Author's Notes: I am still adding onto this baby. I've just been a little busy. Oh the woes of the life of a teenager. Just kidding. Here's your story. The more reviews I get, the more apt I am to quicken my updates!
Days came and went and the planning had trickled down into an unspoken agreement that they would find the rebels. Nothing else made sense to do at this point and starting a resistance was the only thing that the two men could think of that would break the rule of King Irving.
"We should try out Triet first," Zelos announced over the crackling of the camp-fire as they ate the dinner that marked the fourth week of living in the ruins of the Abbey.
"Triet?" Fang questioned.
Zelos took a bite of his meal, "It's a town in the desert. People there live off their skills. There are blacksmiths and potion-makers who make shop in Triet. The population there is also far more substantial than some of the other towns that are left—at least, there were quite a bit of people living there the last time I checked. Which was before you got here, if that helps you get a loose time-frame of how accurate my guesses are." The red-head glanced up from his food to look at Fang to gage his opinion of the suggestion.
Triet was filled with people. Anybody with eyes would join their side. This was it. They could make a group of rebel supporters and end the reign of terror that King Dickhead had put into motion.
Fang couldn't help but smile at the idea.
"What are you so giddy about?" Zelos scowled.
"We're just… We're getting somewhere again," Fang said, "This is the first real goal we've had since we killed the Jabberwocky, Zelos. It's important."
"Psh," Zelos scoffed and took another bite of his meal, "It's something. I don't know if important was ever the word that came to mind when we made the plan though."
"We might be able to find a doctor or something to join," Fang told Zelos, "That would be so helpful. We should look for a doctor first, actually."
Zelos shook his head, "We'll take what we can. There's no sense in being greedy about it."
The Tethe'allan finished his meal and he stood up, tossing the remains of the animal/meal into the fire before he pulled his long red hair into a pony tail. The older man had recovered well once he had gotten to the point of stability where he could heal himself comfortably. Other than a slight limp when he over-exerted himself, Zelos had gained back a majority of his strength.
"When you finish up, we'll pack up what little that we have and head out. Sound good?" Zelos asked him. Then he stopped, "… Actually, we might need to hold it off until tomorrow morning."
"What?" Fang looked at him in confusion. "Why would we do that?"
"You look like a hobo," Zelos sneered in disgust.
The teenager gawked at him. "I'm sorry, what?"
"You're just gross looking. I get that we're in the middle of leading a rebellion, but that's no reason for hygiene to suffer." Zelos crossed his arms over his chest. "Honestly, Fang. You make me want to shower just for the sake of compensation. Do you even remember the last time you combed your hair?" Fang was about to answer but Zelos obviously meant the question to be rhetorical because, with a big breath that lifted his chest significantly, he continued on with his rant. "I highly doubt it. It looks like the nest of whatever animal we just ate. Can you say ew?" Zelos asked, once again rhetorically, "Because I sure as hell can. Ew times a billion, in fact."
Fang stared at him in silence. Zelos was a lot of things, but if there was one that never failed to impress him, it was how clean and meticulous the man was. Zelos bathed once in the morning and again at night. He kept himself looking like he had a salon at his disposal, despite the fact they lived off of the fat of the land and the forest around them.
Fang, however, combed his hair once every few days and that was only so it would be easier to wash the gunk, grime, and God only knew what else out of it. Yeah, sure, he would wash himself off in a minute long bird-bath-like swim, but to sit and scrub away all the dirt took time he didn't like using. So, he just didn't clean up all that much.
He never realized it bugged Zelos, but when he thought about it for more than twenty seconds, it made sense that it would.
"Does it really matter?" Fang exasperated, "Nobody is rolling in wealth. I don't think they'll mind."
"They're not rolling in dirt either, you bumpkin," Zelos snipped in a snobby tone that Fang hadn't heard in a while from the ex-noble. "The least you can do is to pretend you want to impress them by washing the disgusting mud and mire off your face so that they don't think you're hiding behind some form-fitting, God awful mask made of the insides of a muck-monster."
His hands lifted up to his hips as he looked down at the avian-hybrid, "I don't know how you bird people interact back on 'Earth'," he lifted his hands and fashioned some air-quotes for Fang's home planet before continuing, "but here? We like to look semi-presentable to the people we're speaking with while starting a revolution."
"If it bugged you so much, why didn't you say anything sooner?" Fang asked.
"It's dark and I'm used to you," Zelos replied.
He walked over and knelt down in front of Fang, beginning to look him over, "Ugh. It's like when you walk into a ghastly abandoned house and all the furniture is still there and you make the mistake of running your finger across the surface of a table only to find it's got four inches of dust on it. Except you're not an abandoned house and I only wished this was dust." Zelos whipped his glove off before running the index-finger of his right hand down the bridge to the tip of Fang's nose.
He lifted his finger tip to show Fang the gunk that had turned Zelos's porcelain skin a dark brown color.
"Oh," was the only response Fang could come up with.
"Oh, gross. Oh, ew. Oh, ick," Zelos began saying, wiping the goo onto Fang's shirt. "I think I would die if I could do that to myself."
"You were pretty messy looking when I met you," Fang reminded.
"I was in prison," Zelos replied, lifting his head up in typical snobbery. "What's your excuse?"
