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 Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 10:33 pm
Despite the many stories of crotchety old landlords and crazy cat people, Lex found her own cat-obsessed landlord to be a rather nice person. Strange, yes, but it certainly was nice of her to lend Lex her car for a few days. There was nothing but the sound of the wind and the smell of salty sea air as she drove on to nowhere in particular, which was a nice change from the bustle and closeness of the town. That, in turn, was much more pleasant from the gigantic city New York was turning into... If done properly, moving was a wonderful experience.
Chancing to look out at the dark waters, Lex could swear that she saw a teeny pinprick of light out along the coast. It was definitely not a bonfire, and it didn't have the reach of a flashlight... what could it be? Curious, Lex edged the car to the shoulder of the road and parked. Well, she wasn't going to be able to tell from this distance... there was only one thing to do.
"Erk... erm... HOgeez..." It might have been the only thing to do, but it certainly wasn't the smartest. Navigating the cliffside in the light would've been difficult enough, but in the dark?
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Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 5:29 pm
Blueshift grinned at Bolide's blue comment. He enjoyed being blue; after all, the only other animal he ever saw that was blue was some chirpy bird. It only flew around during the day, though, so the Cambrian didn't much care for it. Raven didn't like the fact that he was blue; he said it made him stand out too much. Blue certainly preferred standing out than looking like those bland humans.
He pricked his ears slightly; was there someone else out there? He couldn't tell. Maybe it was just the wind.
Raven was startled by the comment. He wasn't quite comfortable with being led by a giant shark Cambrian, but he didn't want to say no in fear of ticking him off. He got up. Well, at least this way they wouldn't get lost. Hopefully.
Blueshift on the other hand, was excited. Company! He did catch the sigh, though. Did Raven annoy him as much at he did to Blueshift? That had to be it.
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Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 7:23 pm
Assured that Blueshift and Raven would follow him, Bolide waded up onto the beach and began to stomp heavily southwards. After curling up to sleep, a long dreary walk was most unwelcome. He could see the necessity, however, and trudged along with as few grumbles as possible.
Though he was fairly certain that Blueshift and Raven weren't enemies, he couldn't quite figure them out. In Bolide's experience, humans of Raven's age didn't live alone. He couldn't know for sure, but from the boy's scent and ragged appearance he had been on his own for quite a while now. Possibly he had lost his home when he found Blueshift?
Blueshift was another problem. Try as he might, Bolide couldn't distinguish any sexual characteristics. He decided to chalk it up to Blueshift simply being a strange species, but it still bothered him. Bolide liked things to be cut and dry. The young Cambrian's attitude puzzled him as well.
If there were a noise drifting from across the beach, Bolide didn't hear it. He was thoroughly miserable at the prospect of walking all the way back 'home', and he wasn't paying much attention to the ambient noises of the beach.
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Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 7:54 pm
Ease your foot down. A crevice? Good. Carefully... now your hand.
Tentatively, Lex continued her descent down the cliffside. A chill wind began to pick up and nearly threatened to take her hat away (she had since gotten a new once, though she kept the old one back at her loft). Shivering, she silently cursed herself for wearing only a T-shirt and was about to reach her foot down when suddenly she lost her grip. Lex skidded down a few feet before grabbing on to a random branch sticking out from the rock face, banging up her knees rather harshly. "That'll leave a bruise," she muttered before the branch gave way.
...She found herself a few minutes later sprawled out on the ground, her mouth full of gritty sand. Half-coughing, half-spitting the stuff out, she turned over onto her back and promptly discovered that her right pants leg was torn and bloody. <********."
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 7:28 pm
Blueshift fell in behind Bolide, half lizard-walking, half inchworming forward, as was his usual gate, and Raven tried his best to follow Blue. A cold wind reminded him that, while his exposed skin had dried rather quickly, his clothes were retaining water like the Three Gorges Dam. Since he could only use Blue's natural light to an extent, he had to feel the rest of his way around, which wasn't boding well with his hands and feet starting to get numb. Why the heck did Blueshift have to be noctural?
