The Jungle of Devil's Deep - 2022
They'd reached a dead end.
Claudia jumped off of Arthur's back and scurried away from the cliff's edge. That was one hell of a drop.
"We can jump, we'll survive the fall," Orm decided.
"Are you nuts?!"
"Are you kidding?" Arthur agreed. "That'll hurt!"
"So what are we going to do? Stay here and fight the hopping demons?"
Arthur growled. "What is that? What does it say?" He gestured to the base of the giant statue towering over them.
"The writing is Ancient Atlantean: 'a true king builds bridges'," Orm translated.
"Cool," said Claudia. "Good thing we brought him."
"What are you doing?" Orm demanded.
In answer, Arthur charged forward with an "AH!" and launched himself at the statue. Then he bounced harmlessly off the stone structure and collapsed to the ground, groaning.
Orm stared down at him unimpressed. "Got any more krill-brained ideas?" Claudia howled with laughter.
But it wasn't as much of a futile attempt as the blond brother originally thought. Slowly but surely, there was a faint cracking. The stone broke, the giant statue tipping over and landing perfectly across the gaping hole like a - wait for it - bridge.
Arthur staggered to his feet, the biggest grin on his face. "See: a true king builds bridges."
He charged ahead, Claudia right on his heels, wanting to put as much distance between themselves and the appropriately named 'hopping demons' as possible.
Orm reluctantly gave in. "It's a metaphor!"
"Hey! I forgot to tell you: mom says she loves you and thinks about you all the time!"
"Aw!" Claudia.
"Why the hell are you telling me this now?" Orm.
"I don't know! I'm just tired of waiting for the right moment." Arthur.
Finally they made it to the other side of their 'bridge'.
"Push!" Arthur ordered.
Claudia didn't know if she helped at all, but she joined them in pushing with all her might to tip the statue down so the bugs couldn't reach them.
It worked. They watched as the statue and the grasshoppers plunged down into the pit below.
One grasshopper, the one that had been in the lead, tried its luck however, and hopped off the statue just before it could fall. Arthur responded by slamming it with his fist.
"We would not have survived that fall," Claudia said as the distant - make that very distant - crash echoed from far, far below.
Arthur smiled smugly at his brother. "You see, I'm pretty sure my metaphor just saved your ass."
"Dude, that was awesome!" She and Arthur high-fived. She turned to Orm for another high-five but he just ignored it - or had no idea what she meant. "And so it continues..."
There was no way they were making it all the way to the volcano that day. Night fell and the events of the past several hours caught up with them. They were pooped, to put it lightly.
Of course, a jungle mutated by orichalcum sounded like just the place to spend the night - not. Orm took first watch - well, was told to take it. Soon Arthur was snoring away.
Claudia, not nearly as heavy a sleeper, kept jumping at every little sound. Finally, she gave up trying to sleep and joined Orm where he was sitting. Then finally gave up in trying to engage him in conversation.
"You are a loyal friend." Oh, so now he felt like talking.
"I try."
"I never had many friends."
"I can see why. You need to loosen up, Dude. Relax."
"I've never had much time for that."
"Not too late to start."
"I fear maybe it is."
She stood and moved to walk into the bushes. "I need to pee - please make sure nothing comes along to eat me."
It was still dark when they rallied again the next morning,
"Ugh, we must be getting close to the radiation source."
"Yeah, gross," Claudia agreed as they side-stepped and avoided a steaming, thick puddle.
"We should wait for Atlantis to receive your message," Orm advised. "We can conduct reconnaissance in the meantime."
"Yeah, look Loki, I'm not asking for your advice on this. You've already lived up to your end of the deal so you can go on back to Azkaban for all I care."
Claudia chuckled. "I understood those references."
Again, Orm ignored her. "What is your plan here?" he instead demanded of Arthur.
"I don't have one yet, but he came after my wife so that means I'm gonna pull his tongue out of his butt." Arthur mimed the gesture.
"Solid." Claudia gave a thumbs up.
Orm just sighed. "No it is not 'solid'. Again you can't just go in there flexing your muscles."
"Worked last time."
"Arthur, you are the king, you cannot let things get personal."
"This coming from the guy who turned the entire nation of Atlantis into his own private ego trip?"
"My ego? You're the one who swam through the front gate and challenged my claim for the throne."
"Only because you were trying to destroy the Surface World. If you weren't such an asshole, you'd still be King."
"Wait, wait, you took my throne and you don't even want it?"
"Are you kidding me? I hate this job."
"He really does," Claudia put in. "The complaints I hear..."
"I only did it because I had to. And now the only reason I'm doing it is to keep Atlantis from destroying the Surface. And I'm even screwing that up."
Orm couldn't wrap his head around this. "You had no ambition for it?"
Arthur rounded on him. "Absolutely not!"
"Can you please keep it down!" Claudia hissed, used to brotherly spats in her own household. "Or do you want to almost get eaten? Again?!"
"From the day my father found out you existed he prepared me for when you would come challenge me for the throne."
"Wow, that's really sad - especially when you think about how I kicked your ass with basically no prep time what so ever - oh! Roasted!"
He and Claudia high-fived. "I wish I could have seen that."
Now Orm squirmed. "That is not how it happened."
"That's exactly how it happened."
"Mera saved you."
"I stopped you first. I kicked your ass."
"Nope, she made the little water tornado and I fell in it.
"Okay, shut up, I think we're here..."
"CAW CAW!"
Arthur made the distraction - bird calls, apparently was his chosen one - while Orm took down the armed guard, swiftly picking up the weapon.
"Sleep, Aloha," Arthur said to the now downed guard.
"Hey, I get to take down the next one," said Claudia.
"Come on, let's do this." Orm led the way, weapon in hand.
"Once this is over, we should go get some burgers and beers," Arthur suggested.
"I'm so down!" Now she was really getting hungry.
"Don't push it," Orm hissed.
"Tacos and tequila..."
"I don't even know these words-"
Claudia couldn't help herself. "Wine and cheese-"
"Stop."
Guess what's now out on digital?! That's right, I purchased the movie so now I can write write write (and watch watch watch! ;))
Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :)