The Rainy Day Trip
Part VIII
By Saphron (duh)
A/N: Hey peeps, I know that I promised you that the next chapter would be the big battle scene, only I kinda got sidetracked (sorry) so instead, the next chapter will be 'the big battle.' (At least I think so.) This is just a little chapter that I'm slipping in between. (Actually it's pretty long.) It's quite funny, and personally one of my favorites. I thought of it in the middle of the night last night, while trying to think of a plan to lure the beast down from its cave. But this came to me instead, and so I'm gunna post it. Right, anyhow, I'll let you read it now. It's pretty good, and you'll especially like it if you're a Kel/Cleon fan. *Winks* (Fun, but not fluffy. I like fluffy fics in general, but this isn't a romance story, so no fluff, just fun.) I personally myself am neutral. No preference for anybody (not just Cleon and Neal) but hey, y'know, when I thought up of this fic it was Cleon who tagged along and not Neal. (Joren I guess is tagging along too, but I really don't know why he's here, I honestly truly don't.) I didn't design it that way, these characters did. They have a life of there own y'know! They really do. *Joren pops out of computer screen and starts yelling at me, "why do I have such a small part? I want more lines or I quit! I say get outa here and push him back in.* So anyhow, read on, read on.
Declaimer (ie: Disclaimer, well what d'ya know, Declaimer is a word! I wasn't expecting that…I didn't look it up, it's just I think after eight chapters I've run out of scary words…I think it means disclaimer anyhow, er, I hopes so. Of course it does! I mean, probably, well, I mean…oh never mind, it's equivalent to disclaimer, awright? I officially declaim that nothing is mine.) Anyhow, la, la, la, la, la, absolutely nothing belongs to me! Except the mackerel…and the other fish, but, um, yeah, everything else belongs to, you guessed it, Tamora Pierce! Congratulations, you win the grand prize on the 'guess the author show!' And you can choose between this new, red, Chevy convertible, or this next chapter in the story! ::camera man runs on stage and hands announcer note-card:: Er, yes, well, it seems that our little assistant director thought it'd be fun to take the Chevy out for a spin to 'test it' and since he still hasn't come back, um, you get the story! Congratulations, here's your prize…
"Ahem," Raoul cleared his throat as he stood up, "men, I've got an announcement to make," he didn't even bother to take notice of Kel's glare at the word 'men', instead he just kept talking. "Due to unexpected difficulties, we've, well, we've run out of food." Low murmurs and groans enfollowed. "It took longer to get here than we anticipated, it took us a long time to find the beast's hiding spot, and we had also assumed that it would be on the ground, in which case we could have stormed in and defeated it. But because of the impossible location, we haven't managed to kill it yet. So we've been sitting here eating away our supply, when according to the schedule, we should have been an hour away from Naxen right now, beast eliminated."
This is not good, Kel thought to herself, definitely not good.
We have enough supplies for one more night, but after that…" his voice trailed off, and no one needed him to continue. He cleared his throat again, "right, well, we've all gone through this before. We'll just have to live off the land. Half of us will go find food, the other half will stay and guard camp, (they had once again set up a makeshift camp well-hidden behind the boulders, not knowing how long they would have to stay) as well as repairing weapons, and formulating a plan to lure the beast down. (The scouts from the night before had reported that although it was possible to scale the cliffs, it was highly likely that if they tried it more than half of them would end up dead, which more or less ruled out that plan.) And one more thing men make sure if you leave camp you only leave in pairs of two or three, we don't want to attract extra attention to ourselves. Large numbers will do that. And make sure you always, always have a weapon handy, this is strange, and possibly hostile territory we're in." He ended his little speech and sat back down again on a nearby log.
Kel and Cleon elected to go look for food, seeing as how they weren't blacksmiths and couldn't fix weapons, or do anything else useful. Joren, well, Joren stayed behind to polish his already gleaming sword for the fifteenth hundred time. He was kinda obsessive with that sword. Or maybe he just likes staring at his own face a lot.
"So where d'ya want to hunt?" Cleon asked Kel as they gathered up their spears.
"Um, I don't know, want to go fishing over there?" She pointed a little way up ahead, to where a small half-pool branched out from the lake's brim.
