Strange Friends

Sweet. Keep it up. I can't wait for your next part.

Ah, lovely! I was wondering what would happen to Quen in Felarya, being so unprepared, and this is perfect. A meeting of minds with a predator... who happens to be a harpy. A rare exchange of information between two very different beings who both happen to thirst for knowledge. I must say the harpy language left my head spinning once or twice. Nice work on wording the insults in such a way that the compliment becomes apparent.

Regular trips for him out to the clearing are going to be tricky, though. It's a heck of a long walk, and he'll be in danger the whole time. The harpy should probably have arranged to meet up near Negav.

Strange friends- I'm up to the part where Swiftlit goes look for a new house.

Excellent series- even after closing the main storyline. I loved every moment of panic and grief in both of their lives! Though it was confusing when Calimn let him go for the sake of sport, it was heartwarming when they finally came to be friends- even more so when they accepted each other as they were. Calimn had good friends outside him- and that always scores a bonus point with me.

The current storyline is also great, with the goblins, and Swiftlit losing his shoes. Well, at least he still has a shirt and shorts.

I'm loving that new story a lot

The part where Jab is flying and have that contest with the other harpy was awesomly described and very easy to visualize. And you show some great creativity in harpy language too XD

Excellent work especially with the Harpy dialogue. I'm really going to have to read this right from the beginning.

Thank you all for the comments and compliments.

Next part of New Friends. A somewhat slow chapter, with some small talk between Jab and Calimn, and a look at Swiftlit’s searches for a house. A closer look at how Calimn spends her time. Minor references to vore, but nothing else. Comment as you like.

Chapter 3: Double Confession Session

Calimn just couldn’t stop biting her lip.

Jab, standing on shore, simply raised an eyebrow.

The mermaid was sitting up on her tail, the waters of the Jewel River lapping up around her navel, and how long she had been in the position was evident in the fact that her tail had become slightly numb even while she was supported by the buoyancy of the water. Jab had shown up to talk close to noon and already the slightly reddish sun had dropped by several notches in the sky.

“Are you going to say something or just sit there like a retard staring at a flower?”

“Ummmn.”

“Come on, Calimn. You’ve been acting like a fairy in a Tonorion hive for four days straight. You say what’s eating you, or I’ll give you a new mouth where your guts are. What is it? Eh? Did you realize how stupid you are, or the fact that you can’t do anything rig-“

“Jab . . . I have a confession to make.”

The harpy shut her mouth in a hurry at that. How uncomfortable Calimn was with the subject at hand –whatever it happened to be- stood out, and Jab respected that. She waited for a bit longer as the mermaid rubbed at the back of her neck a bit, refusing to meet her eyes initially.

“This is kind of awkward . . . but . . . what would you do if you found a, ummm, neko, let’s say –just as a theory- that you didn’t eat, and really liked? As a friend, not food.”

Calimn saw Jab’s face go to surprise, and instantly knew she had blown it. Why was she so bad at lying to Jab? She could easily fool just about everyone else, but not the harpy. Probably because she knew Jab was good at picking out falsehoods and would catch her in any case. The mermaid decided it was time to fess up, and was about to speak when Jab grinned, the abrupt smile halting her.

“Well, I don’t know. I guess I’d be their friend, and not worry about it.”

It was obvious she knew. It was very obvious she knew, from that big, sunny show of teeth to the fact that she hadn’t once shown a trace of her dialect in the words. What was more, she accepted the implications, with not one shred of incredulity or judgment. Not for the first time, Calimn wondered why she had disliked Jab so immensely on first meeting the harpy, back some years ago. The mermaid had insulted her as an ‘annoying chatterbox parrot’ within five minutes of encountering her, and ignored her for quite some time before the bird-woman had hit on a subject Calimn liked. One begrudging comment had led to another, then another, until the mermaid had at last given in and accepted Jab as a friend. A good one, too.

Calimn visibly relaxed, the discomfort and tension leaving her as she settled into her more usual position, lying on her stomach, half-out of the water and her head propped up on a hand. Jab adjusted her own stance, folding her legs under herself to sit down and put herself closer to Calimn’s level. The harpy’s smile was now mirrored on the mermaid’s face.

“Thanks, Jab.”

“I wouldn’t waste my effort on anyone less pathetic than you, fish-guts. Oh, and if I didn’t go ‘okay’ I’d be a hypocrite. Yep, you better put on that moronic drool-face of retarded surprise, because I know a small person, too. Well, he’s not a friend, not that little idiot, but I know him. He’s going to trade me info.”

Calimn didn’t know about ‘drool-face’ but her mouth was certainly hanging open. She shut it as Jab started chattering about all the things she had learned from the elf, and the possibilities of what she might find out from him in the future. She would have never suspected Jab to do such a thing. She had thought she was the only one, or at least one of a rare, rare few. It was a small world, or maybe the better term was ‘happy coincidence’? A question by her friend made her start.

“What?”

“Geez, clean the junk out of your rotting ears. I asked if that’s what you’ve been worrying about lately. So, is it?”

“Yeah. Swiftlit being out on his own really makes me nervous. I know he’s done alright by himself so far, but now he doesn’t have his shoes. I mean, it’s dangerous out there, and before he at least could outrun a lot of the wildlife. Now he’s got nothing but being paranoid to keep him out of trouble. Heh, he’s so scared of everything. I just hope he keeps his head down and doesn’t get hurt . . .”

The words ‘or killed’ hung in inexistence, not spoken, but they were there.

“Ah, I’m sure he’ll be okay. The little snot managed to stay alive while being friends with a slobbering no-brain mudfish like you, so he’s got the credentials.”

“Thank you, Jab.” Calimn said again, relaxing even further.

“So what’s this little snot-snack like, anyway? You said paranoid, but that’s a worthless hunk of garbage from a minnow as a description.”

“He’s small, really jumpy, and has a kind of scuffed look. He’s fast, too. Like, you wouldn’t believe how fast. Well, until he lost his shoes, he was.”

“Hm, sounds like a twitchy mouse.”

“That’s what he reminds me of, actually. It’s funny to watch him jitter around and randomly jump at silly things. Oh yeah! Look at this thing I got!” Calimn exclaimed, bringing a lock of her turquoise hair over her shoulder.

Jab hopped closer as the mermaid sat up, peering at the tiny object in her friend’s hand. It was some kind of small, silvery box, a bunch of miniscule buttons and knobs on it. The harpy could recall being told about these things from a past meal, but she couldn’t remember what they did, exactly. Toaster? Was that it? Or maybe microwave? She voiced both guesses, and both were put down by the other predator with an excited grin.

“Nope. It’s a CD player!”

“Wait, one of those things that play music? Awesome! Where’d a failure like you get one?”

“A human scientist that got warped right into the river. She had a boat with a lot of high-tech stuff on it, and gave me the CD player for not eating her. Sweet deal, huh?”

“Heh, yeah.”

“Want to listen? I finally got my nails long enough to work it without having to use a stick.”

The mermaid held up her free hand, showing off her noticeably longer nails. Before, she had kept them filed down on stones, quite short. She had quit that, obviously, because now her nails were overhanging her fingertips slightly. Jab nodded at the offer of music.

A click later and both of them were singing away, Jab a bit off-key and choppily.

It kept going until they ran out of songs, and then Jab’s habit to talk endlessly took over. Before the two knew it, it was evening, the sky turning over to lavender and bright stars flickering into existence as the sun dipped below the treeline.

“Woah, night decided to show up quick. I’m going to have to fly in the dark.”

“You want to sleep here? I don’t care.”

“Fine, I’ll protect you from the dark, you sniveling weenie, but only because you’re such a pitiful minnow.”

Calimn smiled, dousing herself with water to make sure she didn’t dry out too much overnight, and lay down. The harpy put her head down on her friend’s stomach and stretched before settling down herself.

“Man, you’re such a tub of lard people probably take you for a water-bed.”

“Thanks for listening to me, Jab.”

“Pfft, stop whining and go to sleep.”

“Night.”

“Night.”

* * * * *

Four days.

Eight hours of sleep.

Swiftlit wondered if he shouldn’t have simply agreed to live with Calimn, in her stomach, even, rather than go hunting for a house on his own. He had forgotten how it was to be out in the jungle with no place to sleep in relative safety. He should have recalled when he ran away from Calimn that one time, but he had insisted on going off on his own again. Now he was sitting up in a tree, trying to keep his bloodshot, aching eyes open, and looking around for a hollow to spend the night in. He had left the Miragia forest behind yesterday morning, and was in the strip of normal jungle between it and Ur-Sagol.

If he didn’t find a house soon, he was going to wind up eaten because he would simply fall asleep on his feet and something would come across him while he was out. Something big and vicious, with long crimson claws and sharp teeth, green –no red- eyes and-

He snapped awake again as he tilted forward, scrambled for a moment before grabbing a branch and catching himself. That had been close! He had nearly fallen out of the tree headfirst, and the fifty meters to the ground would be a bad ending for him. He needed sleep, so badly. He smacked himself a few times, hard enough to make his cheek hot with the sting of it, and shook his head a bit before clambering farther up the tree. “Stay awake, stay awake,” he muttered to himself, concentrating on the rough bark under his hands.

Sniffing around in the tree did not pay off, however, and he had to keep searching the canopy for somewhere to bed down. Occasional forays into the lower branches, scanning the ground for signs of a burrow or other shelter similarly revealed nothing. He slid down a drooping limb, rolling off of it to grab a thick vine. He hung from it, one-handed and his free hand rubbing at his eyes, and wondered if he should just go back. He was getting nowhere with this, and the farther he got out into the jungle, the more dangerous it was going to be. He looked straight down, and frowned at his bare feet. Staying up in the trees was a necessity for him now that he had no shoes. He could still jump farther than normal, and agility was his only defense left at this point.

He kicked forward, then let the vine spin around, allowing him to look back the way he had come. He sighed at the tangle of branches and tendrils that stood like a wall that surrounded him. He had no idea where he was going, and he knew it. Night had come to the forest, steeping all the vegetation in a deep blue tint. There was enough moonlight to see by, and there was starlight permeating the jungle, as well, but still he didn’t want to be running around at this hour. He actually didn’t mind the dark so much as he minded the idea that there could be any number of predators hiding in it.

It was fairly noisy, the buzzing of insects and frogs croaking, smaller animals going about their business, rustling, so that meant there probably wasn’t anything big around. Probably. Unless it was very quiet and the animals were used to it, and they didn’t mind if it was sneaking up on him right now. Swiftlit hurriedly climbed up the vine, unnerved by that thought, and started off through the canopy again, this time moving noticeably faster than before.

A sharper noise, a long way behind him but coming closer, reached his ears. It was someone screaming, shouting “Look out! Look out!” in a terrified voice.

Unease turned to panic in a hurry, and the boy took off. He couldn’t go at full speed, even if it was only jumping, but he went as fast a he dared, bouncing between trees and limbs, using his momentum to swing off of branches and vines. No matter what he did, though, whoever was yelling was catching up to him, and fast. He darted through the canopy, trying to lose them, but his zigzagging pathway was ignored, the person coming straight for him. Run! No, not working, hide! he thought, performing a hairpin turn and ducking into a puff of denser foliage.

He held his breath, pushing himself as far back into the leaves as he could, curling up to become as small and unnoticeable as possible. The screeching warnings now were nearly on top of him, and getting closer every second. He tried to back up even further, but a sharp branch digging into his back put a stop to that. He tensed up as the screaming drew level with him, attempting to meld into the tree as he froze.

Swiftlit flinched as something shot by. He only caught a brief glimpse of it, but it was definitely not a human. It looked like some kind of mid-sized bird, a pair of long antennae-like things fluttering on its head as it flew past. Its beak opened, and to the boy’s surprise there came that astonished, fearful exclamation of “Look out!” Once it was gone, Swiftlit let out a relieved sigh and relaxed. He had been scared by a Jaykay bird, nothing mo-

A loud crash, right next to his hiding place, made him freeze instantly. He barely dared to take a look at what had landed beside him, eyes sliding sideways. It was some kind of big cat, a panther with dull grey fur and a long, tufted tail. It was big enough that, had he stood beside it, his shoulder would have been level with its heavy, rather square head. The stalker growled ferociously, then bounded after the bird, moving in long, powerful leaps whose impacts shook the thinner branches it landed on.

He waited for nearly half an hour before he so much as twitched, hardly breathing. Once he worked up the courage to move, he climbed down from the tree entirely, breaking off that stubborn branch that had stabbed him in the back while he was hiding. Once he had dropped to the ground, he started gouging at the ground at the base of a tree with the stick. He would just make his own hole, he decided, and sleep there until all of his fatigue was gone. He didn’t want to stay out in the open any longer, and he didn’t want to spend the rest of the night dodging animals while trying to find a suitable place. It took some time, but at last he had a hole large enough to curl up in, an indention that went halfway under the roots.

It wasn’t at all deep, but it would do for one night. He grabbed a giant leaf, big enough to serve as a blanket, and crawled into the shallow depression. A bit of wriggling and he was set, pushing the leaf around until it was covering the hole nicely and effectively hiding him from any prying, possibly predatory, eyes. It wasn’t long, even with his worries of being found, before he fell asleep.

* * * * *

Calimn opened one eye, the sunshine of morning erasing sight for a second, when a swirl of air announced Jab’s leaving. The mermaid waved her friend off as the harpy became a speck in the sky, then vanished altogether. A slow stretch woke her up, a quick splash of water completing the process. She rolled into the river with a yawn, and a few flicks of her tail sent her downstream.

It was time to find herself some breakfast.

She let herself drift close to the bottom, fingers dragging through the gem-studded silt, a technique similar to a fisherman trolling with a net. Small fish that had hidden themselves in the sand fled, dispersing and darting for new cover. They were too small to make any real meal unless she swallowed a crowd of them at once, but none felt like obliging that scenario, and scattered like flecks of silver that glinted in the sunlight filtering down from the surface. It was fairly shallow here, plenty of light to see by, and wavering beams of it drifting across the riverbed. It helped find the fish, showing them as bright flashes in the silt where it caught their barely-exposed scales, and she used this to her advantage as she coasted along the bottom. She went over the areas with the most fish, because a lot of small fish was bound to attract large fish.

A ray of some sort glided away from her trailing fingers, big enough to be considered a meal, but she wasn’t in the mood for that type of fish. An octopus or a giant clam sounded nice, something without bones to bother with, although clams were a hassle because of the shell. Maybe she would come across an eel that would slide down easily, or perhaps she would get lucky and spot something swimming at the surface. She swam into deeper water, the sunlight growing weaker as she drifted lower, seeking bigger fish.

Unfortunately, she found one.

A huge, flat head, with a mouth nearly as wide as her arm was long, seemed to appear out of nowhere as the dagger teeth separated to expose a gaping mouth. The change in pressure that abrupt opening caused created a massive riptide of water, dragging Calimn towards the mouth of the lacolith in a rush. Thankfully, the lacolith was young, and while larger than she was, stretching some two hundred and fifty feet, it wasn’t big enough to simply swallow her. It went without saying, however, that she didn’t want anything to do with those teeth, and getting bitten in half was nothing she wanted to experience. Her heart did a nasty flip at that thought, one that transferred over to her stomach, and she spun around to try and escape.

Trying to fight the sudden current would be difficult, even with this being only a juvenile, but she gave it a go anyway, rapidly swinging her tail to power away from the creature. It didn’t work completely, and she felt teeth clamp down on her fin, sending a shock of pain up her spine in an intense wave. The lacolith had only managed to get the barest sliver of her tail, though, and if she thrashed now she was sure she could rip her fin out of its grasp with nothing but a few shallow nicks. She did so, without one ounce of hesitation, and accepted the sharp bite of injury that the action entailed. Better that than to wait for the beast to try again with its suction move. A hard push with her tail sent her sailing out of the lacolith’s range, and the slow-moving leviathan seemed to have no interest in pursuing its lost prey.

Calimn broke the surface in an explosion of water, breathing hard. A few minutes of pulling in air, augmented with a swallow taken from the river, helped her recover.

Why do I keep running into dangerous things? she wondered. Not much was dangerous to her, given her size, and the creatures that were tended to be rare. The goblins she could get, with the Miragia Forest so close, but running into a lacolith, in the same month? That was just bad luck. The mermaid swam a bit farther downriver, just in case the huge creature below got any ideas, and rolled over onto her back, drifting along.

After some time like this, she rolled over and did a rendition of the dead man’s float in the shallows, right up against the banks, checking under herself for any signs of a potential meal. Nothing. She blew a few bubbles in exasperation. Bad luck . . . The only way it could get worse would be i-

“Oh my gosh, are you okay!?” came a sharp squeal, accompanied by a set of hands grabbing her from above.

Calimn thrashed and yelped, startled, as the dryad hauled her up out of the water with some difficulty, arms wrapped around the mermaid’s middle. At about a hundred and forty feet tall, she wasn’t terribly large for a dryad, but she was surprisingly strong, and managed to pull Calimn most of the way out of the river. Needless to say, Calimn wasn’t very happy with this turn of events.

“Let go! What are you doing, grabbing me out of nowhere!?”

The dryad, with a confused ‘eh?’, obeyed her, dropping her back down into the water with a massive splash. Calimn came back up, bobbing in the river, to give the tree-woman a disapproving look. All green, vine-like hair and ridged trunk, she looked a bit like a mangrove tree, albeit one with expressive, gold-green eyes and a slightly round face. She looked somewhere between surprised and worried, for what reason Calimn didn’t know. Best take this situation as it came, at least until she figured out what the dryad wanted.

“Why did you grab me?”

“Oh, I thought you were drowning. You were floating like you were dead.” She admitted, a sheepish grin on her face.

“I’m a mermaid. We can’t drown.”

“I forgot for a second. Sorry for startling you. I’m Zee, by the way.” she introduced, smile turning from embarrassed to friendly as she leaned over and held out a hand.

Calimn shrugged, and shook it. She was surprised to find that, when she took her hand back, her palm was covered in a fine yellow dust. She dunked her hand in the river to get rid of the mysterious substance, and inquired about it.

“Oh, that’s just my powder. It’s probably pollen or something, or maybe it’s just a dust I make. Birds and other flying things like it, but I try to keep a low profile and move around now and then so I don’t wind up crawling with them. If I twist around a lot, though, and it gets in the air, BAM! and I’ve got birds and bugs all over me. Pretty neat, huh?”

“Hmn.” Calimn gave, a neutral mumble.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Calimn.”

“That’s a nice name. Do you live around here?”

“Sort of.”

“Okay. Well, you can come see me if you want. I’ll let you get back to hunting, then.”

“Ehmn, sure, I guess.”

Calimn dove, then headed back upriver for another sweep of the shallow waters. It seemed she’d made a new friend, sort of. She wondered if this would prove to be another addition to her bad luck, or a breaking of that streak.

* * * * *

Another sufferer of misfortune was lying face-down in Ur-Sagol, head turned to one side as her sigh of defeat stirred up some dust next to her head.

Lythra had run out of steam.

She had thought she would do well here, even if it was a savage jungle land, because of her size, her abilities, and her lineage. That arrogance was all gone now, nothing left but exhaustion and exasperation. She had no energy left, even the vipers that comprised her hair hanging limp and only giving occasional hisses. Even those sounds, though, were drowned out by the noise that echoed through the abandoned temple she had set up house in a moment later.

A loud growl, clearly audible in the silence of the massive, half-destroyed building, bounced off the stone walls and sent its echoes down giant hallways to spook the small, weasel-like animals that lived among the ruins. They scattered, disappearing into cracks and holes at the noise. The sound went on for several seconds before finally fading away, followed by its echoes shortly thereafter.

