Enemies in the Midst

(would rurei be able to hear anything from this altercation? =o)

(Yes she could hear everything, I don't imagine she ran to far, she would be the one to defend Joseph if need be, so that was kind of what I had planned XD)

Damien watched her work, smirking at her handywork, sighing happily as he followed her over to the cages with the slavers, realizing the one tiny who was there had escaped. "Hey, that cage is opened, she escaped, the one your two tiny friends were talking about. But it isn't forced open, someone unlocked it for her." Damien said, not really caring, just making the observation.

Joseph sat in the pocket of the fairies bag, separate from Amanda, Cassandra and the other slaver, but hearing them perfectly as he listened in, knowing everyone else was scum, he knew he was no better, but he was sure that freeing that tiny earned him some points as he opened up his bag, looking at the picture she drew him, now able to see it much better since he was the same size that she was.

Rurei will run as fast as she can back to the camp trying to shouting letting her feelings cloud her better judgement. "Joseph! Joseph! Are you okay?" she shouts trying to look for him in the camp.

Leila looked at the caged slaves, then headed for one holding a starving looking Neko woman. She pulled the leader out then glanced between the pair with a small smile. "Neko, it is your lucky day. In fact, it's a lucky day for all of you." She began to address all the slaves. "I am going g to set you all free, but first, how about some revenge? I know some of you are predators, and all of you must be hungry. So I will give you this gift, the people who captured you. All of them shrunken and ready to eat." She smiled at the leader. "All of them but you of course." She pulled a small vial and opened the top. Inside was some kind of oil-like substance. The fairy proceeded to coat the man in it, gently rubbing the stuff into his skin.

Soon the man's entire body was coated in the stuff. Leila then whispered quietly into his ear. "I don't envy what you are about to go through. If you think being digested normally would hurt, you have no idea what you are in for." She handed him over to the starving Neko with a smile. "Eat up and enjoy. Make sure you eat him nice and slowly, ok?" With that, the fairy began to unlock the cages holding the prisoners, though she made sure not to unlock any cage holding a tiny.

(Just so you know, Leila coated him in Crunierlon sap, making him super sensitive.)

Rurei comes upon Leila about to feed the slavers to the Nekos. She reveals herself with her machete in hand shaking and shouting at them. "Hey! Y-you! What have you done with Joseph! Let him go! or or uh um..." she says realizing she had nothing to threaten them with.

Damien looked down to Rurei, then away from her, the it suddenly clicked in his head that they had just freed a bunch of nekos and humans. "Oh right!" He said as he picked her up, not having heard her to clearly. "You say something about a man?" He asked the girl curiously, just letting her sit there in the palm of his hand as Leila worked. "Who are you looking for? I would answer in a hurry if you are trying to save someone."

Joseph heard Rurei's feint voice, glad she actually got away okay, otherwise freeing her would have had no point. He sat in the bag, not to worried anymore as he stayed silent and stopped struggling, waiting to Rurei to identify him when the fairy took him out.

Amanda and Cassandra heard Leila speaking as they looked to each other, what was happening to the slavers was not something they cared about. They were just hit with more reality to how dangerous their world was, being a small humanoid was dangerous, everyone seemed to like them. They were more sympathetic to others because of their size, they knew better than any race, Leila tried to understand, but they weren't sure she really did.

"You rotten fucking insect! You got to come at a man with a magic and two on one fighting!" He screamed as the nekos dangled him over her mouth, lowering him in slowly feet first as he shivered, trying to get out of his grasp. "They red-head! The man your with! Why don't you eat him! He is a terrible person! Look inside his lab, you'll see, he had fairies like you in jars and runs experiments on them! I have seen it myself! He is worse......." The leader got cut off as the neko pushed him into her mouth, moaning happily as she swallowed him, the bulge in her throat appearing momentarily then vanishing.

"Well I wouldn't let you eat any of them anyways." Elliot said to the fairy as he rolled his eyes, sitting down by the fire as the fairy wrapped her around his neck from behind, giggling playfully in his ear.

"Well you look tasty, maybe I should just see what your like?" Joanna said giving a small wink to Elliot as he Elliot gave her an evil glare, obviously not amused by her words, or actions.

"Stop flirting with me." He said simply, looking away from her and back towards the fire. "Your just using us, and I am letting you."