Blueshift couldn't care less how much Raven was stumbling behind him. As long as he didn't have the gaul to fall on him, he left the uncoordinated human to his own devices. Besides, with another one of himself around, or at least close enough in the young Cambrian's mind, he actually had a decent rolemodel for once! There was something else to aspire to be than a two-legged, blind sack of flesh!
"Hey," Raven piped up through slightly chattering teeth after they reached a more smooth patch of beach, "I d-didn't catch you n-nam-" He was cut off by the sound of rock abruptly crumbling nearby. Both he and Blueshift looked around for the source, the former having to squint.
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 8:47 pm
As miserable as he was, Bolide could tell that Blueshift and Raven were having a worse time of it. The wind was rather chilly, but with his body mass it didn't bother him nearly as much as it bothered the other two. Bolide considered as he shuffled along over the sand. He doubted that the others would want to stop and bed down on the beach. Cold as they were, they probably wouldn't want to sleep on the gritty sand with the waves pounding over them. There was another option, but it was also one Bolide felt they wouldn't enjoy. He was too tired to pick them up and carry them both, but if he swam back to the Institute they could ride on his back. Experience told him that humans did not enjoy riding on his back for great periods of time -- especially ones not blessed with wetsuits. Besides, if either fell off and drowned, Bolide would feel pretty bad about it.
"I am Bolide," he said, not pausing to turn around in his onward march. Bolide wasn't much for idle chatter. At the sound of falling rock, however, Bolide froze stiff. Sounds; alien, unwelcome sounds. Bolide could feel an outraged bellow building up and and had to fight to stifle it. Wasn't it enough that he was shepherding these two all the way back to the Institute? Who was this new, extremely unwanted stranger? He could hear coughing, sputtering, the scrabbling noise of something trying to climb to its feet. A human, and a wounded one -- the thin tang of blood was in the air. An attacker! A foul, vile attacker, sneaking up on him in the dead of night. Bolide whipped around and stamped heavily towards the source of the noises. He was angry, angry, ANGRY. The barest sense of caution kept him from charging headlong into possible danger -- it wouldn't do to be run through or shot point-blank before he took a good chunk out of the enemy.
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 9:08 pm
Finally having made her way into a sitting position, Lex was about to examine her wound more closely when suddenly she heard a loud tramping coming towards her. Oh s**t. Just when things couldn't get any worse, they do. At least the light source she had spotted before was closer and she could see a little better. Whatever was coming for her was big, smelled of salt water... and looked vaguely familiar.
Familiar and terrifying.
"Holy- Bolide?!" she called out, trying to scramble into a standing position and failing miserably. Well, things weren't looking good at the moment. She was injured, fairly defenseless, couldn't see very well, and couldn't run. "Heh... well... I suppose this is one of the better deaths," mused Lex, grinning to herself at this morbid thought.
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 9:39 pm
Raven couldn't help but recoil visibly at the sight of an angry Bolide. He certainly didn't want to be next on his hitlist! However, morbid curiousity soon possessed him, and he went off, albeit with a slink, to see who was the unfortunate victim-to-be.
Luckily for Raven, Blueshift came along as well, but for different reasons.
He wanted to find out what was going on. He wasn't sure why Bolide got so angry so quickly at the sound of falling rock, but he didn't like it. He soon conceited to the fact that, well, it could be worse. He could've cowered like Raven, not wanting to die should it be something nasty lurking about. The least he could do was stand up and face death with acceptance!
Blueshift was more annoyed to find it was a human that caused the commotion, and one that didn't look to have done a successful job of sneaking around. Though, Blueshift, too, was curious. Except for pictures, he didn't really get to see humans other than Raven due to his paranoid tendancies. This one looked different, and not just because it was bleeding. He couldn't think as to why, though, and it bothered him. He twitched his nose and snorted. If Raven weren't skulking around at a distance, and if he still wasn't mad at him for before, he might've though to ask, which just sickened him ever moreso.