“Starving . . .” muttered the gorgon, rolling over to rub her poor, empty stomach.

If this went on much longer, she would go insane with hunger. She could get enough to eat, but only just, and constantly being in a state of emptiness or near-emptiness was taxing in a way she could have never imagined before coming to Felarya. Previously fed by slaves, and sometimes on slaves, she had arrived here with no idea how to hunt, and no idea what vegetation was edible. Risking poison was not something she was willing to do to find out what was safe and what wasn’t, and her skills, while keeping her from outright dying of hunger, were not enough to balance out the fact that she was a complete failure at hunting.

Her belly growled once again, moaning in a pleading voice for food, but she just didn’t have the energy or the motivation to get up and search for something to eat. She would just wait until the gnawing in her gut forced her to go out hunting. It wasn’t as if she would find enough to feel even mildly satisfied. If only she could go back to her homeland, find the palace back to normal, and have a huge feast. She felt as if she could eat a hundred cows in one sitting, or empty the whole prison in one go. She smiled, drooling, as she fell into a daydream of stuffing herself with criminals and oxen and sheep and fruit and . . .

“Um. Hello? Is anyone in here? I heard a noise.”

The voice was soft, hesitant, and rather sweet. Most importantly, it was the voice of a giant-sized creature. Lythra blinked as a huge head peeked around a broken pillar, deep brown eyes peering out past short bangs of the same color. Lythra began drooling all the more; a meal that would fill her up completely had just shown up at her door. She pushed herself up, thanking fortune for finally turning around and embracing her once again.

“Oh my . . . you’re the naga that tried to eat me.”

The giant came out from behind the stone monolith fully, revealing her slug half as she slithered slowly along the floor, leaving a thick, viscous trail of mucous on the tiles. The sight of that slime was enough to make Lythra dry-heave at the mere memory of its taste. A little bile made it up into her mouth and sat there, stinging even after she returned it to her stomach.

“Geh. Why couldn’t you have been something besides a slug-girl. I’m going to waste away at this rate.”

* * * * *

Squiggle was astonished by how thin the naga had gotten. You could count her ribs, and though she wasn’t going to be dying any time soon, she was definitely not healthy. Despite having nearly been swallowed by the gorgon, she couldn’t help but feel pity for the serpentine woman.

She had actually come into this place to have lunch, an armful of fruit held against her side, when she had heard the odd growling sound of someone’s stomach in distress and come to investigate. To not share her food would be cruel on a level that made her ill. Never one to hold a grudge, she offered a large, red, egg-shaped fruit to the gorgon.

“What?”

“Do you want some?”

“What!? Why are you handing me food? I was going to eat you.”

“Well . . . It would be wrong not to.”

Slitted eyes blinked.

“You’re serious.”

“Yes.”

“Heh. I shall take that offer then.”

Squiggle beamed as the gorgon took the proffered food.



Another day goes by, and new friends are made. Luck turns around as the day turns to night.

Felarya is Karbo’s

Named character are mine unless otherwise stated.

Oh yay o: I see that the intro with the elf still managed to tie into Calimn and Swiftlit's antics XD

A very nice chapter !

I loved a lot Calimn's saying it all to Jab. It was a sweet and touching moment, perfectly balanced with the fun of Jab's remarks in harpy language

“Ah, I’m sure he’ll be okay. The little snot managed to stay alive while being friends with a slobbering no-brain mudfish like you, so he’s got the credentials.”

This one had me laugh out loud XD

Thank you for the comments. New Friends chapter 3, with minor references to vore. Comments and the like are quite welcome.

Chapter 3: Stress

Swiftlit had spent most of the day creeping around the outskirts of Ur-Sagol, Trying to stay out of sight, peering over bits of rubble and darting from one pile of jumbled stones to the next once the coast seemed clear. He didn’t feel like anything had taken any interest in him, and thus far in his searches for a new house he had managed to dodge most of the serious fauna and flora. Staying up in the treetops, on slim branches that wouldn’t hold anything heavier that a dog, did wonders for keeping out of trouble and out of sight.

Now, though, he was back on the ground. He couldn’t outpace anything if attacked while creeping around down here, but he could see better without all the foliage in his way. Despite Calimn’s warning that the city wasn’t the best of places to hang around, he didn’t want to pass up this opportunity. All those abandoned buildings promised plenty of places to bed down, and if he needed anything right now more than a house and a pair of shoes it was a quiet, semi-safe place to sleep. The sun was already drowning in the treetops, colors deepening to purple and maroon. Soon it would be night, and even more dangerous than usual to be out in the wilds.

He was creeping around, staying crouched and behind cover as he scanned the area.
He had to be careful not to attract any attention, or he’d have little hope of getting away unscathed. It was amazing how well you could avoid making noise when you weighed almost nothing and your life depended on silence. Silence, and nothing else. Absolute sil-

“Wow, look at that! Awesome!”

Swiftlit took off running on instinct at the shout that erupted from behind him. He actually managed to take four or five of his normal leaps before pain caught up to him and demanded he slow down. He went into an awkward series of jerking, tottering steps, trying to stop himself without aggravating the new abrasions on his feet. The speaker was right behind him, just around the corner of a half-collapsed dome of an old structure, a second voice coming in to agree with the first in tones of enthused joy.

Fairies.

No other creature he could think of could possibly summon that much excitement on short notice. He couldn’t see any doorways close by to duck into, so he simply hobbled quickly over to a chunk of vine-tangled wall and threw himself behind it with all the desperation of a person in a gunfight.

“I had no idea the Alosa ruins were so extensive! The pictures on the pamphlets only showed that step-pyramid thingy and a few chunks of rock sitting around it. Man, they missed a TON of stuff!”

Swiftlit peered over the top of the broken wall carefully, trying to keep his head as far down as he could but still raise up enough to look out at the two walking the street he had just been standing in.

They were tall, slim, and definitely not humans. The lower halves of the man and woman were like those of a horse and a spider, respectively. The centaur was wearing a light red shirt, the dridder woman wearing a perfect replication of it as well as a blue denim dress that had been tailored for her differing anatomy. Both were speaking animatedly about the ruins, gesturing about as they marveled at the wonders of the place.

Swiftlit sank down behind his cover again. They didn’t seem that dangerous, but looks could be deceiving, and Calimn had told him that some dridders didn’t mind liquidating peoples’ organs and sucking them out. That particular thought made his stomach do unpleasant things. There was also the fact that, even barring them being dangerous, they were a hazard by proxy. The amount of noise they were making was going to call in predators. He looked down at his feet.

The soles were raw, the balls of his feet abraded enough to have a small amount of blood welling up on the injuries. Five steps at his normal speed on stone had done that. If he didn’t find a really good hiding place soon, he’d have no chance of escape when something showed up to see what was making so much noise. He peeked over the wall again, checking on them. They weren’t quite even with him yet. He ducked down again. He didn’t particularly want to be noticed by them, even if they were completely harmless.

Boom.

He felt the impact through his entire body, a shockwave that bounced up his spine and back down, making his ribs shiver in a rapid staccato. He recognized the sensation instantly. It was essentially what he felt when Calimn let herself fall over rather than softly lay down, albeit not nearly so strong. Something big had just landed in the middle of the street. The low, rumbling snarls let him pigeonhole it as one of the massive wolf-things that on occasion trotted around these ruins. He had run into one his first time coming through Ur-Sagol.

This time, though, he had no way of outmaneuvering the beast. A series of heavy, fast thuds announced the charge, and the astounded screams from the two rose into a sound resembling metal tearing. The sound of hooves and chitin clattering against the cobblestones vanished quickly the way they had come, the pounding footfalls of the kensha right behind. A moment later there was a massive crash and a roar.

Swiftlit tilted his chin up, trying to look over the bit of wall without actually exposing his head. A mass of fur stood at the other end of the street, leaping back and forth in front of the door of a short, square building. It was snarling and growling, crouching to jam its foremost paw into the door before pulling back out with the sound of claws scraping against rock. After a few minutes of this, the beast made a bass growl and sat down in front of the entry, staring at it with all the intensity of a cat watching a mouse-hole.

The boy took the opportunity to ease into a crouch from his sitting position. If the kensha beast was distracted, he might be able to sneak away. The two tauric folks seemed to be safe, and the kensha would leave after some time, so now was the best time to vacate the area. He was just rising up when something flickered across his foot.

He looked down.

Snake.

* * * * *

Aben and Jenny were crouched in the farthest corner of the two-room building, unable to retreat any farther because of the rubble-strewn doorway behind them, trembling.

Jenny screamed again as a huge, thrashing paw exploded through the other entry, coming within a few yards of them as it repeatedly swung about. Sharp, poison-coated claws, slightly curved and nearly as long as a human forearm, made the air moan as if it were in pain. The stones, even, grated their teeth when they received the score of the claws. The ivory sickles left long streaks of pale on the rock, deep scratches that trailed haphazardly along the floor.

The paw retreated after a brief session of flailing around, leaving the two to whimper and cling to each other as they tried to calm their frantically beating hearts. Finally, the roars outside quieted, and there was a thud from outside as the monstrous wolf-thing sat down.

“Wh-what’s that thing outside? I’ve n-never seen anything like it!” Jenny sobbed.

“I . . . I dunno.” whispered her boyfriend, shaking.

“WAAAAAUUUUGH!”

The sudden, incredibly loud shriek made both of them jump.

The monster at the door immediately got up and ran off, presumably to go after whoever had screamed. The both of them heaved a dual sigh of relief.

* * * * *

Swiftlit went flying into the air, flailing fit to break his own back. The snake, a pale serpent with a peculiar glint to its scales, was coiled tightly around his ankle, looking nearly as astonished as the human despite lacking the expressive powers necessary for it. The boy landed again after a second, holding his leg out as far from himself as he could. He swung the limb around frantically, trying to get the creature off, but the serpent simply squeezed harder.

“Get off, get off, get off! Let goooooo!” he yelled, his thrashing devolving into rapid seizure motions of his leg.