"Sure, ok," so they headed about seventy feet away from camp to the water's edge. When they got there they rolled up their breaches and began to wade in. The water wasn't icy because it was the middle of summer, but it certainly wasn't nice and toasty warm. Kel shivered a bit as it reached her knees. When they were in at mid-thigh they stopped.
Kel, although not an expert fisher, could hold her own. She had done a bit of fishing when in the Yamani islands, her older brothers had all taught her how. In ten minuets she had managed to catch two herrings and a mackerel (I know nothing about fish, so if they are fresh water and not marine I apologize.) Cleon on the other hand, was completely and utterly hopeless; the only thing he managed to spear was his big toe.
Twenty minutes had passed and already their pant legs had fallen down. Suddenly, out of the blue, Cleon began to cuss and hop around on one foot.
"Gods cures it!" He yelled, shaking his right leg in the air.
"What's happening Cleon?" Kel asked, curious. By this time he had stopped hopping and was reaching over to get something out of the water.
"This stupid fish swam up my pants!" He yelled, holding up a tiny, two-inch cod, which he had just retrieved from his wet breeches.
Kel had to slap a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, but even so a few giggles escaped.
Cleon glared at her mock angry, "you think that's funny, huh?" He said as he lobbed the fish at her.
Kel was so surprised that she fell over backwards, butt first. Gasping in shock she reached over and grabbed Cleon's ankles, causing him to fall into the water, butt first.
"Oh yeah!" A big wave sent by Cleon splashed Kel, soaking the upper half of her body that had miraculously remained dry when she had fallen over.
She retailed by tackling him and then next thing they knew they were having a huge water fight. They wrestled, splashed, laughed, choked on a few gallons of seawater, laughed and splashed some more, and then dragged their sopping wet bodies out onto the sandy beach to try and dry off.
They were both sitting on the warm, dry sand, teeth chattering, lips blue, and clothes soaked. Kel was yelling at Cleon for getting them wet, and trying not to burst out into another wave of hysterics at the same time. She threw her hair, which she had just rung out, over her shoulder and turned to glare at Cleon. She was expecting him to be glaring back at her, only he wasn't. He was looking at her, but the expression on his face was certainly not an angry one. He had a strange gleam in his eye, something she had never noticed before. He leaned in towards her, his face only scant inches away from hers.
"Kel," he whispered, looking at her intently, for-a-minuet-she-was-sure-he-was-going-to-
-"There you guys are!" came a loud, relieved voice, Kel and Cleon both gave a slight jump and turned to face the speaker, "we've been looking for you two for the last half hour! You were supposed to be back by now. Did you catch any-Mirthros! What happened? You two are sopping wet!" He apparently had just noticed the wet clothes.
"Come on, let's get you back to camp, we have a fire going and you could dry off there. You two look cold." Kel nodded and got up; so did Cleon.
They followed Raoul back to camp, Cleon chatting with him about some guy thing. Kel remained silent. She had almost thought that-but no; that was crazy! Of course nothing was going to happen. She shook her head, small water droplets hitting the sand below. Harder to shake off was the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
***
~*Saphron*~
A/N: Hey peeps, you like? I hope so cause I spent the entire night thinking about it and planning it all out and getting no sleep what-so-ever. Ah-what I do for my loyal fans…::grins:: right, anyhow, I'm sorry if anyone is upset that it's Cleon and not anyone else (for right now at least…) I'm pretty sure Neal is out of the picture, but hey, you never know, reinforcements could be called in…Joren, well, I highly doubt this is going to be a Joren/Kel fic, I'll leave that to Sulia Serafine, who is the QUEEN of K/J. (Read her fics, even if you don't like Joren, trust me, they're good.) Um, I don't think Raoul would try anything (especially not with thirty of the King's Own there) but well, as I said before, these characters have a life of there own. And keep in mind that this is NOT a romance, if anything it's an action/adventure, with a bit of humor and romance and other things mixed in. But if anybody has any ideas…well, you never know. And speaking of ideas, I have a few for the 'big battle' scene (which should probably be next chapter) but I dunno, nothing solid. ANY and ALL ideas welcomed! With of course, full credit and special thank you's. (Thanks everybody who's given me some already.) Right, anyhow, this A/N is getting long. (I always seem to make these things last forever, huh?) So I better shut up now. R/R please! (And send in ideas…)