Raven, though farther away, could see the distinct figure of a human behind the massive Bolide. He could see a bit of blood, too, so if they were a member of Pikaia's Children, they must've not been very good at their job. He cast a quick glance at Blue to see if he was still okay so close, even if he was at the side, and noticed, for once, that his face was scrunched up. He couldn't tell with what, though. Anger? No, he'd seen him angry before, this looked somewhat different. Confusion, maybe?
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 9:54 pm
At the sound of the woman's voice, Bolide hauled up short, barely a foot from her. He howled, furious at being thwarted. The sound vibrated weirdly through the chambers of his hood, creating a bizarre atonal ululation. Bolide knew this woman, though not well. He had thought her sneaky then, and he definitely thought her sneaky now. "Are you following me?" he roared. "Das Luder! What do you do? Mach mich nicht an!"
Killing an innocent was an act generally frowned upon, but Bolide wasn't so sure this woman was innocent any more. She was dumb to go sneaking around after him unarmed, that was for sure. He stomped furiously, kicking up a spray of grit over Lex. "Verdammt noch mal," he growled.
A thought occurred. Once, Bolide had met an Enemy that Dr. Vrais had taken captive. That was a good idea. This foolish woman had no weapons and no electronic bugs. Bolide was close enough to her that the buzz of electricity would have irritated him, and all he felt was irritated at the situation in general. He would take her back to the Institute and let the doctors deal with her. If she tried to run, he would kill her. "You go with us," Bolide snapped, rounding on Lex again. "Up, now."
He backed off, lashing his tail furiously. Raven and Blueshift could be ignored for now. He wanted Lex up on her feet and marching with them.
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:13 pm
He was angry, there was no denying that, but... he wasn't killing her. Wow. Lex had figured that, because she had irritated him the last time they had met, any further irritation would cause Bolide to go berserk on her. Wishing to not upset him any further, Lex remained silent and tried once again to get on her feet. After a few unsuccessful attempts, she finally managed to stand, wincing heavily at the weight placed on her injured leg. Eventually, she chanced to look up and saw that the light source she had seen was, in fact, being emitted by another Cambrian, and that there was someone or something else some distance behind it. She thought of saying hello, but decided that the fragility of the situation warranted otherwise.
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:45 pm
Raven stayed where he was. Bolide was clearly not to be triffled with, or even present in a 1000 foot radius, for fear of dismemberment. Raven did, somewhere under his his feelings of fear and tiredness, want to say "hi" to this new person; he really hadn't seen another human in a long while. He, however, stayed where he was, since Bolide was obviously angry at the person, and assossiation might make him guilty as well in Bolide's eyes.
Raven was starting to feel like a zombie at this point. Not only was he tired, but he was starting to feel detached from it all. The night setting, his freezing self, Bolide, it was all contibuting to this dream-like state of affairs. He blinked slowly. He wasn't sure what to do or feel at this point.
Blueshift was starting to be a bit frightened of Bolide now, as well. His roaring was probably the most unsettling; in his mind, the action towards the human was justified, if they were, in fact, following Bolide. Blue had no reason to doubt Bolide's accusation, and even if he did, he wasn't about to go up to Bolide and ask. He got up to follow Bolide once more, though he kept a bit more distance this time around. He glanced back to see if Raven was coming, expecting him to be cowring in a crevice by this point. Instead, he saw him stand there, hunched over, and with a dead man's stare. He looked like he ate a bad mushroom, or something. Stupid human.
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 11:13 pm
To others, Bolide might seem irrational and easily angered, but he followed a strict moral code. Raven and Blueshift were strangers, but they had been placed under his protection. They were, at least temporarily, family. Seeing that he had frightened them, Bolide calmed slightly. Raven seemed almost comatose. The Cambrian shuffled over to him and reached to pat him rather awkwardly on the shoulder. "Is okay. I don't be hurting her, or you." He looked around, meeting Blueshift's and Lex's eyes. "Isn't good, to be sneaking up on others in the dark."
This being about as close as Bolide would come to an apology, he began to tramp heavily down the beach once more. In retrospect, Lex's actions hadn't been too threatening. Sure she was stalking him, but perhaps this was just due to infatuation. Hmm. He wasn't very interested in human females, but it seemed logical that Lex would prefer him to some wimpy human male. Lex was too dumb to be a serious threat, anyways. Bolide would let her down gently. "We aren't mating, okay female?"
