Author's Note: Well, have weeks of final projects, finals, mailing invitations, parties, and rehearsals, I am proud to announce that I am now a graduate of the Class of 2010! YAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY! NO MORE HIGH SCHOOL BABY! YES! Not only that, but I graduated with the rank of 6th in the entire graduating class. I even got the English and writing reward from the school.
Okay, not that my ego-pushing is done, we can get back to the story. I apologize for the long wait for an update, but the weeks leading up to graduate are pretty busy. However, now that school is over with, I can get back to schedule again. Though from June 1st to about the 13th, I will be taking my senior trip to Europe so no update then. I do apologize for that.
Regardless, thank you guys so much for all the great reviews! Thank to you, this story has reached over a hundred reviews! Here are some reviews to some:
Kraven the Hunter: Let's just say the Heather's idea of the reward that the spirits want is quite different from what they intend on getting. It's safe to say that you're quite right about Heather being even further over head than she could ever believe.
CarmillaD: There's no need for apology! To be honest, I love reading your long reviews! Lol, it just takes a while to write a decent reply to answer all of it.
ChipmunkFanatic: Sigh, I do wish I could have found a place for Justin in there. He's so much fun to write and torture. I'm extremely happy that you thought that adaption went well. Like I said at end of the chapter, it was quite a hard scene to adapt to, especially without making up some new characters. Your review was really sweet and, I'm shameless to say, was quite an ego booster.
Anywho, hope you guys enjoy the latest chapter! Only a couple more left!
It took a full two minutes for Courtney to stop laughing at Duncan's false belief of tarantulas being reptiles. Duncan tried to scowl and act angry during her mirthful fit but her bubbly laughter was infectious. The delinquent found himself chuckling along with her, blushing and looking a bit embarrassed as he did so. Even if Courtney was laughing at the expense of his dignity, Duncan was secretly pleased; it had been ages since Duncan had heard Courtney laugh like that- laugh as if she meant it, as if she was really having fun. The last time Duncan heard her giggle like that was the day after they had stolen food from Chris and Chef and kissed for the first time.
A large portion of Duncan's dignity returned at the thought.
"Okay, okay, I get it. We're bugs…"
"Arachnids." Courtney corrected with a giggle.
"Fine, arachnids, not reptiles. You win." Duncan huffed, dusting his chest off. "Let's drop it."
Courtney climbed to her feet and crawled over to him, smiling deviously and lightly shaking her head. "Oh no, mister. First you need to take back everything you said about me earlier."
"Take what back?" He questioned, gazing at her through slightly narrowed blue eyes.
The female tarantula poked a front leg repeatedly into Duncan's chest, emphasizing on each word. "All that stuff about me being uptight, bossy, know-it-all that doesn't know how to have fun. Ring a bell?"
"Now, I never said that you were a know-it-all." Duncan pointed out.
Courtney playful glared. "You're thinking it right now."
"Touché." Duncan laughed, holding his front legs up in defeat. He continued in a low voice. "Alright, you are kind of…"
"Excuse me, I can't hear you." Courtney jokingly held a leg by where her ears should be, gesturing him to be louder.
"…FUN." Duncan finished loudly. In teasing tones, he added, "You know, when you're not being as uptight and acting quite as bossy as you usually are, which, I can imagine, is quite hard for you. But don't worry. I've been known to work miracles." Duncan huffed out a chuckle when Courtney punched him in the leg.
The two stopped playfully bickering and giggling as Molotov lumbered over to them. The great brown, shaggy bear stopped two pawsteps away from the couple. He stared down at the tiny spiders, round black eyes blinked in pleasant astonishment.
"You two are well." He happily observed. The bear swung his large, furry head left to right. "Where did that horrible mudak and his fruit run off to?"
"Relax, we scared him off." Courtney proudly proclaimed, sharing a gaze with Duncan.
Molotov did not miss the shared look between the two. The great bear slowly gazed at both Duncan and Courtney and said, "So I see, Shishka. So I see." He sounded very pleased by the turn of events.
"Yeah," Duncan said, shrinking back. He was slightly unnerved by the vigilant stare Molotov was giving him and Courtney. "If we're lucky that idiot will run into my dad or some other Mounty around here. The guy can't be hard to miss, screaming like a girl like that."
