AUTHOR'S NOTES -- Wow, I still have you here? O.o;; Hehe. Thanks for reading this far along with me everybody :) Just a quick note to inform you all that Staggpub is not my character and is yet another of my friends who requested a cameo who I found a way to weave into my plot :) Thanks to all of you who have reviewed so far and happy reading!
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"Dead??" Yahoo exclaimed, hurriedly leafing through the rest of the paper. "He can't be dead! Those morons are just lazy! What about Karma??"
"The paper didn't say." Rose sighed, reaching over to pat Chomby who had been sobbing quietly since Yahoo had read the news article aloud. "They must be trying to avoid a panic by saying a pet owner might have gotten snapped up too."
"So they don't give two shakes about her as long as they come out smelling like lilacs in other words...." Yahoo snarled, crumpling the times in his paws and hurling it across the living room. Snap who had been dozing in front of the heat vent, leapt to his feet at the sound of the newspaper crashing to the floor in a spray of pages and advertisements and galloped out of the room with a startled whimper. "Sorry Snap..." he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and fuming.
"Oh no....no...." Chomby whimpered. "Karma can't be gone...."
"Well don't get too upset yet." Rose told him, forcing a smile and trying to sound hopeful. "They still haven't identified the bones they found. Maybe they're not the doctor's, okay?" She felt sick again as she had at the pound as she suggested this notion....and couldn't shake the idea that she was lying to the neopet for some reason. And just what was she supposed to tell him if it HAD been Dr. Death's corpse they had found?
"But...but...." the dinosaur blubbered. "She's been gone for so long....and nobody takes care of us except you....we're gonna be put back in the pound."
"Will you shut up about that stupid pound??" Yahoo snapped, grabbing both of his ears and yanking them downward in a vain attempt to block out Chomby's crying. "That's all I hear from you day and night! Pound this, abandon that...we are NOT going back to the pound, alright??"
"Yahoo, leave him alone." Rose told him sharply. The cybunny quieted himself and sulked.
"Sorry..." he sighed. "I just.....I don't know what's going to happen either and its not very encouraging when all your daytime companion does is whine about your cooking and mill around worrying that we're going to get abandoned again."
"You're not going to get abandoned again." Rose told him. "Neither of you. And if something....happened...." she forced the word out of her mouth like a bad taste. "Then I'll make sure you both go to a good new home and won't spend any time in the pound."
"Promise?" Chomby sniffled. Rose, again, forced herself to smile.
"I promise." she assured him. "But let's hope it doesn't come down to that, huh?" The blue chomby paused and then slowly nodded, wiping at his streaming eyes with his paws. "Good."
"Will you take care of us till then?" Chomby asked.
"Chomby, you baby, we don't need to keep begging off of her. We can take care of ourse---"
"Yes I will." Rose said, pointedly interrupting the cybunny and glaring at him. Yahoo, again, silenced himself looking at the floor. "On a lighter note, I think there's some cocoa packets left if you two would like me to make you some."
"Yeah!" Chomby agreed, bouncing to his feet and getting off of the couch.
"I'll pass." Yahoo stated flatly, getting up and lopping out of the room grimly. Rose watched him go and, after a moment of debating with herself, sighed and started off after him.
"Chomby, wait here." she told the other neopet gently. The blue dinosaur, looking confused, seated himself on the carpet and curled his tail around his feet as the pink uni disappeared into the den. The medium-sized room, intended to have been a study or something of that nature, had been converted into more or less of a bedroom for Yahoo and Chomby since, due to poor planning on the apartment designers' parts, they hadn't accommodated for more than the owner's living space.
In the upper mattress of the bunk Karma had fashioned out of two bamboo beds with the help of the furniture store manager, the blue cybunny laid as a dormant hump beneath the blankets. Rose hesitated before quietly crossing the room and gently reaching up, giving him a gentle shake.
"Yahoo?" she asked.
"Go away." he growled, a blue-toed paw coming out of the cluster of blankets to grab his pillow and jam it sharply over his head.
"Come on, don't be like that." the uni pressed, grabbing the pillow and attempting to pull it off of his head.
"Just leave me alone." Yahoo told her, his voice muffled by the blankets as he clung tightly to the pillow. Rose set her jaw in mild annoyance.
"I'm not trying to single you out, you know." she informed him. "And if you wouldn't pick on Chomby so much, I wouldn't have to be sharp with you."
"He doesn't know what he's talking about." Yahoo retorted angrily. "And he really annoys me with this paranoia crap of his."
"Chomby's just a baby." Rose explained, trying to appeal to his better sense. "And the scariest thing for every baby is being taken away from their mama."
"Whatever." the cybunny replied callously. "I don't care anymore. Things were great when Karma was here and I should have known it was too good to last."
"Ohh don't talk that way." Rose chided. "Karma's coming back." He was silent. "Yahoo?"
"I'm tired of losing my owners." he sniffled, staving off tears as best as he could. "Either I'm not good enough or some freak accident like this happens...." Rose hesitated and then reached into the bunk, picking up the blue cybunny out of his tangle of sheets. He protested, squirming in her hooves a moment and then resigned himself, resting limply in her grasp as she held him out in front of herself.
"Yahoo, thinking like that isn't helping anybody." she told him softly but sternly. "And its sure not helping Chomby to be biting his head off every time he says something you don't like about the situation."
"I know...." Yahoo sighed, getting ahold of himself and not breaking down much to his relief. He hadn't cried since Ashley had given him up...but then, that had been the pound and this was just a case of Karma not being around for a little while. He lowered his head. "I'm sorry..." he said quietly. Rose smiled and hugged the neopet gently.
"Well, you don't need to apologize to *me*, but I think maybe Chomby might appreciate it." she suggested, patting his back reassuringly.
"I guess so..." he said in muffled resignation against her shoulder.
"So how about it, want to get an apology out of the way and come join us for cocoa?" she asked, setting him down on the floor. Yahoo regarded her a long moment before smiling faintly.
"Yeah, okay." he nodded. Rose broke into a grin and, together, they headed back into the living room to rejoin with Chomby. As the cybunny apologized to the chomby, Rose looked on in distracted silence, still inwardly stunned about the article and what it had implied. Was Dr. Death really dead? If so, she hoped it had been quick and that he hadn't suffered any. The thought of him having languished any was terrible. A cold shudder ran through her body as she forced the idea out of her head for the moment as she followed the two neopets into the kitchen and opened the cupboard beneath the sink and got a pot to boil the milk in for their cocoa. The nightmarish images were gone for now, but she was certain they'd be back later when she had gone home for the evening....and was also certain that there would be no sleep for her that night.
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"How far do you think we've walked?" Karma asked, panting slightly as they rounded a bend in the seemingly endless subterranean corridor. In the hours they had been in the total darkness, their eyes had more or less adjusted and they no longer had to guess where they were going.
"I don't know. A couple of miles maybe." Glitz answered, also winded. "And I haven't seen one damn drainage ditch yet."
"Let's stop for a few minutes then." she urged. She had been suggesting the same thing for the past half hour and up until now he had declined with the excuse that they weren't going to cover their ground any faster if they stopped and that he didn't especially want to sleep in the sewer that night, but that had been before.....back when he hadn't felt tired.
"Alright." he sighed, slowing to a stop and carefully feeling his way to the concrete floor, making sure no part of him was anywhere near the water. He imagined between the two of them, they already smelled badly enough already that any garden that didn't wilt within a half-mile radius of their passing had earned its freedom. Karma fumbled down beside him and for a long moment, they sat in silence.
"Please stop." she said, shifting her weight.
"Stop what?" he asked, cocking a brow.
"That!!" Karma replied sharply.
"I'm not doing anything." he told her, beginning to lose his patience and not particularly in the mood for any of her games.
"Well last I checked, we didn't come down here with any scapegoats so I doubt anybody else is doing it." she growled.
"Doing WHAT??" he asked irritatedly.
"Grabbing my tail!" she snapped back just as nastily. It was bad enough that there was simply no one else who could be doing it, even worse that he had lied about it, and what put the icing on the cake for her was she loathed having her tail touched much like most people hated having their hair pulled. And this was a hell of a time for him to try and get fresh with her, besides.
"Look." he told her, holding both paws in the air, scant inches in front of her face. "I'm not touching you, now knock it off." She blinked, surprised, as she looked at both of his paws and then felt a cold creeping dread.
"Then what---?" she began and then gave a strangled cry, swatting at whatever was pulling at her tail and scrambling backwards until her back thudded against the concrete wall. Something sloshed in the water and then there was a wet slapping sound as it heaved itself onto the cement shore. Karma cringed, waiting for whatever it was to attack her now that it had been provoked. There was a long pause and then she felt something attach to her tail again and cringed, her brain conjuring images of some monstrous leech as she panicked and drew back her foot to give whatever it was a kick.
"Karma, don't move." Glitz told her, squinting in the dark. Another thing lupes had over techos was slightly better night vision. Though he couldn't make things out clearly, whatever it was from what he could see, was not very large and didn't seem to be attacking her.
"Get it off of me...." she said in a tiny voice, recoiling further as her foot trembled, still wanting to kick it away from herself. Dr. Death lowered his head as he moved forward, flaring his nostrils and trying to put his keener lupe senses to some use and see if he could identify it by scent. However, all it did was fill his lungs with the acrid stench of the sewer gas as he gave it up and bent over, tentatively giving the creature a poke with one finger.
Karma felt the pressure ease on her tail as whatever had latched onto it was distracted by the lupe's inquisitive prodding and took the opportunity to back away from it. Glitz frowned in puzzlement as he felt something glomp onto his padded finger and begin pulling on it yet making no move to bite or further hurt him. What in the world...? He withdrew his finger and tentatively ran a hand over it. Furry, yet the skin beneath felt like leather.
A sound suddenly broke the silence, making both him and Karma jump. A long, loud rasping sound that was horrifically alien at first but then recognizable. Whatever the monster was had just let one of the loudest belches either of them had ever heard. It was followed shortly by a strange scent that was like rubbing alcohol and rotten meat combined.
"Ugh...." Karma groaned, covering her mouth. "Sick..."
"I don't know what it is." Glitz told her, gagging and turning his head. "My best guess would be a mutant....or one hell of an ugly petpet.
"Let's get out of here." the frog pushed, uncomfortable.
"I couldn't agree more..." he told her, feeling his stomach clench as the small meal of caramelized blunka beans he and Karma had been given in Doctor Sloth's care that afternoon churned and threatened to come up again as the stench still hung in the air. Anything that could emit a smell like that was not long for this world, Dr. Death decided, as they both scrambled to their feet despite the aching protest of their muscles, and hastily began to walk in the direction they had been headed in.
For a moment, there was a squelching sound as the creature attempted to follow them and then only the sound of their footfall as they moved further away from it.
"Think its gonna follow us?" Karma inquired.
