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 Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:13 pm
JoJo walke slowly along the water's edge, observing the newly rising sun as it stained the water red like the gigantic slaying of some monstrous beast. Still echoing the happiness and cheer of the previous night, the birds were in full chorus behind him, oblivious to how red the sky was, concerned only with the coming of a new day.
He still felt happy over the night before; for the first time since it had happened, he had had a good time being around Tolfitken in her human form. He felt as though it was the first big step in him putting aside his dislike for all things humanesque and focusing on what mattered more.
But being the first to reach the beach, and therefore witnessing the bloody sunrise, he felt a bit of unease. 'Red sky in the morning, sailirs take warning', so the saying went. He sincerely hoped that he had not been unwise in choosing the beach to meet at; it would be just his luck if he chose a day where it rained on the beach.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:25 pm
 Tolfitken skipped down the beach after JoJo, getting much more used to her human form now that she wasn't afraid to try it out. The night before had been much more at ease with them once they had confronted eachother and themselves and now they were getting to enjoy the day together.
Secretly she hoped that the light of dawn would not illuminate her form more than the soft shine of the moon had. She still didn't know how at ease JoJo was, but he was making an effort, and so would she. The best way to get used to something was to be around it more. And being around JoJo made her happy in ways she was not yet ready to part with, which reminded her of one of the conditions of the walk along the beach.
"We still haven't discussed that bribe," she said with a grin, "You accepted it without even knowing the terms."
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:39 pm
JoJo turned and smiled at Tolfitken's voice, not letting the slightest hint of unease show as she walked toward him on two legs instead of four. Seeing her in the light, he had to admit, there were a few characteristics that he liked. The clothes looked interesting; he was used to seeing namrah in clothes, and he still thought her red-tipped hair was an improvement. It also didn't hurt that the mussed style so resembled the boy's. Remembering him before the fire, it somehow became easier to open up to the human-resembling Tolfitken.
He chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully. "True, I let you up without even taking your bribe, which hadn't even been decided. Well," he said, all business-like, "What is it you would like to offer?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:46 pm
Tolfitken pondered for a moment, eyeing JoJo critically. "Why don't you tell me what kind of bribe you would like to accept before I put any offers out," she said slyly. After all, it would be much more fun for her to give something if she knew what he actually wanted, instead of trying to do something funny only to have an adverse reaction. She wondered if she would ever get over her hesitancy.
It had been there before, when he was teaching her to sing but reluctant to do anything more than that as far as she was concerned. Not wanting to scare away her only seeming friend she had hung back, just like she was doing now, though she supposed her reason for doing so now had a deeper backing. And she wanted even more not to scare away the one person she was finding herself liking more than anyone else.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 9:04 pm
Sticking his tongue out the side of his mouth thoughtfully, JoJo pondered for a moment. He still didn't like to admit it, but he had previously thought that human fingers had advantages over paws, like finding that sweet spot behind the ears that always seemed to want to be scratched. Perhaps he could ask for a scratch...but would it sound too undignified, even silly?
He was about to ask and find out, but as he opened his mouth, his ears suddenly stood straight out. All of the birds had gone silent; where there had been a veritable concert of cheeps, chirps and squawks, now the only sound to be heard was the gentle hissing of the sand being stroked by the ebbing flow of water.
Feeling the back of his neck prickle, he looked toward the trees just in time to see the birds taking wing all at once, flying inland in a whirring cloud of feathers. In less time than it took to realize that every last one had gone, nothing remained of them save for a feather or two and the same unnerving silence. "Something's wrong...." JoJo said, looking about uneasily. "Wild animals; they're always the first to know..."
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 9:18 pm
Tolfitken giggled at the sight of his tongue, waiting patiently for him to divulge his desire for the bribe. His mouth opened and her ears pricked expectantly, but instead of his voice ringing among the birdsong her ears were filled with an eerie silence. She looked up at the same time JoJo did and her blue and red eyes narrowed in confusion.
"Yeah... Do you know what it might be?" she asked, recognizing his posture from the tornado incident. There weren't any clouds in the sky, so it couldn't be a tornado, but then what was it?
