"Good morning!"

((A quick and exuberant "Thank you!" to our own, lovely "Stabs" for giving me the inspiration to try my hand at writing a story- albeit a very, very short one.))

Yaw~n. Stre~tch. Time to dispel the box of portals he'd placed around himself as a safeguard while he slept, as he always did. Once he did, the sight of a beautiful morning greeted his bleary eyes. Oh, it seemed that the first rays of light were just beginning to pierce through the trees and shrubs of whatever forest he had decided to fall asleep in. Bringing a thumb and index finger up to his face to get that crusty bit of sleepiness out of his eyes, he rolled over into a sitting position, and was surprised to find a large figure towering some seventy five feet over him. Well, at least that explained the shadow that was cast over this area.

"Good morning!" the woman called out, unable to refrain from licking her lips and grinning from ear to ear. A gigantic right hand offered a cheerful wave while her eyes let him know, "I want to devour you alive."

Defensive portal placement number three, perfect for negotiating with potentially dangerous beings such as this one. "Hello!" he called back, raising his own arm back to return the wave, mimicking her grin sincerely, his voice sounding as if it were speaking directly into her right ear.

"You're new here, aren't you?" was the first question she had for him, now placing both hands behind her back, smiling down at what she must have thought was her next tasty morsel.

"Ah, yes- as a matter of fact, I am! How did you know that?" was his first response, answering her question while adding one of his own.

The smile on her face turned into a look of mild confusion as her eyes flicked to the area off to her right, seeming to realize that his voice seemed to be coming from inside of her right ear, making no noise whatsoever in her left. "Hey, um.. How are you doing that?" she asked, somewhat uncomfortable with how his voice seemed to carry straight through his lips into her right ear.

"Oh, speaking to you? Sorry, sorry- I know it sounds a bit weird, but I'm afraid that this is the only way I feel comfortable speaking to you. If I speak to you as I would any other person, I would be placing myself in a ridiculous amount of danger, and that's something I don't want. But before I go on, allow me to introduce myself. There are those who call me..." Here he paused for dramatic effect, squinting his eyes and looking from side to side as if checking to make sure that the coast was clear before finishing. "Eraiya- Eraiya Vals, actually." Well, would you look at that. He was answering honestly. "And before you tell me yours, just a quick reminder- you seem to have forgotten to answer that question of mine."

"Oh! What was-?" the blond-haired woman asked, before being cut off by Eraiya in anticipation of her question.

"I asked how you knew that I'm new here."

"Oh~! Well, um.. You know, most people are smart enough not to sleep out in the open, here. People your size really have to be more careful than that, or who knows what kind of big, scary predator could come and eat them in their sleep! And that's a weird name, Eraiya Eraiya Vals- are you sure that's your real name?" The man could have just as easily asked her if that giant snake's tail that she had instead of legs was real, or if he wasn't just dreaming all of this up, but he knew better than to ask either of those questions.

"Sure as sunshine," he replied, now forced to show his teeth through his smile. Any less of a smile than this and he would most likely begin laughing, and he didn't want to seem rude to this person, despite the fact that she would probably eat him if he gave her the chance. "But, again, um.. Your name, please?" he asked, tilting his head to one side.

"Oh, you don't need to know that!" she chirped, beginning to smile again for whatever reason.

"Ah~, and why's that?"

"Because I'm going to eat you in just a few seconds, of course! But because I'm such a nice person, I'm going to let you get a head start, first! Okay?" Similarly to how he couldn't stop his own heart from racing when he was in the best of moods, the end of the woman's serpentine tail slowly moved left and right in preparation for bolting after him, assuming that he was going to go along with this.

"N~o," he stated firmly, taking a seat on the ground with his hands placed flat against the grass behind him, leaning back comfortably against his arms as he stared up into the woman's face, still smiling as always- though from his point of view, he was staring at a spot just above the back of his own head. Placing multiple portals around oneself that were linked to each other, such as in this layout, often lead to seeing himself and the things around him repeating endlessly, the same way you might see your reflection in two mirrors held closely together repeat infinitely.

"Alright! So I think ten seconds is more than fair enough, and- wait, what? What do you mean, "No?!" she cried, her look of glee immediately evaporating into something that very nearly resembled rage.

"I mean exactly what I said. No. I do no want, or need a head start. In fact, I have no plans of moving from this spot until I'm good and ready to, and there's nothing you can say or do otherwise that can change my mind." Still smiling.

"But you have to!!" she shouted back.

"Oh? And why's that, love?"

"Because I can't eat you if you don't!! And don't call me "love!!" A few seconds after her anger subsided she realized the mistake she had just made, and covered her mouth with both hands as if hoping that that would somehow make him forget what he had just heard.

