25. Lost?
Sitting in the Library, Krory was trying to read (or at least pretending to read) a book, unsuccessfully ignoring the brat jabbering at his ear.
A beast size of a large dog and multi-headed like a creature from Greek myth grumbled from Arystar's feet, just as agitated.
Because, well--
"He was annoyed."
"No no no, O more Confusing me! Our Chosen is annoyed. You must learn to speak proper human-talk, you know." The right head rebuffed the left, and Lavi glared at the two-headed dragon on the floor.
The red-head was not being annoying. Well, he was, but he just didn't want to admit it.
Lavi had been slinking behind Krory for the past two hours, since they were the only two Exorcists not on missions at that point, as Miranda left with Sunny on that day, and he had truly been curious about the purple thing that lagged behind the pale man like a talkative shadow that liked to eat cakes and organs.
Lavi had been trying to name the two-but-one dragon, and had failed spectacularly so far, much to the apparent annoyance of the unnamed-dragon and Krory.
"Come on Krorykins, how about we call the dragon Fluffy!"
Arystar glared moodily over the top of his not-really-to-be-read book at the hyper teen that had been following him for at least two hours, and sprouting ridiculous names during the past few minutes.
Lavi pretended to think. "Ah, but the purplish hide has no hair though ... forget Fluffy."
"Lavi, please use your brain." Krory sighed pondering throwing the brat out the nearest window.
The red head snapped his fingers. "That's it! We'll call him Encephalon!"
The purple heads groaned, and shook back and fourth in a double negative.
"But it means brain! Sort of ..."
"Quiet." Krory ordered, blocking his view of the teen across from him with his book, as if using the novel as a shield.
"Quiet!" The left and right heads joined in.
Lavi ignored them. "But, also we need some way to differentiate the two heads ..." He pondered, trying to think of a word that could be just as whole, and still separated, as the dragon at the two Exorcist's feet.
Now, the Junior Bookman really was thinking about a good name for the two(one), and knew that he could goof off as much as he wanted while thinking about it as Krory had inadvertently doomed himself to this by first asking Lavi: 'What would a good name be for the dragon?', which is probably why the teen had not been thrown out of a window.
Yet.
"Lerrel." The teen said with determination.
Three heads stared at him.
"Ler, for the left head," Lavi said, a grin growing on his one-eyes face. "And Rel for the right. And it can still be one word: Ler-Rel."
The right head spoke: "Does it mean anything stupid in some dead human-tongue?"
"Nope." Lavi said, proud of himself for finding a name so fitting. "But it sounds sweet."
"Cakes were sweet." The left head said, nodding.
The purple looked at Krory, and the pale man agreed with a nod himself.
So it was.
"Cakes are sweet." Rel corrected, smacking Ler on the nose lightly.
Ler snorted, and smacked back, harder that Rel had hit him.
And so Rel retaliated, causing Ler to rebuke him and back and fourth, until the purple looked like ... well, like a two-headed thing having a disagreement.
It was quite funny actually. Each head only had one arm with which to batter the other with, and the tail whipped back and forth across Lavi's legs and one of the table pegs, making the younger Exorcist jump up and away from the table.
Krory, taking a more direct approach after being pestered for just about an hour, simply grabbed one head in each hand and slammed the two skulls into one another.
That stopped the bickering, though the two heads now groaned quietly, rubbing tenderly at their 'hurt' places.
Ler opened his mouth, and and Lavi got ready to automatically translate the words from past tense to future tense, because that was just the way the left head spoke. "It was very sad."
It is going to be very sad.
The Junior Bookman blinked. The words didn't make sense either way, and was very off topic from what was happening.
Rel sighed, and was just about to correct the left head again when a muffled sound was heard, making both dragon heads and Krory pause.
Lavi saw the three tense and tried to be quiet. He knew full well that he couldn't hear as well as Arystar or the dragons.
To the red head, the only sound was silence.
