now I have to be a little careful here because these guys are mildly venomous, but extremely docile. Lets just let him go back up in his tree here, watch how fast he disappears." She released the snake and watched it glide quickly out of sight.
"Alright, lets set up camp here tonight." Jill said when Brie had finished her spiel. "We can do some mission statement shots and probably find more animals."
'Ugg, the woman is a slave driver.' thought Brie. "All right, but lets do the mission statement later. I'm done with the cameras for now." She was in no mood to spend an hour or two filming the opening statement for this film, which involved popping on camera from six dozen different angles and saying over and over, "Hi, I'm Gabrielle Waters and I'm here exploring Malaysia. It's a pretty wild place with some pretty wild animals, lets see what we can find!", after which she would dive off camera again. The missions statement shots were where a good amount of her bumps and scrapes came from each trip. They had filmed a bunch yesterday at a waterfall that they had happed to stumble across and as a result she had some major scratches on her arms and legs and a huge bruise on her knee. She wanted to find a private place in the brush somewhere so she could use her magical first aid kit.
One of the cameramen came up to her holding out her birthday backpack with the funny flowers. She had tied her sleeping bag to the top like she usually did to avoid suspicion. "I think the zipper is stuck Brie, I couldn't get it to budge."
"Why were you trying to open it?" she asked.
"Because you always bring some sort of goodies with you." he replied.
"For me! Bring your own goodies and stay out of mine!" She pretended to jiggle the zipper on the backpack and pull hard. Of course it unzipped easily because she was the one who was opening it. She reached in and rooted around. "You've been on enough of these trips to know to pack your own stuff." Pulling out a candy bar, she handed it to him.
He smiled as he took the candy. "That was funny, how you got your arm to disappear to the shoulder! How'd you do that, isn't your bag full?"
"I'm just...umm...super flexible. Go eat your candy." Brie turned quickly and walked away while yelling at herself. 'Be more careful Waters!' Shaking her head, she casually walked away from the crew as they started to set up camp. If she left quietly, hopefully no one would follow.
'Success.' she though to herself when she had gotten several hundred yards away. As she looked for a clear spot to sit down, she rummaged in her backpack. She practically had her head in it before she felt the square wooden box and pulled it out. Sitting and starting with the bruise paste, which she had already made use of, she rolled up the leg of her jeans and slathered some on the huge bruise on her knee. With wonder, she watched it fade away. 'That will always be cool, no matter how many times I see it.' she decided as she reached back in the box for the wound cleaning potion and Murtlap Essence, which she had yet to use.
She unstopped the vial and hesitated before tipping a little bit of the potion onto the large gash in the side of her leg. She had been worried that it would sting like alcohol, she didn't expect the large amount of purple smoke that billowed forth from the wound. 'He could have warned me about that!' she thought as she poured the potion on some of her deeper scratches. Soon she was surrounded in a purple fog but her arms and legs felt much better.
As she made her way back to the crew she pulled out the little jar of blue bell flames and slipped it into her pocket. The flames were harder to use without attracting attention. Every night she had to shoo someone away from the fire pit and pretend to get the fire going herself. She was gaining quite the reputation as a fire starter.
She walked back into the clearing where the crew had already set up camp. It seemed like no one was around at the moment. Everyone must have been off having a pee in the brush, scouting out good places to film the mission statement, or washing up in the nearby creek, so Brie jumped at the opportunity to dump the bluebell flames into the fire pit. She immediately scooped some back up and shoved the jar in her pocket again. She had already learned her lesson about scooping up the flames right away rather than trying to do it when it was time to put out the fire.
The first time she had used the flames one of the cameramen had tried putting them out with water and they had kept slowly creeping back to life. Brie had solved the problem by helping him to dump a large amount of water on the flames and shooing him away to go pack up his things. The larger amount of water had kept the flame 'out' long enough for him to walk away. She had quickly scooped up some of the flame in the jar and then piled dirt on the rest as Minerva had instructed her to do to make them go out. Always one to learn from mistakes she now also filled up the bucket that was kept near the fire with dirt right away, assuring that everyone had been smothering the flames and not continually trying to drown them.
Jill walked out of the brush just as Brie was slipping the jar into her pocket again. "There you are!" Jill exclaimed. "Let's get some footage of you getting the fire...oh shoot, you already got the fire going. How have you been doing that so fast this trip?"
Brie shrugged and rolled her eyes. "I don't know. Could be the ten years of field experience."