Unable to stave off his laughter for a second longer, he promptly allowed his upper body to fall back against the ground and stopped holding back, now laughing quite loudly directly into her ear, much to her protests of "Shut up!" and "It's not funny!"

Once he'd finally managed to get his laughter under control, he casually crossed one leg over the other, placed both hands under his head, and rotated the second end of the portal directly overhead by one hundred and eighty degrees, so that instead of staring up into an endless blue expanse, he was now staring down at the treetops of this forest while he began taking in her words again.

"- any idea how long I've been watching you sleep there, waiting for you to wake up and undo whatever magic that is that you used to keep yourself protected?! It's been hours and hours and hours, and-!"

Interrupting her for a moment, he quickly informed her, "Actually, the moment I woke up, I dispelled it. After seeing you, however, I immediately put up almost exactly the same sort of "spell," I guess you might call it, with the only differences being accommodations for us to be able to hear and speak to one another. If you had acted to attack me the moment I first began to stir, I'd say you would've had a full three seconds to kill me before I put the magic back in place that protects me."

A cry of outrage met Eraiya's ears, and it seemed he had grown tired of making her upset. "Bu~t I hasten to add that, had you kept your hand in place around that area around me while I slept, if a part of your hand or fingers had still been going through it when I woke up and dispelled it, well.. You could say goodbye to your fingers, or even your entire hand." A quiet gasp could be heard before he continued. "I assume you tried simply reaching out and grabbing me while I slept, right? How did that go?"

Sounding calm enough to hold a conversation again, she answered with a huff. "Yeah, I tried that."

After several seconds passed, he nearly repeated his last question to her, thinking she didn't plan on answering it- but, finally, she continued. "First, I tried grabbing you from the top- you know, because I'm so much taller than you, and just had to reach straight down. Well, that didn't work. It's like there was some kind of.. Invisible dirt just above your body. At first it just felt like the ground, but when I pulled my hand back, I noticed there were little bits of grass and dirt under my fingernails, but that didn't make any sense to me. So I tried digging in the air above you, but that just brought up more and more dirt- after awhile, it didn't look like my fingers were getting any closer to you, and they were just sort of..."

Raising one index finger up to her lips with a trace amount of dirt still under the finger, she became lost in thought for awhile, thinking of a way to describe what had happened to her fingers before Eraiya added, "Disappeared into thin air at a point roughly one metre directly over my body?"

"Yeah, that thing!" she replied loudly, scaring several birds out of a nearby tree. "So, I gave up trying to grab you from above, since it was kinda like.. When I tried moving my fingers around in that spot where they disappeared, it was like.. Whatever magic you put up in your sleep had a square-shaped border, but it was only over the top of your body. So I tried grabbing at your body from the sides, but.. The same sort of disappearing thing happened, with the square-shaped magic around your body. Only this time, when my fingers went through one of the square-shaped magical things-"

"Portals."

"Huh?"

"You can call 'em "Portals," y'know."

"Oh, okay! Well, anyway- when my fingers went through one about one metre to the right side of your body, my fingertips would turn invisible at that spot, but reappear about one metre to the left side of your body!"

"I'm guessing you had a lot of fun with putting your fingers in and out of them, didn't you?" Eraiya asked, beginning to smile once again after it had slowly disappeared over the course of her explanation.

"Yeah, I did!" she exclaimed, scaring the remainder of the birds out of the same tree as before.

"Heh, I'm glad to hear it," he commented in an off-handed manner, not really meaning anything by it.

"Eh? You are? Why?"

"What do you mea-? Oh, that- I, um.. Well, I'm just glad to hear that you had fun, that's all, even if you did plan on eating me at first."

"Aww! Do you really mean it?"

"Well, I don't usually say things that I don't mean."

"..."

"..."

"Um..."

Having just confused her a bit with the double negative, he quietly sighed and rephrased his comment for her. "Yes- I usually mean the things I say, and when I say that I'm glad that my magic made you happy, even if you were trying to eat me at first, I mean it. I'm glad that you had fun with it."

"Oh, I get it!" It seemed there was one last bird that she hadn't yet scared out of that nearby tree. Until now, anyway, when it immediately took flight thanks to her unnecessarily loud shouting.

"Well, anyway.. I should really get going, now," he told her, getting up and brushing the back of his pants and jacket off. "I planned on continuing to get a good idea of the layout of the nearby terrain after waking up, and, well, now I'm awake, so~... Yeah. I think I should continue memorizing the layout of this area, and then head back to Negav, and find out some more about the layout of that city. And why not?"