The Rel and Ler looked at one another, frowning, and Arystar Krory stood up, placing his book down upon the table. Lavi quickly moved to follow as the purple rose into its own feet.
The three (four?) slipped out of the Library, and a blue nose poked out from behind a shelf, curious. Luke had heard the noise too, and it had made him shiver.
It had sounded like a scream. No, not a scream. The blue dragon felt the muffled sound heard resembled something more akin to a howl.
With a curiosity great enough to quell fear, the blue blended, and followed, telling himself that he was doing this so that he could share the information with his Chosen when the Inspector returned from his mission with the Good, not-Monster, Allen.
Oh, how badly he missed his Chosen! But Chosen had told him to stay here, ordered him to stay here, so HQ is where the blue remained. Sticking his invisible nose into anything and everything.
Well ... almost. Never would he venture deep into the belly of the grand building, where the Monsters were, and the blue never ventured very far from the Library, to tell the truth.
What scared him now, was that something strange was happening down there, and the other dragon was going.
Stupid purple! Didn't it know Monsters lived down there?
Silly people! Didn't they know that the Monsters could hurt them too?
After almost four days without his Chosen (as Link and Allen had been the first two to be sent off), the blue was both tense and very bored. A nervous agitation had been eating away at his stomach like a worm, making him feel sick and uneasy at the same time.
Something had been bound to happen, and it was happening now.
//DRDRDR//
"Sir!" Toma said urgently to the Scientist, flinching after hearing the scream coming from the other side of the reinforced door.
"Give me a minute ..." The Quiet man said, was looking through several bottles he had brought with him. "I don't want to shoot him up with the wrong thing ..."
The Quiet Scientist had assigned himself to be the medical 'supervisor' over the current trial they were 'testing' with Lewis. The Quiet Scientist had heard of addiction problems before with common drugs and alcohol, but never with an Innocence abstract.
And, well, he really didn't want to work with the Loud Scientist or the unmoral experiments he had been preforming before. He couldn't convince himself to do it anymore.
So, here he was.
Plus, it would be an intriguing prospect to see what happens to someone who has had Innocence in there system, and then had it removed. Though, by the soft whimpering they had herd the past few hours, combined with the howling screams they heard now, it was probably a most painful process.
Which was why they were now going to sedate the patient, and hopefully keep him unconscious through the worst of it.
The Quiet man was surprised the Crazy had lasted this long without any truly obvious symptoms of withdrawal, though they had followed all of the red dragon's instructions.
They were on day four, supposedly went Lewis would get as Crazy as he was going to get, according the Larg.
The Quiet man motioned for the Finder to open the door and Toma did, yanking on the heavy and reinforced object, giving the Quiet man a view of his 'patient' currently wearing a straitjacket.
The Crazy was curled in on himself, still howling like a burning stake was being stabbed into his back. His brown eyes were clamped tightly shut, and tears were oozing out from beneath the lids.
The man quietly shivered at the sound. It was a howl of lost and crushing realization, and the Quiet man did not want to be the one to hear the sound, or know what would make a person scream like this, but he gritted his teeth and bared it.
The Quiet Scientist prepped the needle, and Toma carefully moved to keep Lewis from moving as the Scientist moved to inject the liquid into the Crazy's neck as both arms were covered from sight within the straitjacket.
Lewis didn't seem to notice the two now with him in the room, at least, he didn't notice them until Toma touched his arm.
Then, the Crazy howled even louder, squirming within his restraints and trying to move away from the touch, thoughts a swirl of fragments and pieces trying to force themselves back together.
Oh God, it hurts, they're gone, they're gone, lost, forever, red, it hurts--
But, the efforts yielded very little results, and the Finder quickly had the Crazy secured, and a needle was slipped into a pulsing vain within his neck, and the screaming slowly died, fragmented thoughts dulling and loosing their sharp edge.