Jill shrugged back, not looking convinced then looked at her with suspiciously narrowed eyes. "Your arms aren't as scratched up as they were twenty minutes ago."
"Of course they are, you loon." Brie replied in what she hoped was a voice not laden with guilt. These wizard gifts were proving tougher to hide than she had originally anticipated. Hoping to distract Jill, Brie said, "Well if you want footage of me starting a fire I can start another one."
"Great!" Jill exclaimed and went over to the pile of equipment near one of the tents and fished around for the right camera. Brie heaved a huge sigh of relief at Jill's back. Distracting her wasn't hard as long as there were scenes that needed filming. "So how are you going to do it this time?" She asked as she located the camera she wanted and set about making sure there was a tape in it and the lens was clean. "Two sticks? Stick and fire bow? Stick and plank of wood? Something with a stick? Steel wool and a nine volt?" She turned and looked at Brie, who was holding up the magnesium fire starter that she'd pulled from her pocket. Jill frowned. "Oh so that's how you've been doing it so fast. Come on! Anyone can start a fire with one of those."
"I'm anyone."
"Briiiiiieeeeee!" Jill said in a long drawn out whine.
"Jiiiiilllllllllll." Brie parroted back. "It's this or there is no fire starting footage for this film. If you want some footage of me acting like a caveman, we can film me making a sleeping platform for the tent. Which reminds me," She turned to the bit of bush where she assumed most of the crew were and raised her voice. "Why are these tents set up on the ground?"
"It's easier!" Several voices answered from several different directions.
"Well enjoy your masses of bugs you lazy clods." She called back while turning back to Jill and speaking in a normal tone again. "I'm building a platform off the forest floor, film that if you want but for fire, I'm sick of using methods that take an hour. People need to know about these magnesium deals just as much as how to start one with a fire bow."
"Fine." Jill relented with a pout. "I guess we've covered all the other methods anyway."
Brie felt bad and added, "If you want I can set up some traps too. Some dead falls and snares maybe." Jill pouted some more and shrugged and Brie could tell she was suppressing a smug look because she had gotten her to offer to do more filming. "That pout isn't going to get you anymore than that, you brat. Let's get started before we lose the light and you start bugging me to film with the night vision stuff."
"But the night vision stuff is so cool!" Jill exclaimed with a laugh.
A voice interrupted from the direction that Brie had come from after using her first aid potions. "Hey there's a bunch of purple fog over here guys! Come see!" Brie had a mild panic attack before calling back, "No one is falling for it Brian!" Several peals of laughter rang forth from the rest of the crew as they all knew Brian as a big practical joker and not even one of them had moved toward him.
"He's probably standing over there with a big bucket of water to throw on whoever shows up first." Jill chuckled. Much to Brie's relief Brian the cameraman gave up on getting the crew over to see the purple fog. She just hoped that he didn't have his camera with him to film it. She really was going to have to be much more careful with these wizard items. 'Only use the wound cleaning stuff on windy days.' She made a mental note as she started scouting around for all the materials she was going to need for filming.
Brie spent the next few hours letting Jill and the crew film her as she talked to the cameras and took them step by step through starting a fire with the magnesium starter, setting up several kinds of small animal traps that could be made using the surrounding terrain and materials, and finally building a small raised platform layered with brush to elevate the tent and hopefully cut down on the amount of bugs that would get inside during the night. This was all pretty standard stuff for one of Brie's documentaries. She enjoyed knowing how to do all these things and teaching others how to do them as well. She had no desire to actually live this way like some people did, but in her line of work it seemed kind of stupid not to at least know the basics.
She and Rogan had started to learn these kinds of things after making their very first sponsored film. It had been the first time they had filmed outside the U.S and it had been total hell. In America they had been used to traveling and filming in short bursts around Brie's classes. It turned out that their 'survival' knowledge, which was really more like weekend camping trip knowledge, had been about as useful as a lead parachute when they got into the jungles of Puerto Rico with a filming schedule of more than a month.
Brie and Jill crawled into their tent that night throughly tired after a full day of hiking and filming. The film crew had had a dinner of MREs which was always Brie's least favorite part of any trip. It had been the MREs that had made her break down and learn how to trap small animals for food. She drifted off to sleep that night hoping that the few traps she had set would yield some breakfast come the morning.
She woke the next morning to the sound of birds and monkeys and a whirring camera with a bright light on top. "Morning Miss Gabby Sunshine!" Jill chirped from behind her rolling camera as soon as Brie opened her eyes.