With one human partially lamed and one staggering along like an animated corpse, Bolide wished more than ever that he had a way of carrying them. Though young, Blueshift was obviously strong enough to make the journey. What could he do? Maybe they would come across a conveniently abandoned vehicle on the way south. Yes, that would work. One of those big beachcombers, maybe. That would be big enough for all of them. "Keep all eyes open, if we are seeing an auto we will take."
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 4:45 pm
It appeared that Bolide was starting to relax, which was good. Much to Lex's surprise, he even went over to the other creature (which now looked very much like another human) and made an attempt to pat it on the shoulder. Hm... the other human didn't look so well. It was rather late, and Lex herself was beginning to feel the pangs of exhaustion. Or maybe it was a concussion. Either way, she didn't think that either she or the other human could make it very far without rest.
She was about to voice this when Bolide made some comment about mating, or rather, not mating. "Okay..." she replied, rather confused as to where comment had come from. Well... she had taken him by surprise twice now, and her appearance here at the shore was most likely highly unexpected... it did seem like she was stalking him. Again, she was about to say something when Bolide again interrupted with the idea to look for an auto. Aha! Perhaps she could redeem herself. "I came here in an automobile," Lex announced quickly, "though it won't fit all of us in it. The other person and I could maybe sleep in it... I don't think we'll be able to get very far without rest."
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 5:42 pm
Bolide's pat caused Raven to go ramrod straight. Augh, he did not like people sneaking up on him, even if it was his own fault. Though, the shock did snap him out of it. "Uhh, thanks!" he said in response to the fact that Bolide wouldn't be maiming him tonight, trying to sound enthusiastic at the end. "And sorry," he mentioned as an afterthought.
Blueshift's fear dissolved rather quickly after that. Raven never apologized! Then again, Raven usually argued that he never did anything wrong when he did in Blue's mind. Though, one thing Bolide said confused him. He tried searching what few silly English words he knew, but that wasn't one of them. "Female?" he finally piped up.
"A girl," Raven explained, once again hovering around Blueshift. She didn't look like a threat, and Bolide said he wouldn't, but it was better safe than sorry. Blueshift, however, still looked confused, and annoyed. What was this drivel? Couldn't they speak plain Korean like sane people?
"I'm up for some sleep!" volunteered Raven. "Uh, if that's okay. We'd be slowing you down an' all, if we, er, I, didn't." He corrected himself after a steely glare from Blueshift. Though, Blueshift agreed that he did have a point. Silly humans and their sun-loving ways, didn't they know the sun blinded? Sleeping was far easier during the day.
"I'm Raven, by the way," he introduced himself to this glorious person and her offering of sleep. "He's Blueshift."
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 6:22 pm
Sleeping in a car? Well, okay. If the humans and Blueshift slept, that meant he could get some sleep too! Bolide didn't really want to let them out of his sight, though. Supposing they snuck off without him? Oh, no. That wouldn't do at all. He snorted, mulling over Lex's offer. What to do, what to do. Bolide wanted to sleep on the beach, but the car probably couldn't be on the beach all night with him. Once he had gone to the beach in Martina's car and the auto actually sunk into the sand. Bolide had had to dig it out.
Hauling cars out of the sand not being one of Bolide's preferred hobbies, he was unsure of what to do. Maybe the humans had an idea. They knew more about cars than he did. "Okay, you sleep in the car. I will sleep on the beach. How to get the car near to the beach? Too close to the water, the car is sinking."
Another problem. Humans were notoriously attached to their cars. Cars had much more speed and stamina on land than Bolide did. Sprinting after a fleeing pizza truck was different than keeping track of a car for hours and hours. Unless Lex had a really big car, Bolide wouldn't be able to ride along in the morning, and he didn't want to lose track of her. Supposing she kidnapped Raven and Blueshift? Supposing all three of them got lost and were captured by militant wackos? Humf. No, no. Not at all.
If she had brought a boat, this would be so much easier, Bolide thought mournfully.
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