He didn’t have time to worry about the snake, however, because that was when he heard the kensha beast’s ground-vibrating charge as well as its rib-vibrating roar. A half-glance showed him a jumble of close-ups. Fur, fur, claws, fur, fangs, fur, eyes, fangs, fangs, fangs, fangs, all spinning as he jumped sideways in a flicker of adrenaline-boosted agility. The wolf-monster shot by, but not before tossing its head sideways and attempting to snap the boy up in passing.

There was a horrible ripping noise as the predator continued on its path, turning around and skidding as it turned around to finish the job.

A moment later the slipstream of the massive body going by him caught up, and made him stumble sideways, light body pushed easily by the wind. He staggered for a second, then looked down.

The whole front half of his shirt had been torn right off.

The kensha growled, then ate the scrap of cloth that it had gotten tangled in its teeth. Swiftlit decided leaving would be a good way to avoid joining the missing part of his attire. He jumped up, grabbing a window ledge some fifteen feet up the side of a building, then scrambled in through it as the beast slammed into the abode hard enough to send him tumbling farther into the room he had managed to escape into.

A howl of rage from outside echoed through the dusty, rubble-strewn building, following the boy as he ducked into a smaller room, as far from the window he had entered as he could get. For some odd reason, he got the impression that this kensha had something against him. Something pretty personal, judging from how angry it sounded. Perhaps it was the same beast he had encountered and evaded before, and it remembered him.

It could probably remember his scent. Calimn had told him he smelled very peculiar. Past the usual human scents, there was an odd hint of something, she claimed. “I don’t know what it is. It’s like . . . some kind of weird . . . thing. It smells like weird.” she had told him. She had gone on to give him a detailed (and, for him, uncomfortable) elaboration on how he tasted. Everything tried to eat him. It wasn’t fair. Everyone was so tall, so stupidly tall. They wouldn’t be so tall if they were his size.

“Why is everyone I MEET SO TALL!” he squealed.

“OW!” he yelped, clapping his hands to his ears; his voice was so loud it hurt.

“OOOWWWW! WHY AM I SO LO- OW!”

“OW! OW! OW! OW!” he repeated, each exclamation of pain drawing more auditory distress.

Had something happened to his ears? Had the kensha somehow damaged his hearing? A sound like nails on stone pulled his eyes to the floor, where that pale snake was slithering away from him. A look at his leg showed him a pair of small punctures.

The snake, it seemed, was venomous.

“POISON! WHAT AM- OW!”

He shook his head to try and clear the ringing noise that had somehow buried itself in his ears. He stared at the wound, watching as the area around the pinpricks turned a lovely shade of violet. It was then that he suddenly realized he should ask the snake to un-poison him. It hadn’t seemed that bad of a snake. He tried to take a step, but the floor didn’t want to cooperate, and moved out of the way of his foot. Rather polite of the floor, actually, although it did make Swiftlit have to stumble forward and grab the wall to steady himself.

His legs didn’t seem to have checked in, because he couldn’t feel them. His fingers, too, seemed to be rapidly turning into jelly. He just hoped it was dragonapple jelly. He’d never had jelly, but Calimn had told him about it once. Speaking of jelly, the floor was made of it, apparently, because it was squishy and quite damp. Then it occurred to him that he should have been standing up, but somehow he was now lying facedown on the floor. When had his legs given out?

“STUPID LEGS! WHY DON”T WORK!? OW!” he screamed, trying to get his legs to move.

They simply laughed at him, wriggling and giggling like annoying octopods. His arms had gone to sleep as well, but they at least showed some common sense and told him to watch out for low-flying worms. It was pretty good advice, even if there were no worms around right now. At least, he didn’t think there was. You never knew when flying worms would show up. They liked to sneak up on people like that.

He took a deep breath. Poison. That was all it was. Those worms might have gotten him, but he was sure he could shrug it off. A few minutes and he would be fine. He would take it as a lesson learned and head back to the Jewel River to check up on Calimn. She would want to know he had found a house. It was made out of dragonapple jam . . .

“NO, I MEAN JEL-JAM! JALLEY! NO, JELLY! JELLY IS WHAT I- OW!” he shouted, wanting to cover his ears but unable to do so; his arms had been kidnapped by the worms already.

He hoped that they hadn’t thrown his arms and legs in the river. He couldn’t swim, after all, and Calimn would probably make a game of retrieving them. He wished she would pay more attention to what was going on, like he did. He noticed everything, like the fact that the room was starting to turn colors. Purple, it looked like, red, yellow, green, then a strange color. Likely the color that matched the way he smelled to Calimn. It smelled a lot like . . . weird.

He wasn’t sure how it tasted, so he tried licking his lips, trying to see what it was like. It didn’t taste like anything, actually. Maybe only other people could taste it. Maybe only the tall people could taste it. Nothing made sense with the giant-sized people here. They liked eating small people like him, liked it quite a bit. Calimn always looked pleased when she came back from hunting and she had caught a few sailors. He could always tell when she had, because of her peculiar look of satisfaction. It was similar to his own expression after eating a dragonapple.

Sure it upset him, but he took it as a part of her. He didn’t know why, but that was how she was, and how Felarya was. It was scary for him, but he couldn’t do anything about it. It was like the worms sneaking up on people to fly at their faces; it was just how things worked. Not liking it didn’t change a thing, so he just let it be. He was too tired to do anything else, and of course he couldn’t seem to find his arms or legs, so it didn’t really matter.

The feeling of numbness continued, but now it was laced with a curious tingling on his skin. Deeper down, in his flesh and bones, he couldn’t feel a thing, though, and he still couldn’t move at all. The snake’s peculiar variety of venom continued to slither through his system, numbing him even as the hallucinations grew worse. It was like dreaming while awake, but he was paralyzed entirely, unable to react to any of the mad things that started to happen.

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before he simply passed out.

* * * * *

Zee was tilting her head this way and that, rocking herself back and forth. A pale mist of golden dust drifted around her, the particles dislodged by her movement.

“So when will the birds and things show up?” Calimn and Jab asked in unison.

“In a second. Bugs always come first. Hold on a second.”

The other two giants looked at each other. Calimn had decided to introduce Jab to Zee, and so far the meeting had gone fairly well. Zee was a little scatterbrained, but she meant well, and she knew quite a bit from the dryad network. Jab had peppered the tree-woman with questions about various parts of the forest, the state they were in, and generally just about everything.

Zee, for her part, had responded with good cheer, not bothered a bit by the barrage of inquiries. It turned out that, for the most part, things were pretty normal. Curious tales drifted around here and there, funny stories about daily life, unusually good or bad hunts, insect infestations and fairies being unnerved by said infestations, all sorts of things. Jab had sucked up all the rumors, gossip, and facts with equal alacrity. Calimn had never gotten Jab’s keen interest in seemingly useless or irrelevant information.

Zee took a deep breath, then blew a large cloud of the powder off into the adjacent trees, cheeks puffed out as the swirl of dust drifted into the roots of a larger tree. For close to a minute, nothing happened.

“Hey, bark-butt, when wi-“ Jab started.

A horde of bugs crawling out of the root system to scuttle around on the splotch of mustard-colored powder interrupted her. Beetles, centipedes, and other insects mobbed the patch of brighter color, quickly joined by dragonflies from the river reeds and other winged insects. It wasn’t long until the dust-spot had become a milling mass of multicolored thoraxes, wings, and legs.

Jab whistled at the sight, while Calimn just blinked in surprise. The dryad held out a palm, then blew a little of her dust towards the crowd. Several of the insects detached from the main group and buzzed over to her hand, three kite-sized dragonflies and a heavy, dark-shaded beetle close to five feet long and nearly as wide. They landed on her palm, the beetle rather clumsily, and instantly started to step around on her hand.

The dryad smiled . . . and popped the bugs into her mouth. A quick swallow, and the insects were lunch. Calimn gave a “Eww” expression, though Jab seemed excited.

“Actually, that’s a pretty retarded ability. Instant pet bugs, and instant food? Ha! Useless as hell and twice as stupid.” Jab laughed, flapping a bit to show her enthusiasm.

“Don’t flap your win-!” Zee started, but by then it was too late.

The aura of powder around her was sent off in a huge rush of saffron, leaving a trail back to the dryad, that washed over several trees. Insects and birds, dozens of them, immediately swarmed towards the haze. Following the path of the colored mist, they quickly converged on the dryad. In moments she was completely covered in squawking birds and humming insects. Jab and Calimn could only stare, mouths open, as Zee flailed and yelled inside the mass of feathers and chitin.

“Get them off! Get them off! OW, something stung me! Get them off!” she yelped, slapping wildly at herself.

Jab, seeing that this was a mess she herself had caused, hurriedly opened her wings and flapped as hard as she could. Feathers flickered about as the gale created by her wings rushed over the dryad. Birds and bugs were blasted away in the gigantic gusts, fluttering about like leaves as they went sailing away. Calimn, for her part, turned around and sent a giant splash of water Zee’s way to get rid of whatever insects had managed to cling to her bark despite Jab’s efforts. The end result was a soaked, distinctly displeased dryad and a lot of upset animals.

One of the birds, a particularly irate creature with the wingspan of a hang-glider and a short, heavy beak, decided to retaliate. Seeing as Jab was something like kin, the enraged avian went after Calimn. The bird landed on her head and started pecking at her furiously. Calimn’s response was much like that of anyone with a crazed bird attempting to drill a hole in their scalp: she waved her arms rapidly, yelling “stop! Ow, stop!” Finally, the bird took off, leaving Calimn with her hair in disarray and a knot on the top of her head. She rubbed the sore spot, glaring after the retreating bird.

“That’s why I hate this dust. It’s great for getting food easily, but if something like that happens I’ve got to move. Looks like I’ll be headed upriver. Sorry for running off, but now that the animals here have got my number I need to hurry and get going. See you guys!” she finished.