"Oh lord. Jill please." Brie moaned and tried to squish herself down in her sleeping bag and out of sight. "Don't call me Gabby." She ordered. Jill simply moved to the opening of the bag, pulled it open, stuck the camera in there with her, and grabbed another to keep filming with.
"It still kills me that the part of that greeting that bothers you is the Gabby part." Jill said as she started to poke through the sleeping bag, eliciting more annoyed groans from Brie. "Come ON! You're the one who has been harping on about getting this sucker filmed quickly. That means early rising."
After several pokes to the ribs, and one to the boobs Brie exclaimed, "The sun isn't even all the way up yet!", while grabbing the camera and wiggling her way out of the sleeping bag. Once she was mostly out she hoisted the camera onto her shoulder and began to film Jill as Jill filmed her.
"This will be Emmy worthy footage." Jill giggled as she turned off the camera for now and set it aside. Brie did the same while taking a long look at Jill, noting that she looked pale and had dark circles under her eyes.
"Are you feeling OK, Jilly-bean?" She asked, trying not to sound too concerned. Jill had been battling cancer since childhood. This was her third or fourth remission. Each time they got shorter. If Jill was feeling poorly Brie would insist that she go home to the doctors and let her handle the rest of the filming herself as she was a fairly capable director. Jill knew this and always tried to hide it when she was under the weather.
Jill huffed out a breath and said moodily. "I'm fine. Don't go all mother hen on me."
"When do you go in for testing again?" Brie ignored the annoyed tone.
"After we get back from this trip. Don't worry."
"Well you know I love you, but you look like hell." Brie said.
Jill started cleaning camera lenses in an annoyed way. "I was helping to film another project before we took off for this one. I'm getting too old to be tramping around and sleeping in tents. I'm tired is all."
"Jill you aren't supposed to do that! You know you need to rest in between jobs."
"Brie, I'm a big girl and I'm tired of resting half my life. Now let's drop it and work, OK?"
Brie tried to squash her concerns. Jill had been a good friend since Brie's very first sponsored film. She had been the director assigned to the project by the filming company and after working with her for the first film and a different director for the second, both Brie and Rogan had insisted on working solely with Jill from then on and Jill had been more than happy to accompany them around the world with her camera.
Occasionally Evan would come along to film, complaining that he always got the boring job of staying back at the facility, and he and Jill had struck up a fast friendship and even faster romance. As Jill lived in California and Evan had moved out with Brie and Rogan to the facility in Arizona, the fling had been brief but it had left them fast friends. Evan often called it jungle love in a tongue in cheek kind of way.
Because of the distance between them, Jill's filming schedules, and Brie's professorship at Hogwarts, Brie didn't get to see Jill nearly as often as she liked these days. The past three years they had only been able to squeeze in time together while filming in the summer and recording the voice over tracks for the film during Brie's Easter breaks from Hogwarts. She was having a hard time not playing mother hen since she had to get all her concerns about Jill out in the month they were spending together on this film.
"So you got me up for sunrise shots didn't you?" Brie asked as she grabbed her backpack and rummaged around inside for her hairbrush. Luckily is was fairly close to the top and she didn't have to try to delve into the depths of it with Jill watching. Sunrise shots were a particular favorite of Jill's. They consisted of filming Brie walking through different terrains against the rising sun, making her look like a silhouette or a shadow as she moved. These types of shots added depth to the documentaries and were good shots to add voice-over information to.
No, we can't do those in this dense foliage. We're going to have to wait till we get out and more toward the beaches if we want sunrise shots. I got you up for all the dawn feeders." Jill replied, referring to all the species of animal that preferred a very early breakfast.
Brie sighed as she brushed out her hair then bunched it all into a messy bun with an elastic around it to hold it in place. It was easiest to work in conditions like this with your hair up out of your face and off your neck. It was something that the producers of her documentaries hounded her about constantly. They seemed to expect her to tramp around the middle of nowhere, hunting, fishing, and exploring made up like some kind of super model. She told them what she had always told anyone who said she could stand to spruce up her appearance on camera, she was here to educate, not titillate. Let them try to keep bouncy hair and unsmudged mascara while wading through swamps in one hundred percent humidity. Sometimes she really couldn't wait to be done with these films.
"Alright then, let's go." Brie said as she crawled out of the tent and sat on a nearby rock. Before going to sleep the night before she had done what she always did and drove two sticks into the ground so that she could put her boots upside down on them. She'd never simple place them on the ground outside the tent because that was a good way to get venomous spiders, scorpions and snakes in your boots. Nothing would spoil your day faster than a nice scorpion bite to the toes. She didn't take them into the tent either because usually they wouldn't dry out enough by the next day. Wearing wet boots was bad for you too. And really, who wants smelly old boots in their tent?