Courtney was the first of the two to notice something amiss. "Where's Bunneh at?" she asked, taking a quick look around, searching for a sign of their foul-mouthed, cute-eyed companion. Despite his small size, Bunneh's absence was not easy to miss- the silence was a tell-tale sign.
"Do not worry, I have our favorite dorak." Molotov's black, beady eyes twinkled with devious delight. The Russian bear stood up on his hind legs and pulled something from behind his back to show the tarantula couple.
Duncan and Courtney choked trying to hold back laughter.
"How can you two laugh when I'm on the brink of dying?" Bunneh pitifully wailed, hanging from Molotov's firm claw. "Oh, the pain! The agony!"
Though Bunneh was exaggerating quite a bit on the dying part, Duncan and Courtney could tell that he was in quite a bit of pain, which was understandable when one was covered from ear-point to cotton-tail with sharp, round prickles. When the killer had been spotted, Bunneh had unknowingly jumped in and hid in a bush full of them. The poor rabbit looked more like a long-eared hedgehog than a bunny right now.
"We're not laughing." Duncan lied, grinning like an idiot.
"Some friends you guys are!" Bunneh whined, glaring at Duncan's smiling face. "Spiders and bears are such treacherous creatures! I shall die here a fallen star! Never to grace the world of television again!"
"Such a shame." Courtney added nonchalantly.
Molotov gave his large head an irritated shake. "Enough nonsense! You are no more dying than us three are! For goodness sake, their just prickles not poisoned barbs! Just pull them out!" Molotov grabbed a prickle stuck to Bunneh's rear in with his free claw and yanked it free.
"OOWWWW!" Bunneh yelped in agony, rolling his eyes towards Molotov. "That hurt!"
Molotov pulled another one, this time from Bunneh's ear.
"OW! That one did too!"
The brown bear paused and scanned the amount of damage. Molotov looked down at Duncan and Courtney and said in apologetic tones, "I'm afraid this might take awhile, little ones. I know you are in a hurry, but we can not have the dorak complaining the entire way."
"I suppose we could eat something while we wait." Duncan suggested.
"Eat what, exactly?" Courtney curtly pointed out. "Neither of us are any good at bug catching obviously." The female tarantula spoke the truth. The last attempt she and Duncan made at catching bugs like regular spiders ended with both of them getting tangled up in their own webs and looking more like a piñata of silk.
Suddenly a large, grey fish fell between the couple, landing on the ground with loud, wet 'plop'!
Molotov stood over them, muzzle wet and grinning. Neither of them had noticed the bear silently move to the stream and back again. "How about trout?"
Duncan stared at the dead, reeking fish with hungry disbelief while Courtney looked up at the bear and said, smiling, "That would… be quite nice actually."
Molotov graciously dipped his head to them and resumed pulling prickles from Bunneh's fur as the small mammal continued to yelp with every yank.
Of course, the fish needed to be cooked. Even if Duncan and Courtney were animals at the moment, didn't mean they were actually going to eat raw fish. For some odd reason, the thought of eating raw bugs hadn't disgusted Duncan or even Courtney, despite the way she acted at the very idea. But bugs were natural tarantula food. Fish wasn't.
Duncan gave a loud yawn and plopped himself down on a comfy bed of leaves. "Tell me when dinner's done, will ya sweetlegs?"
"I don't think so." Courtney threw a fallen blueberry at Duncan's head. It splattered into a gooey, purple mess all over the side of the tarantula's face.
"HEY!" yelped Duncan, attempting to wipe the purple mess off. "What was that for?"
"If you want to eat, then you have to help cook! Start de-boning that fish while I get the fire started." Courtney ordered.
"Why can't I get the fire started?" he complained, slowly rising from his leafy bed. "After all," he reminded, "I did win the fire making challenge, remember?"
His comment made Courtney pause and turn. "Oh, I'm sorry." She said in a sickly sweet voice. "I completely forgot about that. Tell me, do you have a lighter hidden away behind one of your eight legs?" She let the well-aimed jab sink in for a moment before returning her voice to a cold, crisp tone. "Yeah, I totally remember."