She certainly was in a hurry, too. She leaned back, then leaned forward, roots pulling out of the ground in rapid succession. They were surprisingly shallow and not very thick, the roots, so the dryad was completely uprooted in less than a minute. With an apologetic smile and further apologetic words, she headed off, her roots moving her along as a slow but (for a dryad) fairly impressive clip.

Calimn bobbed about in the river, while Jab tried not to laugh at her disheveled appearance.

“It’s not funny.”

“I know, fish-guts. It’s craptastically hilarious.”

“You know what I’m going to do? When Swiftlit comes back, I’m going to give him a surprise. A big surprise.”

“Oh? Let me guess. A box of homemade stupid? Or, the other flavor, retarded?”

“No.”

“A spine? Twitchy coward sounds like he needs one.”

“No.”

“What?”

“You’ll see. I’m going to introduce him to you first, and then we’re going on a trip.”

“Well, about time. I want to see the little booger. I bet he’ll be scared of me. I want to freak him out a bit when I meet him. I’ll make the worm pee himself, ha! What’s this about a trip, though? Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

“C’moooooon. I’ll put a third nostril in your head if you don’t tell me.”

“Nope. It’s a secret. You'll have to wait 'til Swiftlit gets back.”

“I hope that shifty twit comes back soon . . .”




I looked a little closer at the fauna of Felarya this time around, and did more of a comedic flow. Calimn has something planned, while Swiftlit learns that poisonous snakes are the worst kind to get coiled around your ankle.

Felarya is Karbo’s

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

Ah yes, the scene with the snake was pretty interesting XD Poor Swiflit, the guy never gets a break ^^;

AHHHH!!! I HAVE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLANE! Really though, it was very good and i look forward to the next part.

Well written, fun, and always a pleasure to read! The description of Swiflit delirious was particularly good.

I agree that part was powerful ! very well described, it pulled the reader right into the scene ^_^

Thank you for the comments and compliments, everyone.

Well, here we are with the next chapter, which is much calmer, quite a bit slower. As always, critiques and constructive criticism is appreciated. References to vore, and the eating of a squid.

Chapter 4: Stress Relief

Calimn sucked up the writhing tentacles of the squid she’d caught. She was lounging in her usual spot, lying on her side with one hand propping her head up. Her neck was getting stiff from the position, given that she had been lying like this for quite some time. It would have been peaceful, waiting for Swiftlit, but for one thing.

“Come oooooooon. I’ll settle for just one, measly hint. One, just one.” Jab whined, poking her in the back.

“Just wait, will you? He’ll be back soon. Swiftlit comes back every time.”

“When is the gnat going to get here?”

“I don’t know, Jab. He’s a lot slower without his shoes, and Felarya isn’t exactly a walk in a park for someone his size.”

“I know . . . but I want to know what rat-filled, slimy hole we’re going to! Fairy Pond? Man, fairies are crazy little goofballs. A while ago I partied with them on one of those wacky nights when the moons get all wonky. Or maybe Oloonde Lakeland? I want to hear you gargle out some garbage with those birds of harmony. Wish I could sing.”

“No, we’re not going to either place . . . How about we play a game?”

“Sure. I’ll beat you down so hard you’ll cough up your brains, what little you have of them.”

“Twenty questions. Tha answer is where we’re going.”

“Hmn. Is it warm?”

“Yep.”

“Is it windy?”

“No, not really.”

Jab crossed out half a dozen options in her head. Of course, most people didn’t want to go to windy places.

“Is it north or south of here?”

“South.”

“East or West?”

“East.”

That meant it had to be in the Topazial Sea, or somewhere along the Jewel River. Jab doubted Calimn would want to hang out at the fens that were to the south. The Motamo River was frequented by ships, but the upper reaches were, of course, off-limits due to the Isolon Eye, and the ships that came through tended to go around in small groups for better defense. The Pyrale mountains were hot, but they were also windy and not exactly the ideal spot to go sightseeing at.

“One of the islands out in the Topazial Sea?”

“Nope.”

“Just tell me already!“

* * * * *

Swiftlit was aching all over. The numbing effect of the venom had worn off long ago, leaving him with stiff joints and a deep persistent pain that spiked in time with his pulse. Moving at all made it worse, but after waking up he had struggled to his feet and tried to walk it off. He headed back the way he had came, out of Ur-Sagol and going back into the Miragia Forest. The occasional tingling shock of a disturbance falling apart when he stepped through it was something of a comfort. This forest, with its low population of larger predators, the abrupt shifts in reality and vortexes, was where he preferred to be.

He needed to find a house, of course, but he had gotten pretty sick of being slow. He wasn’t going to randomly find a new pair of shoes out in the jungle, so he was going to have to get his old shoes back. Whatever had snuck into his house might not even still be in there. I might go back home and find my shoes sitting on the floor, and my burrow just how it was before, he thought hopefully. He might not even have a problem at all.

He moved a little faster through the forest, staying mostly on the ground. His feet had been healed during the time he was unconscious, and now he was a little more comfortable with pressing his speed. His soles had toughened up quite a bit since the start of his searching for a house, and he could walk for a long time without tiring, given that he weighed so little.

He had been out of commission for the entire night, but by now the sun was past its apex and slowly working its way towards sunset. Even with this physical discomfort, he could travel at a steady pace, if much slower than usual. Having to take steps only as long as his legs could reach was awkward for him; he was used to getting around with what amounted to a series of flying steps more akin to leaping than actual running. He hopped easily over a chest-high root, not even having to step off of the top of it. At least he could still jump at the same level as before. He could only do so flat-footed and strictly in a vertical manner to avoid causing friction, but it was still far better than nothing.

Soon the trees began to look familiar, the positions and shapes of them prodding at his memory. He was fairly close to home now. He recognized a patch of huge, glowing silver ferns, and knew he was nearly to his tunnel. He walked through the luminous ferns, starting to feel better. He probably would find his house empty and ready for him. He weaved through the shoulder-high mass of ferns easily, eager to get his shoes back.

Bad idea.

As soon as his arm brushed one of the fronds, the plant erupted into brilliant white light. A second later it began to heat up, fast, drawing a yelp from the boy as it scalded his forearm. He jumped back, and the plant returned to normal, although the tip of the frond now looked a great deal brighter and more luminous than before. The whole fern seemed to have lit up a bit more, the plant more healthy. Swiftlit backed up, not wanting to add another reddened mark to the one already on his arm.

Another bad idea.

He ran into another of the multiple ferns, and immediately felt his back warm up, the heat penetrating his shirt easily. He jumped away, barely in time to keep his belabored shirt from leaving him altogether via combustion. He dodged this way and that, trying not to touch any of the planar chorydium, but wherever he turned, there were fronds. A deep breath, and he froze, one leg up, arms held above his head to avoid touching the ferns. He sucked in his stomach to avoid a still-swaying frond and barely avoided it.

Now what? If he moved, he would get repeatedly burned by the reaction with the plants and his off-kilter physics. He couldn’t just stand here like a statue all day, either; the Miragia forest might be relatively clear of giant predators, but warps could bring in anything at all, and sooner or later something was going to show up. It was either be mauled and eaten, or run for it and get some blisters. It was clear what he had to do. Time to do what he did best.

With a harsh whistle of released breath, he leapt forward and took off through the ferns, doing his best to keep from tripping. If he tried to run with the limit of his stride that of his legs, he tended to undershoot his steps because of the lightness. He hurried along as he could, dodging through the fronds, keeping away from them as he could. He felt hot fingers prod at his arms and sides a dozen times, but he managed to move quickly enough to avoid getting any burns. The heat created a sting afterward, but other than that it wasn’t nearly so bad as he had thought it would be. He ducked a swinging frond, then rolled out of the patch of planar chorydium with a quick dive.

A look back revealed a path through the ferns, his trail shown by the extra-bright specimens. He hoped nothing would see that and track him. He turned, headed around the side of the large, slightly tilted tree that stood over his burrow, and found the moss plug. It had been put back into place from last time, when he had come flying up out of the hole and knocked it aside. That was not a good sign, given that an intruder wouldn’t be likely to put the door back in place.

“Maybe they’re just polite?” he muttered gaining more caution as he carefully removed the plug from the ground.

He looked down into the hole, peering into the dark and ready to dart away if anything suddenly popped out at him. He could just barely see the bottom, a sliver of pale brown dirt that the angle of the sun exposed. Swiftlit swung himself over the edge, hanging on to the lip of the tunnel, and carefully lowered himself down, dropping the last four or five feet. He crouched as he landed, keeping the noise he made to a minimum. All the sound his fall made was a soft sound like someone dropping a pillow to the floor. He thanked his abnormal weight once again for the near-silent landing, then crept into the dark of the short hallway that led to the main burrow.

Now that his eyes were useless, he concentrated on his other senses. He held his hands out, very slowly sweeping them from side to side. If he felt anything, he knew to run; there were no objects in the tunnel that would be at his chest-level besides an attacker. Once he felt that he was in the main chamber, he eased into a deeper crouch and listened, freezing in place. He strained his ears, attempting to catch the tiniest noise, the smallest hint of an unnatural presence. He listened so hard he thought he could detect the roots over his head growing.

Nothing.

A slow sigh escaped him, and he rose a bit from his crouch. He walked into the center of the burrow, then dropped to his hands and knees. Now to find his shoes. He was fairly sure whatever had assaulted him before wouldn’t have been interested in shoes, so it was likely they were around here somewhere. He crawled around in the dark like someone searching for their glasses, appropriate considering how severely handicapped he was without his footwear. It wasn’t long before he found them.

“Yeeeeessss!” he whispered to himself, picking them up.

He straightened, then sat down to put them on, excited. It looked like he had his shoes back, and, judging by the fact that nothing had attacked him, his house, as we-

He sat down, but it wasn’t on dirt. Dirt wasn’t squishy and slightly mobile. He suddenly had a flashback to the first time, when he had stepped on the same kind of substance on coming home. He jammed both shoes on his feet in what was surely a record for fastest acquirement of footwear, then shot for the exit as a primal scream echoed after him.

