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 Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:24 pm
She had thrust her nose into the air in silent, pouting response to his earlier words, but at the apology she lowered her chin quite a bit. The familiar, quizzical brow arched above one of her eyes as she gave him a sidelong look. Had her ears heard what she thought they did?
"What?" she asked honestly, though her voice was harsh and splintery. Apologies were rare things to the girl's ears -- Anya, Rann, and Isaac said them rarely and Keres never said them at all -- and it was seriously weird to hear one of them from the boy next to her.
... Of course, there was always the possibility that he was "hav'na little fun" with her again, and her tail flicked behind her at the idea.
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Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 11:00 am
"Din't meanna make ye mad," Melchy mumbled, running the words together so quickly that they sounded like a single stream: dinmeannamakeyemad. "M'sry," he repeated, still mumbling and not meeting her gaze.
He didn't want Keres so mad at him that she'd never talk to him again; even with all the fuss they made and the fact that their relationship was more like a brawl than a friendship, he liked Keres. She wasn't a wimp like Harper, and she was more physical than Taki. She was, to put it as simply as possible, cool. And Melchy liked her. Or something.
Flicking his ears, he risked a sidelong glance at Keres, looking up at her from beneath his hair and through his eyelashes.
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Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:33 pm
Keres muttered a quick "Thought so" under her breath, and then hid it with a sharp clearing of her throat. The fact that he had actually repeated the apology for a second time quite surprised the sphinx, and in her mind (for now), she decided to sort of accept it.
"Never thought I'd hear that from you," she commented gravely as she flicked her eyes away from him, arms folding under her chest. She gave an absentminded sniff and quirked the corner of her mouth as if in thought. "I guess I can forgive you... but just this ONCE," she finally said, and then quickly rounded her torso on him.
With a stern glare she looked at him, "just. this. once," she repeated, poking a finger sharply on the side of his head with each word for emphasis.
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Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 5:59 pm
"Don' count on ever hearin'it agin," Melchy muttered under his breath but audibly, flashing a radiantly cheeky smile at Keres and then squeaking and ruining any pirate dignity he might have maintained as he apologized.
"Hey now, hands off the merchandise," he purred, grinning and winking at Keres and flicking his ears and tail with disinterest. One glance at the sky alerted him to time of day, and he made a face. "Ugh, gonna be gettin' too cold t'stay out wi'ou a coat," he said. "You live round 'ere, so I c'n call Cap'n an' have her come get me?" he asked, looking around for his boots and making a face when he realized that they had got dropped a lot farther up the beach, about when he had seen Keres. Looking down at his toes, he made another face. He hadn't realized how cold his feet were.
"Be righ'back, gotta go get m'boots," he said, then smiled. "Unless y'wanna come wi' me?" He offered his arm courteously to Keres, smiling pleasantly and radiantly.
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Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 7:25 pm
Keres hadn't actually noticed the fallen temperature, but now that he had mentioned it, she felt goose-bumps running up her arms and her ears were starting to pinch from the cold. Folding her arms tighter against her body, the smirk that had been on her face from Melchy's earlier comment slide off as she quirked a quizzical brow at his sudden... searching? What was he doing?
"Uhh," she began dumbly, still watching him look about, "The Rabbit's [Anya's] bar is just down there," she pointed a thumb in the general direction. "You can use the phone there." She gave a quick glance at the glowing bar in the distance and then looked back in time to see her friend's expression change into something... comical yet odd. Raising both eyebrows now, she canted her head and opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again a second later.
One question had been answered, but then a new had been offered. With a skeptical look, Keres glanced down at his arm. A moment of silence passed before her, and when it looked like she would pass, she gave a smirk and twined in her own arm. Who would'a thought he had manners... or that she even knew what to do with them?