Courtney turned around, heading off to start collecting some twigs and leaves for fire fuel; she tossed a blueberry at Duncan over her shoulder. "Getting stuffing, Neanderthal."
Duncan gave an indignant snort at Courtney's mentioning of his little cheating episode at the cavemen challenge. She hadn't been complaining when he used his lighter to help their team win the bonfire challenge back in season one! Of course, their team had lost that challenge, but only because Izzy on the other team was a crazy fugitive.
Still grumbling quiet complaints, Duncan made his way over to the dead trout until he was standing over it sealed mouth. Slowly, he began the task of prying the jaws open; his grabbing hold of the bottom jaw with one front leg and the top jaw with the other, Duncan pulled and tugged, trying to pull them apart, His spider muscles sprained and he grunted with exertion until the trout's mouth split open. Duncan exhaled an exhausted sigh before continuing the messy assignment.
A few feet away, Courtney had collected a successful among of broken twigs and leaves that, she believed, was enough fuel for a decent cooking fire. While she slammed two pebbles together, trying to create enough friction to produce a spark, Courtney watched Duncan out of the corner of her eye. Her delinquent companion had half his body hidden from view; Duncan had his head and the upper portion of his body squirming inside the gaping jaws of the fish, trying to locate the fish bones through the pink inner flesh.
Courtney almost felt the urge to laugh at the sight of Duncan's large tarantula butt sticking out of the fish's mouth, waving in the air like a dog wagging its tail, but the scene reminded her too painfully much of what had happened yesterday night. It was too easy to imagine that dead trout seeming a hundred times larger, with grey scales and triangle fins piercing the night sky; too easy to see that open mouth filled with rows of ragged teeth with Duncan in between them.
Courtney suddenly felt sick to her stomach.
"I wasn't really going to let the shark eat him." Courtney reasoned with herself, recalling her earlier actions of withholding the vine and Duncan's safety until he had promised her half of his reward money. "I knew he would crack before it was too late."
The guilt still felt heavy and bitter on her tongue.
After the excitement with the psycho killer, the forest maintained an atmosphere of peace. Even Bunneh's painful yelps had been reducing to a brooding, suffering silence. The only sounds Courtney heard were the chirps of crickets, the evening chorus of frogs, and occasion hoot of a far-off owl. Even Duncan was quiet as worked.
With no spark igniting as of yet for a cooking fire, Courtney felt a desperate desire for conversation, if anything, to keep Duncan's mind away from seeing her fail.
"So why are you afraid of Celine Dion?" she asked Duncan. It the first thought that came to her head, and, quite frankly, it was the one thing that Courtney was most curious about Duncan.
The upper half of Duncan's body popped of the fish's jaws. Duncan looked over Courtney with an expression quite similar to that of a person being slapped in the face with a dead parrot. Courtney wasn't sure whether or not he was more surprised by the question or by the fact it was her asking it.
His one eyebrow wrinkled in slight annoyance. "For the last time, it's not Celine Dion I'm scared of," he said, "It's her music store standees."
Not this again. "Well, why are you scared of her standees?"
"Why are you afraid of green jell-o?" Duncan countered.
"None of your business, that's why!" Courtney snapped her mouth shut, realizing that Duncan had just cornered her. "Okay, forget it," she sighed, knowing that Duncan didn't want to talk about his irrational phobia, "but can I asked you another thing?"
"What?" he slowly questioned.
"Who ever told you that tarantulas were reptiles?"
Duncan looked very surprised by the question, blue eyes wide and staring at her as if she had just grown an extra eight legs. He was so silent for so long that Courtney was sure that he was just going to ignore the question.
"My older brothers." Duncan finally said. His voice was thoughtful and its tone grew warmer as he spoke as if he were recalling older, happier times. "Malcolm and Derek. Malcolm was the oldest-eleven years older than me while Derek's only nine. They're the ones that bought me Scruffy in the first place. I think I was upset about only having a bug as pet- I had wanted a dog to replace Petey and bugs just didn't seem like good pets- but they told me that tarantulas and spiders weren't bugs, but were really eight-legged reptiles. Little kids never got reptiles for pets so I thought it was pretty cool after that."