--gone, dead. It hurts, I'm cold, red, they're gone, numb, cold, spinning--
The screaming turned to sobs, that died when the skeletal body went slack, and Toma gave the Scientist a sad glance.
--spinning, falling--
"This should last for at least an hour." He said Quietly, putting the needle away. "And, by then, it might not be so bad."
Toma nodded, and they left the room, leaving the silent Crazy curled up on the floor of the small, empty, windowless, and padded room. The Finder had been surprised such a room even existed within the headquarters.
The Scientist hadn't been surprised, he just quietly wondered what the room was intended for, or, who the room was intended for, actually. Because, he had been working at Central for a long time before coming here, and he knew that everything was in it's place for a reason: be that reason for the present or otherwise.
Either way, they had the perfect place to take care of a ... Crazy? Innocence-addict? Both? Whatever you called it, it was what it was.
--fading ... spinning ... they're gone. It hurts.
The two exited and closed the door, locking the bolt from the outside. But, upon turning around, they saw that they were no longer going about their business unobserved. Two Exorcists were watching, one with a curious eye, the other with two disapproving ones.
And, at ground level, two pairs of eyes glowed white in the semi-darkness, not curious, but knowing.
Toma greeted the two Exorcists by name, and even greeted that dragon, but not by name. Well, Lerrel had only been named moments ago, so who could blame the Finder?
The purple heads were quick to make their new name known to the Finder and Scientist, before shuffling over to the door the Crazy was behind and standing up straight, stretching their long necks to try and see behind the small rectangular window in the door, both heads fighting for the better view as they stood on their tip-toes.
Lavi followed, talking as he tried to get a small glimpse inside as well. "So, what-cha doin' with the Crazy?" The red-head said lazily, moving the head that was Ler out of the way so he could see. His left eye was his 'good' one.
"We're trying to detox him." The Scientist quietly answered, packing his bottles back into the small case he had off to the side. "Though ... I'm beginning to think that if this 'stage' lasts too long, we might be best off letting him keep to his 'addiction.'"
Krory gave the Finder a questioning look, and Toma said respectfully: "It seems to be a most painful process for Sir Lewis at this point; and I was just about to go to Sir Wenhamm to request that we let Lewis continue having small amounts of the ..." The Finder hesitated. "... blood, so he may gradually get used to going without."
"Or just stop the project altogether." Was Quietly added, and the Scientist closed his bag.
Lavi 'hmm'-ed thoughtfully, ignoring Ler as the head demanded to have it's viewpoint back. Rel snickered at his other half's displeasure, still looking in at the Crazy from his own half of the small rectangular 'window' in the door. There wasn't much to watch, the only living thing inside the room was a crumpled heap on the floor, and the room was empty of anything besides a small light in the top, illuminating the entire cell.
Yes, it was rightly called a cell.
Lavi turned back to face the Scientist Quietly packing away his things and the Finder standing patiently, probably intending to stay with the Crazy for whatever length of time it took for
Lewis to either be officially labeled 'sober' or 'Innocence-addict.'
The Junior Bookman adjusted his headband, looking at no one in particular as he talked. "Well, how long is the Crazy going to be here?"
Toma shrugged and the Quiet Scientist thought for a moment. "They may want to keep the trial going for a few days more, to see if Lewis really can become 'clean.'"
Lavi nodded, then said to the Finder that he would watch the Crazy while he went to go report to the Supervisor. "Besides, we weren't doing anything important, were we Krorykins?" The teen grinned imploringly at the older man.
Arystar answered that, no, they hadn't really been doing anything important, and Lavi talked on, hooking both the Scientist and Finder under on friendly arm each, leading the two over to the door, and practically shoving them both away.
The Quiet Scientist took this affront well, Saying that he would be a few hallways over, so that if anything happened he was only a holler away, and Toma quickly went to bring the new proposal to the Supervisor.
So, the two were alone again, the purple monstrosity peaking in at the Crazy through the small window. Lavi went over to the door, and asked Lerrel to get out of the way.
