Chapter 21- Rei and Akari's group discuss something
Meanwhile
Back in the room where Malachite and company stayed, all the children were asleep for they had turned in for the night. The beds contained the Land and Flying Talking Beast and Magical Creature kids while in the tank, the Aquatic Creatures slept in beds made from sea materials such as coral, seaweed and rocks. The only movement in the tank were the Talking Dolphins and Plesiosaurs for, like their dumb counterparts, were voluntary breathers (breathing is within their voluntary control, unlike us Humans and most of the Talking Beasts). Because of this, if Talking Dolphins and Plesiosaurs fell completely asleep in the water, they would drown so they were only 'half' asleep which allowed them to move in the water and surface to take a breath when needed. Back in the land area, snores and breathing flooded the air as everyone slept. Well, not everyone really.
Malachite lay in her bed, turning from her left side onto her right to get comfortable. However, she found it difficult to drop off. Near her, Seishan, Elsa, Yardang the Cheetah, Rainbow Quartz the Pegasus, Lymphocyte the Terror Bird, Sisu the Kirin and the others with them were actually asleep, some of them only lightly. However, Malachite was wide awake and she kept changing positions to drop off to no avail. It was clear that something was bothering her and she dearly missed her grandfather Kushanku and her mother Miidori and the rest of the extended family and friends, both biological and interspecific such as Milky Way the Pegasus, Rainbow Quartz's grandmother, and Tumnus and Guinan the Fauns whose stories Malachite found interesting and entertaining. Additionally, resentment towards those that had got her and the others into trouble, leading to their kidnapping and subsequently their transport to this place, boiled within her and she sometimes glared at Seishan and Elsa, the twin sisters and her second cousins, who had been among the kids to disobey Kushanku and company's orders to stay within the school including some of the Rabbit kits. Malachite was clearly livid at Seishan for stealing the key Leon the Jackalope who was a grandson of Dahlia the Jackalope who had been one of Kushanku's kit-hood friends. Had she and the other kids who wanted to go and see Pettigrew who turned out to be a trickster obeyed Teal'c and Paddy's orders to stay in the school, this wouldn't have happened and Malachite glared in particular at the Rabbit kits. Many of the offspring of Faline the Rabbit were troublesome and often lured themselves and others into trouble with their naiveté and disobedience. Then Malachite put aside that subject and gazed around the room in sadness. She clearly felt like something was amiss here and though she had tried to assure herself that this place was a safe haven for her and the other kidnapped victims, that didn't settle the burning ember of uncertainty of that and that ember kept burning away Malachite's attempts to fall asleep, and the longing to be back with Kushanku and the others on the mainland didn't help either.
As Malachite lay in her bed, she heard sounds of talking nearby. She traced the talking to their source and saw a gathering of some of the young Talking Beasts and Magical Creatures around a glow in the middle of a space between the beds. That glow belonged to a small lamp and around it sat the youngsters in a ring. These youngsters, none of which were a part of Malachite's group, were discussing about something. Malachite then became compelled to investigate so she rose out of her bed, put her hind feet on the floor and began to walk towards the lamp group. As she got closer, she saw that the lamp group included two young Red Pandas. Malachite remembered that these two were named Akari and Rei. With Akari and Rei were a Skvader named Laminin and her pet Spitfire Bird Scoville (which was a dumb Spitfire Bird. Like most Mammals, Birds and Reptiles, Spitfire Birds had a talking counterpart but there was none here), Arezu the Kangaroo (from Laventon's Kangaroo clan), and the aquatic part-Humanoid, part-Fish and part-Horse Creature with the azure hair and scales and tanned coloured skin, an Ichthyo-Centaur named Cubozoa who was in his teens and had been released from the confinement tank. Malachite remembered how he attempted to escape but had been caught and thrown into the confinement tank as punishment but the Ichtyo-Centaur boy's attempt that time had not been the first time, and imprisonment in the confinement tank had NOT quenched his fiery determination to escape the room. Why, Malachite didn't know.