"I don't really care. I'm not going to slow down for it if it does." he shrugged. "And in case there's more of them, I'd rather not be around when they decide to turn this place into a gas chamber." Karma, really, had no choice but to agree with him on that note as they continued on. A chilly breeze began to waft down the corridor, making Karma pull the labcoat a bit more firmly about herself. "Is it me, or is it getting colder?" Glitz wondered aloud.
"Its not you." Karma told him, a small shiver passing through her body. She found herself envying his fur at the immediate moment as he didn't do so much as flinch at the rush of frigid air and sighed.
"We must be getting near Terror Mountain." he remarked.
"HOW could we be getting near Terror Mountain?" she asked. "It's an island."
"The sewer ducts go underwater in some places." he shrugged. "And it's too early in the year for it to be that cold anywhere else." As if on cue, another cold rush of air ran over them, making Karma's teeth briefly chatter together. "If we keep going, we could probably surface there before the night's out."
"Maybe." Karma sighed, not terribly crazy about freezing to death as opposed to spending a night in the dark of the sewer. Of course NEITHER sounded good to her, really. There was a snuffling sound as Glitz attempted sniffing again.
"Yeah..." he remarked to no one in particular.
"What?" she asked.
"I can smell the incense. We're close." Karma cocked a brow questioningly. "The Negg Faerie always has a really obnoxious peebeanjay blossom incense burning in her shop." he explained. "I've only been there twice because it gives me a headache after about five minutes of breathing it. I imagine my head would explode if I were to go in there as I am now..." he added as an afterthought. Karma quietly drew in a deep breath, but found herself unable to catch even a hint of anything other than the fetid gas of the sewer and decided she would take his word for it as they pressed onward, walking until they came to a large fork, their up-until-now straight path splitting into three ways.
Karma and Glitz looked at each other and then back at the fork, neither saying anything for a moment. "That one." The split lupe said, breaking the silence as he pointed a claw at the far right tube.
"You're just guessing." the frog grumbled, shivering again.
"Could be, but there's light in that one." he told her.
"No there's..." she began, squinting, but trailed off as she noticed that he was right. It was barely visible, but in the distance, pinpricks of white light could be seen cutting through the darkness. At the same time, the both of them broke into a quick trot toward it, not wanting to slip but both eager to get out into the fresh air again. As they ducked into the third tunnel, the light grew a bit brighter...not by much, but enough to irritate their eyes. The water, no longer flowing, was trapped beneath a thin crust of ice as they ran, no longer mindful of the cold as their minds focused on escape. Frost formed on the concrete walls in intricate lace patterns illuminated as the source of the light, a circle of brightness, appeared on the ice covering the water from the mouth of a narrower elbow joint in one of the pipes.
They skidded to a halt in front of it, Dr. Death poking his head into the pipe first and wincing as tears spilled down his cheeks from the brightness, forgetting for a moment how much his pupils had dilated in the dark of the underground. An arctic wind howled over the other end of the pipe, sounding like the wounded moan of a large beast as he withdrew and wiped at his eyes, looking at Karma.
"Looks like our ticket out of here." he smiled.
"Thank god." she sighed with relief, crossing her arms over her chest to keep her body's warmth in as much as possible. He put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a small squeeze.
"Want me to go first?" he asked.
"You don't have to." she told him. "I mean, it can't get much worse than what we--AUGH!!" she cried, whirling around as she felt something, again, pull on her tail. This time, however, whatever it was, didn't have the cloak of darkness to hide behind as both she and Glitz goggled down at the gray, malformed creature. Its eyes were milky white, its ears laid back in two sharp points along its back and it was a little larger than a full-grown Warf. All over it was covered in a thin coat of gray fur that covered its wrinkled and baggy hide. Its snout was a blunt point with no visible nose and its tail was little more than a nub....to complete the hideous illusion, it appeared to be trying to nurse off of Karma's tail like an infant cub. The only conclusion she could reach as to what it was doing here now was that it had been following them in the water which was why they hadn't heard it behind them.
The frog drew in her breath and backed away from it, watching as it scrambled out of the gutter of ice and shambled toward her, making small grunts and whimpers. "What is it?" she whispered.
"I didn't know in the dark, I don't know now." Glitz informed her, sidling up beside her, his eyes never leaving the creature. "Get out of here." he hissed at it, bringing up one clawed foot and kicking at the monster slightly. It toppled clumsily onto its side, remained there a moment, and then got up, continuing its journey back to Karma. Glitz narrowed his eyes at its inability to be phased. Just what WAS it? He felt his hackles raise as he curled his lips back and opened his jaws, not sure what was going to come out, and ended up startling all three of them as a loud, sharp bark issued from his throat and echoed off of the walls.
The creature paused in its tracks and cocked its head as though understanding it wasn't wanted for a moment, and then opened its mouth, a long belch like the one it had let in their first encounter filling the air...and with the noise, the same horrible smell.
"Ugh..." Glitz groaned, feeling his eyes cross as he, again, struggled with his gorge. "Touché, I guess..." Karma put a hand over her nose and winced, huddling a bit closer to the doctor.
"Unless its trying to turn this place into a gas chamber, it doesn't look threatening..." she offered, turning sharply away as it made a feeble lunge for her tail again. "Sort of."
"I'd swear it was a mutant but I've never seen one like it before." he told her. "What's it been living off of down here?"
"I'd really rather not think..." Karma shuddered, reminded of all of the things that made up the swill of the sewage.
"At any rate..." he continued. "Let's get going." And saying so, he ducked into the pipe, beginning to crawl through it. Its metal surface was slick with ice, making moving rather easy...in fact, too easy. He paused in his movements, finding that he was slipping forward on his own and reflexively dug his claws into the ice, bringing himself to a stop. Behind him he could hear Karma clamber into the pipe behind him. "Its icy..." he warned.
"I'm being careful." she informed him. There was a pause and then a thud as she cried out. He guessed that she had lost her balance and, knowing what was about to happen next, winced and braced himself. A moment later, she collided with him with a grunt, sending the both of them skittering forward through the ice-slick passageway, spinning and helpless. The outside light grew brighter until it seemed to engulf them both and then, suddenly, there was no floor beneath them.
With a combined crunch and splash, the two of them both toppled into an icy sludgebank that served as a drainage ditch. Glitz surfaced first, squinting in the sunlight and shivering helplessly. His heart pounded as his body tried to compensate for the sudden loss of heat and for a moment he forgot about Karma. He was reminded, however, as she broke the surface beside him, coughing and sputtering as she found her footing on the mucky bottom and stood.
He mused briefly that someone looking at her now would never have recognized the brown and black thing hanging from her shoulders as the white labcoat it had started as. "Have to get a new one of those, I guess." his mind gibbered. Had his teeth not been clenched shut and chattering, he might have chuckled at this. There was a faint splash as something else alighted in the water with them, followed by a troubled blurble and then a frantic thrashing and high-pitched squealing.
Without even thinking about it, Dr. Death plunged a paw into the water, withdrawing the same creature that had been harassing him and Karma earlier in the sewer. Wet and bedraggled, it was even MORE hideous, he decided.
"That thing again..." Karma groaned, taking up the tail of the filthy labcoat and wringing it out in a vain attempt to dry it. It looked up at him with baleful white eyes, opening its mouth and belching wetly yet again.
"Thank you. You've been a terrific audience. Thank you so much...." he grumbled, waving a hand in front of his nose before the accompanying stench could attack him as he held the creature out at arm's length with his other hand.
"Just what we needed. A mascot." the frog remarked, sloshing to the shore and sitting in the thin snow, watching as Glitz carried the creature to the shore with him and set it down a short distance away as he joined her.
"I'M not carrying it around." he informed her. "Be my guest."
"Right." she sniffed indignantly. "So maybe it'll decide to snack on my face instead? Forget it."
"I was just teasing." he grumped, picking a soggy dead leaf from his fur.
"WELL now!" a strange voice declared, making the both of them jolt. "I've seen that drain cough up some interesting things in my day, but never anything living!" It was accompanied by crone-like laughter as their eyes settled on a figure standing a short distance away. It was slightly hunched, wrapped in a green cloak with a thick purple scarf around its neck, leaning heavily on a stout walking stick. "You need a little help there?" the figure inquired. Judging by the voice, they guessed it was a woman, as she moved forward with an uneven, slightly wobbling gait and paused in front of the two of them. "Hmmm...." she muttered thoughtfully. "What a mess you two are." Up close, her face was still masked to the point of only being able to see a pair of piercing china blue eyes.
"Four or so miles of sewer will do that to you." Glitz sighed, humiliated. The elder woman chuckled and then quieted, looking suspiciously back and forth.
"On the run, I take it?" she asked in a hushed voice.
"Good guess." Karma told her.
"Not at all, my dear. Not at all." she replied good-naturedly. "One usually doesn't take the sewer as an ideal way of traveling, you know." She shifted her grip on the stick she was supporting herself on. "Well, don't just sit there!" she chided, waving a hand at them. "Let's go!" and saying so, she turned to leave.
"Go where?" Glitz asked, looking at her suspiciously.
"Where? Well out of that sludge, for one...unless you're the type that enjoys wallowing in the mud. I know some of you lupes are like that." she smirked behind her scarf. He wrinkled his nose in distaste and stood, a bit embarrassed now by his lack of clothes as he curled his sopping tail around his waist. "And I think the two of you---" she trailed off, looking at the wrinkled gray creature pacing blankly in the snow nearby. "---sorry, the THREE of you, could do with a hot meal and maybe then you can tell old granny what's got you running, hmm?" She stooped, scooping up the strange creature that had followed them out of the sewer and cuddled it against her chest, making a feeling of revulsion creep over both of them. How could she stand to have it touching her let alone cuddle it like it was a baby? It turned its head and immediately began to suckle on one of her fingers as extended the stick she held, playfully bapping Glitz on the nose with the butt of it, not hard enough to hurt, before turning to hobble away, again motioning them to follow.
"Are we going?" Karma whispered.
"I don't like this." he replied quietly. "Seems too good to be true...that some old lady would take in a couple of complete strangers she found in the sewer that she knows are escapees."
"Strangers?" the old woman cackled, turning to look over her shoulder. "Oh please, dearheart. I insist that anyone who comes splashing out into my backyard consider themselves at least a friend of mine." She dropped one eyelid in a wink at him, leaving him wondering if he was more astonished at her complete trusting nature or the fact she had heard him whisper from at least ten yards away.
"Well, I guess we don't have much better options." Karma told him.
"That's not true." he argued. "If we can find a ferry back to Neopia Central..."
"And pay for it with what??" she snapped. "Unless you managed to hang onto your wallet because I sure didn't." He fell silent at this, snarling a bit.
"Alright, fine." he told her. "But if I'm right....if this turns out to be a trap...." he poked her collarbone with the tip of one claw. "Then I don't want to hear any complaining out of you." Saying so, he turned to follow after the woman as she hobbled up a nearby hillside, following the set of tracks she had made coming down. Karma paused only a moment before trailing after them.