Rel snorted, and Ler giggled, but he/they got down and out of the way.
Lavi began unlocking the door, much to Krory's astonishment. "What are you--"
"I want to take a good look at the Crazy." Lavi said over his shoulder, opening the heavy door and slipping inside before the older Exorcist could object any further.
Ler poked his purple nose in, then Rel did too, and the door was wide open for the dragon and older man to watch as the teen crept over to the crumpled pile of bones on the floor.
Lavi wasn't surprised that Lewis was in a straitjacket, or that the room he was kept in was virtually a padded cell, with the walls and floor covered in a soft layer to keep the Crazy from hurting himself, but he was surprised that such a room was in existence in HQ.
He filed that little question away for later, and crouched next to the mass on the floor.
Messy brown hair, rag-tag clothing stained with brown where the straitjacket didn't cover him, pale skin, gaunt features, and disgusting-looking shoes. The Crazy looked just about the same from the first time Lavi had seen him, eating pancakes. Except, of course, Lewis no longer had that childish smile on his face, or owl-eyed stare.
Nope. The Crazy was out cold from whatever the doctor/scientist had given him. Lavi thought that a good thing, poking at the Crazy's side like a child would with a strange dead animal.
Lerrel inched into the room, Krory behind. The dragon poked at Lewis' feet, trying to wiggle one of the grimy shoes off.
"What are you doing?" Lavi whispered at the dragon's two heads.
"Nothing." The two heads whispered back in sync. "Well, nothing important." The dragon had successfully removed the shoe and were now poking at the old scars of the pad of the foot, inspecting it.
"Both of you get back out here." Krory ordered, at the threshold.
"Do you mean--" Rel began as Ler continued. "--I and Me or--" The two finished together, gesturing at Lavi. "Bookman and I?"
The Crazy twitched, and they all froze.
The brown eyes beneath the clumped hair of the same dull color opened, and blinked sleepily.
Lavi's mind was going a mile a minute, his body still crouched and tense right next to the Crazy. The Scientist just knocked this guy out cold--
Lewis gazed at the redhead by his shoulder, then the two-headed dragon by his shoe-less foot, and a familiar emotion crossed his face. Confusion.
--how is he awake!? Lavi didn't want to move, but Ler blinked, and stretched his horned head closer to the Crazy's face, inspecting the glassy brown eyes.
Ler laughed, and said. "Sleeping, it was!"
"Sleeping, it is." Rel corrected, and the purple body crept closer to what the heads were inspecting.
Lavi furrowed his eyebrows, carefully moving so he could get a better look at Lewis' face.
Dull, glassy, and unfocused brown stared straight ahead, looking at something waking eyes couldn't see. And, as Lavi watched, clear crystal liquid oozed out, showing that new (or maybe old) emotions were beginning to come into the Crazy's mind that hadn't been there before.
//DRDRDR//
There was a Quiet sigh, and the Scientist wandered around, looking for a room that was close enough to where the Crazy was so that he was within shouting distance. Peaking into the first room, he found three others working inside, typing away and scribbling down formulas. He closed that door softly, and moved onto the next.
Looking in on this room, however, he was surprised to see a familiar face, and to hear an equally familiar Loud voice telling him to either come the Hell in or get the Hell out.
Quietly, he came in, peaking at the papers the Loud Scientist was working over.
Hmm, more experimental observation. It looked like the Loud man had been given a new test subject, and that the new one was showing signs of success.
The Loud man quickly cover the papers, blocking the Quiet man's view and glared at his ex-college. "Well? How's the Crazy you're working on?" He Loudly scorned, still blaming Lewis (rightly) for the premature deaths of his other subjects.
The Quiet man shrugged, and sat down. "He's in pain."
"Good." The Loud Scientist shivered, as if cold, and pulled his lab coat tighter around himself.
