Oh! Important tidbit! These #########
signify flashback breaks. ^_^
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Kang stared at the two as Lashana let her voice trail off, his talons digging into the counter top. "And?!"
"And what?"
"What happened?!"
Both she and Malcho blinked at the unified yells of their now rather large audience. Sometime near the middle of the story, the rest of the Guys had milled into the Kitchen and taken up seats around them, avidly listening to them. Kadrith and Tvashtar were at the island counter with Kang and Blackwargreymon, Wolverine, Remy, Zelgadis and Duncan were at the small table near the patio doors, Nightcrawler was hanging from the light fixture, Kenshin was doing dishes while listening in, and Beast was sitting on the top of the fridge while Mewtwo leaned against the side of the island counter, his intent gaze never leaving her.
She smirked and rubbed at her throat. "I'm thirsty."
"Here!"
"Want me to weave a Healing spell on you?"
~I can telepathically broadcast the story for you if you can't talk.~
Blinking, she looked from Zelgadis and Mewtwo to the the half dozen glasses of various drinks being held out to her, dimly aware that Malcho was chuckling in amusement.
"A little caught up in the story I see," he smiled as the Elf grabbed a glass from Kang and sipped at the lemonade. "Shall I continue or can you handle a bit more, mi amiga?"
"M'okay," she muttered around the rim of her glass, taking another drink before smiling at the group. "Okay. So.... where was I again?"
There were numerous groans all around.
"Hehe."
##################
Birds. Lots of them. Since when were there song birds in the desert? Better yet, since when did the desert smell like damp earth?! Pain accompanied her return to consciousness, and she stifled a whimper as her body loudly told her it's opinion of tranquilizers, craters and her treatment of it. "Oh Gods.... Someone stop the Universe, I wanna get off....." That said/groaned, she slowly rose her head from her arms and cracked open an eye, staring right at a large spiderweb. "Ack!"
Panic produced adrenaline fuelling her strength, she yelped and scrambled backwards until her back came into contact with something all together huge and scaly, and she blinked slowly as she looked around and realized that she had bumped into Malcho himself. The quetzacoatl was loosely coiled behind her, wings folded against his back, his head resting on the ground as he slept. She frowned and looked up at the thick canopy above them, her gaze easily following the path of numerous songbirds that flew from branch to branch. The Rainforest.... How long was I unconscious?!
Her ribs chose that moment to remind her that they still weren't very happy with her, and she winced as she clamped a hand over her right side, fingers carefully probing at the spot that hurt the most. Oh good. Bruised not broken. I can handle this. Closing her eyes, she leaned back against Malcho's outermost coil and murmured the incantation to a Healing spell, sighing gratefully when the tightness in her chest vanished, the agony in her ribs dulling to a light annoyance. It's worth the drain on my energy. At least this way I can move around.
A low snore pulled her attention over to her unlikely companion, and she smiled despite herself as she leaned her head back and studied him. True, that ego of his drove her nuts, but his aura was good, despite the few darker shadows in it that showed that he had seen and lived through a lot. She sighed softly and curled up close to him as she thought through what she had learned, unconsciously reaching out to gently work the tangles out of Malcho's hair as she did so.
Okay, so there's a badass poacher from my world carrying my world's weaponry running around doing favours for a very evil sorcerer that wants the poacher to hunt down some animals in the Rainforest... including Malcho. Add to that the fact that they know I know what they're up to, and that the poacher has 'his boys' with him..... *sigh* Methinks it's time I start running through the list of spells that I have, this could get bad....
Malcho rumbled softly as the sensation of someone playing with his hair pulled him out of a deep sleep. It had been a while since he had had the opportunity to get some decent rest. That volcano hadn't exactly been the most comfortable place to be. The sound of a soft sigh tugged his mind into a rather unwanted wakefulness, and he drowsily opened his left eye to look at a wide awake Lashana as she continued to stroke his hair, her fingers easily working out the knots and tangles that he simply wasn't able to deal with. She's alright! She didn't seem to be aware that he was awake though, instead her gaze was fixed on her task, the telltale faraway look in her eyes proving that she was in fact lost in thought.