"So tell me..." Glitz said, panting a bit as they climbed the steep hillside. The elder woman, though she looked feeble, was not so much as winded. "Do your afternoon walks USUALLY take you past the sewer drains?"
"Ohh...you might say my walks have taken me a bit all over." she answered cryptically. "But don't you worry your furry head, son. Hasn't been a hooligan on this mountain that's dared cross this old granny." she chuckled. "Keep up with me, kids, we're almost there." Karma shielded her eyes from an icy wind and tried to ignore the heavy numbness in her feet as they climbed over the crest of the hill and found themselves overlooking a rather level area of snow, and amid it, a sturdy wood cabin, silver tendrils of smoke curling out of its chimney. "There it is." the old woman informed them.
"Not very fancy, but it'll do.. Let's get the three of you inside." she added, hefting her walking stick into the snow ahead and pulling herself up behind it. Glitz shot a quick look over his shoulder at Karma, checking to see if she was really sure about this. Seeing the look of indifference in her eyes, he obediently kept walking. He supposed, at the very least, if it WAS a trap, he'd rather be captured in the comfort of shelter than running around outside like a blind lenny in a hailstorm.
A moment later, they reached the front porch and the woman eased open the front door, enveloping them all in a wave of warmth as she stood aside and motioned them in. "Hurry up now" she chided, watching the frog and lupe pass indoors. "Let's keep the winter *out*side!" She paused, shifting her grip on the small brown creature in the crook of her arm as she cast a quick look around the outside to make sure no one had followed and then closed the cabin door.
As the warm air coursed through her body, Karma's muscles came alive with protesting aches from the walking they had done and she leaned against the wall, trying not to keel over as the strange woman stooped, setting the creature on the floor and then straightened herself again, beginning to untwine the heavy scarf from around her neck
"Thank you." Karma said breathlessly, fighting to keep her knees from buckling.
"Not a problem at all, dear." she replied as she set aside her walking stick, hanging the scarf neatly on a hook beside the door before lifting back her cloak's hood. Glitz flinched as beneath, instead of the wizened human's face they had both expected, were the sleek features of a feline. "My name is Staggpub." the tigress informed them. "But the two of you can call me Gran or Granny if you like. Its what my friends call me." she smiled to reveal glistening ivory teeth. Her pelt was an enigma of black and orange stripes with hints of silver here and there to show her age. "Make yourselves comfortable and I'll be right back."
"Still think this is a trap?" Karma asked, stumbling forward and half-sitting, half-collapsing on the edge of the a sofa that was parked in front of the small brick fireplace where a crackling blaze was burning.
"Not as much as I had before." he admitted. "But I wouldn't get too comfortable just yet."
"I hate to say it, but I don't think even if the Monoceraptor himself came tearing through this room, I'd be able to get up." Karma replied, eyes closed. He looked at her for a long moment and then smiled a bit.
"I'll have to give you that, then..." he said, coming around the front of the sofa and moving to sit beside her.
"Mrew? Better watch that tail, friend." a gentle voice said, making him pause and turn to look behind him. On a worn red throw pillow, was curled a delicate little desert aisha who blinked up at him lazily with her narrow sapphire eyes. "Looks like mom's caught herself another couple of wanderers." she smirked.
"What do you mean, 'caught'?" the lupe asked suspiciously. The aisha blinked.
"Just a figure of speech....calm yourself." the aisha replied calmly, curling its tail around its paws. "Nice to meet you, by the way. My name is Jenny945...Jen if you want the short version."
"Hello." he greeted her, moving over a bit and sitting between Karma's inert form and the lounging aisha.
"You don't have a name?" Jen inquired. "Alright, I hereby dub you Fluffwad." the aisha grinned widely. He blinked and then glared at the pet.
"I have a name." he informed Jen sourly.
"Too bad. I like Fluffwad." the aisha chuckled as he shook his head slightly. "Ohh don't be such a grouch. Here." Jen said, fishing a paw between the cushions and producing something soft and pink. "Since you're probably staying the night, you can cuddle this when you go to sleep." Jen informed him, laying the angel chia plushie in his lap. "But don't get any hairballs on it and no ripping it up, okay?"
"I'll pass." he sighed, picking the plushie up and setting it in the crook between Karma's shoulder and neck. The frog sighed and shifted position a bit, already soundly sleeping. He looked fondly at her a moment and then back at the aisha.
"Pbht...you're no fun." the feline snorted and then turned her head as the sound of padding footsteps drew near. Glitz looked up as Staggpub returned, a tangle of linens in her arms, which she laid over the back of the sofa.
"There's some clothes in there for you both. They'll probably be a bit big, but they're better than running around in what you've been wearing, yes?" Glitz, again mindful of the fact he had nothing on, blushed a bit under his fur.
"Thank you." he said quietly.
"And for your little friend, I have this." the tigress smiled, her china blue eyes sparkling as she produced a floppy yellow poogle plushie, grinning vacantly as its felt tongue lulled out between its stitched lips. He cocked a brow and was about to ask her what she meant, but before he could, she had crossed the room to where the creature they had met in the sewer was absently attempting to swallow a red bouncy ball it had found under the endtable on the other side of the couch, likely belonging to Jenny. "Here now, you don't want that." she told it, tugging the ball out of its leathery lips with a soft "plook" sound.
The creature looked up at her questioningly and opened its jaws, belching quietly. If it bothered Staggpub, she didn't let on as she set the toy down in front of the monster. "You go on now." she urged. "Play and have fun." The creature looked questioningly at the plushie and leaned forward, glomping onto its nose with its lips and suckling. At once, the creature began to transform, its skin rippling and shifting. The milky white cleared out if its eyes, revealing shiny black and the gray fur slowly turned a buttery yellow until, lying in place of the hideous mutant was a dirty baby poogle, little more than a newborn.
"Hmph, I thought so." the tigress huffed. "He should be ashamed of himself, mutating baby pets, that doctor should!" The poogle gave a questioning squeak as it dropped the plushie from its mouth and looked up at Staggpub. "Now don't be afraid, little one." she whispered, picking the infant poogle up and carrying it to the kitchen. "I think I've got just the thing for you." There was the sound of a refrigerator door opening and the clinking of various bottles and jars. A moment later, the tigress returned to the living room, the poogle in her arms and hungrily feeding from a makeshift bottle filled with milk.
"It makes me sick sometimes." the aged tigress muttered. "Its not enough that Sloth devils Neopia's leaders and armies, but he has to pick on the cublings too?"
"Awww! Cute!" Jen remarked, standing and peering over the top of the couch at the tiny poogle. "Let me, mom, please??" she pleaded, holding out her small arms. Staggpub hesitated and then carefully laid the poogle in her aisha's arms.
"Support her head, Jen, and hold the bottle as straight as you can so she doesn't suck air." The aisha, likely not even listening to her mother, had concentrated her attention on the baby neopet in her arms, whispering and cooing to it softly as it fed. The tigress smirked and shook her head indulgently, turning her attention to the bedraggled split lupe on the couch. "You know, I'd swear I've seen you before, son." she remarked. "Did you run for one of the teams in the Kyrii Bobsled Tournaments when you were younger?"
"No." Glitz replied, looking up from where he had been picking through the clothes she had laid out, having selected a teal sweater and a pair of baggy bluejeans. "Actually, I've only been a lupe since this evening." She quirked an eyebrow at him.
"I suppose that had something to do with the person you were running from, am I right?" she asked. He nodded and moved to pull on the sweater. "Why don't you wait on that for a bit? I've got a tub you can use." the tigress offered. "And when you're done, you can wake up your wife and---"
"She's not my wife." he answered reflexively, wincing as it had come out a bit more harsh than he had meant it to. Staggpub grinned slightly.
"Of course." she nodded. "Your lady-friend then, and she can get cleaned up as well. And then tomorrow we'll give your little pet a bath." she reached out, giving his shoulder a pat. "Bathroom is down the hall, second door on the right and the towels are in the closet. I'm going to start up some coffee if you want to join me later." Saying so, she turned and, with a flick of her tail, disappeared into the kitchen again. He remained on the couch for a moment, debating simply getting dressed and ignoring the offer, but getting the sludge out of his hair and fur before it dried sounded far more appealing than allowing it to dry overnight. Making up his mind, he got up from the couch and padded down the hallway, closing himself into the bathroom.
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An hour had passed and, satisfied that he was as clean as he was going to get, Glitz had gotten dressed but had roused Karma for a shower of her own. While the frog was bathing, the split lupe wandered into the kitchen where Staggpub was sitting quietly at the table, a mug of steaming coffee in her paws. She smiled at him as he entered and pointed a tapered claw at the seat across from herself.
"Didn't think you'd come to join ol' Gran for a drink." she smiled as he sat. "Its good to see you."
"I have to thank you for putting us up here." he told her, casting a look out the window at the now-darkened icy landscape. "We'd probably be out there freezing to death about now if you hadn't."
"Oohh." she grinned, waving her hand dismissively. "What I did for you and her, I would have done for anyone else. Well...ALMOST anyone else. If Mr. Sloth had fallen out of that drain, I think I might have seen how many snowballs I could pelt him with before he noticed me." she chuckled. He smiled a bit and leaned back in the chair. "Let me get you some coffee." she told him.
"That's alright, I can get it." he told her, standing. She gave him a push that, though gentle by a tiger's standards, knocked him somewhat off-balance as he stumbled to catch himself.
"Heh, I may be getting a little old, but I'm not feeble yet." she told him, winking as she made her way to the half-empty pot on the stove, fetching a mug from her cupboard and filling it with the steaming black brew. "There now." she smiled, turning and walking back to the table, offering him the mug.
"Thanks." he told her, accepting it and taking a drink. The hot liquid was heavenly, even as it burnt his throat slightly on the way down. How long had it been since he had had a decent cup of coffee anyway? For that matter, how long had he been missing? Four days? A week? More? He supposed it didn't much matter anymore and hoped that not too much had changed in his absence.
"Now then." Staggpub began, seating herself. "I want to hear it all."
"All of what?" he asked, setting the coffee on the table.
"All of what?" she echoed. "Your fiasco, my boy...I want to hear how a strapping lupe like yourself and a lovely lady like that went from your, no doubt, respectable lives to lying face-down in a drainage ditch. If there's one thing I still enjoy, its good, long stories." she grinned, placing her elbows on the table and leaning forward intently, her tail swishing quietly against the back of her chair. He paused in thought for a moment, wondering where, honestly, to begin.
"My details are a little fuzzy." he told her. "You sure you want to listen to all of this?"
"Glitz?" Karma's voice filtered into the room, making both the tigress and lupe turn their heads. The frog stood there, hair still sleek and wet from the shower and wrapped in a flannel green bathrobe. "I'm going to go to sleep now." she informed him, smiling weakly.