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Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 8:01 am
"Right, then," Melchy said decisively when Keres pointed back at the bar. "We'll go right up there soon's I get my boots." When Keres linked her arm through his, he grinned in spite of himself and strolled easily down the beach. After a few moments, though, he realized that Keres was quite a bit taller than him...and this made it difficult to walk with linked arms. Nonetheless, he persevered with grace and elegance and style (or so he thought, anyways), acquiring a bit of a swagger, as if the fact that he were escorting someone gave him a captain's status.
As soon as he got to his boots, he disentangled himself from the sphinx-girl and went to work knotting his laces together so he could sling the boots over his shoulder for easy carrying. This completed, he looked at Keres with eyes that reflected the little remaining sunlight in a flash of startling aqua--cat's eyes.
"Race ye to th'bar," he called out, and was gone, sprinting full-tilt in the direction of the lights and faint music, almost before the words had time to leave his mouth.
It might have been cheating, but it was the only way he was going to beat Keres. She had two more legs than he did.
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Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 10:33 am
It happened so fast. One minute they were walking and then next that little bugger was sprinting off in a race! Keres' jaw dropped for a moment before she got the notion to get-a-move-on, and by that time there was a scowl of determination plastered on her face.
"YOU LITTLE CHEATER!" she hollered as she came up behind him. Her feline body was pumping at full throttle, large paws thudding and sending sand-splatter up into the air as she moved onto the wetter, denser sand. As she began to inch by, she gave a laugh and a hoot, "you'll never beat me! I got two sets of lungs; I can go FOREEVVVEEERRRR!"
With that said she started to speed up, but not without lashing her tail out at Melchy's feet and she scooted by. Hey, he cheated first!
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Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 11:21 am
He had known it was bound to happen. Keres couldn't stand being beaten by him. Cackling madly as he heard her pounding pell-mell up behind him, he put on an extra burst of speed. It was, naturally, no use, but Melchy had been prepared for that.
What he hadn't been prepared for was the tail. He stumbled, recovered, shrieked furious defiance like a cougar, and made a tackle-leap for Keres' human waist, with the full intent of swinging up onto her lion half and riding the rest of the way there.
"If ye got two sets of lungs and two extra feet, then I have no need for me own," he yelled out, wrapping his arms securely around Keres' waist and springing up. If he missed, then with any luck, he'd take her down with him and use his superior maneuverability to beat her there.
Keres was so much fun!
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Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 12:04 pm
Keres knew what he was about to do a split-second before it was done, but even so, that didn't stop her from legitimately screaming.
"MELCGETOFFYOUFATTUBOFLARDHOLYSHITGETOFFGETOFF!"
Her words came in a stream of what could be classified as mindless blabber from a psycho person throwing a fit. Her actions even fit the bill as well.
Trying to pry his grip from her middle, she slammed on the breaks, reared, and then (believe it or not) did some crazy skirting motion and well....before she realized that she had moved into extremely wet sand, they were both hit by what she would later swear to be the biggest wave in history.
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Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:16 pm
Melchy spent the entire time clinging to Keres and laughing like mad, like Christmas had come early and the only legitimately cool thing in the world had just happened to him. Even when Keres reared and he more or less lost his grip, the only thing he could think of to do was to laugh hysterically. And so he did.
When a thousand gallons of ice water crashed down on the pair of them, sucking Melchy neatly away from Keres and depositing him down the beach five feet from her, however, the first noise he mad was one of absolute dread. If you had strangled a panther, it would probably have made a much similar sound. Squalling and spitting, trying to puff up flattened fur and with his hair plastered to his head, he leaped up and screamed furiously at the ocean, which didn't respond in any way, shape, or form.
And then the wind picked up. Melchy was angry. Not at Keres, naturally (this was all his fault to begin with), but at the ocean. And while he made that peculiar roaring noise at the water, the wind whipped up from the land, thoroughly blasting Melchy and making him shudder convulsively. It was like a spontaneous hurricane in its ferocity, and like being hit with a massive block of ice in its cold pain.
After a minute, he coughed, and collapsed onto his behind, shivering in the already-dying wind. "Well," he managed after a thorough bout of coughing saltwater up from his lungs.