Not wanting to startle her, he closed his eye again and shifted slightly, moving his head closer to her as he coiled his body around her in a wide perimeter, feeling a pang of disappointment when he felt her pull away. "Don't. Continue, por favor."
"How long have you been awake?" Lashana whispered, looking at him as he opened his eyes to meet her gaze.
"Only a few moments." He turned his head away. "There's a burr caught in there. It's been driving me loco. Could you--?"
Surprised, she nodded dumbly and reached out to carefully start to untangle the burr from his hair. "You came back for me, didn't you? Thank you."
He glanced at her. "I never actually left, amiga." At her look of surprise, he sighed and closed his eyes, saving himself from making eye contact while he spoke. "I am a solitary creature, amiga. I have lived my life quite happily without the need for company. But you.... you are different. You pull emotions out of me that I didn't even know I possessed. It is as though I am drawn to you, and quite frankly that need for companionship frightens me. In less than a week you have changed me, amiga, and I can't help wondering if your departure will free me.... or plague me with loneliness. And yet, even knowing that, I cannot leave you." Gathering what little composure he had left, he opened his eyes and turned to look at her. "I felt fear. I, Malcho the Great, felt fear when I found you in the lee of that dune. I brought you, an outsider, to my Rainforest home without a second thought. I haven't hunted in days, unwilling and unable to leave you. What is this that drives me to act like such a.... a...."
"Friend?"
He jerked, staring at her. That word, it was so simple. Such a simple reasoning behind this lunacy. "Mi amiga...." A hiss escaped him as he cut short what he had been about to say, his eyes widening when he realized that he had been calling her 'my friend' without even realising it. It was second nature to him now, to call her that, and he groaned in exasperation as he buried his face in his wings. "Oh, I must be completely insane."
Lashana smirked. "Welcome to the club," she chuckled, meeting his gaze when he lowered a wing to look at her. "Hey, I'm the one who explicitly trusts a giant winged snake that's huge enough to eat me whole. You can't tell me that's a sane thing to do."
Unbidden, a chuckle rose from within him at those words, the tension leaving him as he laughed. "At least I will have company on my voyage to complete lunacy then," he rumbled, grinning at her as she smiled. "Alright, since I cannot escape this madness any more than you can, let us at least venture onwards together, si?" He chuckled again and settled himself more comfortably, looking at her where she sat before him. "Now, tell me, what happened back in Agrabah. When I found you, there was a scent of darkness about you, and something.... something akin to the medicines that humans use, but sharper, twisted."
She sighed and leaned back on her hands. "That was a drug. It's meant to put the target to sleep so that they can be captured alive.... I overheard a conversation at the sorcerers hideout... you're not gonna like this," she warned, taking a deep breath to steel herself before retelling everything that she had overheard and the subsequent chase through the city.
He was silent for a long moment, his expression unreadable as he looked away from her. "...this gringo that is after me. He and his group are called what again?"
"Poachers. They're from my world," she muttered, plainly disgusted that people like that existed in her world. "Poachers are people who kill animals for nothing more than trophies that they can sell in black markets. They're sick, twisted people. Some kill bears just for their paws....others...." She shook her head, refusing to go on.
He obviously didn't think too highly of it either. "That's barbaric!"
"That's why it's illegal. But somehow the bastards always manage to evade being caught by the cops, the authorities. And now there's a whole group of them here, where no one can stop them."
"They will be stopped, amiga," he muttered, clenching a wing into a fist.
"Malcho.... they're after you too, remember? They have weapons that can kill at a distance, weapons that are way more powerful than anything you've ever seen! It'd be suicide!"
The panicked tone of her voice jarred him out of his rather murderous state of mind, and he blinked at her in surprise as he lowered his head a bit closer to her. "You.... My death would upset you, amiga?"
"Of course it'd upset me!" she yelled. "What kind of a stupid question is that?!"
"A valid one, when it's coming from someone who's never had another worry about him," he murmured, meeting her gaze for a moment before leaning closer and lightly nudging her in the ribs with his nose. "Alright, mi amiga. Do you have a better idea?"