“Who just sat on me!?”

He just kept running for the way out. In barely a second he was flying up out of the hole in a replay of the first instance, though this time he had his shoes. He couldn’t believe how good it felt to have them back on, the knowledge that he could go as fast as he wanted again. He took five long strides, then spun around. Whatever was in his house could speak, and was probably not much larger then himself. He could outrun them easily, he was sure, so he stayed put to see what had decided to invade his home.

He set himself as something began to emerge from the hole. It looked like . . . water was bubbling up out of the burrow entrance, or something like it. It was more viscous, the consistency of it more like syrup than an actual liquid. The blob slowly took shape, forming up into something resembling a human. It looked like a woman, but with all the details gone, a nose but no nostrils, a mouth but no tongue, no individual teeth but a melded row, fingers with no fingernails, no navel, like a clay statue that hadn’t been quite finished, or only vaguely outlined. The whole of it was made of a clear slime.

Dead center of her chest, deep in her body, there was a blob-like organ of some kind, about the size of a golf-ball, a darker spot in the pale liquid. It pulsed, very slowly and nearly imperceptibly, almost like a heart. It was suspended in her, slightly distorted from the liquid she was made of, but still quite clearly there.

He shivered a little; she looked like she was made of water, in a way. He took a quick step backward as the water-thing straightened up fully, glaring at him.

“You sat on me!”

“I d-didn’t mean to. I c-c-couldn’t s-see.” he explained.

“I bet. Next thing you know, you’ll say this is your house.”

“It is my house. You t-took it. What a-a-are you?”

“A slimoid. So you’re saying this place is yours?”

She still looked upset, and more than a little incredulous. Then again, it was somewhat difficult to discern emotion with her face so vaguely formed.

“Yes, it’s m-my house. I’m the one who m-made the d-d-door.”

“Mine now.”

“Th-that’s not fair!”

“No, it’s not. Nothing’s fair, so get used to it. I did.” she snapped.

For a second, even though her words were bitter, her face did something odd. She looked aggrieved, just for a moment. He couldn’t be sure though, with that loosely made, smooth-featured face. He twisted in place, indecisive. He wanted his house back, but if she said no, then he couldn’t really do much about it. He didn’t know the first thing about slimoids, and she was rather large to him. He placed her at something like seven feet tall, head and shoulders and then some over him. He didn’t want to make her angry enough to attack him.

“I j-j-just want my house b-back.”

“Find another one.”

“I already t-tried.”

“Well, try again. This is my house, and I’m not sharing it with somebody who sat on me.”

“B-b-but it’s m-“

“RARGH!” she roared, waving her arms as they extended into long tentacles.

“TAKE IT!” the boy screeched in alarm, and he darted off in a split-second blur of speed.

The slimoid, with a tired sigh, slipped back down into the burrow.

* * * * *

“Motamo River?”

“Nope.”

“Just tell me, you disgusting, bleeding bucket of half-dead, rotting fish guts and putrid chum.”

“No matter how politely you address me, it’s not happening until Swiftlit’s here.”

“Not even if I told you that you’re the most ugly, disgusting, puss-and-snot dribbling, fat, grossly stupid, scaled abomination ever to swim the waters of Felarya, a creature so hideous you make peoples’ eyes wither up and die in their sockets, and so empty-headed you make Glouteux look like a genius?”

“Wow . . . but still no.”

“What if I told you he’s here?”

“Well, then I wou-“

“No, I mean he’s here. That’s him, right?”

Calimn turned her head to look in the direction that Jab was pointing with the tip of her wing. Sure enough, there was her friend, peering over the top of a mossy root. She sat up, waving and grinning. It was a relief to see that he was still alright. Surprisingly, he gave only a hesitant, half-hearted wave. Calimn wondered at this for a moment, then realized why he wasn’t coming over yet.

“It’s fine, Swiftlit. Jab isn’t going to anything.”

He stood up, just about to hop over the barrier, when Jab spoke.

“Yep. I’ll tear your moronic little noggin off and punt it clear to Frost Peak if you don’t get over here right now.” she laughed, trying her best to sound casually friendly; her initial idea of scaring him had faded now that she was actually looking at him.

Swiftlit ducked down again, of course, and bit his lip. Calimn punched her friend lightly on the shoulder, drawing a “What?” from the harpy. Turning back to Swiftlit, she smiled and waved him over. He cautiously climbed over the root and walked over, circling around Jab as if they were magnets with the same polarity, keeping one eye on her the entire time. Jab, for her part, just stayed put and smiled somewhat uncomfortably.

Calimn held out her hand, and her friend sprang onto her palm easily. She had forgotten how it tickled when he walked along her arm, and another quick jump put him up on her shoulder. She noticed that he had his shoes back.

“You found your shoes! That’s great! You find a house, too?” she asked.

“N-not really.”

“Don’t worry about it too much. We can look for one while we’re on our trip. Jab’s coming with us. You two can get to know each other on the way.”

Swiftlit looked very closely at the harpy, who gave him a bright grin and waved with one wing.

“Yo. Calimn’s told me a lot about you. Hope we can be friends, you little sn- . . . guy.” Jab attempted, straining to avoid using insults.

Calimn could tell that Jab was doing her level best to keep her dialect in check. That was a good sign; she only did that if she genuinely wanted to be friends with someone and knew they might misinterpret her accent. She just hoped Swiftlit would take the offer of being friends. Given how long it had taken him just to work up the trust to be comfortable around just herself, it might be quite some time before he accepted Jab. Maybe her presence would help. She could only do her best to facilitate their becoming comfortable with each other.

“Well, I’ve got a surprise for both of you. We’re all going to go . . . to the Torpaline Coast!”

Jab’s face lit up, while Swiftlit simply looked confused.

“The wh-what?” he inquired.

“Torpaline Coast. I hung out there all the time when I was younger. I bet a few of my old friends are still around there. The weather is just heavenly around this time, too. Breezy but really warm, sand, sun, ocean. Great stress relief, and plenty of fun.”

“Oh man, I haven’t been to the Coast in forever! Ocean breeze in my feathers is going to be awesome.”

“H-how far is this T-torpaline Coast thing?” Swiftlit asked, seeming to have eased up from his distrust of Jab in favor of curiosity.

“It’s all the way down the river and then along the southwestern edge. It’ll take a while to get there, but I think you’ll like it. Well, maybe not the ocean, but you’ll have a ball at the beach. I’ll make a sand-castle for you to hang out in. I got really good at those things when I was little.”

He had gained a look of interest now, and Calimn was glad for that. He looked like he had had a rough time out in the wilderness. His shirt had been turned into something more like a sleeved vest, the front of it gone and the edges a line of tatters. He had gotten pretty messy in the jungle, twigs in his tangled hair, smudges on his clothes and skin, his overall appearance that of a castaway that had been living on a desert island for awhile. A rest would do him so good. First, though . . .

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“What?”

“Bath-time.”

“I can’t swim!”

“I’ll hold the water in my hands.”

“I hate water!”

“Too bad. You’re going to get clean whether you like it or not.”

“You’ll never take me alive!” he declared, leaping down from her shoulder.

She caught him, of course, and held the squirmy boy in one hand as she scooped up a handful of water. A splash, and he was hanging limply in her fingers. That done, she held him out to Jab. The harpy looked surprised, while Swiftlit looked alarmed. Very, very gently, the predator reached out with one talon and held onto the boy, who tensed up enough for her to see it. She was astonished by how heavy he felt, and she had to resist the urge to squeeze tighter on instinct. Calimn nodded at her, giving an encouraging look, and cupped both hands together, lowering them into the river to gather a pool of water.

“Alright, put him in.”

“But I don’t wan-“

His protest was cut off as the harpy let him drop into Calimn’s hands. He flailed for a moment, albeit sluggishly, but after a few moments of yelling Calimn started rubbing with her fingers to get the dirt and detritus off of him, during which he quieted. He accepted it, begrudgingly, and let her ruffle his hair with her thumb. He didn’t want to admit it, but he didn’t mind so much. He was just glad to be back with his friend.

“Pfffffff-ffff-FFFFWAHAHAHAHA!”

The abrupt burst of laughter from Jab made both of them jump, the liquid in Calimn’s hands sloshing about from the movement. The harpy was holding her sides with her wings, leaned over and nearly crying with mirth. When both of her companions looked askance at her, she just waved dismissively, still chuckling.

“Phew. Sorry, just . . . you two look so –haha- strange. It’s funny.”

“Well, it is a little weird, I guess. Either way, let’s get going.”

Sliding further into the river, she set a soaked Swiftlit up on her head, then paused. Her face went to a blank kind of look, the kind she gained while thinking about something hard, and then she smiled. She plucked Swiftlit off her head, then, once again, held him out to Jab. Again, both of her friends gained looks of confusion.

“I think you should carry him, Jab. He’s not afraid of heights, and I bet he’ll like flying.”

“But-“ started Swiftlit.

“Don’t worry. Jab’s not going to do anything, and you’ll get used to her speech. Besides, you’ll dry off faster if you’re up where the wind is.”

“You sure?” Jab asked.

Calimn nodded, much to Swiftlit’s bemusement.

“Just try not to eat him.” the mermaid joked, winking.

“E-e-eat me?! W-w-waitaminute, l-let m-m-me go w-with y-“

“You got it, Calimn. I’m sure we’ll be best buddies once we land.” Jab chortled, and then she took off into the sky like an umbrella caught in a gale.

“-ooooooouuuuuuu!” finished Swiftlit, voice vanishing upwards as Jab rapidly ascended with heavy flaps of her wings.

Calimn waved at him, then turned to head downriver, head just above water. Hopefully that would give them some time to get comfortable with one another. She wanted to spend some time catching up with Swiftlit, but for him and Jab to be friends was something she wished to see, and the best way to do that was to let them be in each other’s company for awhile.