The "And why not?" question had been asked after she interrupted him with a pouting, "Aww~, but you can't leave ye~~t!!" Yes, he'd even continued speaking without skipping a beat as if she hadn't said a word, nor did he raise his voice above hers as he did so. "Because I haven't eaten you yet!" she replied gleefully, as if he planned on just jumping into her mouth for her.

After a few seconds of debating with himself in his mind, he finally told her, "Tell ya what. You're welcome to follow me around wherever you'd like, as much as you'd like. Hell, I wouldn't even mind staying in touch with you through the use of this portal-related magic of mine, just to make sure you have someone to talk to whenever you get bored. As for following me around, well.. Whenever you get the chance to eat me, if you can manage to do so, you're more than welcome to do so- if you can actually manage to do it. Does that sound fair?"

"Sure! But why should I take the time to follow you around all day when I bet you walk as slowly as all those other humans do, giving others plenty of time to see me from far away, and stay away from me before I see them?"

"Oh, well, that's a good question. One- for the challenge of waiting for me to let my guard down. Two- because, despite being able to hold a conversation with you from any distance imaginable, even the other side of this planet, it's always nice to be within eyesight of the one you're talking to, to be able to see their facial expression, body language, etcetera. Three- Whoever said I was a human?" After looking around to make sure that they were the only ones around, Eraiya took his hat off his head, holding it over his heart as he simultaneously maneuvered his tail out of the back of his pants, revealing that he was, in fact, a neko. Bowing to her politely, he finished by saying, "Eraiya Vals, at your service. Born a human, turned into a sort of neko through a freak accident I'd rather not talk about, since it brings up some painful memories for me."

After seeing his ears and tail, she didn't seem to hear a word he said, and had only one thing on her mind. She needed to eat him. Now. She didn't even think to ask, "Didn't you say that your name was Eraiya Eraiya Vals?" Completely forgetting that her fingertips would simply go through one portal above his head and reappear somewhere far, far away over an inconspicuous patch of grass and dirt, one of her hands lunged for his body, only for her fingertips to do just that. Giving an anguished cry, it seemed as if she was actually about to cry as she screamed, "I've been waiting for you to make that magic go away for so long now, I've been waiting here just to eat you, and no one else! And now it turns out that you're a neko, not a human, and you still won't let me eat you, even after I waited hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and-!"

"- and hours?"

"Ye-Yeah! And hours, and hours-!"

"Okay, okay, I understand- you waited a really long time to eat me, I turned out to be, er.. Well, based on your reaction, I can only assume that I've revealed myself to be of a race that you find even more appetizing than humans, and now, you still can't eat me. Is this correct?"

Giving a great sniffle and wiping a couple of stray tears from her eyes, the naga replied with a fast couple of nods, and a quiet, "Uh-huh.."

"Well, um.. I- I really am sorry.. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Just let me eat you!!"

"Aside from that."

"But-!"

"No "But"s!" he said, now taking a firm tone of voice with her for the first time since he'd started speaking with her, his voice a little louder than usual. "Now, look, I'm willing to get you other kinds of food, or even other people as food to eat, if you'd like, so long as they're morally corrupt enough for me to think that there's no hope of them ever changing their ways, and becoming a good person. As for myself, well, I don't like dying- I've never been digested, but in most cases, dying's usually really painful, so is there anything else I can-?.. Er... Oh. I, um-" In his haste to suggest other things he could do for her to get her to stop crying and shouting, it seems he'd slipped up.

A look of confusion crossed her face again. "Huh? What do you mean? You've died before?"

"What? No, I- that's ridiculous, that- that isn't even possible. Now, like I was saying-"

"No it's not! You just said you've died before, and you made it sound like you've died a lot! Magic like the kind you use is supposed to be ridiculous and impossible too, but you've already proved that it exists! Now, what did you mean by that?"

"Look, just drop it, alright? It isn't important- now, let's just-"

"I'm not going to "drop it" just because you tell me to! Now tell me what you meant by that, or I'll-! I'll eat you!" Aww, how cute. She was putting on the scariest face she could, knowing full good and well that she couldn't eat him.

"But you can't eat me," he immediately pointed out with all the stoicism of an elderly monk.

Her cry of frustration must have been her way of saying that she wasn't very pleased with being reminded of that.

"Look, um.. Clearly, this conversation isn't going anywhere, so I'm gonna.. Just... Yeah. I think I'll be leaving now. Alright?"

"No, wait!!"

Sigh. "Yes? Now what is it?"

"I-!.. Wait, hold on, lemme think of something!.."