"For the best, dear." Staggpub informed her, smiling gently. "Those pouches under your eyes don't become you at all." Karma smiled weakly.
"Thank you again. For everything." She said.
"Oh not at all. Like I've been telling your friend, I'd have done it for anyone." she told her. "And don't bother with that sofa, dear. I have a spare bedroom you can use, two doors past the bathroom. It may be a little dusty though. It's been awhile since I've kept any guests." The frog nodded, stifling a yawn behind her hand. "We'll see you in the morning." Staggpub told her as she gave a small wave to the two of them and then was gone. "What a sweet girl." the tigress smiled.
"She can be when she wants....she can also be an enormous thorn in the tail when she wants as well." he said.
"Most women are like that, as I'm sure you know." Staggpub chuckled, placing a paw on his hand momentarily. "Now then, before we were interrupted..." she said, focusing herself on him again.
"Well, we were out together in the Haunted Woods..." he started.
"No no, dear, I want the whole story." she insisted.
"Everything?" he asked.
"Everything." she insisted. He looked at her a moment to see if she was really serious. When he saw nothing but the level gaze in her blue eyes, he sighed and began. He started as close to the beginning as he felt he needed to without mentioning any of his past trauma, explaining what his job was and how he hated it, he talked about RoseMadder, when he had first met Karma, went on for a bit about Snap and how he had been temporarily taken, and finally delved into their brief encounter with Sloth. Once he had gotten started, the words came more easily and he found himself going into more and more detail.
Staggpub listened intently, sipping at her coffee as he spoke, never interrupting. At length, he began to wind down as he ran out of things to tell her. "And after that, we crawled out of the underground through the pipe and, I guess that's where you found us." he finished, clearing his throat. "God, how long was I talking?" he asked, realizing he must have been going on for at least fifteen minutes. The tigress cast a look at the clock on the wall.
"Nearly an hour." she informed him. He jolted, stunned, not remembering the last time he had opened up quite so much to someone he had known for such a little amount of time. He had even known Karma for the better part of two weeks before he had finally let go of his bitter past.
"You should have let me know I if I was starting to bore you." he said, surprised at himself.
"Believe me, if you had been boring me, I would have let you know a long time ago." she informed him, drinking off the last of her coffee and getting up to refill her mug. "Sounds as though you and Karma have had quite an adventure."
"Is that what they're calling it these days?" he asked.
"Well I wouldn't necessarily call it a traumatic experience." she said gently, returning to her seat. "After all, you're both alive." He shrugged at this. "And you're both in love." At this, he didn't shrug, but flinched openly. Noticing this, she folded her paws around her mug. "You DO love her, yes?"
"Well, its kind of funny...." he started and then corrected himself. "No it's not. It's not funny at all." he said, shaking his head. "Before all this happened...before we were grabbed and everything, I had been all set to tell her we needed to call things off. She stirred up some really overpowering feelings in me and made me face things I had been sweeping under the rug for years. I couldn't stop thinking about her and I knew being together was something she wanted and was upset I wouldn't give her....so I agreed to it."
"Sounds like you set yourself up for a world of trouble, dear." Staggpub pointed out. "You shouldn't base love on what only one person wants. Both of you have to want it or else one of you is going to be miserable."
"I know." he nodded, not really wanting a lecture. "But in the time we spent in that lab...I don't know." he shrugged. "I think things might have changed."
"Mmhmm..." she muttered around the rim of her cup. "Changes of heart can happen too. It's not very common but it does happen."
"I just have felt like I need to protect her. Ever since I saw what happened to her when she came back from being zapped over and over again that one night by that....BASTARD..." he heard the word escape his mouth before he could stop it and looked up at her hurriedly to see if she was offended. The tigress's eyes remained level and calm as she smiled a bit. "I enjoy being around her a lot more than I used to." he continued quickly, hoping to smooth over his momentary lapse in control. "I guess there's time to let her know about it after things go back to normal. You know, after we've gone home and I've gotten myself turned back into a techo. I don't want to suddenly start acting different around her right now and confuse her." he sighed. "And its getting harder to hold up this guise that I still don't give two shakes about her."
"Fire's dying." the tigress remarked, changing the subject as she cast a look to the fireplace where the flames had diminished to glowing embers.
"Oh..." the split lupe said.
"Well, guess its back outside to get more wood..." she sighed, getting up.
"I'll do it." he offered, not getting up this time to avoid being pushed again. She smiled at him.
"You never give up." she smirked. "Alright then. Go get four big pieces of wood and an armload of kindling."
"Alright, where is it?" he inquired, getting up. The tigress's eyes sparkled mischievously.
"Go find it." she informed him, laughing. He sighed, realizing she was playing a game with him...one that he didn't particularly find funny as he walked toward the front door and turned the knob, pulling it open. "Don't go too far." she warned. "I'll leave the lights on for you so you know where the house is."
"Thanks." he said unenthusiastically as he slipped outside into the frigid air. Go find it....did she mean go into the woods and break it off himself? He hoped not...mainly because he didn't see any woods to speak of nearby as he decided to check around the house first before he went wandering. He started around the left side of the house, inhaling the air deeply as he went. The smoky aroma of the chimney mixed with the frosty air and created a scent that reminded him of Christmastime when he had been younger and living with Aislynn....he shook the memories away, not wanting to recall them at the moment.
As he rounded the back of the house, a surge of relief washed over him as he ran across a neatly-stacked woodpile and, hanging from a nail, a burlap sack from which spindly fingers of kindling emerged. He gathered the wood hurriedly and tromped back to the front of the house, shouldering the door open as he made his way to the fireplace.
"Shhh!" Jenny hissed, cuddling the baby poogle against her. "Don't wake up Candy!"
"Candy? You've named it now?" he muttered, laying the wood down and crouching to feed it into the fire. The aisha nodded decisively.
"It's a good name." she informed him. "And its a HER not an IT." she corrected him.
"Alright. Have fun with HER then." he grumbled, watching as the first flames began to lick at the new wood and slowly engulf it. Satisfied that the fire would keep going, he got up and returned to the kitchen, stopping short as he found it empty. Their coffee mugs had been washed and sat on the draining board and at his place at the table sat a squat yellow bottle weighing down a piece of paper. Curious, he ventured closer, ignoring the bottle for a moment as he picked up the note and read it.
"Headed to bed now, but thought I'd leave this before I went. I used to be a collector of all things magical and pretty. You know how we cats are! Have started using my collection to help my visitors should they need it and I believe you could use this more than I could (as much as I enjoy the color yellow in a shiny glass bottle)."
He paused to pick up the bottle and turn it over in his hands. At the bottom, the glass extended into six prongs that, he supposed, were supposed to resemble feet. A techo morphing potion. He looked back to the paper to read the rest of the letter.
"Do what you need to do. Old Gran sure can't tell you how to run your life, but take a little advice from an elder. Don't play with her heart or you'll lose her forever. Go to her."
The note was signed with a small sketch of a cat and nothing more. He read it over again and then folded it once, tucking it into the back pocket of the jeans and stood for a long moment, mulling things over in his head and then looked down at the potion he held before tweezing the cork between his thumb and forefinger and pulling it out of the bottle with a pop. The liquid inside fizzed a little and smelled like canned peaches and mustard all at once, making his stomach turn a bit at the thought of actually filling his mouth with it and swallowing it.
Never the less, the idea of remaining as he was and having to not only explain to everyone and their grandmother why he had changed skins, but likely having to join Snap in annual flea dips didn't place itself very high on his list of favorites. Making up his mind, he winced and tilted the bottle back, feeling the liquid sting his tongue and fizz on the crowns of his teeth. Surprisingly, he didn't gag on the potion as he swallowed it, but the fact remained that Kauvara would never be what anyone considered a culinary genius.
Almost instantly, his skin began to tingle and, as he watched, his fur grew wispy, beginning to fall out, the strands vanishing magically before they hit the floor. The smooth white skin beneath toughened as a scattering of scales appeared on it, fading from transparent to the firm yellow color he was accustomed to. As he watched the padded blunts of his paws elongate into fingers again and felt his maw of fangs shift and flatten as his muzzle turned itself back into a snout, the tingling feeling began to fade.
He remained still for a moment, waiting to see if anything else would happen. When he was sure that the transformation was over, he tentatively looked at the glass of the kitchen window, relieved to see his former self reflected in the glare. Thank god THAT was over, at least. But with that quandary out of the way, there remained another as the last words of Staggpub's note repeated themselves in his mind.
Go to her.
It sounded nice enough, but too much like something in a storybook. He imagined most people didn't receive something that spontaneous very well....and it would probably confuse Karma more than anything to go from his being aloof around her to...well...THAT. He pulled back a chair from the table and sat for a moment, weighing his options. On the one hand, he could just go to sleep on the sofa as he had originally planned and tomorrow things would continue as they always had....but on the other hand, if he took the tigress's advice, who knew what would happen? Better yet, what was the *worst* that could happen?
He realized with some degree of embarrassment, his hands had started shaking as he had thought about it and he sighed, folding them together to make them stop. He had never liked being unsure of things...and the fact that he had changed opinions of his and Karma's "relationship" at least four or five times in the time he had known her irked him to no end. He had gone from hating her, to tolerating her, to somewhat liking her, to....well, what was it now? Love?
If it was, it sure didn't feel the way all of the Valentines sickeningly-sweet propaganda described it. It wasn't some fuzzy warm feeling that made him feel like he could fly....it was a deep-seated heaviness that alternated between thrilling and terrifying him, and just all-around making him feel off-balance around her yet feeling empty when he wasn't near her. A no-win situation if he ever saw one. Yet he found that whatever other conscience was debating the issue with him DID want him to go to her.
His gaze wandered to the head of the empty and darkened hallway and his thoughts turned back to Karma, bringing with them another twinge of uncertainty and longing. At length, he made his choice and stood, pushing his chair in. From where she sat on the sofa, still cuddling the infant poogle, Jenny looked over her shoulder.
"Goin' to bed?" the desert aisha asked, seeming unperturbed by his change of form...and also a bit knowing, judging by the tone in her voice.
"Yeah." he told her with a half-smile. "I guess I am."
"I won't wait up for ya, Fluffwad." she informed him, grinning and turning back to the poogle. He paused to watch her for a minute and then slowly let out his breath in a quiet and nervous sigh. His hands had started shaking again and he stuffed them into his pockets to hide them as he forced himself to keep going. Though he got the feeling very seldomly, Glitz felt that he was coming to a milestone in his path and knew whatever happened tonight, good or bad, was going to mean a change. A big change.
TBC.................
EXTRA NOTE -- Between this chapter and the next, there is a "restricted" section of writing that continues this last part that I have opted not to include with the original story. Number one, the series works just fine without it, and number two because it would violate Neopets' regulations to post it publicly where children might run across it. If you are interested in reading this particular section, feel free to Email me at driprat@attbi.com and ask for it. Also, It'd put my mind at ease if you included an age statement too...obviously I can't make you, but I'd rather not distribute my adult work to young eyes. O.o;; Thanks!
