((this is a Looooooooong self indulgent introductory post. ^_^ The bottom line of the writing here is that Gus and Keppit went through the door into the past and once they got there Keppit was no longer a zombie. She's happy, he's confused and they're heading down into the town. Anyone can join in at this point... or else I'll keep it going until someone feels that they can jump in ^_^ ))
Gus sighed to himself as his adopted mother pushed him up the drive to the Jivvin manor. This was slightly humiliating to say the very least, but at least she had let him change out of his work uniform before she had hauled him out and thrown him into the car. He really was lonely, and he really did need to get out of the house and back into Jivvin life.... but it had been so long.... And he didn't really know anyone anymore.
"Hey lovely blue ears... whatcha thinkin' about?" Gus turned to Keppit and sighed again. She was his mother and he really liked her, but she was hard to understand sometimes. There she was, a zombie, far from pretty, far from atractive in any way, and yet she never seemed to care. She had bright orange/red hair that was never combed and always in knots on her head, her clothing hung in odd angles on her rotten frame, she smelled of rotten vegetables, her eyes had a haunted yellow deadness about them, and her fingers and hands were covered in scars and stiches from all the times that she'd had to make repairs on bones and skin that didn't tend to heal itself.... She could have been the main character in his worst nightmares, but instead she was his mother and she was grinning at him... and her teeth were all yellow.
"Nothing much." He turned and looked up at the house. "Keppit, no one I know is going to be there. I mean... My generation is all grown up and moved out of thier homes with jobs and families... " Or missing in Fen's case. Gus hadn't spoken to Fen since he became a fourther. Actually that very day, he and Fen had gone on an adventure through the woods for fourther crystals with Jack... the blue eared Jivvin touched the crystal around his neck without really thinking about it.
"Gus, my love..." She walked up beside him and slipped her bandaged arm around his waist. She was taller than he was, by a good three inches. "It doesn't matter. You are the kind of person who could make friends with anyone no matter what age or species.." She wrapped her other arm around his front and gave him a quick squeeze. "You're gonnae go in you ken... "
he grinned... "I ken... but I think I just want to stand out here and stare up at the building for a while."
Keppit released her grip and walked up towards the house. "You better come inside soon then or else I'll be comming back out here to get you and I'll bite your ears off!" She smiled ear to ear at him.
"That would scare me if you weren't a total pushover and a vegetarian to boot... " He watched her back as she made the last final steps up the house... but at the last step she turned around and started walking backwards.
"I mean it!" But Gus wasn't watching her anymore. He was staring out into the woods. This really was a lovely place, and the whole wooded area really made him feel at home. Keppit's house was in the middle of Barton woods, a small one roomed cabin that somehow seemed to safly house all the family comfortably... He smiled. The woods the lake the whole place... wonderful.
Gus turned and walked up towards the house, but when he got to the front door he noticed something strange...
The door to the past was slightly open. He'd never really even given the other two doors any thought, he always just walked through the main door to the house... but the past door was open? Was he suppose to just shut it? Or just leave it? Was it supposed to be like that? He couldn't just leave it... no, what if some unsuspecting person walked through it?
"Hello?" He stepped up to the door "Hello anyone in there? I'm just going to shut the door now, if... um... if you don't mind... just so you know." He layed a hand on the door and started to pull it shut... but a pale hand shot through the misty blur and grabbed him...
"Oh no you're not! You're commin in here!" And the hand dragged Gus through the door and into the past.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gus blinked and sat up slightly. His head hurt a little... or did it? The sun was shining. It hadn't been shining just a moment ago... had it?
"Get up!" He blinked a couple of times to give his eyes a chance to adjust to the light and then looked up to see a young woman standing over him. She was quite pretty in a strange way... She had long strawberry-blonde hair done up in two braids, blue eyes, and she was wearing a very dirty oversized tunic on leggings. Her boots were a skin of some kind tied up with a twine, and her expression was almost scary. She looked like a teenage girl (or a woman, it was hard to tell through the grime) that had gotten into some mud about a month ago and not had a bath since, and the expression on her face plainly said that this was the best day of her life. "Get up! Lookit me!" She reached down and grabbed Gus's arm, pulling him to his feet. "Isn't it great?!?"
Gus rubbed his face in frustration... sure this is great... "You um... I'm sorry, do I know you?"
"Gus!" The girl/woman laughed. "It's me! It's Keppit!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The poor guy was now over most of the intiial shock of the moment and now he was following the woman... his mother... down the path towards the village. "Um.... Keppit? ... Where are we going? The house is that way... "
"I want to go to town... see what's there and have people see me like this... Look! My skin is... skin!" She turned to face him, smiling ear to ear.
He stopped and stared at her for a second. "Um... Have you always... I mean..." He rubbed the back of his neck in discomfort... "Did you look like this before... the ... um... You know."
She smiled. "Yeah, kind of. I didnae have strawberry hair, I had blonde hair, and I was certainly pretty before it all. I mean, I looked like Ranald only with more colour." She raised her hand and shook her oversized, mudcovered sleeve around in the air. "I dinnae ken about the clothing, but I guess that being a member of the legion of the walking undead in the present makes you a pretty low-class person in the past... Bu I dinnae mind." She grinned at Gus and then Threw her arms around him, wrapping him in a tight hug. "I'm a human again! I'm alive Gus!"
But not even three seconds later she pulled back slightly from Gus, a worried expression on her face. "You're soft..." She said it like it was something she had never known. "You're soft and warm." She seemed shocked, and it suddenly occured to Gus that humanity and life came with feelings... no, not inner feelings like love and hate, happy and sad... but simple things like soft, and warm.... things that everyone else had always had and really didn't think about.... simple wonderful sensations.
It was sad. She had never known that his fur was soft, and she had never really felt the warmth of his body as he hugged her... and so he hugged her. Right then and there he gathered his mother into his short arms and hugged her with every ounce of love he had in his heart... and for Gus that was quite a bit....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He let her go and without a word between them the turned and headed down into the town area.