"I live in the middle of a forest by the ruins of an old abbey," Fang replied.
"Get your smart-ass into the river and don't come back out until you're clean. Then we'll go to Triet if you look presentable. If you don't, I'm going to force you to look as presentable as you possibly can manage."
"You're such a priss," Fang laughed as he stood up.
Zelos pushed him towards the river, "Don't come back until you're clean enough that strangers can tell that you're white!"
Fang just laughed and jogged to the river. The faster he got clean, the faster they got to Triet.
xXxxXxxXxxXxxXxxXx
Triet came into their sights a whole hour before they actually were able to walk through the city's gates. When they saw it, Zelos had forced Fang out of his comfort zone and told him to land. They had to walk into the gates on their own two feet, and in the end it made sense why. They were trying to be inconspicuous and flying was the exact opposite of blending in no matter what planet you were from.
Zelos had on his mask that he had worn into Palmacosta, but now Fang had to join him in anonymity with a tighter and thicker black mask made of the material that had once been a part of his old shirt sleeve. King Irving had seen enough of Fang to get wanted posters out to any city he felt the two might visit. Fang was just as much of a fugitive as Zelos was after all the fighting the two had done against the tyrant.
The funny thing was, neither of them cared much about it. It wasn't as if it mattered anyway. They'd been caught before and they'd escaped before. This was yet another obstacle in their already flogged and indiscernible path.
Fang turned to Zelos and the redhead glanced at him. "What?" he asked.
"This is really hot," Fang replied, tugging on the edges of his black mask that wrapped around his head much like Zelos's did.
"We're in the middle of a desert, whiney bitch," Zelos scoffed. "So… duh about that whole hot-memo."
"Where should we start?" Fang asked, stopping in the middle of the city gates beside his friend.
"Wherever we can to get a drink," Zelos exasperated, throwing his hands onto his knees as he leaned forward in exhaustion. "I am spent."
The avian-hybrid glanced in each and every direction, "I… I can't tell any of the shops apart," he admitted.
Zelos lifted his head and looked through the slit in his mask that gave his eyes a hole to see through. His hands stayed on his knees though.
"There," he straightened up and headed for the shop as Fang began to follow after. He noticed Zelos moving a little slower but he managed to walk into a small building. Opening the door, he waltzed through first and Fang closed the door behind him, not turning to take in the innards of the small cantina until the exit clicked shut behind him.
He looked ahead to see all the famished and malnourished faces staring back at the two men. Fang straightened up awkwardly, his wings tucking in tighter against his back under his shirt in a self-conscious fashion; however, his wings were just as unseen as Zelos's were.
"Any exit strategys other than the front door?" Fang whispered to Zelos.
"This bar is new… so, I'm sort of winging it," Zelos replied. He turned to Fang, grinning underneath his mask as he added, "You're used to winging stuff, right?"
Fang groaned at the pun, making Zelos laugh before the two men walked over to a table, sitting down as the eyes of strangers removed themselves from the two to continue what they were doing beforehand.
A woman, eyes sunken to the point that they looked far too large for the skull they were set inside, walked over to them. Her dusty brown hair was pulled back so they could see every crevice in her tired face. She pointed to a chalk board that was hoisted above the bar, "You have two choices of drink. Water or butter tea," she told them with her husky voice.
Zelos and Fang turned to the board in perfect synergy, as if to double check their choices. Fang cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, since he wasn't too sure of what butter tea was he couldn't imagine picking it over water. "Water," he told her.
Zelos was still looking at the bar, his eyes glued to the board above the mirror that sat behind where a bartender used to work back when business was just starting and the world wasn't hurting nearly as much. "I want goor goor," Zelos said, his eyes going to the waitress.
Her demeanor changed instantly. The waitresses back straightened from its hunched over position from only moments before. "Goor goor and water it is," she said evenly, "I'll need to go into the back. We have a special recipe, and only the owner of the cantina makes our goor goor."
She walked away from them and Fang immediately looked to Zelos with confusion evident in his eyes. "Goor goor?"
"Goor goor is butter tea," Zelos told Fang simply. "Just… a more localized term for it. I knew a boy who drank butter tea a lot, but he called it goor goor. I think it made him feel sophisticated and worldly." He shook his head a few times, "Butter tea is nearly impossible to get anywhere," he felt the need to add.
Fang was still incredibly lost on how the tea meant anything until the waitress came back and set two napkins onto the table in front of them. His water was placed on top of his napkin and a small wooden cup of butter tea was set in front of Zelos, just quick enough that a normal human wouldn't have been able to see there was something written on the bottom of Zelos's napkin. Zelos smiled at the waitress and she nodded stoically before leaving the two.
Fang also noted how Zelos downed the butter tea quickly, making quite a loud fuss over it so Fang wouldn't be tempted to look away from his guzzling mouth to see the red-head's hand grab the napkin and slip it into his pocket.
They had made some sort of progress, Fang could see. Although, it didn't make him too comforted to see how Zelos tried to hide the actions from him.
He assumed that Zelos had done it to distract the wandering eyes in the bar and not to throw the mutant off his game. Whatever Zelos had intended of the two, he had managed to make Fang feel both of the two waves of animosity.