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"Dead??" Yahoo exclaimed, hurriedly leafing through the rest of the paper. "He can't be dead! Those morons are just lazy! What about Karma??"
"The paper didn't say." Rose sighed, reaching over to pat Chomby who had been sobbing quietly since Yahoo had read the news article aloud. "They must be trying to avoid a panic by saying a pet owner might have gotten snapped up too."
"So they don't give two shakes about her as long as they come out smelling like lilacs in other words...." Yahoo snarled, crumpling the times in his paws and hurling it across the living room. Snap who had been dozing in front of the heat vent, leapt to his feet at the sound of the newspaper crashing to the floor in a spray of pages and advertisements and galloped out of the room with a startled whimper. "Sorry Snap..." he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and fuming.
"Oh no....no...." Chomby whimpered. "Karma can't be gone...."
"Well don't get too upset yet." Rose told him, forcing a smile and trying to sound hopeful. "They still haven't identified the bones they found. Maybe they're not the doctor's, okay?" She felt sick again as she had at the pound as she suggested this notion....and couldn't shake the idea that she was lying to the neopet for some reason. And just what was she supposed to tell him if it HAD been Dr. Death's corpse they had found?
"But...but...." the dinosaur blubbered. "She's been gone for so long....and nobody takes care of us except you....we're gonna be put back in the pound."
"Will you shut up about that stupid pound??" Yahoo snapped, grabbing both of his ears and yanking them downward in a vain attempt to block out Chomby's crying. "That's all I hear from you day and night! Pound this, abandon that...we are NOT going back to the pound, alright??"
"Yahoo, leave him alone." Rose told him sharply. The cybunny quieted himself and sulked.
"Sorry..." he sighed. "I just.....I don't know what's going to happen either and its not very encouraging when all your daytime companion does is whine about your cooking and mill around worrying that we're going to get abandoned again."
"You're not going to get abandoned again." Rose told him. "Neither of you. And if something....happened...." she forced the word out of her mouth like a bad taste. "Then I'll make sure you both go to a good new home and won't spend any time in the pound."
"Promise?" Chomby sniffled. Rose, again, forced herself to smile.
"I promise." she assured him. "But let's hope it doesn't come down to that, huh?" The blue chomby paused and then slowly nodded, wiping at his streaming eyes with his paws. "Good."
"Will you take care of us till then?" Chomby asked.
"Chomby, you baby, we don't need to keep begging off of her. We can take care of ourse---"
"Yes I will." Rose said, pointedly interrupting the cybunny and glaring at him. Yahoo, again, silenced himself looking at the floor. "On a lighter note, I think there's some cocoa packets left if you two would like me to make you some."
"Yeah!" Chomby agreed, bouncing to his feet and getting off of the couch.
"I'll pass." Yahoo stated flatly, getting up and lopping out of the room grimly. Rose watched him go and, after a moment of debating with herself, sighed and started off after him.
"Chomby, wait here." she told the other neopet gently. The blue dinosaur, looking confused, seated himself on the carpet and curled his tail around his feet as the pink uni disappeared into the den. The medium-sized room, intended to have been a study or something of that nature, had been converted into more or less of a bedroom for Yahoo and Chomby since, due to poor planning on the apartment designers' parts, they hadn't accommodated for more than the owner's living space.
In the upper mattress of the bunk Karma had fashioned out of two bamboo beds with the help of the furniture store manager, the blue cybunny laid as a dormant hump beneath the blankets. Rose hesitated before quietly crossing the room and gently reaching up, giving him a gentle shake.
"Yahoo?" she asked.
"Go away." he growled, a blue-toed paw coming out of the cluster of blankets to grab his pillow and jam it sharply over his head.
"Come on, don't be like that." the uni pressed, grabbing the pillow and attempting to pull it off of his head.
"Just leave me alone." Yahoo told her, his voice muffled by the blankets as he clung tightly to the pillow. Rose set her jaw in mild annoyance.
"I'm not trying to single you out, you know." she informed him. "And if you wouldn't pick on Chomby so much, I wouldn't have to be sharp with you."
"He doesn't know what he's talking about." Yahoo retorted angrily. "And he really annoys me with this paranoia crap of his."
"Chomby's just a baby." Rose explained, trying to appeal to his better sense. "And the scariest thing for every baby is being taken away from their mama."
"Whatever." the cybunny replied callously. "I don't care anymore. Things were great when Karma was here and I should have known it was too good to last."
"Ohh don't talk that way." Rose chided. "Karma's coming back." He was silent. "Yahoo?"
"I'm tired of losing my owners." he sniffled, staving off tears as best as he could. "Either I'm not good enough or some freak accident like this happens...." Rose hesitated and then reached into the bunk, picking up the blue cybunny out of his tangle of sheets. He protested, squirming in her hooves a moment and then resigned himself, resting limply in her grasp as she held him out in front of herself.
"Yahoo, thinking like that isn't helping anybody." she told him softly but sternly. "And its sure not helping Chomby to be biting his head off every time he says something you don't like about the situation."
"I know...." Yahoo sighed, getting ahold of himself and not breaking down much to his relief. He hadn't cried since Ashley had given him up...but then, that had been the pound and this was just a case of Karma not being around for a little while. He lowered his head. "I'm sorry..." he said quietly. Rose smiled and hugged the neopet gently.
"Well, you don't need to apologize to *me*, but I think maybe Chomby might appreciate it." she suggested, patting his back reassuringly.
"I guess so..." he said in muffled resignation against her shoulder.
"So how about it, want to get an apology out of the way and come join us for cocoa?" she asked, setting him down on the floor. Yahoo regarded her a long moment before smiling faintly.
"Yeah, okay." he nodded. Rose broke into a grin and, together, they headed back into the living room to rejoin with Chomby. As the cybunny apologized to the chomby, Rose looked on in distracted silence, still inwardly stunned about the article and what it had implied. Was Dr. Death really dead? If so, she hoped it had been quick and that he hadn't suffered any. The thought of him having languished any was terrible. A cold shudder ran through her body as she forced the idea out of her head for the moment as she followed the two neopets into the kitchen and opened the cupboard beneath the sink and got a pot to boil the milk in for their cocoa. The nightmarish images were gone for now, but she was certain they'd be back later when she had gone home for the evening....and was also certain that there would be no sleep for her that night.
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"How far do you think we've walked?" Karma asked, panting slightly as they rounded a bend in the seemingly endless subterranean corridor. In the hours they had been in the total darkness, their eyes had more or less adjusted and they no longer had to guess where they were going.
"I don't know. A couple of miles maybe." Glitz answered, also winded. "And I haven't seen one damn drainage ditch yet."
"Let's stop for a few minutes then." she urged. She had been suggesting the same thing for the past half hour and up until now he had declined with the excuse that they weren't going to cover their ground any faster if they stopped and that he didn't especially want to sleep in the sewer that night, but that had been before.....back when he hadn't felt tired.
"Alright." he sighed, slowing to a stop and carefully feeling his way to the concrete floor, making sure no part of him was anywhere near the water. He imagined between the two of them, they already smelled badly enough already that any garden that didn't wilt within a half-mile radius of their passing had earned its freedom. Karma fumbled down beside him and for a long moment, they sat in silence.
"Please stop." she said, shifting her weight.
"Stop what?" he asked, cocking a brow.
"That!!" Karma replied sharply.
"I'm not doing anything." he told her, beginning to lose his patience and not particularly in the mood for any of her games.
"Well last I checked, we didn't come down here with any scapegoats so I doubt anybody else is doing it." she growled.
"Doing WHAT??" he asked irritatedly.
"Grabbing my tail!" she snapped back just as nastily. It was bad enough that there was simply no one else who could be doing it, even worse that he had lied about it, and what put the icing on the cake for her was she loathed having her tail touched much like most people hated having their hair pulled. And this was a hell of a time for him to try and get fresh with her, besides.
"Look." he told her, holding both paws in the air, scant inches in front of her face. "I'm not touching you, now knock it off." She blinked, surprised, as she looked at both of his paws and then felt a cold creeping dread.
"Then what---?" she began and then gave a strangled cry, swatting at whatever was pulling at her tail and scrambling backwards until her back thudded against the concrete wall. Something sloshed in the water and then there was a wet slapping sound as it heaved itself onto the cement shore. Karma cringed, waiting for whatever it was to attack her now that it had been provoked. There was a long pause and then she felt something attach to her tail again and cringed, her brain conjuring images of some monstrous leech as she panicked and drew back her foot to give whatever it was a kick.
"Karma, don't move." Glitz told her, squinting in the dark. Another thing lupes had over techos was slightly better night vision. Though he couldn't make things out clearly, whatever it was from what he could see, was not very large and didn't seem to be attacking her.
"Get it off of me...." she said in a tiny voice, recoiling further as her foot trembled, still wanting to kick it away from herself. Dr. Death lowered his head as he moved forward, flaring his nostrils and trying to put his keener lupe senses to some use and see if he could identify it by scent. However, all it did was fill his lungs with the acrid stench of the sewer gas as he gave it up and bent over, tentatively giving the creature a poke with one finger.
Karma felt the pressure ease on her tail as whatever had latched onto it was distracted by the lupe's inquisitive prodding and took the opportunity to back away from it. Glitz frowned in puzzlement as he felt something glomp onto his padded finger and begin pulling on it yet making no move to bite or further hurt him. What in the world...? He withdrew his finger and tentatively ran a hand over it. Furry, yet the skin beneath felt like leather.
A sound suddenly broke the silence, making both him and Karma jump. A long, loud rasping sound that was horrifically alien at first but then recognizable. Whatever the monster was had just let one of the loudest belches either of them had ever heard. It was followed shortly by a strange scent that was like rubbing alcohol and rotten meat combined.
"Ugh...." Karma groaned, covering her mouth. "Sick..."
"I don't know what it is." Glitz told her, gagging and turning his head. "My best guess would be a mutant....or one hell of an ugly petpet.
"Let's get out of here." the frog pushed, uncomfortable.
"I couldn't agree more..." he told her, feeling his stomach clench as the small meal of caramelized blunka beans he and Karma had been given in Doctor Sloth's care that afternoon churned and threatened to come up again as the stench still hung in the air. Anything that could emit a smell like that was not long for this world, Dr. Death decided, as they both scrambled to their feet despite the aching protest of their muscles, and hastily began to walk in the direction they had been headed in.
For a moment, there was a squelching sound as the creature attempted to follow them and then only the sound of their footfall as they moved further away from it.
"Think its gonna follow us?" Karma inquired.
"I don't really care. I'm not going to slow down for it if it does." he shrugged. "And in case there's more of them, I'd rather not be around when they decide to turn this place into a gas chamber." Karma, really, had no choice but to agree with him on that note as they continued on. A chilly breeze began to waft down the corridor, making Karma pull the labcoat a bit more firmly about herself. "Is it me, or is it getting colder?" Glitz wondered aloud.