Another sigh. Well, it seemed like he was at least kindhearted enough to wait for her to finish coming up with a plan to make him let down the portals he had around himself so that she could eat him.

"Are you saying I'm not worthy of eating you or something? That's not very nice!" she blurted out all at once, perhaps hoping to win him over by drawing out his kind side.

"No, no- I'm not saying anything like that. I apologize if I'm coming off as "not very nice," but you've gotta understand, being eaten alive sounds like it would turn out to be the most unpleasant way I've ever died, so.."

"Come on, it doesn't hurt that bad! Plea~~se? For me?"

"Er.. How would you know how badly it hurts to have your skin tissue, muscles, organs, and perhaps even some of your bones dissolved from your body until you finally die? That sounds horrifyingly painful to me. As for doing it for you, you haven't even given me your name."

"Look, none of that matters! Just-! Just let me eat you already! It's so hard to find nekos who weren't born in Felarya! The ones who were born here grow up knowing to be as careful as they can be, and some don't ever even leave the places that they're born in! It's really, really, really, really, really, really-"

"- really?"

"- yeah, really- hard to find nekos as careless as you! Come on, just please let me eat you! If you don't, I'll just keep saying please until you do, starting now! Please! Please! Please! Please!.."

On and on it went, even as he continued to speak, making it difficult for him to concentrate on his choice of words. "Look, I- that isn't going to make me want to help you- can you please cut it out? It's kind of hard to concentrate on what I'm saying when you're- look, will you please cut it out? I- alright, that does it." Doing the best he could to ignore her constant "Please"s, he used the view he had of the area outside his little box from two portals- one inside of it, and one outside of it- created in the "Defensive portal placement number 3" exactly for this purpose- being able to see outside of his box more efficiently. Getting a good view inside her mouth, Eraiya created yet another set of portals- one inside his box, and one inside her mouth- then rolled up his right sleeve in preparation of what he was about to do. Sticking his entire arm through the portal up to his shoulder, he rubbed the length of his arm against the middle of her tongue for a few seconds, withdrew his arm as soon as he was done, and immediately closed off the portal before she could realize what was happening, bring the tip of her tongue through the portal, curl it around part of his body, and drag him inside of her mouth. If she even could do that, he had no idea- but excessive caution was one of the most important factors in how he had died so few times throughout his long life.

Though he was glad to see that it had got her to stop talking for a few seconds, with a greedy whine she commented, "Now I have to eat you- you just taste too good! Please! Please! Plea-!"

"Oh, forget it- look, I'll keep my word; I'll stay in touch so you have someone to talk to. But I will not allow you to eat me, and that's that. Clearly you can't be reasoned with, so I'll be departing now. Goodbye." That said, he disappeared into the ground, reappearing... Well, who knew where.

"Please! Plea-!.. Huh? Wh-Where'd you go?! Hello? Hello?! Where did you-?!"

"Oi. Keep it down," his voice rang out in her ear. "If you keep being so loud, you're never going to catch any prey. I'm sure there's even tastier things out there that you haven't tried, yet. Why don't you do a bit of exploring somewhere that you've never been before? Things might turn out better than expected. If you need me, just remember: I'll always be able to hear you, until you don't want me to be able to anymore."

"Oh! While you're at it, could you be nice enough to let me eat you?"

"No."

"But, but-!.." Hearing the first few seconds of a long, agonized wail coming through her end of the portal near her lips, he had to sever the link between it, and the one in his own ear. Giant predators wanted to eat him? He'd deal with it. He had to take defensive measures before being able to do something as simple as going to sleep on this planet? That was fine with him. But one thing that he couldn't stand was to hear someone else in physical or emotional pain- even if it was because he refused to let that person kill him in a gruesome way. A few minutes later he would reconnect the link between the two portals, hearing that she'd gone from crying to asking, "-ease! Please! Please!" all over again, not unlike a child in trying the same failed tactic against the same problem time and time again. What would make him smile from hearing this, rather than continuing to frown as he had every time she had done this so far, would be the fact that it no longer sounded as if she was sobbing.

((Oh, would you look at that. It turned out to be much, much longer than I first planned on it being. I could use a sub-editor or editor, though- the longer my posts are, the more mistakes are in 'em, no doubt.))

that was a fun story
I loved the dialogs between Eraiya and that stubborn naga

"Well, um.. I- I really am sorry.. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Just let me eat you!!"

you can tell she determined XD
I'm curious to see what will happens next ^^

I still think that your character is too powerful. He seems immune to practically everything with his portal magic which in itself is very powerful.

Quote :

any distance imaginable, even the other side of this planet

You're basically saying that your character can make portals covering any distance with ease. Please, this is very OP.
Also, Felarya isn't a planet, as I have explained.

