Well I'm back…more than a month later…bad, bad me. I couldn't help it!!! School started and band takes up all my free time. *Cringes and ducks flying objects thrown by angry readers* I'm sorry!!! Anyways: I decided to put the first half of this chapter up now, so I can see what you people think and then (hopefully) get the other half up in a few days. It's almost completely written…I'm just stuck on one little part of it. Thanks to Mea for reading what I have so far and for suggesting that I cut the darn thing in half and post what I have already. ^__^ Thanks also to the FOUR people who have reviewed so far…*apologies and much groveling and begging for forgiveness in their direction for taking so long to update…*
** Just so you know and don't have to yell at me about it…this is, (to the best of my knowledge) going to be a VERY AU fic… In other words, the characters will be behaving extremely oddly, (random OOC-ness will occur at frequent intervals) some characters who have been dead for a long time will possibly appear out of nowhere…and other strange and unusual things will happen. This has been a public service announcement… and now back to your regularly scheduled programming **
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Did you really have to ask?
Selatyriaf
Chapter One: Chicken Kel and the Beanstalk (Part I)
* Just so you know…most of this chapter (if not all) will be in Kel's dream. I don't feel like formatting it any differently than in real life. If something does happen that is NOT in her dream…I think you will be able to tell the difference, don't you? *
~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~
Kel opened her eyes to a very strange world. All of the colors seemed far too bright to be normal, and the extremely yellow sun shone merrily down on the barnyard.
… wait … barnyard? Kel blinked. Back up there. She squinted up at the sun again, and Owen's bright, shiny, YELLOW face stared back and winked
"Oy! Owen!" she called up at him. "What's your disembodied head doing as the sun?"
Owen looked around himself and stared back at her in confusion. With a shrug of his nonexistent shoulders, he bellowed, "Jolly!"
Exasperated, Kel shook her head and looked down. Feathers. … Kel looked up, blinked a few times and checked again. Yup – still there. She lifted one arm to her face to check if she had a fever and was delusional – it wasn't even her arm any more. Kel had grown wings. Confused and bothered beyond belief by the sight of her body covered in feathers, she waddled over to a bucket of water by the fence. Her own face stared back at her. She looked down again: scaly, three-toed feet; yellowish feathers, wings… Kel shrieked and started running madly around the barnyard.
A few minutes later, Kel was still running and a few heads popped out of the open barn door, wondering what all the commotion was about. Chicken-Kel stopped careening about and looked at Yuki, Shinko and Lalasa gratefully.
"Mithros! I'm so glad to see you! Can you believe this? I'M A CHICKEN!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
Glancing at one another, the three women stepped out the door and into Kel's line of vision. She gasped. They were birds, too!
"Gaaaaaaah! Not you, too!" Chicken-Kel shrieked.
Lalasa-the-Goose nodded sadly.
Yuki-the-Turkey was furious. "If they had to turn us into birds, why couldn't we have been something nice like a swan. Anything but a TURKEY."
"Well, if somebody is turning innocent women into birds, we ought to tell the King, shouldn't we?" asked Chicken-Kel prudently.
Shinko-the-Hen agreed, "We should definitely complain to somebody about this. I do NOT want to stay as a hen for the rest of my life, thank you very much."
"OKAY!" exclaimed Chicken-Kel. "Off to the palace!!!!" She started walking triumphantly toward the open gate. Suddenly, she halted mid-stride and called back, "Does anybody know how to get to the Palace from here?"
~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~
Quite some time later, a long, long, loooooooong way down the road, the four unfortunate bird-women were still walking down the road, on their search for the King's Palace.
"Face it, we're lost," declared Turkey-Yuki. "You don't know where the Palace is, and for all we know, you could be leading us in the completely opposite direction."
Fed up with all the arguing, Lalasa-Goose announced, "We're going to ask the very next person that we see for directions. Ok?" She glared at the two debaters. Shinko-Hen nodded in agreement. Turkey-Yuki sneered nastily at Chicken-Kel, but approved the plan anyway.
Several long, agonizing minutes later, they spotted a figure on the road ahead of them. Joyous that they would now have directions and would not have to squabble any longer, Lalasa-Goose and Shinko-Hen ran down the road toward it, flapping their wings all the way. Chicken-Kel sighed in resignation and she and Turkey-Yuki hurried after them.
To her surprise, Chicken-Kel and her friends were met by yet another victim of whoever was turning people into half-animals. The unfortunate man now looked like a human sized fox with a person's head. He turned to face them, his long blond hair contrasting sharply with his beautiful reddish fur. "Hello, ladies," smirked Joren-the-Fox.
Chicken-Kel inhaled sharply (more commonly known as "gasping"). But isn't he dead? What is the deal here, anyway?
Before she could say anything, though, Turkey-Yuki rushed forward and gasped out, "Foxy-Joren! Foxy-Joren! The sky is falling! The world is coming to an end! SOMEBODY TURNED ME INTO A TURKEY!!!!!"
Shinko-Hen chimed in, "We must tell the King of this. Can you give us directions? We seem to be a little … well … lost."
"I would be honored to help four such lovely…ladies… as yourselves to reach the Palace," smirked Foxy-Joren evilly. "In fact, I even know a shortcut! Follow me…right this way, now." Foxy-Joren started sauntering off toward a smallish cave by the side of the path.
Chicken-Kel stared at him uneasily. There was something wrong here, but she just couldn't put her finger on it. Thinking along these lines a moment more, Chicken-Kel nearly smacked herself – of course she couldn't put her finger on it! In her present state, she didn't have any fingers!! But still – "Guys… I don't think we should trust him," she began uncertainly.
"HA!" laughed Turkey-Yuki cynically. "You think we shouldn't trust HIM. Mithros! That's amusing. You're the one who got us in this mess in the first place. You think we'd trust you again? HA!" She stalked off toward the cave. Shinko-Hen and Lalasa-Goose looked nervously back and forth and then hurried off after Turkey-Yuki.
Chicken-Kel screamed in frustration. What idiots! They're going to get themselves killed. She decided to continue her quest…she would come back to rescue her friends when she was completely human again.
To her immense satisfaction, a sign proclaiming "Palace: this way à " was posted just around the next bend in the road. Secure at last in her knowledge that she was going the right way, she trotted on down the road…
Well…like I said before…this is only the first half…I don't think it was the best place to stop, but if I introduced "Jack" and then stopped…it would be even weirder… (Ha! I bet you can't guess who that's gonna be!!) ~ And no cheating (or giving away the answer) those of you who have already read the second half!! ~ ummmm…yeah….so what did you think? Was it random enough for you?
I couldn't help but put Joren in there…I know he's dead and all…but I was trying to think of somebody to play "Foxy-loxy" and the image of "Foxy-Joren" was just too good to pass up. ^__^ Now the question is…when I finish with part II, should I have her get better then, or think up a new fairytale (I have several half-formed plots tucked away if this is the case…) Tell me what you think… (PLEASE!!! I'M BEGGING YOU HERE!!!) Perhaps if I got more than four reviews it would make me get the next part out faster…(hint, hint). Oh yeah, thanks to the fourth reviewer that popped up out of nowhere about a week ago…you inspired me to get this part out and finish up part II: insane horse lover-gen—you have my gratitude…although the prodding hurt a bit…
Well…happy first day of autumn (my absolute most favorite season of all) go jump in a pile of leaves or something…but don't forget to come back and review when you're done…(a cup of hot chocolate after the leaf-jumping wouldn't be such a bad idea either…)
Toodles
~ Erm the Penguin ~