"Its not you." Karma told him, a small shiver passing through her body. She found herself envying his fur at the immediate moment as he didn't do so much as flinch at the rush of frigid air and sighed.
"We must be getting near Terror Mountain." he remarked.
"HOW could we be getting near Terror Mountain?" she asked. "It's an island."
"The sewer ducts go underwater in some places." he shrugged. "And it's too early in the year for it to be that cold anywhere else." As if on cue, another cold rush of air ran over them, making Karma's teeth briefly chatter together. "If we keep going, we could probably surface there before the night's out."
"Maybe." Karma sighed, not terribly crazy about freezing to death as opposed to spending a night in the dark of the sewer. Of course NEITHER sounded good to her, really. There was a snuffling sound as Glitz attempted sniffing again.
"Yeah..." he remarked to no one in particular.
"What?" she asked.
"I can smell the incense. We're close." Karma cocked a brow questioningly. "The Negg Faerie always has a really obnoxious peebeanjay blossom incense burning in her shop." he explained. "I've only been there twice because it gives me a headache after about five minutes of breathing it. I imagine my head would explode if I were to go in there as I am now..." he added as an afterthought. Karma quietly drew in a deep breath, but found herself unable to catch even a hint of anything other than the fetid gas of the sewer and decided she would take his word for it as they pressed onward, walking until they came to a large fork, their up-until-now straight path splitting into three ways.
Karma and Glitz looked at each other and then back at the fork, neither saying anything for a moment. "That one." The split lupe said, breaking the silence as he pointed a claw at the far right tube.
"You're just guessing." the frog grumbled, shivering again.
"Could be, but there's light in that one." he told her.
"No there's..." she began, squinting, but trailed off as she noticed that he was right. It was barely visible, but in the distance, pinpricks of white light could be seen cutting through the darkness. At the same time, the both of them broke into a quick trot toward it, not wanting to slip but both eager to get out into the fresh air again. As they ducked into the third tunnel, the light grew a bit brighter...not by much, but enough to irritate their eyes. The water, no longer flowing, was trapped beneath a thin crust of ice as they ran, no longer mindful of the cold as their minds focused on escape. Frost formed on the concrete walls in intricate lace patterns illuminated as the source of the light, a circle of brightness, appeared on the ice covering the water from the mouth of a narrower elbow joint in one of the pipes.
They skidded to a halt in front of it, Dr. Death poking his head into the pipe first and wincing as tears spilled down his cheeks from the brightness, forgetting for a moment how much his pupils had dilated in the dark of the underground. An arctic wind howled over the other end of the pipe, sounding like the wounded moan of a large beast as he withdrew and wiped at his eyes, looking at Karma.
"Looks like our ticket out of here." he smiled.
"Thank god." she sighed with relief, crossing her arms over her chest to keep her body's warmth in as much as possible. He put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a small squeeze.
"Want me to go first?" he asked.
"You don't have to." she told him. "I mean, it can't get much worse than what we--AUGH!!" she cried, whirling around as she felt something, again, pull on her tail. This time, however, whatever it was, didn't have the cloak of darkness to hide behind as both she and Glitz goggled down at the gray, malformed creature. Its eyes were milky white, its ears laid back in two sharp points along its back and it was a little larger than a full-grown Warf. All over it was covered in a thin coat of gray fur that covered its wrinkled and baggy hide. Its snout was a blunt point with no visible nose and its tail was little more than a nub....to complete the hideous illusion, it appeared to be trying to nurse off of Karma's tail like an infant cub. The only conclusion she could reach as to what it was doing here now was that it had been following them in the water which was why they hadn't heard it behind them.
The frog drew in her breath and backed away from it, watching as it scrambled out of the gutter of ice and shambled toward her, making small grunts and whimpers. "What is it?" she whispered.
"I didn't know in the dark, I don't know now." Glitz informed her, sidling up beside her, his eyes never leaving the creature. "Get out of here." he hissed at it, bringing up one clawed foot and kicking at the monster slightly. It toppled clumsily onto its side, remained there a moment, and then got up, continuing its journey back to Karma. Glitz narrowed his eyes at its inability to be phased. Just what WAS it? He felt his hackles raise as he curled his lips back and opened his jaws, not sure what was going to come out, and ended up startling all three of them as a loud, sharp bark issued from his throat and echoed off of the walls.
The creature paused in its tracks and cocked its head as though understanding it wasn't wanted for a moment, and then opened its mouth, a long belch like the one it had let in their first encounter filling the air...and with the noise, the same horrible smell.
"Ugh..." Glitz groaned, feeling his eyes cross as he, again, struggled with his gorge. "Touché, I guess..." Karma put a hand over her nose and winced, huddling a bit closer to the doctor.
"Unless its trying to turn this place into a gas chamber, it doesn't look threatening..." she offered, turning sharply away as it made a feeble lunge for her tail again. "Sort of."
"I'd swear it was a mutant but I've never seen one like it before." he told her. "What's it been living off of down here?"
"I'd really rather not think..." Karma shuddered, reminded of all of the things that made up the swill of the sewage.
"At any rate..." he continued. "Let's get going." And saying so, he ducked into the pipe, beginning to crawl through it. Its metal surface was slick with ice, making moving rather easy...in fact, too easy. He paused in his movements, finding that he was slipping forward on his own and reflexively dug his claws into the ice, bringing himself to a stop. Behind him he could hear Karma clamber into the pipe behind him. "Its icy..." he warned.
"I'm being careful." she informed him. There was a pause and then a thud as she cried out. He guessed that she had lost her balance and, knowing what was about to happen next, winced and braced himself. A moment later, she collided with him with a grunt, sending the both of them skittering forward through the ice-slick passageway, spinning and helpless. The outside light grew brighter until it seemed to engulf them both and then, suddenly, there was no floor beneath them.
With a combined crunch and splash, the two of them both toppled into an icy sludgebank that served as a drainage ditch. Glitz surfaced first, squinting in the sunlight and shivering helplessly. His heart pounded as his body tried to compensate for the sudden loss of heat and for a moment he forgot about Karma. He was reminded, however, as she broke the surface beside him, coughing and sputtering as she found her footing on the mucky bottom and stood.
He mused briefly that someone looking at her now would never have recognized the brown and black thing hanging from her shoulders as the white labcoat it had started as. "Have to get a new one of those, I guess." his mind gibbered. Had his teeth not been clenched shut and chattering, he might have chuckled at this. There was a faint splash as something else alighted in the water with them, followed by a troubled blurble and then a frantic thrashing and high-pitched squealing.
Without even thinking about it, Dr. Death plunged a paw into the water, withdrawing the same creature that had been harassing him and Karma earlier in the sewer. Wet and bedraggled, it was even MORE hideous, he decided.
"That thing again..." Karma groaned, taking up the tail of the filthy labcoat and wringing it out in a vain attempt to dry it. It looked up at him with baleful white eyes, opening its mouth and belching wetly yet again.
"Thank you. You've been a terrific audience. Thank you so much...." he grumbled, waving a hand in front of his nose before the accompanying stench could attack him as he held the creature out at arm's length with his other hand.
"Just what we needed. A mascot." the frog remarked, sloshing to the shore and sitting in the thin snow, watching as Glitz carried the creature to the shore with him and set it down a short distance away as he joined her.
"I'M not carrying it around." he informed her. "Be my guest."
"Right." she sniffed indignantly. "So maybe it'll decide to snack on my face instead? Forget it."
"I was just teasing." he grumped, picking a soggy dead leaf from his fur.
"WELL now!" a strange voice declared, making the both of them jolt. "I've seen that drain cough up some interesting things in my day, but never anything living!" It was accompanied by crone-like laughter as their eyes settled on a figure standing a short distance away. It was slightly hunched, wrapped in a green cloak with a thick purple scarf around its neck, leaning heavily on a stout walking stick. "You need a little help there?" the figure inquired. Judging by the voice, they guessed it was a woman, as she moved forward with an uneven, slightly wobbling gait and paused in front of the two of them. "Hmmm...." she muttered thoughtfully. "What a mess you two are." Up close, her face was still masked to the point of only being able to see a pair of piercing china blue eyes.
"Four or so miles of sewer will do that to you." Glitz sighed, humiliated. The elder woman chuckled and then quieted, looking suspiciously back and forth.
"On the run, I take it?" she asked in a hushed voice.
"Good guess." Karma told her.
"Not at all, my dear. Not at all." she replied good-naturedly. "One usually doesn't take the sewer as an ideal way of traveling, you know." She shifted her grip on the stick she was supporting herself on. "Well, don't just sit there!" she chided, waving a hand at them. "Let's go!" and saying so, she turned to leave.
"Go where?" Glitz asked, looking at her suspiciously.
"Where? Well out of that sludge, for one...unless you're the type that enjoys wallowing in the mud. I know some of you lupes are like that." she smirked behind her scarf. He wrinkled his nose in distaste and stood, a bit embarrassed now by his lack of clothes as he curled his sopping tail around his waist. "And I think the two of you---" she trailed off, looking at the wrinkled gray creature pacing blankly in the snow nearby. "---sorry, the THREE of you, could do with a hot meal and maybe then you can tell old granny what's got you running, hmm?" She stooped, scooping up the strange creature that had followed them out of the sewer and cuddled it against her chest, making a feeling of revulsion creep over both of them. How could she stand to have it touching her let alone cuddle it like it was a baby? It turned its head and immediately began to suckle on one of her fingers as extended the stick she held, playfully bapping Glitz on the nose with the butt of it, not hard enough to hurt, before turning to hobble away, again motioning them to follow.
"Are we going?" Karma whispered.
"I don't like this." he replied quietly. "Seems too good to be true...that some old lady would take in a couple of complete strangers she found in the sewer that she knows are escapees."
"Strangers?" the old woman cackled, turning to look over her shoulder. "Oh please, dearheart. I insist that anyone who comes splashing out into my backyard consider themselves at least a friend of mine." She dropped one eyelid in a wink at him, leaving him wondering if he was more astonished at her complete trusting nature or the fact she had heard him whisper from at least ten yards away.
"Well, I guess we don't have much better options." Karma told him.
"That's not true." he argued. "If we can find a ferry back to Neopia Central..."
"And pay for it with what??" she snapped. "Unless you managed to hang onto your wallet because I sure didn't." He fell silent at this, snarling a bit.
"Alright, fine." he told her. "But if I'm right....if this turns out to be a trap...." he poked her collarbone with the tip of one claw. "Then I don't want to hear any complaining out of you." Saying so, he turned to follow after the woman as she hobbled up a nearby hillside, following the set of tracks she had made coming down. Karma paused only a moment before trailing after them.