She leaned against the side of his head as he stayed close and sighed. "Obviously we have to get them out of your world. And since that sorcerer knows that I was eavesdropping and knows that I have magick of my own, he might take that as a challenge and accompany the poachers here. If it comes to that, I have one spell that might be powerful enough to take them all out, but I'd rather not weave it in the jungle." At his quizzical look, she smiled sheepishly. "It's supposed to be extremely destructive. On a good note, that sorcerer obviously has magicks that enables him to travel from world to world, but...."
"But if he merely has it memorized you have no hope of getting that spell," he finished for her, catching on to her train of thought. "And the question remains, will we wait, or take the fight to them?"
Shaking her head, she shifted to sit lotus style, rested her right elbow on her knee and sunk her cheek into the palm of her hand. "I may just be a newbie sorceress.... but I have a few tricks that could put me on level with that sorcerer. Granted it'll cost me, but I should be able to handle it, so we're pretty even on the magickal way of things. But those poachers...." She sighed and closed her eyes. "We can't match their weapons.... Hey, how long was I unconscious anyway?"
"Three days. Whatever that gringo did to you, it put you into a very deep sleep," the quetzacoatl told her as he rose to his full height. "Here now, I think we could both use a meal. Thirty paces to your right is a large fruit tree. Peaches I believe they're called. Shall I meet you there after I do a little dining of my own?"
She grinned and nodded. "Sure." Oh Gods, food. I haven't eaten in days.... She took a moment to watch him slither deeper into the underbrush before hopping to her feet and following his directions. What's a pace to a snake anyway? Surprisingly enough it was exactly where he had said it was, and despite her still sore ribs, she happily jumped up to grasp a branch, swinging herself into the tree.
Once safely seated on a sturdy branch, she reached out and twisted a few fruits off, checking them for bugs before happily sinking her fangs into one, humming in pleasure at the taste. I so needed this. She leaned back against the trunk of the tree as she ate, calmly looking up through it's branches at the thinner canopy above, the lack of dense trees allowing sunlight to stream down into the dense forest. Even if I wasn't an Elf and drawn to places like this, I'd still manage to find my way to the forests. It's so peaceful here....
She was halfway through her fifth peach when she heard the slightest sound of the bushes moving, and she quirked a pure white eyebrow as she leaned forward a little and looked down, smiling when Malcho slowly moved into view. Knowing that he didn't have a clue where she truly was, she leaned back again and watched him as he looked around, his forked tongue tasting the air for a moment before he turned and looked directly at her.
"Amiga? However did you get up there?"
"I climbed," she shrugged, grinning as she took another bite out of her peach. "I'm an Elf, the forests are my home too, y'know. Actually...." She straightened again and tossed the leftover peach over in the direction of a scavenging spider monkey, hearing it's happy cry as it latched onto the treat and bolted up into the safety of the trees. "Y'know, that's an advantage that those stupid humans don't have! You an I, we know the forest. We can move through here with ridiculous ease, right?"
He blinked, not knowing what she was getting at. "Si."
The Elf gave him a fanged grin and chuckled wickedly. "How are you at setting up traps?"
###############
"Even then, you were evil," Zelgadis chuckled as he got up to get himself another cup of coffee, reflexively ducking the low power fireball that came his way.
"I am not evil. I merely have inventive ways of getting back at people!" the Elf protested.
"'Inventive' means 'evil', right? Cuz I remember what you and Telca did to me a few months ago," Duncan grimaced, reaching up to rub at his jaw. After all that time he still couldn't regrow the hair on his face or legs.
"You tried to have us put in an insane asylum, Duncan. You got what you deserved," Lashana said, folding her arms over her chest as she leaned back against Malcho. "Besides, we could have been way crueller."
"I don't want to know," Tvashtar muttered, glancing away from the now pale immortal as he looked at his Avatar. "Well? Are you going to continue or not?"
"Gee, I'm not sure." She looked at Malcho and smirked. "Should we?"