As Malachite got closer to the group, she saw that some of the other creatures accompanied Akari, Rei, Laminin, Cubozoa and Arezu. There was a strange looking creature that Malachite thought was a Rabbit. However, as she got closer, she saw that the 'Rabbit' had a short, curly Squirrel-like tail. This 'Tailed Rabbit' had brownish fur but a splatter of pink and purple patched its pelage. Malachite had seen Moon Viscacha before as a small group of them had paid the Four Monarchs a visit shortly after Aslan's crowning of them to present them with gifts from their home realm, the Narnian Moon, among them their exclusive Moon Cheese as a food gift. Moon Viscacha were Magical Creatures who helped in the catching and distribution of dream clouds to sleeping inhabitants of the Narnian Land, Sea and Sky (such as Asgard Sky City) and were known for building dream catcher nets (nets of special string tied like a spider web around a circular frame) and other dream cloud-catching tools, and had some magical abilities like telekinesis and energy generation. Moon Viscacha were sexually dimorphic, or having different traits depending on the sex. Male Moon Viscacha were blue with their pelages having various shades of it while the females' pelage were pink and purple with few having violet and even red markings. Regular Talking Viscacha, on the other hand, were duller and drabber with regular colours like our world's viscacha. However, pairings between Regular Talking Viscacha and Moon Viscacha were not unheard of and the resulting offspring were hybrids of the two species rather like the hybridisation of Nekomata or Bakeneko and Regular Talking Cats, or Unicorns with Regular Talking Horses, Zebras and other Equines as Hypersthene, one of the new friends of Malachite and company, was the hybrid of a Unicorn and a Talking Zebra. Regular Talking Horses and Pegasi and the horned Alicorns, however, CANNOT interbreed with each other or with Talking Horses despite their father's origin from a Regular Horse who was an Extra-Narnian. Half-Moon and half-Regular Viscacha had the pelage traits of their parents much like how half-Nekomata and Half-Regular Talking Cats did and they also had the magical abilities of their Moon parents including telekinesis albeit weaker. The Moon Viscacha's sexually dimorphic pelage traits also carried in the half-Moon Viscacha which were also part-drab coloured, the drab fur colour being inherited from their Regular parents. Males has patches of varying shades of blue while females had patches of varying shades of pin k and purple and even rarely, red and violet. Malachite then gazed at the pink and purple markings on the seemingly regular Talking Viscacha's drabber brownish pelage and identified the individual as a female based on her Moon Viscacha-inherited trait.
Also present in the group around the lamp was a mysterious primate, a crane-like bird and a strange seal-like creature but when Malachite examined the three properly, she saw that they were not like any of the Talking Primates, Cranes and Seals she had often seen. Malachite saw that the crane had vivid blue feathers that shone like the surface of the Narnian Ocean, tufts of feathers on the sides of its head and flight feathers on its legs. Malachite blinked. She remembered that one type of Archaeobirds had flight feathers on its legs as well as its wings, but this bird was no Archaeobird for its neck was too long and there was no visible, rod-like tail ending in a plume of tail flight feathers, a key distinguishing feature of all Archaeobirds. By the way, they were NOT feathered dinosaurs and it was a BIG insult to call an Archaeobird such. The primate clearly appeared to be a monkey but as Malachite examined the creature closer, she saw that it had a bare face like a Uakari and a Lion-like mane around its neck. The rest of its body, however, truly resembled a Monkey and it had a tail. Its fur was red-orange and its face was reddish. Its cheeks had vivid blue and black patches on it and there was additional blue and black on its chest. The Seal-like creature, when Malachite examined it closer, was creamy coloured but instead of Seal-like flippers for its forelimbs and legs, Malachite saw that the creature instead had Penguin-like flippers and webbed feet with a tail. The Seal-like creature had the face of a seabird, its beak long like an Albatross's. Then Malachite identified the three creatures for she remembered visiting a clan of the Monkeys who lived in the grasslands of Narnia and had seen a small flock of the four-winged Blue Birds when they came to visit Cair Paravel during the crowning of Peter, Edmund, Lucy and Susan by Aslan. Malachite had also seen a small gathering of the Seal-like creatures, which were actually BIRDS, on the Narnian Beach, those creatures having come to have their eggs and could not brood them in the water.
