Chapter 2/A Knotted Mess
"Any ideas yet?" Aura asks, poking her head into the freshly cleaned room.
"On the thief's identity and location or what potion they stole?" Ignatius questions instead.
"Either," Aura answers.
"Neither," Ignatius sighs, shaking his head forlornly. "All the ruined potions have either evaporated or soaked into the floorboards and I can't tell which one is not among them. Now I regret not labeling the vials but there was no point since I always knew what was in them and you never touched them. I couldn't even find a clue about our intruder either since they were apparently smart enough to wear gloves."
"There's not even a hint of their essence in the air, so they must have done this shortly after we left the house," Aura mentions before lamenting. "You'd think with our age we would have been able to prevent something like this."
Ignatius snorts in amusement and smirks over his shoulder to his inamorata. Yes, one would think such but clearly even being ageless doesn't prevent someone from needing to learn new things. Today's lesson is that locking the doors and windows when you leave the house is a very smart thing to do. And should one practice magic, learn a spell that keeps intruders out.
He just hopes his potion doesn't cause too much trouble in the hands of whoever stole it.
"Is BK back yet?" Thang questions after he jumps out of the truck.
"It's not night yet, is it?" Stuff counters with a chuckle, thumbing to the sunset.
"Good point," Thang mutters. "Well, that's actually a good thing, really. He'd probably yell at me if he was."
"You didn't make a mistake on the ordering again, did you?" Stuff asks as she follows Thang toward the back of the truck.
"No, but I did catch one of his llamas that managed to get out and I was worried about them jumping out of the truck since I didn't have a stock rack, so I tied ropes across the top of the bed to keep them from standing up after they laid down once I managed to get them on the truck," Thang explains.
Stuff freezes as she finally looks into the truck bed and notices the extra cargo amidst the bags of feed, an angry-looking cargo judging by the pinned-back ears. Unusual amber-colored eyes focus on her momentarily before returning to watch Thang as he opens the tailgate and climbs up to start removing the ropes stretching across the bed's top.
"Thang, I really don't think this is one of BK's llamas," Stuff mutters.
"Of course this is one of BK's llamas. I found them wandering the side of the road ten miles out and this is the only fiber farm within a hundred miles, if not more," Thang comments.
"I agree with Stuff on this one," Beaks pipes up, moving to stand beside Stuff. "That's definitely not one of BK's llama. He doesn't have a brown llama with a white neck and muzzle."
Stuff glares at the Beaks when Thang cringes and curls in on himself. The shorter man cringes himself before rapidly moving away from the taller burly woman, barely managing to dodge the punch she throws at him. Gesturing for mercy does no good and Beaks quickly hides behind the approaching Gus when Thang is heard mumbling that he thought the llama was black with white markings.
"It's fine, Thang," Gus consoles, moving to keep between the irate woman and the cowering man behind him. "Obviously someone lost their llama, so we'll just put the llama in a pen and search around to find the owner."
"Yeah, that's right. You probably saved that dumb animal's life," Beaks agrees quickly.
A loud screeching groan rips through the air and Stuff abandons her pursuit to look back at the contained llama. That's not good. If she thought the beast looked angry before, they look downright murderous now as they bellow out another screeching groan.
"Poor thing is probably upset for being kept down for so long," Thang mentions, resuming removing the ropes.
"Uh, Thang, I really wouldn't take that rope off if I were you," Beaks comments uneasily as Thang reaches for the last rope. "We should probably move the truck into a free pen first."
The suggestion comes too late and when the pressure from the rope lessens across the lamoid's back, the llama spits at Thang before standing and jumping off the truck. Beaks screams as the five-foot-seven animal barrels toward Gus, screaming louder when the llama effortlessly glides around the six-foot man and starts chasing him.
"Demon llama! Demon llama!" Beaks yells.
"Why do things like this always happen whenever BK ain't here?" Stuff sighs.
To say that she is having a bad day or a terrible day would be an understatement. In fact, Marianne would say that this is the worst day of her life...that is if she could say anything at all. How in the world can a day go from dealing with broken relationships and being accosted by an ex-fiance to being turned into a llama?!
It's still kinda fuzzy what happened. One minute she was dealing with that sharp pain in her head while trying to find a place to pull off to the side of the road and then she woke up at the bottom of a steep hill, her badly damaged car some distance away from her and she no longer had human hands. She'll admit that she screamed and then screamed some more when the sound that emerged from her mouth sounded like a loud trumpeting squeaky horn. Who wouldn't be freaked out, after all?
There was a bit of trouble figuring out how to use four legs but a chorus of howls a little too close for comfort had activated some kind of inner knowledge and she ran like the hounds of hell were chasing her. Luckily, that wasn't the case but she hadn't taken any chances and didn't stop running until she couldn't run anymore. Getting caught while she was trying to figure out where she was had been an annoyance...despite the fact that it probably did save her life.
Venting her accumulated frustrations by chasing the smart-mouth had been glorious but unfortunately short-lived before her 'rescuer' managed to lasso her again and guided her into this barn. Apparently, spitting at him hadn't phased the man one bit.
The transformed woman surveys her prison as she reluctantly chews on the offered alfalfa hay. At least the place didn't reek overpoweringly of dung even as she notices the other creatures milling about inside the barn in the waning daylight. Another blessing is the fact that the man, Thang, had placed her in an unoccupied stall and didn't try placing her with the other llamas.
"Here you go," Thang murmurs, pouring grain into the feeding trough. "I know it's a bit late but I figured you're probably hungry, aren't you?"
"You have no idea. I'm hungry enough to eat that big sheep over there," Marianne responds, though nothing comes from her except a humming sound.
"Oh! You're pretty calm now. So you finally realized that I'm not going to harm you, have you? How about you let me take care of your injuries, huh?" Thang questions.
Injuries?
As if it needed her recognition to start hurting, the cuts on her face, chest, arms...forelegs, and hindlegs reveal their existence. Must have gotten them from the accident. She also suspects that persistent dull pain in her head might have been from it as well.
Marianne watches warily as Thang approaches her inside the stall, following his movements as he reaches out to her face. A sting under his hand causes her to back up but she stops in shock as her sound of pain emits as a soft "mwa" sound.
Seriously?! Her "ow" is translated into "mwa" and not even a sharp harsh sound like when she was scared or angry!
So distracted by her thoughts of the weirdness of her present form, she doesn't notice at first when Thang resumes his task of checking the small cut on the side of her face. Another "mwa" emits from her when he pulls out a piece of glass but she remains still as he calls for Stuff.
"What's wrong?" Stuff asks, approaching the pen.
"Look at this!" Thang cries, holding out the glass. "These wounds weren't caused by another animal!"
"Glass? That's odd," Stuff murmurs. "Doesn't look like the llama went through a window, not enough injuries in that case."
"Maybe we should hold off on trying to find the owner until BK gets back," Thang suggests.
"I'll go tell Gus. Get the rest of the wounds cleaned and come in for your supper," Stuff orders.
"Sure thing, Bunnykins!" Thang chirps.
Marianne can't help her snicker at the cutesy pet name, the sound coming out as a continuing hum. If there was one name that didn't seem to fit the strong and tough-looking woman before her then that would have to be it. Nonetheless, a bright blush crosses Stuff's face and she runs a calloused hand through her spiked short black hair before scurrying away.