The Quiet Scientist, though not a fan of the way the loud man thought or did things, worriedly noticed that the other had several layers of clothing on beneath his white coat.
He could not help it. In this new place full of strange people, the Loud man was the only one he knew, and the Quiet man felt obligated to care about the taller Scientist. "Are you alright?"
The Loud man gave the Quiet one a glare, but still shivered. "Don't you have fools that you need to be doctoring instead of bothering me with stupid questions?"
The younger Scientist shook his head silently, but continued to look at his acquaintance suspiciously. "So, how are the new subjects?" The paperwork was enough to prove that the Loud man was working on something.
The cold man snorted Loudly. "I've only been given the resources to work with one."
The Quiet Scientist knew. It was painfully obvious that their project had been dropped for what others were working on at Central, and that all of the willing flesh was now going there. What they had done just hadn't yielded enough results. "... and?"
"It's doing well." The shivering increased a bit, and the Loud Scientist shuffled through a few of the papers lying on his desk. "I still don't know what's causing the body temperature to drop though."
There was a Quiet and thoughtful 'hum' from the younger Scientist. "The only remedy I can still think of is to just put the subject in a warmer environment."
There was a Loud laugh. "Obviously. The idiots in charge still haven't given me a room with a heater that's powerful enough to make a difference."
A sad, Quiet sigh cooled the scorn in the room. "Like always."
"Like always, they're idiots." The Loud man agreed.
The Quiet man gave his ex-college one last glance, before getting up. "I'm going to go back." The Loud man looked at the younger man questioningly. "I don't think it would be good to leave the patient without a doctor at hand for too long."
There was one last Loud laugh as he left the room, following him on the way out as he passed the large heater that had been making the room uncomfortably warm for him the entire time. "So, the Crazy fool's a patient and you're a doctor now? Ha!"
The Quiet man just shook his head sadly one last time before closing the door to the lab, which held only one living occupant.
An occupant that was now both Scientist and Experiment. Willingly. The Quiet Scientist knew it was what the Loud wanted: to succeed. If it took his body to do so ... he would use it.
He wants attention. Recognition. He would sacrifice anything to do something that would make his name go down in history. Create the perfect soldier, or to just be a name on the list of the dead, it doesn't matter. He just wants to be important.
Quietly, the Scientist took a deep breath, and let it out, plodding slowly back to where the Exorcists and Crazy were.
He just wants to be remembered.
//DRDRDR//
"Lavi." Arystar ordered. The pale man had already gotten the purple dragon out of the room by pulling it out by it's tail (no matter how Lerrel protested) and was now trying to get the teen to follow. "Get out of there now--"
"It was awake!" The left head exclaimed, and the purple body ceased wiggling for a moment.
The Junior Bookman ignored Krory, and was curiously waving a hand in front of the tearing eyes.
The Brown eyes blinked, then tried to follow the movement.
"Lewis?" Lavi tried. "Are you sober?"
The young man shook his head, and Lavi grinned. He was awake enough to answer questions, and sane enough to know what was being said to him, and that was on hell of a leap in the right direction. Now ...
"Why are you crying?"
Slowly, and with a lot of wiggling, the Crazy (or not-so-Crazy) tried to make himself right-side-up, and the teen helped when he realized what Lewis want.
Once righted, the ragged skeleton leaned on the padded wall for support and swallowed hard, blinking. "I--" He tried, voice raw. "I-- ... lost ..." The tear-streaked face was confused, befuddled. "I lost ..."
The mind had mostly pieced itself back together, but now a few final bit had yet to connect.
"Lavi!" The older Exorcist hissed, still holding onto the straining dragon's tail. Now that the Crazy was moving, Lerrel was twice as curious to see it.
Again, Lavi ignored Arystar. "Take it slow," The Junior Bookman advised the one-Crazy man only a handful of years older than himself. "You've just had your brain de-fried after all."