"You must have really been close to your brothers." Courtney commented. He had mentioned them quite a bit during the course of the two seasons.
Duncan nodded, smiling. Even as he started working on preparing the fish again, he kept on talking, happy to be speaking on such a close, familiar topic.
"Well duh, my brothers and I did everything together! I learned very I know from them, particularly Derek, though I'm much better with the ladies than he will ever dream of being. Malcolm was more the goody-good, responsible one, but he always took care of Derek and me…and got in trouble for it too." Duncan grinned, fondly lost in the memories that included him and his brothers. There was a time when Duncan had been the only eight year old to still not have a bike on their street. Derek had convinced Malcolm to help him raid their neighbor's garage and "borrowed" the neighbors' son's bike for Duncan to ride for the day. The three brothers had spent a happy, fun day riding "borrowed" bikes until Duncan had accidently crashed the bike after loosing control going downhill. The three brothers had stayed up all that night having to rebuild the bikes under their father's glaring eyes.
Yeah, good times.
"I bet they're really proud of you right now." Duncan heard Courtney remark. "They're probably sitting at your house, arguing about what you're going to do with all your money."
Through Courtney couldn't see it with Duncan's head bent inside the trout's mouth, Duncan's smile grew icy and his blue eyes seemed to frost over at her words. One of his front legs touched something hard and smooth inside the fish; he wrapped his two front legs around it and started to tug.
"I doubt it!" Duncan said, pulling hard on the fish bone, "Those two left!"
Courtney paused, holding her two pebbles in midair. "They left?"
"Yep," Duncan confirmed, voice turning bitter. "They grew up and left…" He pulled harder on the bone, tugging with all his strength as his bitter words turned into sour growls that he spat out like venom. "Left me with good ol' mom and dad… left me all alone to listen to dad complain about every choice and move I make, to have dad try and force me into being the perfect son, the perfect goody-good, law-biding soon-to-be policeman," The tugs great frantic as his voice rose into an enraged, pained snarl. "…THE…SON…I….CAN…NEVER…BE!"
SNAP!
The skeleton of the trout torn apart from the flesh with enough force to send Duncan rolling backwards onto his read end. Courtney looked up and gazed at him in alerted concern, both from his outburst and by his fall. Duncan shook his head after the fall and gazed at the trout skeleton in his spider leg with puzzlement as if he had forgotten his whole purpose in the first place.
"I'm done." He finally said, lifting his gaze towards Courtney. He lowered his face again, looking depressed, and set the fishy skeleton on the ground beside him.
Courtney made herself face the pile of twigs and leaves in front of her, knowing that Duncan wouldn't want her to see him the way he was now. She didn't know what to say to ease the pain that Duncan feeling- the betrayal at his brothers leaving him to deal with their overbearing father alone and the cold fact that he could never live up to his parents' expectations.
"So your dad wants you to be a policeman?" Courtney quietly asked, slamming her pebbles together. They let out a pitiful excuse for a spark.
"Yeah, it's what my whole family does."
Courtney couldn't help but grin. "So you can say that you're the black sheep of the flock?"
There was a faint of grin on Duncan's spider face. "Guess you can say that. I just never really wanted to do that."
Courtney slammed the pebbles together again. "So what do you want to be?"
"Duh, a millionaire."
"You're already that!"
Duncan smirked. "I know, I'm just that good."
Courtney gave an annoyed eye roll. "Seriously….?"
"I don't know, nobody's really asked me that before." Duncan admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "The only thing I'm good at is being a criminal." He let his let his leg fall to the ground and gave an upset sigh.
Disappointed, Courtney looked at the ground, pebbles lowered. Suddenly, a strange thought entered her head. She slammed her pebbles together and, as if agreeing with her, a spark sprung out and let the twigs on fire, creating a brilliant blaze of orange, gold, and red. Bathed in light and smiling, Courtney crawled over to Duncan. She reached out and placed a delicate, thin spider leg on his shoulder. He opened his blue eyes and gazed up at her, questioning.
"You know, if it's any consolation, I think you'd make a great actor." She complimented, remembering the wonderful acting he performed for his team earlier in the season. Even though she would never admit it, even she had been close to tears, to her amazement and disbelief, when she'd seen it on television.