Inwardly she cursed at fate again, secretly hoping that the disaster would be a false alarm. Why was it that everytime they were having genuine fun something came along? It seemed that fate was harder to defy than she had guessed, and this was only the beginning of their budding relationship, what would it throw at them if they went any further? Her ears laid back and she growled, at fate and whatever disaster might be headed their way.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 9:48 pm
JoJo was about to answer when he was seized by what felt like a sudden spasm of fear. He felt the very bottom of his paws tremble, and a few tiny grains of sand shifting. A deep earthquake? No, it couldn't be. His eyes suddenly filled with terror and denial as he looked out to the sea. He wasn't sure, but he fancied he could see a few ripples on the surface that didn't look natural. He knew what it meant, and for a moment he was immobilized, too shocked to move.
When he saw the tide rapidly receding, revealing large shells and fish that flopped about in the muddy sand, he turned toward Tolfitken with the same sort of urgency that he had shown when the tornado had shown up. "It's coming; we've got to hurry. Get as far inland as you can, and if you come across anything high, like a big hill, climb it. We don't have much time; a few minutes at most. I've got to make sure there's no one else around. This is going to be bad, Tolfitken; very bad."
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Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 7:16 am
Watching JoJo grow more and more afraid, Tolfitken began to fidget nervously, a stone settling in the bottom of her gut as she tried not to panic. Even with the tornado she didn't think he was this scared. She wanted to curse at fate the more; was all it wanted was for JoJo to be afraid?
She jumped in surprise when the water on the shore next to them vanished, draining away as if some giant had decided to gulp it down in one long draught. Her eyes grew wide and pained as she turned back to JoJo, "You're not going to make me go ahead without you!?"
Before she had merely not wanted to be left behind by her only friend at the time. That seemed trivial to her now, now she was tempted to be even more adamant about leaving him behind; it was something she didn't think she could do. They had gotten so close and come so far, and fate was interceding with disaster again, trying to separate them, and she didn't now if this time it meant to separate them for good.
But would she really be a help if she stayed? She in her new form that could hindrance JoJo into possibly staying in the danger longer than was needed in order to watch over her. If anything happened to him because of her again, she didn't know what she would do. Even so, she was still unable to tear herself away from the shore to follow his orders, her eyes paying no attention to the disappeared sea or the danger it possessed.
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Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 5:58 pm
JoJo's eyes widened in suprise, then he found himself shaking his head. What was he thinking? Tolfitken wouldn't just run off and get herself to safety and leave him behind. Not even for a second natural disaster. And she in turn wouldn't allow him to leave her behind, even if it was to work his natural ability and forewarn the whole area.
He fought to keep his eyes on Tolfitken instead of the shore. "Okay then, here's what we're going to do. I don't know how fast you can run, but I want you to run inland as fast as you can. Tell anyone you see to get to high ground. Don't worry; I'll be doing the same. But promise me that if you come across a good high spot, you'll take it, okay?"
He didn't know if Tolfitken would agree, but he hoped that her being able to help would make her feel as though she wasn't being left out. Truthfully, he didn't want to leave her behind anymore than she wanted to be left behind, but neither did he want to put her in danger.
JoJo suddenly tensed as he felt another tremor in the ground, a bit stronger than before, and he turned his head quickly to face the ocean. He saw what he had feared, though to someone else it probably wasn't noticeable, and his eyes went wide. He fancied he could already hear the roaring of the gigantic eave getting closer and preparing to rear itself out of the water and pound the shore. He turned to Tolfitken. "Hurry! We've got to move now!"
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Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 8:07 pm
Tolfitken nodded and her eyes hardened in determination. "Be careful!" she called as she began to run down the shore for a short way before turning inland. Her eyes darted about for anyone who might be wandering the woods this close to shore, refusing to waiver the slightest in the task that had been given her.
While she looked through the forest with her sight and dashed around with her legs, she thought of JoJo still in her mind, and the fog of worry that surrounded his image as she had no way of knowing whether they could safely find each other again after the terror had passed. She continued to run, glancing about the woods as she went.
It was because of her focus on her mission that she didn't notice the ravine until it was almost too late, her humanesque feet leaping over it as wide as they could, her hands grasping at the ledge as she hit the other side with only her top half making it to the loose rock supporting the other side. She gasped as the breath was knocked out of her lungs and scrabbled to pull herself from the crag in the ground.