"Uh yes I did." Rurei said still nervous for being held by a stranger. She will give a very accurate example of Joseph. "And his name is Joseph, he allowed me to escape I owe him my life, please don't kill him!" She goes on her knees and bows. "I don't have much I can offer but I can serve you until a time that you deem I have earned the release of my friend." Rurei wondered what the head slaver was talking about but chose to not question it instead concentrating on bartering for joseph's life.

Kira contemplated. She could hear every word that Elliot and whoever else was out there was saying with her sensitive neko's ears, but she really didn't want to overhear something that would mean trouble for her later. Then again, if she was leaving in the morning anyway, what she heard wouldn't matter. Though she might have to warn that fairy that had been around earlier, that was using the guns. Even Kira had to admit to herself that that was seriously awesome. And terrifying. Plus from what she could tell, she was a canopy fairy, too, which just made the prospect even more mind-blowing.

Kira suddenly laughed aloud to herself. "A canopy fairy using guns?" she thought amusedly. "She must really be 'compensating' for something." Kira gave a few more chuckles, then went to finish her soup.

When Leila had finally finished releasing the prisoners the fairy picked out twelve of the shrunken slavers. "There we go, four slavers for me, four for Kira, and four for Agato." She smiled darkly at the remaining men. "The rest of you are going to be left in that care and mercy of your ex-slaves." She turned to the people she had just freed, particularly the predators. "So make sure you all enjoy them." With that taken care of Leila finally turned her attention to the tiny that Damien was holding. "Ok, so what's your-Rurei!?!" Leila's mouth dropped upon seeing her friend. "Rurei, what the devil are you doing here you crazy tiny. You could get eaten or worse! Still, it is very nice to see you. Hey Damien, could I see the tomthumb your holding, please?"

Damien nodded as he handed over Rurei to Leila, watching the nekos devour the slavers mercilessly as the humans simply grabbed some weapons and walked off, obviously grouping together to get to the nearest village they could find. "She was saying something about a slaver, I think she wanted you to spare ones life." He said seriously, looking to the tomthumb. "Probably the one you put in your bag, after all she would have recognized one of the others by now."

Amanda and Cassandra stayed in the back, knowing they needed to stay out of sight until the nekos left for their own safety, they heard another tomthumb speaking about someone outside, it seemed like this fairy knew her. They looked to the slaver in the bag with them, till quiet as he awaited whatever was going to happen to him, not talking to the girls.

"Yea she is talking about me!" Joseph called out from the bag, still sitting down as he waited for Rurei, shrugging. He didn't expect the fairy to take his word for it after all, you can never trust someone who has their life on the line.

"I am not flirting with a human, and besides, you may not eat me cute humans like I do but you have your own way of being quite voracious." Joanna said smirking to him as Elliot slapped her hands away from him, standing up as she had obviously hit a sore spot.

"I didn't ask to have to do that! I don't want to do that! But the fact is I value my life more than some mage, I need to live, and I can't use my own life to fight, so I use someone else, it is logical." He said calming down near the end of his sentence, obviously morally conflicted on the subject.

"Elliot, tomorrow is the full moon, so maybe you will see yourself differently in the moonlight." She said giggling softly, shaking her head as she walked away from him. "2 days, you have until then to get what we want, starting......now." She said looking at his watch the moment it struck midnight. "Good luck."

"LEILA!" Rurei said hugging Leila's thumb. "What am I doing out here? Uh um no reason in particular?" Rurei tried to avoid the answer. "We can discuss that later! Did you find a slaver named Joseph? If so I would very much like it if you didn't eat him or kill him. He is my friend, he let me out of my cage. Joseph is not bad he has just been forced into a bad life." She tried to explain scared he might already be dead.

"No reason in particular huh?" Leila smirked, "Why don't I believe that Rurei?" The fairy hugged her friend with a chuckle. "It is nice to see you though. Now what's this about a slaver named Joseph? I'm afraid I never asked anyone for their names, and as you can see those Nekos are making pretty short work of those men. I do have twelve of them that will be eaten by myself and the other two predators of my group. Plus two more that I might let go." As the trio headed back to camp, Leila reached into the bag holding Amanda,Cassandra, Joseph, and the other slaver. She pulled out Joseph and the first slaver and showed them to Rurei. "Are either of these Joseph?"

"Its nice seeing you too..." she says sadly unsure if Joseph was dead but when Leila revealed him she lit up! "Thats him! thats him!" She exclaimed pointing to Joseph. "Oh please let him go! He is a nice person!"