Karbo wrote:

that was a fun story
I loved the dialogs between Eraiya and that stubborn naga

"Well, um.. I- I really am sorry.. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Just let me eat you!!"

you can tell she determined XD
I'm curious to see what will happens next ^^

Heh, thank you, I appreciate it! ^.^ But I don't plan on continuing this, sadly. >.<; I can't remember where the inspiration came from to just write it all of a sudden, but if I get any random bursts of inspiration to write something like this, I most likely will! x3

Anime-Junkie wrote:

I still think that your character is too powerful. He seems immune to practically everything with his portal magic which in itself is very powerful.

Quote :

any distance imaginable, even the other side of this planet

You're basically saying that your character can make portals covering any distance with ease. Please, this is very OP.
Also, Felarya isn't a planet, as I have explained.

I know. Like I said, I was considering removing his ability to "fix" portals to move relative to another living being. Like, for example, placing a portal near someone's ear, and the portal following that person around regardless of how they move their body, until he disperses it. I'm doing away with that. Also, to do away with that formation of three sets of two portals around his body- with the "floor" of this box being located somewhere else so that he isn't constantly falling through the same area of space, also providing oxygen inside it that he'd need to breathe- I thought of an easy way to do away with that, too, since that essentially makes him invincible unless someone froze time and took centuries/millenia searching for every possible area- including every single square inch of every portion of the sky over the treetops imaginable- to find where the portal is that's linked with the "ceiling" portal of that box formation. To do away with that, he can only make two sets of portals. Might reduce that to just one set of portals in the future. So, no more being able to sleep wherever he wants- he'll never really be safe without going back to his home planet. However, that brings up the last thing about his powers. Being able to create them in any place, as long as it exists- this was explained in the very first post of the very first IC thread I wrote about him. Without that ability, he can't be on Felarya. It's as simple as that. If he can only create portals in places based on his eye contact with them, not by focusing on the area where he wants them to be created as a mental image in his mind, one, I wouldn't be able to roleplay with him here since he would never have been able to get from his home planet to Felarya if it worked through his eye contact with an area instead of mentally focusing on an area- and that's the main reason I'm here, to roleplay, to get away from reality for awhile- two, that would mean that his power to create portals lies entirely in his eyes, not his mind, and it does not lie in his eyes- it lies in his mind. Three, I already also explained that, yes, while he CAN create a portal to anywhere that exists- such as one hundred kilometres from his current location to a different one that he's never been to before, for example- there's less than a 0.1% chance of this actually succeeding, and even then the creation of that portal doesn't happen almost instantly like his others, but instead takes no less than a few minutes, and he must be in a calm, completely relaxed state- so if he's being attacked by something, there's literally no chance of him being able to do that. On a side note, the only reason I expanded his portal-creating ability to create portals over such large distances would be for him to get from his home world to Felarya for the first time. It's better than, "One day he created a portal, and it made him go to Felarya instead of where he wanted to go, for some reason. Don't ask why it magically didn't work that time when he's made thousands before in the past without sending him to alternate planes of existence, it just did, don't question it." At least this makes sense. I have no plans for him to use this ability again, as of 2:36 A.M, 8/21/2010. I only gave that specific aspect of it to explain how he got from his world to Felarya. Fourth, I'm changing my character for you. You're saying he's overpowered, so I'm making drastic changes to him to make him several times less powerful than he was before. I believe the phrase "beggars can't be choosers" sums up my feelings on that. If you still think my character is overpowered after hearing about these changes, please explain why- but, honestly, I don't expect you to still consider my character overpowered after hearing all this. I'm changing my personal character to accommodate your personal preferences, and those of other people. I think that's more than enough already. Finally, I wrote this short story, which does refer to Felarya as a planet once or twice, I think, before you explained otherwise, so I don't see why you're bringing that up again.

Annnd I think that's everything.

Ah, you're welcome. I'm always happy to inspire.
For a first try, this isn't bad. As a corollary to AJ's comment, though, there's something I'd like to say: Safety is only so much fun. Of course, thinking with portals is fun too! And there's some kinds of fun you can only have when you're safe... like the ones that happened here.
Eraiya rings me some alarms, personality-wise (we'll ignore the issue of power, safety, reviving... for now. If you need all that to have fun, no one's being hurt). He seemed far too lonely... was he so desperate for company as to try to make friends with a naga, even offer her to eat him if she could? If not, what was that about? He could've just left and never looked back, but instead he wanted to keep that childish, perilous monster close to himself, he was even willing to tell her his entire life! That kind of folly makes me think he's got a few extra bats in the belfry keeping him company.