The monkey was called a Babookari and they were group-living creatures that dwelt mostly in open grasslands. The group of Talking Babookari Malachite visited with her family including her second cousins Seishan and Elsa were expert fishermen who displayed excellent fish-catching skills at their lake such as building nets and elaborate traps to catch fish. One Talking Babookari dish was smoked carp stuffed with a variety of herbs. The troupe of Talking Babookari lived alongside a group of Talking Carakillers which, unlike their dumb counterparts in which the Carakillers preyed on the monkeys as well as other prey, the groups were friends and neighbours and the Carakillers were hunters of fast-running game such as Deer much like the Terror Birds. Some Babookari and Carakillers had participated in the Battle of Beruna against the White Witch and her cronies for they wanted to avenge the forcing and deaths of their ancestors in the Arena of Blood but a few of them ended up killed and one Babookari was turned to stone by the Witch when it tried to throw a fishing net at her, fishing nets being a weapon of choice for the Babookari warriors for they were against using weapons involving blades of any sort. The four-winged Crane was a Great Blue Windrunner, or simply Blue Windrunner. These bright blue birds lived in the mountains of Narnia or in the Sky Domain and there was a small flock of them that lived in Asgard Sky City. Blue Windrunners were often migratory and can fly for miles on their four wings. Their diet consisted of spiders, especially silver spiders which dwelt in the mountains but Windrunner clans that lived in other Domains had adapted to a different diet of bugs and fruit altogether. There were dumb Windrunners and Talking Windrunners, and in both sorts their vivid blue plumage was often used for communication and for deflecting potentially harmful rays that sometimes shone from the Narnian Sun.
The Seal-like Bird creature was called a Gannetwhale and they were Gannet-like seabirds that were adept at swimming but not very mobile on land. A group of Gannetwhales, all females and of the Talking sort, came ashore yearly on the Narnian Beach to have their eggs and raise their chicks for they could not lay and brood their eggs in the water. But when Jadis locked Narnia in the Eternal Winter, some Gannetwhales became a victim of her minions including some traitorous Snowstalkers, sabre-toothed wolverine-like creatures with snow-white fur, who attacked them and stole their eggs for consumption by themselves and their Mistress. It was tantamount to murder to take a Talking Gannetwhale's egg, or the egg of ANY egg-laying Talking Beast and Magical Creature for that matter, since those Talking Creatures were classed as persons and it was against the Great Lion's laws to use their eggs for culinary purpose. ONLY the eggs of dumb beasts can be used. For this reason, among other reasons such as harassment from Jadis' cronies, the Narnian Beach-visiting Gannetwhales had abandoned coming to the beach for safety reasons and had chosen other beaches to have their eggs. However, now that the Dawn of Spring had come and had pretty much chased away the Eternal Winter, the return of the Gannetwhale flock to brood their eggs on the beach was due in a few months. Anyway, back to the story.
Malachite continued to gaze at the group of Talking Beasts led by Akari and Rei the Red Pandas, the young Babookari, which appeared to be male, and the Blue Windrunner and the Gannetwhale, which both appeared to be female, and a number of other youngsters, paying attention. As she got closer, she managed to pick out meaningful words as the Windrunner spoke.
"I may have been rescued from some series of experiments conducted on me and several other Great Blue Windrunners by those HORRIBLE Ogres still loyal to the White Witch but I am NOT at all satisfied with being here, folks," the four-winged Crane-like Bird muttered.
"Neither are we, Eleven, despite being rescued from those hideous monsters who took us to the beach," said the young Kangaroo, Arezu.