Like the spark lighting the bonfire, a smile lit up Duncan's face at the comment. "You…you think so?" he asked. It was an occupation he had never really put much thought into. "Well, I do have the looks." He smugly boasted, smirking and strutting until he looked more like peacock than tarantula.
"Yeah, right." Courtney laughed as she grabbed one end of the trout. Duncan grabbed the other, and together the two spiders lifted the fish and began to carry it towards the fire to be cook.
"All you need to do is start auditioning for a role as a crying, old lady, and you'll be sure to make it big in showbiz." Courtney joked, "Or maybe a sheep. You made an excellent baa-er."
"Oh that was low, sweetlegs! It wasn't my fault the scripts got switched! I would have played the gangster just as well!"
"Haha, you keep telling yourself that, Granny Daaaaaaaaaacun."
Seek…
Capture….
Kill….
Seek…
Capture…
Devour….
In the dark void of the shadow creatures' minds, the evil mantras were chanted. The vile beings glided across the surfaces of the water, trees, and rocks like haunting nightmares slipping into a sleeping child's mind. Under Heather's orders, they were to search for and find the tarantula teen. The shadow monster scoured the forest, sniffing out signs for their victim like hounds of hell.
One shadow creature spotted colored fragment floating on the surface of a muddy puddle. The malicious creature sniffed at what remained of the Chris balloon.
Rain…
Fear….
Spider….
The monstrous creature of darkness gave a vile sneer. It raised its shadowy head up and unleashed a beastly howl into the night sky. Its comrades slithered towards him in a dark tide, following their leader. Duncan and Courtney's scent led them like a blazing beacon through the forest. The demons galloped, cantered, and raced through the jungle of leaf and branch, cackling and howling with spiteful glee, filled with blood-lust the closer and closer they got to their prey.
Run…
Prey…
Hide…
Slay…
Catch…
Kill…Kill…KILL…KILL…KILL!
"Hahah, da, so after I won my ninth log rolling competition, me and my circus buddies, Wolf, Hare, and Vixen, are all sitting around playing cards, and I give all of them the evil eye, da, and growl, 'No cheating! If anyone is caught cheating, her smug red-furred face is gonna hurt! Hahahah!"
Laughter from Courtney, Duncan, and Bunneh erupted at the end of Molotov's story. The four friends and traveling companions were relaxing around the campfire that Courtney had made, all pleasantly full after sharing the cooked trout.
Bunneh let out a loud, disgusting belch. "Wow, after that meal, I think I might have to start rethinking my herbivore lifestyle. Need a little more meaty protein in my diet."
"Just stick to carrots." Courtney retorted, earning chuckles from Duncan and Molotov.
"I must agree with my little, obnoxious comrade." The Russian bear said, patting his bulging stomach. "That was a delicious meal. You two cook a wonderfully together." Molotov told Duncan and Courtney.
The spider couple looked quite embarrassed by the bear's compliments and avoided eye contact with one another.
"It was nothing." Duncan grumbled, grinning at the ground.
All of the sudden, Molotov let out a loud gasp of joy. Bunneh and the tarantulas looked over at the bear to see him staring up at the night sky, a look of pure happiness and surprise spread across his furry face.
"There she is," the bear said, staring upwards towards the starry heavens. "The most beautiful bear to ever set paw on this blessed earth."
"Evangeline?" Courtney stood up, eyes wide and shining with curiosity. "She's here?"
Even Duncan and Bunneh looked interested. Bunneh's long ears stood tall and rigid with attentive excitement. "Where is she? I want to see the girl you keep gushing about all day."
Molotov swung his head towards his companions, looking shocked. "Are you three blind?" He pointed his muzzle up towards the sky. "She is right there! Right in front of us."
Duncan and Courtney had scurried up onto a low tree branch and were now following their gazes up to area of sky where Molotov's nose was pointing. All they saw were patches of twinkling stars littering the night sky.
"I don't see anything but balls of gas." Bunneh scoffed.
Courtney scowled. "They're called stars, dorak!" At least when this entire adventure was over, she could say that she was fluent in a second language.
Bunneh snorted. "Same thing!"