The skeleton was just as confused as ever. "Why--" Lewis croaked, testing his straitjacket. "--am I--?"
"Tied up?" The red head shrugged, sitting down in a crossed-legged position. "I dunno. You sounded like you were in a lotta pain a little while ago though."
The Confused young man just nodded in an absent-minded manner, thinking. "It hurt ..."
"And it doesn't hurt now?"
"I don't--" The confined man rasped, "I don't feel anything ... now."
Lavi poked the skeleton's forehead experimentally. "Feel that?"
The now-sane young man shook his head, loose brown hair swinging.
Lavi thought for a moment, gazing at the dull brown eyes. "I guess whatever the quiet guy shot you up with sort-of worked, anyway."
The dull brown orbs traveled across the room. "Where ...?"
Lavi gave a reassuring grin. "You're at the Black Order Headquarters, Lew!"
The eyes blinked. "You know ... my name?"
"Of course! Ya told Toma, remember?"
The brown was beginning to seem less dull, and the tears had begun to dry. " ... To-ma?"
"I want to see too!" Lerrel demanded, squirming again in Krory's grasp and drawing the focusing gaze of the once-crazy to the door.
"What's ..." He rasped, before swallowing. "Oh. Dragon." There was recognition there, not surprise or fear.
"Yup." Lavi confirmed, leading the confused man to answers. "You've got one too."
"Larg ..." Lewis blinked. "Because he was large." He giggled, sounding more tired than hysterical. "Larg was Larg because Larg was large ..." He thought a bit. "Where are ...?" He trailed off, brown eyes growing dull again.
Lavi waited to see if the young man would finish the question.
Lewis took a breath, voice weaker now, his eyes less focused. "Where are they?"
"Where are who?" Lavi asked.
The skeleton's eyes drooped, whatever force that had kept him up was leaving him. "They ..." The voice wavered, and Lewis seemed to remember something, the final bits fiting together at last. "Oh. They're gone. I forgot ..." The eyes closed, and a few tears escaped as the tired and broken voice repeated. "They're gone. Gone."
And then the once-crazy young man was dead to the world again, still crying over something long since lost. Or, maybe, something only recently gone.
//DRDRDR//
"Walker." Link said, trying not to clutch to the saddle beneath him, like every single fiber of his being was telling him to. "We're lost."
The young Exorcist was currently occupied; his face pressed against a map that was vainly trying to escape his grasp in the strong wind that whipped about them as Speck flew, speckled gray wings flapping in smooth strokes.
"No, no, wait--" Allen wrestled with the scrap of paper. "We just past this river--" The teen tried pointing at one of the blue line on the map. "--and we're probably somewhere--"
"We're lost Walker." Link interrupted, sound absolute with his statement.
Allen looked back and over his shoulder at the grumpy-looking Inspector. "Just because I can't find my way to the Cafeteria, doesn't mean I'm always lost--"
"Walker," Howard started, trying not to reply with hostility. "I know we are lost because you are holding the map upside-down."
Allen blinked, looking at the wiggling paper, and carefully turning it right-side-up. "Oh."
Speck giggled, causing the two currently seated on his back to bob up and down with his laughter.
Link was far from amused. "Give me the map." He ordered, holding out his hand for the paper.
Allen handed the map over, feeling slightly dejected.
Link looked from the map to the ground, looking for landmarks. He frowned. The map consisted mostly of rivers and man-made roads, neither of which could be seen clearly from the hight Speck was lazily gliding at.
"Down?" The speckled gray asked, looking back a the two with his flexible neck that all of the reptilian mythical beasts seemed to have.
Howard nodded and quickly added: "Yes, bring us down."
The dragon stopped flapping and just continued to glide, going down slowly and looking this way and that a good spot to land where there weren't any people present.
Allen gave Howard a curious look. The Exorcist had thought the strict Inspector would have them flying for as long as possible.
The Inspector noticed the look and stiffly stated that: "The sun is already setting, and we might as well take the time to settle in for the night and get our bearings."