"Holy s**t," he added as an afterthought.
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Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:38 pm
Keres, who has been watching Melchy in almost stunned silence -- though whether that was from the cold water or his fit --, suddenly broke into hysterical, mad laughter.
Gripping her sides with her arms crossed over her torso, she cackled and laughed at the ground through sputters of coughing and wheezing. Her hair hung limp over her face and plastered her shoulders, the clip barely hanging from a few small chunks. She was still sitting in the water, smaller, itty-bitty waves splashing around her lion's back.
Laughing, laughing, laughing. She covered her mouth with a salty hand and her eyes were clamped shut. The cold that enveloped her body was, for the moment, going unnoticed, as it seemed that she had knocked a screw loose in her head or something.
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Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 5:41 pm
Melchy blinked when Keres started laughing, putting his ears back and watching with an expression of utmost alarm when he realized that the girl was cackling like a madwoman. He had never met a genuine crazy before, but his bedtime stories as a baby had consisted of swashbuckling adventures, and madmen turned up quite regularly...this was how Melchy had always pictured them. Well, minus the extra set of feet and the wings and everything.
"Uhm...Keres?" he said quietly, creeping slowly toward the girl and reaching out. He took her shoulder and shook her gently, expression concerned. He also looked ready to bolt away from her at any time.
"Ker, what're ye doin'? Ye're scarin' me," he said, voice both concerned and gruff.
Had he broken her?
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Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 6:51 pm
As he took her shoulder, Keres' mad laughter turned a little less crazy and went into a...softer "hooing"? Or something that resembled such. Her laugh was weird.
"Youh-your face," she managed to being after several unsuccessful attempts. Waving one hand and half covering her mouth with the other, she continued after another "hoohoo" giggle, "it was just so f-funny!"
Another small fit gurgled up out of her before she lifted her head and wiped some sort of saline liquid -- whether it was tears or ocean water -- from her eyes. For a minute she tried to calm herself, and in that time succeeded... that is until she looked at Melchy again. With his hair spiked like god-who-knows how in some areas, and then flattened in some, as well as the soggy rat-like tail, she imagined his "angry" face and snorted. A hand clapped back over her mouth as she stared at him.
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Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 7:07 pm
As Keres calmed down, Melchy relaxed and released her. "Ah, good," he said, returning to a lazy drawl that was more fitting. The wind had returned, though not in a gust, more like a lazy friend or a kitten that hadn't realized that it was unwanted....and was making his teeth chatter. He grit them and shook his head, then paused as what Keres had said sank in.
"Wait, you sayin' I look funny?" he demanded, shifting his stance so he was standing with his feet wide apart, fists planted on his skinny hips as he glared...up...at Keres, unconsciously mimicking Katrina and thus assuming a thoroughly feminine scolding pose. He snorted and shook his head, tossing wet bangs off of his forehead.
"Y'don' look so hot either, Keres. Y'look 'bout as wet and mis'rable as I feel." He paused, then snorted again and shook his head. "We both got abou' half th'ocean dumped on us, after all."
Then he paused, shivering heavily in the wind and looking at Keres. "C'mon, 's'freezing ou'. Le's get inside." And with that, he offered his arm again, with full intent of making it to the bar and warmth and a phone.
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Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 7:26 pm
"Yeah, but I wasn't the one throwing a total hissy at the ocean," she chided with another giggle, which then grew to another true laugh in response to his pose. "Too bad you're not a girl; you got that whole hands-on-your-hips-scolding-pose down," she drawled as she moved off her haunches and gave her feline body a shake. Water droplets flew in every direction, but Keres paid to mind to what they hit -- the cold became realized in her head.
With an uncontrollable sudden spasm of shivers, she took his offered arm. "Hopefully Anya's in a drinking contest or something... 'cause she is so not going to be happy with us being soaking wet," she commented mainly to herself, the bar on its small cliff and stilts becoming larger with time.
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