Whether Molotov heard them or not was unclear. He was still staring up at the stars with adoration. "There is her cute little nose." He said endearingly, raising a paw to the sky. "Her fur shimmers like moonlight. Lyubimaya moya! Look how her eyes shine!"
Duncan leaned close to Courtney and whispered, "Molotov is beginning to scare me, but not in the way I had imagined."
Courtney hated to agree with Bunneh and Duncan, but Molotov was acting crazy. The bear was talking to stars for goodness sake! The brown and purple tarantula stared hard at the one patch of stars that Molotov was staring at, at least trying to see what he was seeing. Courtney was no astronomer, but even she could recognize the North Star, which was part of the Big Dipper, which also had another name...one less used…a constellation and image less seen…
Then it finally dawned upon her.
"Ursa Major." Courtney told Duncan. "The Big Dipper. To some people it doesn't look like a dipper, but is the constellation of a bear."
Duncan tilted his head to one side, squinting his eyes at group of stars. "It still looks like a dipper to me."
Courtney shot him a severe glare. "Don't you dare tell Molotov!"
Duncan sent her an indignant look. "Of course not! I'm not that heartless!"
"I can never tell by the way you treat Harold about LeShawna." The girl pointed out.
"Molotov still has a chance with star girl, Harold's just hopeless." Duncan retorted, though his expression held a bit of sadness. Courtney suspected that he felt just as sorry for Molotov as she did.
On the ground below the two spiders, Molotov was still gazing up at Evangeline with enough love burning in his eyes to wipe away any doubts that his mate was real to Duncan and Courtney, if only for a second. To their amazement, as the spider couple watched Molotov sit on ground, staring up at the sky, he opened his jaws and began to sing.
"Look how she lights up the sky." The bear sang in a deep, gentle voice that seemed to soar right up into the stars. "My belle Evangeline."
"And I thought the French were hopeless romantics." Duncan jokingly commented. Courtney painfully elbowed him in the stomach and gestured him to be silent.
"So far above me, yet I," sang Molotov, rising to stand on his hind leg. He reached out with one giant paw and began to outline the shape of a beautiful bear out in the stars with his claw. "Know her heart belongs to only me." He dotted the two twinkling stars that shined brighter than the rest for her eyes.
"Ya budu vsegda lyubit tebya…ya vizshu tebya vo sne…mne ne zshit bez tebya"
Even Bunneh, Courtney, and Duncan could not understand the Russian phrases Molotov was murmuring, the passion and love radiating from them was clear enough. Evangeline's shine seemed to gleam from Molotov's eyes as he sang.
"You're my queen of the night. So still…so bright…"
Duncan found himself being drawn towards Courtney. With a sideways glance, the mohawked tarantula watched her as she listened to Molotov's rich, passionate voice drift up to the branches, serenely smiling and gently swaying back and forth as if dancing with herself.
To his own surprise and slight horror, Duncan found himself asking, "Would you like to dance?"
Courtney immediately realized what she had been doing and stopped swaying, replying quickly. "N-No!" Her frightful tone switched to scornful. "Especially not after seeing you dance back at the Total Drama Island party!"
"Bet it's better than anything you can do!" Duncan taunted.
"I can dance circles around you!" Courtney countered, fired up.
"Prove it!" Without waiting for her to reply, Duncan grabbed her two front legs and wrapped them with his own, pulling her close so that they in the position to do a waltz. To his surprise, Courtney let out a squeak of fear, swiftly untangled her legs from his, and scrambled back as if stung.
"I can't dance." Courtney bitterly admitted, her back turned away from Duncan. "I've never even been to one." Sure, she had planned tons of dances for her school, but what was the point of going when nobody ever asked you out?
Courtney squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for Duncan to start gloating. But instead, she felt something soft and warm touch her shoulder. She opened her eyes and turned to see Duncan, his leg on her shoulder and blue eyes twinkling.
"If you can learn how to sing like an angel, how to do martial arts like a freaking ninja, and how to scare the crap out of anyone that tries to get in your way of winning, Courtney, then you can definitely dance!"
There was such certainty in Duncan's words that Courtney just couldn't help but trust them.