Hopefully Jab’s last words before taking off would become truth.




Jab finally meets Swiftlit, and he doesn’t seem to keen on her. The three are headed for the Torpaline Coast and the Topazial Sea for a sort of vacation/trip.

Felarya belongs to Karbo

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated

Yaaay! Good to see Swiftlit found what he needed, though it's a shame about his house ^^;

Oh, I think I discovered a typo.

Quote :

“No, it’s not. Nothing’s fair, so get used to it. I did.” she snapped.

Shouldn't it be "I did," she snapped....?

Yes, Swiftlit could use a good vacation, though given his luck, hilarious hijinks are to be assured.

And interestingly, it appears that the slimoid would have shared "her" house with Swiftlit had he not sat on her. Perhaps an apology will make amends?

Ah, yes. I actually do not use commas for quotations, but periods. I can use commas from now on if it's bothersome to anyone, though.

Ha ha, I'm finally caught up! Although I did have to skip a few chapters, shamefully admitted. I'm very interested in seeing how Jab and Swiftlit get along!

Aye, same as gt500x, I finally got caught up too.

Nice to see some travel. Interested to see what they will find out there...

I DEMAND MOAR!

And so the two finally meet... I hope he will enjoy his "welcome" flight

Chapter Five, in which Jab *tries* to get acquainted with Swiftlit. Quite a bit of her perspective, so a bit more development. References to vore. Critique and comments are welcome and appreciated.

Chapter 5: Blue Skies

Swiftlit was having trouble keeping his head on his shoulders.

He was astonished by how unbelievably fast flight seemed to be, at least for something the size of a harpy. The speed of it was enough to force his head back, hair flickering from the turbulence. Not only was it incredibly windy and difficult to keep from having his neck in a state of constant hyperextension, the altitude lent a chilly bite to the air that doubled with the slipstream of the harpy’s occasional flaps. Though his body, completely encased in Jab’s grip, was warm from her body heat, his face was getting cold, and his eyes quickly started to water and smart.

He strained to straighten his head, but the wind simply shoved it back so that he was looking straight up at the harpy’s stomach. She was flying with her legs hanging under her body, keeping him in an upright position, and flapping quite often. It wasn’t a very economic manner of flight, nor very fast, in comparison to her own size, anyway. Swiftlit, with a deep breath and a jerk of his head, managing to overcome the force of the air for long enough to get his head forward. Once in the right position, he could look around a little better.

They were high in the air, high enough to see a long, long way. Looking down, there was nothing but empty air for a good mile straight down, and then treetops. He looked outward, ducking his head to avoid having it caught in the turbulence again, and gazed out over the landscape. Green extended seemingly to infinity, forest and jungle for miles. He turned his head, looking back. He could see the Jewel River off to one side, a thick, gleaming blue ribbon that glided easily across the landscape. How big it was, from up here, became evident. He could see Calimn’s head, a moving spot of lighter blue, moving down the river, but she was rapidly falling behind.

He felt a surge of nervousness at this. He wasn’t comfortable with Jab, not by a long shot, and the prospect of arriving at the Torpaline Coast ahead of her, maybe quite a ways ahead, wasn’t something he was eager for. Calimn said Jab was fine, but his natural reaction to anything her size, reinforced and honed to a razor edge, was to run or hide. Mistrust, essentially, was his primary emotion when dealing with giant creatures.

* * * * *

Calimn could see Jab swiftly outpacing her, going from easily recognizable to a slowly shrinking, harpy-shaped blot in the sky.

The mermaid slowed down, going from a decent speed to a more leisurely pace. No sense in hurrying. The wake she had been trailing shrank as she eased into the equivalent of a walk, waves reduced to quiet swells. It was purposeful, of course, and she had planned it from the start of her proposal for Jab to carry Swiftlit. Jab’s flight speed, even her slower version, was quite fast, and it was pretty much a guarantee that the harpy was going to get to the coast before she did. She could fly in a straight line with no obstacles to hinder her progress, while Calimn had to go all the way down the river, then head down the coast until she met up with the two again.

That would give them plenty of time to get used to each other.

Probably . . .

Jab she wasn’t so worried about. The harpy was friendly, and she knew enough to keep her accent toned down until the boy could get acclimated to it. No, Swiftlit was the one she was more concerned with. His paranoia was an asset when out in the jungle, where the idea of everything being after him and dangerous was pretty much true, but now it was just going to be a hindrance. A MASSIVE hindrance, of similar proportions to a mountain.

Swiftlit had never really ‘met’ anyone properly besides the mermaid, and as far as she knew he simply stayed away from anyone he encountered. There was also the fact that he probably had never really run into anyone in the forest, at least, not anyone who was his size and not intent on eating him alive. Miragia wasn’t really a place smaller races went adventuring, and although warped folk were more common there than just about anywhere else, they rarely lasted long.

Simply put, Swiftlit had no idea how to deal with people.

She just hoped Jab would be able to coax him into trusting her.

* * * * *

Jab was fairly sure she’d reached a new record for time spent not saying anything in one go.

The boy in her talons refused to say anything to start a conversation, simply staring off into the distance and scanning the bird’s-eye view presented from the height. He hadn’t said a single word since takeoff, and the silence was driving her nuts. Maybe . . .

“Awesome view, innit?” she gave, raising her voice a bit to ensure that he heard her over the wind.

Swiftlit didn’t so much as shrug, although he did glance up at her for a half-second. He turned back to looking down at the forest canopy after a moment. Crap, not good enough topic, Jab thought, biting her lip as she tried to think up something else. An idea brightened her face after a moment of pondering.

“Hey, twer-,” Jab mentally punched herself, then took a moment to set herself for throwing off her dialect.

”Swiftlit, you comfy?”

Another glance, but this was accompanied by a noncommittal tilt of the head.

“You sure? I’m not squeezing too tight or holding on too loosely or anything? You’re not cold or sweating or needing to take a break to, you know, go?”

He shook his head, trying not to move much to avoid getting caught in the slipstream again.

“Bit windy?”

A nod.

“Well, I can make it a bit better, if you don’t mind me going faster.”

Trying to keep her accent in check was starting to become a strain on her, a constant stream of “Don’t swear, don’t insult, don’t . . .” running through her head. She had to think about how she would phrase everything before she actually opened her mouth, and it was quite taxing to do so while still concentrating on her flying. Speaking of flying . . .

“You mind if I . . . kick it up to cruising speed?”

He wriggled a bit in her claws, hunched down a bit more, and shrugged. Jab wished he would say something, anything, give some kind of indication of what she could get him properly talking with. This uncomfortable lack of communication was bugging her. She started to speed up, rising higher as she did so. She pulled her legs up, folding them against her abdomen and putting her body more on a horizontal adjustment. A series of hard, powerful flaps carried her forward, and then she snapped her wings out, allowing her momentum to hold her up to glide.

She sighed with relief. Although the earlier mode of flight had been slow, having to flap that often and keep aloft at that speed was pretty tiring. Cruising was so much easier, and so much faster. It was her relaxation mode for flight, not too fast, not too slow, and smooth enough to give her time to think about what she was saying.

She waited for a few minutes before saying anything.

“Is this better?”

Swiftlit had to admit that it was. Tucked close to her, the wind wasn’t nearly as bad, and he could actually look around without having to worry about getting his face distended by the speed. He squirmed a little, trying to get in a better position to see properly. He felt Jab’s grip adjust, easing up to allow him to move. He tensed up for a moment, an instinctive reaction, and her grip tightened quickly in response.

“What? You scared?”

“Umn . . .”

The rest was flung away in the roar of the gale sweeping around them.

“What? You have to speak up. I can’t hear you over the wind.”

“Just d-don’t want to get d-dropped!” he shouted back.

“Ah. Bit tighter, then.”

“W-wai- hurgh!”

The talons around him pressed in harder, cutting off his denial and most of his breath in a single squeeze. All the air in his lungs was driven out in a high-pitched squeak, and he could feel his ribs bending under the pressure. Attempting to take another breath yielded almost nothing, no room for any air. He managed to gasp out a sharp protest.

“Too . . . too . . . tight!” he wheezed, trying to get enough oxygen to work with.

“Oh, dang, didn’t mean to do that to you, ma- . . . geh, Swiftlit.”

The crushing grip relaxed, and the boy took in a welcome breath, accompanied by a set of gasping coughs. Jab flinched at the curious look the boy gave her. It was fear- no, not quite. Fear was a part of it, but the larger whole was something closer to barely restrained mistrust of her. It was obvious the only reason he wasn’t struggling, the only reason he was associating with her, was because of Calimn. Otherwise, he would have run from her on sight.

She could understand it, but it still hurt.

“Sorry. “

That look of his faded slowly, and he went back to staring around at the landscape passing by far below them. A few more questions did nothing to draw him out of his silence, and he simply tilted his head as a gesture of neutrality for each query. Okay, now this is just getting upsetting, the harpy thought, giving another few hard flaps to rise up a little.

“Look, I- . . . geh, you need to stop acting like a jerkwad and actually run your bloody mouth, or I swear I’m- GAH!”

She halted her tirade, realizing she needed to think about speaking without her usual insults. Why did everyone but harpies have to have such a hard way of talking? It was so difficult to get it right! Concentrating on her words, she sighed and started over.

“I’m not going to hurt or eat you, and so there’s no reason to be so . . . wary. Calimn’s my friend, and she’s your friend, so how about we try to get along? ‘Cause, if we don’t get along, no one’s going to be happy. Not you, not me, and Calimn least of all. That would ruin the trip, and Calimn would be pretty dang upset,” she finished.

Well, there went tact and subtlety, she thought to herself.

There was nothing but silence from the boy, this pause lasting a good twenty minutes, and for the entirety of that time Jab was absolutely sure she had made the wrong decision in outright saying that they should get along. She should have known better that to try and press someone that Calimn had warned her was ludicrously mistrustful and paranoid. She should have just hung back and let him get used to her.