The white-haired boy shrugged and looked down, searching for any near-by towns they could look for inns in.
Speck stiffened slightly, and both Allen and Howard noticed. It was almost impossible not too, being as the two of them payed careful attention to the only thing between them and a deathly fall.
"Speck?" Allen asked, searching the sky and ground for any signs of trouble.
"Shh," The gray almost whispered the sound, still gliding carefully downward.
It wasn't an akuma, Howard noted. Otherwise, Walker would have noticed too.
They lower farther in silence, the smallish gray still tense as a bowstring, looking almost like he was listening for something.
Allen wondered what could be happening, when Speck sighed, and shook his horned head. "No. Nothing, me sorry for worry." The gray told the two people, concentrating on landing again.
Link glared at the back of the gray skull. "And what was it exactly that you thought you noticed, that wasn't there?"
Speck gave the Inspector a perfectly innocent look. "Me think me hear talking."
"Talking?"
"Talking."
"What talking?" They were still a mile away from the ground for God's sakes! What was the dragon hearing, voices in his head?
"None talking. Me no hear no more." Speck said as-a-matter-of-fact, and landed in a clearing, the impact nice and light and with a lot of flapping so that he didn't jar his passengers.
"We here." The gray declared as Allen and Howard slid off of him.
Allen looked around at the dimming landscape, and Howard tried to get a better look at the map, now that the piece of paper wasn't being tossed about by the wind.
Trying to talk with the gray dragon about most anything would be a waste of time, the Inspector decided. Luke, his dragon, was much better at getting his points across.
And, they were defiantly lost.
Link held back a sigh, and crisply ordered Allen to get a move on.
"Where are we going?" The Exorcist asked, curious. He had seen a few towns and roads leading to them when Speck had landed, and was hoping Link now knew where they were.
"To ask where we are." Nope. Location was still unknown, even to the Inspector.
Allen frowned, but told Speck to stay there and quickly followed after the blond German.
(AN: I've just heard Link is German ... correct me if I'm wrong.)
"Hey Link ..." Allen asked, white eyebrows furrowed in thought.
"Yes, Walker."
"Why didn't you tell me we were going the wrong way sooner?"
"..."
"You must have noticed right away--" Allen stopped talking, another thought coming at him. "Unless, of course, you weren't paying attention?"
"... What is your point, Walker?"
The Exorcist stared at the Inspector like he had just grown two heads. "My point is, you're acting weird."
Link continued walking through the forest brush, raising one thin golden eyebrow. "Weird?"
"Weird." Allen nodded, watching where he stepped, just in case a snake was hiding in the loose bits of bark and tree beneath his feet. "You looked tired for some reason a few days ago, you're not paying attention now, and you're not as ..."
"... Not as what, Walker?"
Well, you're not as stiff as a board, or ranting on about some rule or another, or giving a speech on how I should eat more vegetables. "You're not as rigid." Allen decided to say aloud, as the majority of his thoughts were too ... demeaning, to mention.
"... Rigid."
"Yup."
"'Yup' is not a word, Walker."
"..."
"..."
It was going to be a long walk.
END 25. Lost?
AN: ... Updates after this point will probably take a while ... I have exams coming up, AND my mother just bought us a puppy spontaneously last week.
Smudge: What is a 'puppy?'
A creature that is fuzzy, unbelievably cute, will lick your face off when it greets you, and has to be supervised 24-7, until it learns NOT to chew on power wiring or not to go inside the house.
Sunny: (snicker) Sounds like Gremlin ...
Ammy: Though, I do not believe the bug is 'fuzzy.'
Well, at least Gremlin doesn't go in the house, though I'm not sure about the power cord thing ...
... Anyway, I will write whenever I can, but don't expect the weekly updates to be so wonderfully regular any more ... I apologize.
See you all (you wonderful readers you!) at the next update!
-knux33