Smiling, Courtney allowed herself to be pulled up to her feet on again by Duncan. They gripped their front spider legs together and pressed their body close. For the first time in quite a long time, blue eyes and dark eyes stared into each other, finding only trust.
Then, under the beautiful glow of Evangeline, they danced.
It was slow at first since neither of them were quite experts at the art of slow dancing. Courtney had no dancing experience whatsoever and Duncan's idea of dancing looked more like a rabid baboon shaking its butt. But really, what teen in their generation actually did a waltz anymore?
However, when humans get transformed into tarantulas, rabbits learn out to play the ukulele, and circus bears fall in love with the stars, then anything is possible…
Anything.
As Duncan twirled Courtney around, Bunneh, down below and sitting next to Molotov, began to play a romantic melody on his ukulele. As they watched the spider couple dance with one another, the rabbit and bear shared sly, knowing glances.
The two tarantulas waltz in slow, lazy circles on the tree branch, trying not step on one of the other's six legs. Duncan leaned closed and breathed into Courtney's ear slit, "How about we try walking on air?"
Courtney frowned, puzzled. "What are you…" she let out a gasp when Duncan let go of her and leapt off the branch. Then she notice that he had attached some silk thread to the branch and was still attached to the other end. Finally understanding his words and smiling with delight, Courtney copied his actions and jumped into the air after him.
The two spiders soared downward, laughing and twirling in the air like acrobats, knowing that they were safe from hitting the ground due to their silk thread. It was almost as if they were flying. Duncan grabbed Courtney and spun her around, rewarded by her laugh and smile as she enjoyed the weightlessness hanging in midair.
They were truly dancing on air.
"Oh, love is beautiful!" sang Molotov, watching the youngsters dance with undisguised delight.
Duncan and Courtney descended lower and lower to the ground, twirling around one another. There were smiles in their faces as moved as gracefully as swans in the air.
"Love is wonderful!"
As the spider couple made it to the grassy ground, Duncan pulled Courtney close and pulled them back up to the branch using his silk thread.
"Love is everything, don't you agree?"
Still with Courtney wrapped up in his front legs, Duncan bent forward so that they were both leaning downward. Courtney tilted her upward to meet Duncan's gaze, and he felt his breath be taken away by the how brightly her beautifully dark eyes shined, as if the stars themselves had fallen within them.
"Look how she lights up the sky…"
As his heart beat wildly within his chest, Duncan found himself smiling down at Courtney. As the last notes of Bunneh's ukulele and the last words of Molotov's song floated up the Evangeline, the two tarantulas found their faces being pulled closer and closer together…
"I love you, Evangline…"
Before Duncan and Courtney's lips could touch, before the magic romance of the night could be complete, it was shattered in the blink of an eye.
Duncan was suddenly ripped from Courtney's embrace as his own shadow was gripped by a dark, shadowed claw.
There was a horrid, unnatural cackle, then a terrified, echoing scream as Duncan was quickly dragged into the darkness.
"DUNCAN!"
It's kind of funny, when I had first started sketching out how this story was going to go, I originally had Molotov not being in love with a star but actually being in love with LeShawna. Originally, Molotov was only going to help Duncan and Courtney because Duncan promised that he would be able to get Molotov close to LeShawna (quite similar to the Naveen bribing Louis). I had this whole funny scene planned for the last chapter that had LeShawna being forced to go on a romantic, table-clothed dinner with Molotov as well as having an angry Harold sitting at the table with Duncan and Courtney on either side of Molotov, Courtney translating Molotov for LeShawna while Duncan translated for Harold.
And then I remembered about Ursa Major being a bear and used that instead.
In other news, I've started planning another Total Drama crossover story, which I might have the first chapter up next week. It's a tad bit trickier than this crossover. The crossover is of a movie that just recently came to the theaters and, like with this story, it will use only characters from the show, no new characters. It will have Duncan, Harold, and Courtney as the main characters. However, their placement will be a bit…odd. And the shipping will be a bit…odd. Even my twin sister (the one I always discuss my ideas with) gave me a "How the hell are you going to pull this off" look after I told her the basic story outline. However, after some explaining, I finally won her over and she agreed that will be a pretty interesting story to read.
I hope the same fans of this story will enjoy the next one.
Until then, please read and review!