"So tell me..." Glitz said, panting a bit as they climbed the steep hillside. The elder woman, though she looked feeble, was not so much as winded. "Do your afternoon walks USUALLY take you past the sewer drains?"
"Ohh...you might say my walks have taken me a bit all over." she answered cryptically. "But don't you worry your furry head, son. Hasn't been a hooligan on this mountain that's dared cross this old granny." she chuckled. "Keep up with me, kids, we're almost there." Karma shielded her eyes from an icy wind and tried to ignore the heavy numbness in her feet as they climbed over the crest of the hill and found themselves overlooking a rather level area of snow, and amid it, a sturdy wood cabin, silver tendrils of smoke curling out of its chimney. "There it is." the old woman informed them.
"Not very fancy, but it'll do.. Let's get the three of you inside." she added, hefting her walking stick into the snow ahead and pulling herself up behind it. Glitz shot a quick look over his shoulder at Karma, checking to see if she was really sure about this. Seeing the look of indifference in her eyes, he obediently kept walking. He supposed, at the very least, if it WAS a trap, he'd rather be captured in the comfort of shelter than running around outside like a blind lenny in a hailstorm.
A moment later, they reached the front porch and the woman eased open the front door, enveloping them all in a wave of warmth as she stood aside and motioned them in. "Hurry up now" she chided, watching the frog and lupe pass indoors. "Let's keep the winter *out*side!" She paused, shifting her grip on the small brown creature in the crook of her arm as she cast a quick look around the outside to make sure no one had followed and then closed the cabin door.
As the warm air coursed through her body, Karma's muscles came alive with protesting aches from the walking they had done and she leaned against the wall, trying not to keel over as the strange woman stooped, setting the creature on the floor and then straightened herself again, beginning to untwine the heavy scarf from around her neck
"Thank you." Karma said breathlessly, fighting to keep her knees from buckling.
"Not a problem at all, dear." she replied as she set aside her walking stick, hanging the scarf neatly on a hook beside the door before lifting back her cloak's hood. Glitz flinched as beneath, instead of the wizened human's face they had both expected, were the sleek features of a feline. "My name is Staggpub." the tigress informed them. "But the two of you can call me Gran or Granny if you like. Its what my friends call me." she smiled to reveal glistening ivory teeth. Her pelt was an enigma of black and orange stripes with hints of silver here and there to show her age. "Make yourselves comfortable and I'll be right back."
"Still think this is a trap?" Karma asked, stumbling forward and half-sitting, half-collapsing on the edge of the a sofa that was parked in front of the small brick fireplace where a crackling blaze was burning.
"Not as much as I had before." he admitted. "But I wouldn't get too comfortable just yet."
"I hate to say it, but I don't think even if the Monoceraptor himself came tearing through this room, I'd be able to get up." Karma replied, eyes closed. He looked at her for a long moment and then smiled a bit.
"I'll have to give you that, then..." he said, coming around the front of the sofa and moving to sit beside her.
"Mrew? Better watch that tail, friend." a gentle voice said, making him pause and turn to look behind him. On a worn red throw pillow, was curled a delicate little desert aisha who blinked up at him lazily with her narrow sapphire eyes. "Looks like mom's caught herself another couple of wanderers." she smirked.
"What do you mean, 'caught'?" the lupe asked suspiciously. The aisha blinked.
"Just a figure of speech....calm yourself." the aisha replied calmly, curling its tail around its paws. "Nice to meet you, by the way. My name is Jenny945...Jen if you want the short version."
"Hello." he greeted her, moving over a bit and sitting between Karma's inert form and the lounging aisha.
"You don't have a name?" Jen inquired. "Alright, I hereby dub you Fluffwad." the aisha grinned widely. He blinked and then glared at the pet.
"I have a name." he informed Jen sourly.
"Too bad. I like Fluffwad." the aisha chuckled as he shook his head slightly. "Ohh don't be such a grouch. Here." Jen said, fishing a paw between the cushions and producing something soft and pink. "Since you're probably staying the night, you can cuddle this when you go to sleep." Jen informed him, laying the angel chia plushie in his lap. "But don't get any hairballs on it and no ripping it up, okay?"
"I'll pass." he sighed, picking the plushie up and setting it in the crook between Karma's shoulder and neck. The frog sighed and shifted position a bit, already soundly sleeping. He looked fondly at her a moment and then back at the aisha.
"Pbht...you're no fun." the feline snorted and then turned her head as the sound of padding footsteps drew near. Glitz looked up as Staggpub returned, a tangle of linens in her arms, which she laid over the back of the sofa.
"There's some clothes in there for you both. They'll probably be a bit big, but they're better than running around in what you've been wearing, yes?" Glitz, again mindful of the fact he had nothing on, blushed a bit under his fur.
"Thank you." he said quietly.
"And for your little friend, I have this." the tigress smiled, her china blue eyes sparkling as she produced a floppy yellow poogle plushie, grinning vacantly as its felt tongue lulled out between its stitched lips. He cocked a brow and was about to ask her what she meant, but before he could, she had crossed the room to where the creature they had met in the sewer was absently attempting to swallow a red bouncy ball it had found under the endtable on the other side of the couch, likely belonging to Jenny. "Here now, you don't want that." she told it, tugging the ball out of its leathery lips with a soft "plook" sound.
The creature looked up at her questioningly and opened its jaws, belching quietly. If it bothered Staggpub, she didn't let on as she set the toy down in front of the monster. "You go on now." she urged. "Play and have fun." The creature looked questioningly at the plushie and leaned forward, glomping onto its nose with its lips and suckling. At once, the creature began to transform, its skin rippling and shifting. The milky white cleared out if its eyes, revealing shiny black and the gray fur slowly turned a buttery yellow until, lying in place of the hideous mutant was a dirty baby poogle, little more than a newborn.
"Hmph, I thought so." the tigress huffed. "He should be ashamed of himself, mutating baby pets, that doctor should!" The poogle gave a questioning squeak as it dropped the plushie from its mouth and looked up at Staggpub. "Now don't be afraid, little one." she whispered, picking the infant poogle up and carrying it to the kitchen. "I think I've got just the thing for you." There was the sound of a refrigerator door opening and the clinking of various bottles and jars. A moment later, the tigress returned to the living room, the poogle in her arms and hungrily feeding from a makeshift bottle filled with milk.
"It makes me sick sometimes." the aged tigress muttered. "Its not enough that Sloth devils Neopia's leaders and armies, but he has to pick on the cublings too?"
"Awww! Cute!" Jen remarked, standing and peering over the top of the couch at the tiny poogle. "Let me, mom, please??" she pleaded, holding out her small arms. Staggpub hesitated and then carefully laid the poogle in her aisha's arms.
"Support her head, Jen, and hold the bottle as straight as you can so she doesn't suck air." The aisha, likely not even listening to her mother, had concentrated her attention on the baby neopet in her arms, whispering and cooing to it softly as it fed. The tigress smirked and shook her head indulgently, turning her attention to the bedraggled split lupe on the couch. "You know, I'd swear I've seen you before, son." she remarked. "Did you run for one of the teams in the Kyrii Bobsled Tournaments when you were younger?"
"No." Glitz replied, looking up from where he had been picking through the clothes she had laid out, having selected a teal sweater and a pair of baggy bluejeans. "Actually, I've only been a lupe since this evening." She quirked an eyebrow at him.
"I suppose that had something to do with the person you were running from, am I right?" she asked. He nodded and moved to pull on the sweater. "Why don't you wait on that for a bit? I've got a tub you can use." the tigress offered. "And when you're done, you can wake up your wife and---"
"She's not my wife." he answered reflexively, wincing as it had come out a bit more harsh than he had meant it to. Staggpub grinned slightly.
"Of course." she nodded. "Your lady-friend then, and she can get cleaned up as well. And then tomorrow we'll give your little pet a bath." she reached out, giving his shoulder a pat. "Bathroom is down the hall, second door on the right and the towels are in the closet. I'm going to start up some coffee if you want to join me later." Saying so, she turned and, with a flick of her tail, disappeared into the kitchen again. He remained on the couch for a moment, debating simply getting dressed and ignoring the offer, but getting the sludge out of his hair and fur before it dried sounded far more appealing than allowing it to dry overnight. Making up his mind, he got up from the couch and padded down the hallway, closing himself into the bathroom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An hour had passed and, satisfied that he was as clean as he was going to get, Glitz had gotten dressed but had roused Karma for a shower of her own. While the frog was bathing, the split lupe wandered into the kitchen where Staggpub was sitting quietly at the table, a mug of steaming coffee in her paws. She smiled at him as he entered and pointed a tapered claw at the seat across from herself.
"Didn't think you'd come to join ol' Gran for a drink." she smiled as he sat. "Its good to see you."
"I have to thank you for putting us up here." he told her, casting a look out the window at the now-darkened icy landscape. "We'd probably be out there freezing to death about now if you hadn't."
"Oohh." she grinned, waving her hand dismissively. "What I did for you and her, I would have done for anyone else. Well...ALMOST anyone else. If Mr. Sloth had fallen out of that drain, I think I might have seen how many snowballs I could pelt him with before he noticed me." she chuckled. He smiled a bit and leaned back in the chair. "Let me get you some coffee." she told him.
"That's alright, I can get it." he told her, standing. She gave him a push that, though gentle by a tiger's standards, knocked him somewhat off-balance as he stumbled to catch himself.
"Heh, I may be getting a little old, but I'm not feeble yet." she told him, winking as she made her way to the half-empty pot on the stove, fetching a mug from her cupboard and filling it with the steaming black brew. "There now." she smiled, turning and walking back to the table, offering him the mug.
"Thanks." he told her, accepting it and taking a drink. The hot liquid was heavenly, even as it burnt his throat slightly on the way down. How long had it been since he had had a decent cup of coffee anyway? For that matter, how long had he been missing? Four days? A week? More? He supposed it didn't much matter anymore and hoped that not too much had changed in his absence.
"Now then." Staggpub began, seating herself. "I want to hear it all."
"All of what?" he asked, setting the coffee on the table.
"All of what?" she echoed. "Your fiasco, my boy...I want to hear how a strapping lupe like yourself and a lovely lady like that went from your, no doubt, respectable lives to lying face-down in a drainage ditch. If there's one thing I still enjoy, its good, long stories." she grinned, placing her elbows on the table and leaning forward intently, her tail swishing quietly against the back of her chair. He paused in thought for a moment, wondering where, honestly, to begin.
"My details are a little fuzzy." he told her. "You sure you want to listen to all of this?"
"Glitz?" Karma's voice filtered into the room, making both the tigress and lupe turn their heads. The frog stood there, hair still sleek and wet from the shower and wrapped in a flannel green bathrobe. "I'm going to go to sleep now." she informed him, smiling weakly.
"For the best, dear." Staggpub informed her, smiling gently. "Those pouches under your eyes don't become you at all." Karma smiled weakly.
"Thank you again. For everything." She said.