Leila smiled down at Joseph. "Looks like you got really lucky little guy. Rurei likes you, so now you won't have to worry about getting turned into a meal." She looked at Rurei. "I won't let him go just yet, but I will when we reach a place that's safer for humans."

"Actually I would much rather stay with you guys if that is okay. And you keep me this size if you want, it will make it easier for me to converse with Rurei." Joseph said as he looked to Damien, waving nervously as he chuckled lightly, watching the nekos move out of the area quickly after they were finished eating, nervous about the fairy despite her help. "If whoever is in charge doesn't mind that is."

"I really don't care, and I am sure Elliot won't either, as long as you don't become baggage." Damien said to the slaver, shrugging as he began to scavenge around for weapons and food, specifically some alcohol.

Elliot watched the fairy fly away, sighing as he sat back down, his head pounding as he placed it in his hands, groaning in frustration. He needed to get moving tomorrow, no more setbacks.

Leila grinned. "That sounds good to me. I will have to reshrink you every so often if you want to stay tiny sized, but that should be pretty easy." She turned to Damien. "So, shall we head back to camp? This hunting trip has gone on for long enough in my eyes."

"YES!" Rurei cheered at the acceptance of Joseph then coughed. "I mean thank you." The tomthumb smiled at Joseph, she was happy to have made yet another friend and one that actually wanted to be her size which was odd, but refreshing.

"Yea lets get back to camp." Damien said rolling his eyes at their moment as he checked his compass, knowing the exact direction back to the camp, closing his compass. "Lets get going then, a human, fairy and bunch of little people, wonderful."

Joseph chuckled softly as he looked to Rurei, smiling to her, showing her the drawing that she gave to him. "Thank you for this, it is nice to be able to see it so close, it is amazing." He said seriously, smiling to her kindly.

Leila couldn't help but giggle at Rurei and Damien. "We do make a strange team don't we? Just wait till we get back to Elliot. Then we'll have another human, a Neko, and a dridder to add to that list." She carefully slipped Rurei and Joseph into the bag holding Amanda. Suddenly the fairy remembered about her agreement with the un-named slaver and pulled both Amanda and the man out. "So Amanda, I told this guy that if he was kind to you and your sister then I would not eat him. Well, has he earned his freedom, or will he become fairy food?"

Rurei landly softly and waved to the new faces. "hello I am Rurei Laen of Pelnepi! Pleasure to meet you." She smiled warmly. "It was nothing Joseph you saved my life at the risk of your own. I think that drawing isn't good enough for you." She was obviously pleased with the praise. "I know I should draw you another! This one of you actually since we have the time and will be journeying together."

Amanda looked up to Leila as she shrugged, not really sure what to say. "He hasn't been mean, but he hasn't said anything at all really so you be the judge." She said smiling to Leila softly, then to the man, not really having an opinion in the matter.

"How about one of us? I think that would be a good idea." Joseph said with a small smile, sitting down as he looked to her curiously. "I mean if you want to."

Leila looked down at the man she was holding, smiled, lifted him to her lips, and gave him a small kiss. "I think I'll let you go so that you can live for another day. You've been tortured enough by me, and there's no reason to eat you. How does that sound?

"I have no problem with that at all." Rurei answered as she took a moment to study the contents of the bag and then looked a Joseph for sometime studying him closely her green eyes taking in every detail. Then she set to work on drawing. "Normally I draw things from memory, or from someone posing but in certain cases I can draw things that haven't happened or I guess more creative things." She finished in no time at all. She showed joseph the picture and it was him getting smacked with one of the pillows by Rurei. Rurei will attempt to actually make this happen while he is distracted if she suceeds she will say. "And then again my drawings are somewhat prophetic!" and she will laugh.

"Thank you." The man said simply as he looked up to Leila wincing when she kissed him. "You obvious have plenty of people to snack on anyways, enjoy, and I am glad it isn't me."

"Well that looks like some playful fun." He said smirking widely as he took it, laughing softly as he looked to her. "Well I am glad you don't have any ill will towards me."

"Glad I got this amulet back, it is one of only two. It absorbed size-shifting magic when it targets the person who is wearing it, then I can use the magic whenever I wish, not to size shift but to enhance my own powers, it is really useful." He said smirking widely, insinuating that he fought a lot of fairies in order to stock up on energy.

"Of course not, I'm a Tomthumb, if I bore everyone who had done me wrong, or tried to, well I would just spend my days bitter and alone ahaha-" Rurei laughs but stops in thought and looking rather sad.