He chuckled and ducked his head close to her, his left wing balling into a fist with a single feather pointing at Blackwargreymon. "Considering that he is showing great self-restraint by not running over here and attempting to rip my wings off for touching you, I think we should."
"He wouldn't dare. Would you, Black?"
The Digimon met her stern gaze and winced. "Wouldn't dream of it, my Bonded."
"Good."
"The story?" Kadrith urged, looking from the sorceress to the quetzacoatl. "What happened?"
Malcho chuckled and leaned back against a wall. "Well mi amigo, after we had devised a 'plan of attack', it was a simple matter to locate a clearing that they would automatically pick as a good spot to stop for the night...."
############
"Oh my aching back...." Malcho groaned softly and stretched his wings out to their full extension, twisting this way and that in an attempt to ease the knot that had formed just below where his wings met his back. I am not getting old. I am not getting old.... The sensation of a hand landing on his scales startled him momentarily before he remembered that Lashana was well within hearing range of his complaining, granted the sensation of warmth spreading into his tired spine was certainly more than he was currently able to comprehend. "Que?" He glanced back at her and blinked, noticing that the hand that she was resting against his back was glowing a soft blue. "Mi amiga?"
"Just hold still a moment longer. You'll feel better in a second or two," she murmured, not looking at him as she concentrated on the spell.
Indeed, the moment she pulled away, the ache faded, seemingly wiped out by the warmth that had spread along his back and wings. He stretched a little bit, eyes widening at the lack of stiffness that had been there mere breaths before, and he blinked as he turned his gaze to the Elf. "What did you do?"
"That? Oh it's just a basic little Healing spell. Nothing grand," she grinned, making a dismissive gesture in the air with her right hand as she headed for the large clearing they had picked out to set their little 'surprises' for the soon to arrive poachers. While she had set various little spell traps that would knock any unwary person into painful unconsciousness, Malcho had set about making well-hidden pitfalls. It had helped that the snake had displayed an amazing ability to burrow into the ground, granted the first time he had arched into the air and plowed into the ground nose first, she had thought she was going to die of a panick induced heart-attack. The burrows were shallow, so that she only had to launch one fireball to make the ground beneath the group collapse into itself, sending them falling thirty feet into the ground. Granted we haven't actually thought about what we're supposed to do with them afterwards....
"Be careful amiga! You placed a trap there earlier!" Malcho hissed, curling his plumed tail around her waist to yank her back towards him. "Don't lose yourself in your thoughts and stumble into an explosion."
"Hmm? Oh, don't worry. I tailored the spells so only humans could activate the traps," she told him as she tried to uncurl his tail from her waist, giving up almost as soon as she started and simply leaning back in his hold. "The sorcerer said it'd take them four days to ride here, so that pretty much lands them at our doorstep sometime tomorrow, right?"
"Si. In the morning, I shall go do a little ariel scouting. Don't look at me like that, I'll be flying too high for them to see me. The air will be thin and disgustingly cold, but it will be safe." He smiled at her sigh of relief and playfully tossed her onto his back as he headed deeper into the jungle, knowing that it was safe to leave their little surprise for the night since she had placed a shield around the clearing that would keep his fellow rainforest dwellers from unintentionally setting off the traps. "For now, a siesta is called for, si? Since we need to be in top shape for tomorrow? Um....amiga?"
"Jus five m're minutes...."
Blinking, he glanced back at her and discovered that she was sprawled along his back, her head pillowed on her right arm as she slept. "Ah, muchacha, what are you doing to me?"
##############
"Turning ya' into a wuss!"
"Shaddup Wolverine!" Lashana growled, throwing her empty glass at him. "Interrupt again and it's no story!"
There was a flurry of commotion from the other guys, and Lashana and Malcho merely sat there in stunned silence, watching as the guys all tackled Wolverine, the entire audience vanishing into a huge dust cloud. Numerous yelps were heard from within, along with a very unsettling sound of duct tape. When they all returned to their seats, Wolverine was securely fastened to his chair, a stale muffin shoved into his mouth as an improvised gag.
"Please," Kadrith grinned as he set the roll of duct tape on the counter. "Continue."
Lashana blinked.