JoJo had told her to find a high place to ride out the wave, and here she had gone and found a low place to become trapped. Growling in her anger that she had only proven to herself that she was indeed a hindrance, she grappled even more feircely with the gravel that came away easily in her hands and sent her sinking lower into the crevice, until it completely gave way beneath her arms and sent her tumbling into its depths.(Sorry, decided I wanted some suspense for her flight sweatdrop
Add on a little more than just having a turnabout repeat of the tornado episode)
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Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 10:31 pm
(('Tis fine. ^^))
Not knowing of Tolfitken's tumble, JoJo was dashing through the woods in a different direction, sending forth a loud, long call, almost wolf-like, knowing it would cause people to take notice and it would save him some breath for running. He did wonder how far she had gone inland and whether or not she had found a suitable place yet.He knew that he probably wouldn't find one in time; he was obligated to warn as many as possible, and he doubted he could outrun a tidal wave.
Though he was now a fair distance from the shore, he heard the sudden roar as the massive wave reached the shoreline and reared itself up like an impossibly huge dark-green Arbok, poised to lash the dry land with its fury. He heard the boom as the first crest smashed the sand, and the hiss of the water as it began to rush through the trees and snap them like so many toothpicks. The ground comtinued to tremble, but this time from the wave as it pushed destructively onward, consuming everything in its path.
As the ruckus grew louder, JoJo ceased to call and focused solely on running. Despite his having to watch and make sure his haste didn't take him straight into a tree, he kept scanning the woods for any sign of a white-haired anthro with red clothes.
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Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 10:50 pm
A strange roaring filled Tolfitken's ears, causing her eyes to snap open as she tried to sit up only to find that she was laying facedown in a pile of dirt at the bottom of the crag. She pushed herself to her feet, ignoring the protests of her bruised arms and legs, to look up at the light filtering down from the opening of the crag above her. Her right arm, its sleeve not in tact to begin with, hung at her side a little more painfully than she thought it should have, but other than that she was only inflicted by minor scrapes and scratches.
The roaring was quickly getting louder. It gave her no chance to curse herself once more for her ineptatude, or curse fate for messing with her life again. Instead she could only search for a place to hide or cling to in the crevice. A large boulder sat nearby, gratefully she hadn't landed on that, and she quickly dashed to it to cling against it with her left arm. Her hope was that the wave might act as a pyroclastic flow and simply dump pressure on her without actually flooding her narrow cage.
But seeing as how fate was pressed against her and the top of the crag was actually quite wide and loose, and since she know nothing of how tidal waves reacted with the land compared to the muddy flows of volcanic ash, she wasn't holding her breath for that. She could only wait for the roaring to grow deafening to her poor sensative ears before she took a deep breath and braced herself for the surge of water to overtake her crevice. Just before it hit she found herself fervently wishing that JoJo had found a better spot than hers, hoping that if fate was with her at the moment then it was not targeting him.
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Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 9:15 pm
Knowing that fate aside, tidal waves had no such preference, JoJo was struggling to keep himself away from the foaming wall of water rapidly gaining on him. Even now he could just feel flecks of seawater peppering his tail as it drew ever closer. The roaring was filling his ears; he doubted that he would hear himself if he shouted at the top of his lungs. At any rate, he focused every ounce of strength he had on running.
But as his tail grew steadily wetter, he realized with a sudden spasm of dread that it wouldn't be enough. He couldn't outrun a tsunami; that was for movies. No matter how much he ran, he would get snatched up by the water and swept away, perhaps to smash into a tree with all the force of a hurricane, breaking him into pieces. Or he might drown, and be swept away with the rest of the flotsam and wind up choking some river someplace, food for the minnows.
He felt a pang of sadness for Tolfitken; he didn't even know if she had made it to safety or not, but even if she had, he might not, and he rmembered how she could be when she was sad. She probably would never recover. Such was fate.
He suddenly widened his eyes, ignoring the drops of seawater being flung over his head and sprinkled into his eyes. Again it all seemed to boil down to fate. Were the two of them destined to be plagued by fate? Well, he thought with some amusement, if they both survived this, what a slap in the face it would be to fate.
He smiled and closed his eyes, and as the roaring water filled his ears and he felt himself being propelled forward, he felt oddly at peace.