"Oh not at all. Like I've been telling your friend, I'd have done it for anyone." she told her. "And don't bother with that sofa, dear. I have a spare bedroom you can use, two doors past the bathroom. It may be a little dusty though. It's been awhile since I've kept any guests." The frog nodded, stifling a yawn behind her hand. "We'll see you in the morning." Staggpub told her as she gave a small wave to the two of them and then was gone. "What a sweet girl." the tigress smiled.
"She can be when she wants....she can also be an enormous thorn in the tail when she wants as well." he said.
"Most women are like that, as I'm sure you know." Staggpub chuckled, placing a paw on his hand momentarily. "Now then, before we were interrupted..." she said, focusing herself on him again.
"Well, we were out together in the Haunted Woods..." he started.
"No no, dear, I want the whole story." she insisted.
"Everything?" he asked.
"Everything." she insisted. He looked at her a moment to see if she was really serious. When he saw nothing but the level gaze in her blue eyes, he sighed and began. He started as close to the beginning as he felt he needed to without mentioning any of his past trauma, explaining what his job was and how he hated it, he talked about RoseMadder, when he had first met Karma, went on for a bit about Snap and how he had been temporarily taken, and finally delved into their brief encounter with Sloth. Once he had gotten started, the words came more easily and he found himself going into more and more detail.
Staggpub listened intently, sipping at her coffee as he spoke, never interrupting. At length, he began to wind down as he ran out of things to tell her. "And after that, we crawled out of the underground through the pipe and, I guess that's where you found us." he finished, clearing his throat. "God, how long was I talking?" he asked, realizing he must have been going on for at least fifteen minutes. The tigress cast a look at the clock on the wall.
"Nearly an hour." she informed him. He jolted, stunned, not remembering the last time he had opened up quite so much to someone he had known for such a little amount of time. He had even known Karma for the better part of two weeks before he had finally let go of his bitter past.
"You should have let me know I if I was starting to bore you." he said, surprised at himself.
"Believe me, if you had been boring me, I would have let you know a long time ago." she informed him, drinking off the last of her coffee and getting up to refill her mug. "Sounds as though you and Karma have had quite an adventure."
"Is that what they're calling it these days?" he asked.
"Well I wouldn't necessarily call it a traumatic experience." she said gently, returning to her seat. "After all, you're both alive." He shrugged at this. "And you're both in love." At this, he didn't shrug, but flinched openly. Noticing this, she folded her paws around her mug. "You DO love her, yes?"
"Well, its kind of funny...." he started and then corrected himself. "No it's not. It's not funny at all." he said, shaking his head. "Before all this happened...before we were grabbed and everything, I had been all set to tell her we needed to call things off. She stirred up some really overpowering feelings in me and made me face things I had been sweeping under the rug for years. I couldn't stop thinking about her and I knew being together was something she wanted and was upset I wouldn't give her....so I agreed to it."
"Sounds like you set yourself up for a world of trouble, dear." Staggpub pointed out. "You shouldn't base love on what only one person wants. Both of you have to want it or else one of you is going to be miserable."
"I know." he nodded, not really wanting a lecture. "But in the time we spent in that lab...I don't know." he shrugged. "I think things might have changed."
"Mmhmm..." she muttered around the rim of her cup. "Changes of heart can happen too. It's not very common but it does happen."
"I just have felt like I need to protect her. Ever since I saw what happened to her when she came back from being zapped over and over again that one night by that....BASTARD..." he heard the word escape his mouth before he could stop it and looked up at her hurriedly to see if she was offended. The tigress's eyes remained level and calm as she smiled a bit. "I enjoy being around her a lot more than I used to." he continued quickly, hoping to smooth over his momentary lapse in control. "I guess there's time to let her know about it after things go back to normal. You know, after we've gone home and I've gotten myself turned back into a techo. I don't want to suddenly start acting different around her right now and confuse her." he sighed. "And its getting harder to hold up this guise that I still don't give two shakes about her."
"Fire's dying." the tigress remarked, changing the subject as she cast a look to the fireplace where the flames had diminished to glowing embers.
"Oh..." the split lupe said.
"Well, guess its back outside to get more wood..." she sighed, getting up.
"I'll do it." he offered, not getting up this time to avoid being pushed again. She smiled at him.
"You never give up." she smirked. "Alright then. Go get four big pieces of wood and an armload of kindling."
"Alright, where is it?" he inquired, getting up. The tigress's eyes sparkled mischievously.
"Go find it." she informed him, laughing. He sighed, realizing she was playing a game with him...one that he didn't particularly find funny as he walked toward the front door and turned the knob, pulling it open. "Don't go too far." she warned. "I'll leave the lights on for you so you know where the house is."
"Thanks." he said unenthusiastically as he slipped outside into the frigid air. Go find it....did she mean go into the woods and break it off himself? He hoped not...mainly because he didn't see any woods to speak of nearby as he decided to check around the house first before he went wandering. He started around the left side of the house, inhaling the air deeply as he went. The smoky aroma of the chimney mixed with the frosty air and created a scent that reminded him of Christmastime when he had been younger and living with Aislynn....he shook the memories away, not wanting to recall them at the moment.
As he rounded the back of the house, a surge of relief washed over him as he ran across a neatly-stacked woodpile and, hanging from a nail, a burlap sack from which spindly fingers of kindling emerged. He gathered the wood hurriedly and tromped back to the front of the house, shouldering the door open as he made his way to the fireplace.
"Shhh!" Jenny hissed, cuddling the baby poogle against her. "Don't wake up Candy!"
"Candy? You've named it now?" he muttered, laying the wood down and crouching to feed it into the fire. The aisha nodded decisively.
"It's a good name." she informed him. "And its a HER not an IT." she corrected him.
"Alright. Have fun with HER then." he grumbled, watching as the first flames began to lick at the new wood and slowly engulf it. Satisfied that the fire would keep going, he got up and returned to the kitchen, stopping short as he found it empty. Their coffee mugs had been washed and sat on the draining board and at his place at the table sat a squat yellow bottle weighing down a piece of paper. Curious, he ventured closer, ignoring the bottle for a moment as he picked up the note and read it.
"Headed to bed now, but thought I'd leave this before I went. I used to be a collector of all things magical and pretty. You know how we cats are! Have started using my collection to help my visitors should they need it and I believe you could use this more than I could (as much as I enjoy the color yellow in a shiny glass bottle)."
He paused to pick up the bottle and turn it over in his hands. At the bottom, the glass extended into six prongs that, he supposed, were supposed to resemble feet. A techo morphing potion. He looked back to the paper to read the rest of the letter.
"Do what you need to do. Old Gran sure can't tell you how to run your life, but take a little advice from an elder. Don't play with her heart or you'll lose her forever. Go to her."
The note was signed with a small sketch of a cat and nothing more. He read it over again and then folded it once, tucking it into the back pocket of the jeans and stood for a long moment, mulling things over in his head and then looked down at the potion he held before tweezing the cork between his thumb and forefinger and pulling it out of the bottle with a pop. The liquid inside fizzed a little and smelled like canned peaches and mustard all at once, making his stomach turn a bit at the thought of actually filling his mouth with it and swallowing it.
Never the less, the idea of remaining as he was and having to not only explain to everyone and their grandmother why he had changed skins, but likely having to join Snap in annual flea dips didn't place itself very high on his list of favorites. Making up his mind, he winced and tilted the bottle back, feeling the liquid sting his tongue and fizz on the crowns of his teeth. Surprisingly, he didn't gag on the potion as he swallowed it, but the fact remained that Kauvara would never be what anyone considered a culinary genius.
Almost instantly, his skin began to tingle and, as he watched, his fur grew wispy, beginning to fall out, the strands vanishing magically before they hit the floor. The smooth white skin beneath toughened as a scattering of scales appeared on it, fading from transparent to the firm yellow color he was accustomed to. As he watched the padded blunts of his paws elongate into fingers again and felt his maw of fangs shift and flatten as his muzzle turned itself back into a snout, the tingling feeling began to fade.
He remained still for a moment, waiting to see if anything else would happen. When he was sure that the transformation was over, he tentatively looked at the glass of the kitchen window, relieved to see his former self reflected in the glare. Thank god THAT was over, at least. But with that quandary out of the way, there remained another as the last words of Staggpub's note repeated themselves in his mind.
Go to her.
It sounded nice enough, but too much like something in a storybook. He imagined most people didn't receive something that spontaneous very well....and it would probably confuse Karma more than anything to go from his being aloof around her to...well...THAT. He pulled back a chair from the table and sat for a moment, weighing his options. On the one hand, he could just go to sleep on the sofa as he had originally planned and tomorrow things would continue as they always had....but on the other hand, if he took the tigress's advice, who knew what would happen? Better yet, what was the *worst* that could happen?
He realized with some degree of embarrassment, his hands had started shaking as he had thought about it and he sighed, folding them together to make them stop. He had never liked being unsure of things...and the fact that he had changed opinions of his and Karma's "relationship" at least four or five times in the time he had known her irked him to no end. He had gone from hating her, to tolerating her, to somewhat liking her, to....well, what was it now? Love?
If it was, it sure didn't feel the way all of the Valentines sickeningly-sweet propaganda described it. It wasn't some fuzzy warm feeling that made him feel like he could fly....it was a deep-seated heaviness that alternated between thrilling and terrifying him, and just all-around making him feel off-balance around her yet feeling empty when he wasn't near her. A no-win situation if he ever saw one. Yet he found that whatever other conscience was debating the issue with him DID want him to go to her.
His gaze wandered to the head of the empty and darkened hallway and his thoughts turned back to Karma, bringing with them another twinge of uncertainty and longing. At length, he made his choice and stood, pushing his chair in. From where she sat on the sofa, still cuddling the infant poogle, Jenny looked over her shoulder.
"Goin' to bed?" the desert aisha asked, seeming unperturbed by his change of form...and also a bit knowing, judging by the tone in her voice.
"Yeah." he told her with a half-smile. "I guess I am."
"I won't wait up for ya, Fluffwad." she informed him, grinning and turning back to the poogle. He paused to watch her for a minute and then slowly let out his breath in a quiet and nervous sigh. His hands had started shaking again and he stuffed them into his pockets to hide them as he forced himself to keep going. Though he got the feeling very seldomly, Glitz felt that he was coming to a milestone in his path and knew whatever happened tonight, good or bad, was going to mean a change. A big change.
TBC.................
EXTRA NOTE -- Between this chapter and the next, there is a "restricted" section of writing that continues this last part that I have opted not to include with the original story. Number one, the series works just fine without it, and number two because it would violate Neopets' regulations to post it publicly where children might run across it. If you are interested in reading this particular section, feel free to Email me at driprat@attbi.com and ask for it. Also, It'd put my mind at ease if you included an age statement too...obviously I can't make you, but I'd rather not distribute my adult work to young eyes. O.o;; Thanks!