She pulled the laces loose and checked inside each one before putting them on and lacing them up, finishing just as Jill crawled out of the tent and took her place on the rock to do the same. As Jill was busy checking her boots, Brie went over to the fire pit and examined the bluebell flames which were still going strong in the bed of ashes despite the conspicuous problem of no more wood to burn. She hastily threw more sticks into the pit and got down on her hands and knees to blow on the flames to make it seem like she had to put a little effort into bringing them back to life. Jill got her boots on and grabbed her camera and began filming Brie as she knelt by the fire pit. As she moved to find a better angle she tripped over some stray roots and stumbled, catching Brie off guard and making her huff out a large breath in surprise which caused a large puff of ash to rise up and cover her face. Jill regained her balance easily and giggled at Brie's sooty face as she followed her down to the tiny creek to rinse off.
Brie knelt at the edge and splashed some water up to scrub on her face. She was just about to turn to Jill and the camera to see if she had gotten all the soot off when she froze, hearing the familiar sound of something slithering over the dead leaves on the ground. She knew the sound of snakes moving over different surfaces almost as well as she knew her own voice and if her ear was worth anything, this was a big one. "Something is here." She said to Jill while scanning the banks of the creek. Jill kept the camera on Brie as she picked up a stick to part a big clump of grass on the bank of the other side. She'd barely brushed it when a giant black hissing king cobra reared out of the grass with it's hood spread wide. Immediately she wished that she had stood up before reaching over. Hoping to give herself time to stand, Brie dropped the stick she was holding into the water with a splash. The cobra turned it's attention to it momentarily and Brie sprang to her feet and backed up two steps, trying to assess the situation.
She and Jill were both within the cobras striking zone. The thing was huge. It had to be at least eighteen feet long and she'd never dealt with such a big venomous snake before. She'd handled plenty of little ones, in fact, they had just released one that had been living at the facility for a few years, but that one had been only 6 feet. That was a much more manageable size. She'd have to stand six feet away from this one just to be out of the strike range and right now she and Jill were only four.
Brie started talking to the camera without taking her eyes off the cobra. "What we have here is a really really large king cobra." She gulped. "Really large. We seem to have caught each other off guard here at this little creek. He has to be at least eighteen feet long. This is about as big as they get. It's really rare to run into one this big. I bet he's tipping the scales toward the top end of the weight range too. Chubby guy." Her breath started to get short as her heart raced. "OK, so right now I'm in a really bad place. These guys can strike about one third their body length so he can easily reach me if he wanted to." Brie abruptly stopped talking as the cobra gave a low warning hiss and rocked forward slightly. After at tense few seconds she started talking again. "And he's cranky. So what I have to do here is very very very slowly back away." Brie started to move back, relieved when Jill started to do the same. "There's no way I'd be able to grab and handle this guy on my own. He's too big, so we'll just keep backing up here little by little." As they backed away the cobra closed up it's hood but remained balanced on the lower half of it's body. "There we go." Brie whispered. "He's calming down, we're backing up. Everyone's happy here today." She and Jill inched backward until there was a sizable gap between the camera and the snake. Jill zoomed in and continued to film as the cobra slowly lowered itself to the ground, had a long drink from the small creek, then turned and disappeared in the same direction it had come from. When it had disappeared, Jill turned the camera back to Brie. "He just wanted a drink. This is just a really good reminder about keeping your cool if you're in the habit of getting yourselves into these types of situations." She finished up breathlessly and made a slashing motion across her neck. Jill lowered the camera.
Brie let out a long low whistle and slowly lowered herself to the ground, finally letting the panic hit her. Jill joined her. Neither said anything. It wasn't uncommon to have unexpected encounters with dangerous animals, they both always just needed a minute to collect themselves afterward. After a few minutes Brie rose and brushed off her pants with shaking hands. "Come on." She said as she helped Jill up. "Let's go check those traps for some breakfast." She started to walk away on slightly rubbery legs. "Umm... don't tell Evan about that OK?"
"He'll see it when the film is done." Jill said as she hoisted her camera up and followed.
"Yeah but I won't be home then." Brie answered and Jill laughed as they picked their way through the brush and to the traps. 'Just another day in the jungle.' Brie thought as she pushed herself along.