“I g-guess. C-Calimn would f-feel a lot b-b-better if we g-got along.”

Dang, surprised he would just say “Alright” to that, she wondered.

“Okay then,” was all she could think to say in response.

“Okay.”

Another extensive period of silence followed, neither of the two willing to break it casually. Jab wanted to dispel the quiet of the flight with something, but she couldn’t think of anything to bring up that wouldn’t be completely random. Just starting a conversation with nothing to work with . . . usually she was good at that, but this was just so awkward she didn’t have the confidence to do so. Swiftlit, for his part, seemed to have simply clammed up.

At least an hour passed like this, Jab cruising along at a decent speed with an occasional flap to keep herself aloft and at a decent altitude, Swiftlit looking about at the scenery. At this height, he could see for an unbelievable distance, and up ahead were some truly gigantic peaks. Jagged and barren towards the tops, snow dusted some of the high reaches despite the heat of the jungle that surrounded the mountains. Most of them were huge, the summits above the harpy’s cruising height by a good mile. There was one, though, that outreached all of its competitors. A mass of ice and snow hiding frost-encrusted teeth of hard stone at the top, then unveiled, steel-hard rock stretching down into the slopes of the surrounding mountains.

Jab jumped at the opportunity to break the silence.

“See that huge mountain there? That’s Frost Peak. We’ll have to go around it, of course. It’s nasty business, trying to fly near it. Gales and snow up in your face all the time. Of course, there are worse places to fly. Torrential Coast? %*^& that. I’ll take my dry, moron. Seriously, I went there one time, and I got drenched. Rain for freaking ever. It’s constantly pouring, amazing anyone would live there except for a water elemental. I still found some retards with their thumbs up their butts, though. Couple of half-drowned little worms squirming in a mud-hole. They were a pair of chilotaurs, decent sized, and it took me a good hour to haul the two of them out of there before they drowned.”

“But, listen close, you bit of snot, and I’ll tell you where no harpy is going to go. You ever heard of the Mist Ocean?” she asked, gaining only a blank look.

“Of course you haven’t. Well, harpies don’t go there, not unless they’re smartypants-wannabes or willing to walk. You DO NOT fly in the Mist Ocean. That place WILL %*^& you over sideways and upside-down and every other way you can think of. Tornadoes, gales like you wouldn’t even believe, updrafts, downdrafts, slipstreams that cross over the top of each other, turbulence. It’s an absolute nightmare for anyone who’s got wings and intends to use them. I love to see new places and find new people to talk to, but I took one look at that and thought, Nope, ain’t happening. Unless you want to crash your stupid, ugly face into the ground, you don’t fly in the Mist Ocean.”

“I’ll tell you the best place to fly. You want epic conditions for cruising, you go to Chordoni Falls. The breeze from the falls makes an updraft, and you can ride it all day without even having to flap but a couple times. I live there, did I mention that? No, I didn’t. Well, I live at the Chordoni Falls. Pathetic little dribble of water, but some caves up higher on the cliffs that are freaking cramped. You squeeze in and take a nap, get up again, stretch, and go, easy. I’ve got a nice little nest for myself up there. I ought to take you there some time.”

* * * * *

By now they had crossed into the mountains, the harpy using the winds that rushed between the peaks to sail along without much effort. Here it was colder, the drop in temperature noticeable. Swiftlit’s face, despite being mostly clear of the wind, was going numb, and he had no clue how the harpy, bare skin exposed but for what was covered by feathers, could take it. Wasn’t she freezing?

Evidently not, because Jab looked happy, almost ecstatic. She was gabbing on about the various places she had been, occasionally putting in an anecdote about some interesting thing that had happened to her or someone she had met. He had trouble following what she was saying, her speech becoming more incomprehensible as it went on. He couldn’t make heads or tails of half of it, the sentences littered with insults and some words he couldn’t even decipher, but her tone was excited. The more she talked, the more enthused she seemed to get.

White loomed up in front of them, and then chill mist washed over the two. Swiftlit instantly felt the moisture coat his hair and face, and he tucked his head closer to Jab’s talons. This maneuver didn’t do much to help, but thankfully the cloud was gone a moment later, and they were through. Jab flapped a few times, getting some altitude.

“Whew. Getting close to the other side of the mountains now. Sorry about the cloud, but I love the feeling.”

“Aren’t you c-cold?”

“Nah. I’m not a wu- wim- . . . I’m good. It’s a bit cold, but not bad. You okay?”

“Little b-bit c-cold,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“I said I’m a l-little b-bit cold!” he reiterated, this time at a shout.

“Well, can’t have that! To the lower atmosphere!”

“Wh-wha-!?”

Suddenly they were falling, and the rush was enough for Swiftlit to feel his mass shifting opposite of their dive. Inertia and simple speed snapped his head back hard enough to hurt, and instantly he felt his eyes tear up at both the sudden shock and the now-howling slipstream of falling. He could feel his organs levitating, weightless, as gravity was temporarily overcome by freefall. The tingle of the sensation tugged at his innards, letting him know what was obvious: he had reached freefall, and terminal velocity was coming up far faster than he cared for.

Just when Swiftlit was sure they couldn’t fall any faster, Jab’s wings, before slightly open and angled to keep her dive controlled, snapped shut completely. The harpy plummeted like a chunk of lead, rocketing towards the ground. There were trees below them, conifers growing on the slopes of the mountains they were just now leaving behind. Swiftlit couldn’t even see them; everything was blurring out from the raw speed of the stoop. The earth was flying up at them at an incredible pace, seeming to reach for them as they shot down to the ground.

Swiftlit could hear the resounding impact of a giant harpy ramming into the ground already.

“S-s-stop-p-p, w-we’re g-g-g-g-g-g-GONNA CRASH!” he screeched.

* * * * *

Calimn had been swimming for close to three hours steadily, and now she was starting to tire a little. She didn’t do all that much in terms of travelling; she had her chunk of the river that she stayed and hunted in, and she didn’t leave it very often. She liked her little stretch of the Jewel River. It was fairly quiet, plenty of food, exotic things coming in from the Miragia Forest on occasion for excitement, and her favorite sunning spot, a wide patch of dirt and sand. There just wasn’t much reason to leave it, except the occasional foray down the river to get a little bit of novelty out of her surroundings.

Jab was probably miles ahead of her by now, and she had lost sight of the harpy quite a while ago. That ought to give the two of them time for figuring each other out. She just hoped Jab’s penchant for aerial tricks and acrobatics wouldn’t scare him. Jab loved flying, and could pull off some astonishing moves despite rock harpies being not particularly known for that sort of thing. Well, he had said he wasn’t afraid of heights. That would carry over to dives, flips, and corkscrews, right?

. . . Maybe she should have carried Swiftlit after all . . .

A few strong swishes of her tail started her moving more quickly, the slight swell once again growing into a proper wake. She thought about resting for a few minutes, but dismissed it. A little exercise wouldn’t hurt her, and travelling though the Jewel River was nice. She hadn’t seen the ocean since encountering the whaler who had managed to get his harpoon caught in her throat. That had to have been at least a year and a half, easily.

Had it really been that long?

It was amazing, how much had happened to her since that. Meeting, trying to eat, and finally making friends with Swiftlit, learning a new skill from Jab, getting drunk on one of the silvery nights, getting her CD player, meeting Zee and finally telling Jab about Swiftlit, getting assaulted by those gremlins, the lacolith, and then that vicious bird. That was a lot of stuff going on.

This little trip was going to do wonders for easing the stress. Swiftlit, for whom the word “stress” meant, “daily life”, would definitely get a lot out of this trip. Some rest and time with friends would go a long way in helping with the massive amount of tension he probably stored up on a nearly constant basis.

She started to speed up a little more; she couldn’t wait to see the ocean again.

* * * * *

Swiftlit felt something akin to a sword pressing against his belly.

The point, not as sharp as he thought it would be, prodded him, gently. Who was that? Were they going to gut him? Where was Jab? Wait . . .

“PULL UP, PULL UP, DON’T CRA-!” he shouted, flailing as he sat up.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down! Don’t go yelling your head off. We’re not crashing. We’re here at the coast.”

Now that his vision was coming back into focus, he could see Jab’s freckled face hovering over him, and one of her talons withdrew from its place on his stomach. His heart went into overdrive for a quarter-second, seeing her so close, mouth open in concern, panic lasting for the barest second before leveling off into something more manageable.

He scrambled to his feet, backed away from her a little, and looked around.

His eyes widened.

Behind him was jungle, but it was a different kind of jungle than those inland. It seemed more tropical, in a way, palms, less vines, huge, gorgeous flowers standing out in the foliage in splashes of red, yellow, purple. The vegetation itself seemed far brighter a shade of green than the plants that grew in the wilderness farther up the Jewel River. The soil was more loose, and it changed to sand not too far from where the trees ended.

This sand was, like the jungle, different from the river sand he had seen along the Jewel. This was finer, white, and so loose he could wriggle his feet and feel them sink into the sand a bit with each movement. He continued to gaze at the surroundings, kicking at the sand and grinning at the odd feel of it sifting between his toes. The weather was amazing here, too. The sky was an astonishing shade of electric blue, a few puffy, cheery looking cloud wisps floating along some distance off, the sun a bright coin in the warm air. It was hot, but not nearly so humid as the inland jungles tended to be, and a salty-tasting breeze provided a comfortable tempering effect on the temperature.

It was so ama-

He froze, absolutely petrified by the horror before him.



The journey to the beach goes relatively well (although Swiftlit is passed out for most of it), and Calimn should catch up soon. Now, though, Jab and Swiftlit are going to have to deal with the horror on their own.

Felarya is Karbo’s

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated

Looks like Swiftlit caught sight of something big, blue, and wet.

Poor guy.

You son of a... I totally fell for the cliffhanger. Great story. I loved your description of flight and the awkard silence.

Can't wait for the next one.

Oh noes! The ocean! How horribles! Still, very well done.