"The Annual Gannetwhale Brooding Visit is due to return to Narnia's beach after decades of that ice and snow caused by the White Witch's tyranny this year too," grumbled the young Gannetwhale, "What are those mothers gonna do if they end up facing those HORRIBLE creatures still running around causing trouble including on the beach?"
"Well, our Monarchs are doing their best to hunt down and destroy those remaining minions, Misty," said the Babookari, before his bald turned as he examined the room, "But why we have been brought and held here after being supposedly rescued from our kidnappers doesn't seem to make sense."
"That's what I said earlier, Louie," grumbled the Skvader, Laminin whose left shoulder held a little vivid yellow and red bird. Murmurs escaped from the other talkers including a few Rabbits and a late-teen Talking Rooster. However, it was not a Basan from the Underworld Domain for this Rooster was regularly-coloured. He was just on the verge of adulthood for if he had been a preteen, he would look no different from a Hen. Young Talking Chickens and other Gamebirds, like their dumb counterparts, looked alike when young but as they passed through puberty, the sexually dimorphic traits show with the Roosters' combs and wattles growing larger and their tails sprouting the characteristic long feathers that hung off the top.
Malachite continued to slowly approach the group until finally, she was close enough to talk to them. More species of Talking Beasts and Magical Creatures were now visible including a young male Wampus Cat with dark grey fur and a few glowing orange markings (he was one of Obsidian the Wampus Cat's grandsons). As Malachite got closer, the Windrunner glared at her suspiciously.
"What do you want, young green Tiger?" she grumbled, mistaking Malachite for a Tiger based on her bright green and dark green striped fur. The others then turned their glares to Malachite, making her stop.
"Um... I was just w-w-wondering... what you lot... are t-t-talking about..." she stuttered somewhat from nervousness. A roll of the eyes occurred on the faces of the two Talking Red Pandas.
"You wouldn't understand, young Tiger," replied the male flatly.
"My name is Malachite and I am not a Tiger," replied Malachite slightly annoyed, "I am a Nekomata. you know, that Magical Cat Yokai that walks on two legs and has two tails?"
As she said this, the Gannetwhale examined her tail and saw the partially-split tip with a frown. "Oh, we know you're one of those Magical Cats alright."
Malachite shot the Seal-like Seabird a glare and then joined the ring around the lamp. "By the way, what are you talking about? Why are you lot complaining about this place?"
At first none of Rei and Akaki's group replied but then the latter, the female Talking Red Panda reluctantly began to explain.
"We don't belong here," she muttered in disgruntlement.
"Why?" asked Malachite, "This place is safe."
As Malachite said this, two more forms melted out of the darkness, a flightless bird with a hooked beak and a young Horse with rainbow wings. Lymphocyte and Rainbow Quartz were approaching the group, curiosity compelling them for they had just woken up. Scoffs escaped from the male Ichthyo-Centaur in response to Malachite's comment about the area.
"I wouldn't expect a naive lil' newcomer who has BARELY spent her first NIGHT in this place would understand," crooned Cubozoa slightly condescendingly and mockingly.
"Would you like an oyster to go with that, naive lil' newcomer?" added the Gannetwhale named Misty. Following this, titters escaped from some of the other members of the group. However, Arezu, Louie the Babookari and Laminin shot rebuking glares at the group.
"Don't be so mean and condescending, the lot of you," said the former, the young Kangaroo, "This Nekomata barely knows much about this place."
"And neither do the Talking Beasts and Magical Creatures brought in with her," added the Babookari. Then irritation boiled within Malachite as she demanded to know why Rei, Akari and the others with them do NOT like this place so much.
"Like Cubozoa said," said Rei.
"You wouldn't understand," said Akari.
"Now why don't you leave us alone and let us resume our conversation?" said Eleven the Windrunner bossily. Malachite flinched and with a sour scowl on her face, did so. As she left, Rei and Akari's group's conversation resumed. Malachite soon met Lymphocyte and Rainbow Quartz.
"That group often gets into trouble with our carers including the pink spider-like creature who is apparently the head of this place, named Dolores," whispered the former, the Terror Bird.