((Reminds me of me when I dream about encountering tidal waves. XD))
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Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:01 pm
The water slammed into her, making Tolfitken lose most of the breath she had been trying to hold. It roared through her crevasse, sweeping not only her but the large boulder she had been clinging to into a muddy vortex as it surged, roiling and tumbling Toflitken in the current until what little breathe she had left escaped her jaws. Long before the violent waters passed she was whisked into blissful unconsiousness.
She blinked her eyes open slowly, only vaguely realizing that something was wrong with her. A painful throbbing had taken hold of her head and the upper half of the right side of her body. Her thoughts tried to remember where she was, only recognizing the blue sky above as a different view than last she had seen it, obscured by rock on all sides.
Her arms moved to lift her from the ground and she found that the reason her right side hurt was because she was laying on top of her right arm. It was not a very comfortable position to be in, but she discovered that she currently lacked the strength to shift onto her side and free her arm. Or even to the other side so she could roll over and onto her stomache.
There was a reason she wanted to be on her stomache, she frowned as her vision began to darken again, and belatedly realized that she wasn't breathing. She tried to suck air into her lungs in a panic. I'm not dead, I'm not dead, if I breath, then I am not dead, do ghosts still need to breath? Her last thought went unanswered as she finally gave up on trying to breath in, I guess I really am- her body spasmed in its effort to breath and the arm under her back stiffened to roll her onto her side, the action twisting her stomache and causing her to double over as the water that had overtaken her lungs spewed forth.
She coughed and sputtered, then vomited up more water until she beleived that she had swallowed at least half of the wave before her lungs finally filled with air. Wincing while she painfully got her breathing under control, still curled up on her side with her lungs demanding more even though they had no more room for air to flow in without fear of bursting, she tried to figure out where she was.
Her damp hair clung to her forehead as she weakly moved her neck from side to side to take in her surroundings. Well, the wracking pain that her body was currently shivering in meant that she was either still alive or in some bizarre level of the underworld where she would probably soon pay for her self-inflicted masochistic crimes. Thinking that her current scenery looked more like Namiah than the possible other solution, she assumed she was still alive.
Another something important nagged at her mind, but since her lungs were now able to function properly and her tired limbs were no longer contorted into a painful position she began to lose her grip on her thoughts again. Her eyes began to slip closed, and, now drunk on life-giving air, she slipped once again into the peaceful sleep of unconsiousness.
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Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 8:25 pm
It was just like the worst of his nightmares, when he had slipped and fallen into the river and had been swept away, leaving the human boy at the mercy of the burning forest. But while the river water filled his world with darkness, seawater included the pain of salt getting into his eyes and nose. And though the river had gone fast, he felt as though he was strapped to the front of a bullet train, and he was heading right toward a cliffside.
Every several seconds, he would feel something slam into him or poke him; it hurt, but he couldn't look to see if any of the jabs drew blood, though he was certain at least one was. He had no concept of up or down, and it wouldn't matter anyways; he was being spun every which way as well as being propelled forward, a tiny leaf in a monster tornado.
He knew he had a god chance of coming to a sudden stop, but he was still unprepared as he suddenly felt his back slam into something hard. He gasped and let out his last ounce of air, peering through stinging eyes and watching the precious air bubble away. He tried to breathe in and got only water; he blew it back out before he could get a bad amount into his lungs, but now he had no means of getting oxygen. Refusing to breathe in more water, he clamped his eyes and mouth shut and forced his nose to be still. Darkness began to tear at his consciousness, and the last thing he thought of before it overtook him completely was that he was surely going to die.
After floating about peacefully in a sea of blackness, JoJo slowly became aware of what felt like a lifetime's worth of aches and pains as he slowly found himself coming to. His side throbbed, his neck felt sore, and his back felt as though it had been snapped in half like a twig. He moaned and opened his eyes. It looked like a typical waterlogged landscape, save that it was upside down. JoJo raised his head to look up and was surprised to see the rest of his body. Apparently, the tsunami had body-slammed him upside-down into a tree, where he had stayed until the waters had receded. It would have been comical had it not hurt so bad.
He willed his feet to wriggle and saw them respond, so he knew his spine was still intact, but it still hurt enough to cause him to gasp if he tried to move at all. He drew in a breath and tried to call out. "Tolfitken...." Despite his attempt, it came out just slightly louder than a whisper. Undaunted and ignoring how much it hurt, he tried a little louder. "Tolfitken!"
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