"We've been talking about that group with Kosmochlor and Hypersthene and they told us that they are trying to escape this place," said Rainbow Quartz.
"Why?" asked Malachite, her gaze on Rei and Akari's group as they continued to discuss, "Why would they want to escape this place? It's safe, isn't it?"
"Rei and Akari and their group disagree for reasons they won't disclose, Malachite," said Lymphocyte, "they have been trying to escape countless times before but have been caught, brought back to here and punished each and every time."
Rainbow Quartz then nodded to Cubozoa in Rei and Akari's group. "That Ichtyo-Centaur's most recent attempt apparently hasn't been the first time, according to Hypersthene and also Kosmochlor and Emori, and despite repeated imprisonment in the confinement tank, his desire to escape still hasn't died down."
"Maybe they long to be out of here as soon as possible as they miss their families and clans?" asked Malachite, before her head turned to nod at a certain Kangaroo in Rei and Akari's group as they continued to discuss, "Arezu certainly does her clan, especially her uncle Laventon and aunt Cynthia, she told me," as she said this, the longing to be back with Kushanku and company flashed within the Nekomata. However, she restrained it.
"It would make sense," Rainbow Quartz conceded, "But I wouldn't know. Anyway, let's return to bed."
With that, she and Lymphocyte walked back to their bed and nest. Malachite gave one final look at Rei and Akari's group but then she heard Eleven the Windrunner say something.
"We mustn't give up," the Four-Winged blue Crane said, "It's important that we are outa here whether those Teddy Bears and that Dolores Spider creature likes it or not..."
Murmurs of agreement and nods rolled throughout the rest of the group including Rei, Akari and Arezu. Malachite felt curiosity take hold and prompt her to return to the group to ask why, so she did.
"Absolutely," spoke Laminin, "And once we DO successfully make it out, we're gonna..." suddenly, the group froze and saw a spherical thing float past. Malachite also froze when she saw the floating sphere, which appeared to be mechanical for it had a shiny grey shell and a sinister red 'eye', then stop to stare at Rei and Akari's group, that red 'eye' piercing into them like a hawk's glare. The female half-Moon, half-Regular Talking Viscacha then spoke. "We should head to bed, folks. We don't wanna be on the receiving end of a fiery reprimand from Madame Dolores or her Teddy Bear assistants."
"Good point, Nanachi," said Akari as the creatures immediately stood up.
"Meeting adjourned. We'll discuss this tomorrow and then formulate a plan," called Rei and with that, the group abandoned their gathering around the lamp and hurried off to bed. Malachite did the same, her wary gaze on the floating eye-sphere as it watched Rei and Akari's group disperse and hurry to their beds with Cubozoa and Misty returning to the tank. The sinister-looking eye sent shivers coursing through Malachite's system and she felt her nerves shiver from the cold chill. Then a voice snapped her out of her wary gaze on the object.
"Get to bed, green Tiger. You don't wanna end up in trouble with those Teddy Bear minions." Malachite shot a startled gaze at the speaker and saw that it was a red-furred Raccoon-like creature. It was Akari and she was glaring at Malachite with a stern look.
"Teddy Bear minions?" asked Malachite. The female Red Panda and Rei's twin sister didn't reply and left for her bed.
"You won't understand right now but you will once we sort this HUGE problem out," she said on the way.
"What huge problem?" demanded Malachite but the Red Panda didn't answer and disappeared into the dark in the direction of her bed. Frustration flared within Malachite and she sourly stomped off in the direction of her own to get some rest.
It did NOT make sense whatsoever and a thousand questions were churning in Malachite's mind. What do Rei, Akari and their company want to be out of this place for and why? What did Laminin mean by 'make it out'? And on top of that, what did Akari mean by 'sorting this HUGE problem out'? Frustrated at these unanswered questions and flashing a final look at the red eye-sphere as it moved on to continue examine the room, Malachite returned to her bed. However, the desire to be out of this room to reunite with Kushanku and company began to writhe once again.