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 Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 12:29 am
It shouldn't have been possible. In fact, had the thought ever sincerely occurred to Valeriu, he would have dismissed it after a moment's notice.
But gods were gods. And Tezcatlipoca was a particularly contradictory deity.
After a week of silence, he'd spoken. One day, out of the blue - startling Valeriu so badly that the nailgun in his hands jerked up and shot the wall (his mother's wallpaper!). After his change (and Valeriu still struggled to accept what he'd become, even as the monthly deadline for his future sustenance loomed closer and closer), the god had all but disappeared from thought. Withdrawn into his grey world and throne of skulls, presumably contemplating in boredom.
It had to have been boredom. Why else would the man suggest such a thing? To offer a gift that Valeriu had not even considered possible?
Of course he'd refused. Vehemently, audibly, speaking aloud to the voice in his head within the sanctity of his own home. Of course Tepin had heard, and been drawn to the conversation-come-argument.
And, of course, Valeriu had lost.
He wasn't sure if he regretted it or not - the paranoia for Tepin and Sydni's safety warred against his own bliss at the turn of events.
A family vacation, Tezcatlipoca had called it (and saracasm had dripped from his grinning fangs). A test, was what Valeriu knew it was. Only it wasn't just for him, this time. Sydni was settled, nestled in Tezcatlipoca's clutches, and here he and Tepin blazed a not-so-new trail across the green and stony ruins of Tezcatlipoca's created world.
Gods were...definitely something different.
But he might've been glad for the look on her face. Just a bit.
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 12:47 am
It was amazing. Never before in her life had Tepin seen so much green in one place, let alone so much green that was actually alive. Everything seemed to stir around her. Be it from the gentle winds or the feet of the many animals hidden in the jungle, it just seemed that compared to their grey, dead world, this was the world of dreams.
Valeriu had not been lying when he told her about this place-- it was clear that his emotions were well placed. The jungle, the world here… It was amazing! This world… It was as if it really existed. So green and beautiful, punctuated with the occasional blooming flower or strange new animal to see.
Even if she didn’t have the senses that Valeriu did, Tepin could tell they were not alone in the jungle. The calls, the cries, even the sudden movements from the corner of her eye-- it all showed signs of life. Listening to the birds was something else altogether. Their strange cries seemed so foreign, so ancient… It felt as though she and Valeriu were the only two people in the world.
She turned from staring at a bright frog, beaming at him. It was too great.
“You’re sure it’s okay?” Even though her words seemed hesitant, her tone seemed nothing but enthusiastic, “This isn’t just some plot to knock me up so you can win the game?”
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 1:04 am
He choked, tripped, slipped a few too many inches across the slick moss, tail lashing for balance and whirling to give her his patented "do you even know what that means why would you say that no!!!" look.
"No!" he grumbled, blushed, shaking his head and regaining his footing - bare footed here, the pads of his feet carefully gripping onto the ground beneath him. "It is okay. There v'ill be no - no - none of that."
Campsite. He wanted to get to it - his cozy little wood and reed hut, and pretend he hadn't just heard those words from her mouth.
"So," he ventured unsuredly, turning the corner that he knew would lead them down to the roots of the trees that rose around them. "V'hat do you think?" His hand brushed over a familiar carving inset into the wall at their sides - fondly. He knew those lines. Had run his hands over it a dozen times. He knew all the strange and wondrous designs etched into the temples here.
It was perplexing - as often as Tezcatlipoca seemed to change his mind, the jungle here hardly ever shifted in accordance to the god's moods. Beyond the abrupt new addition of the swamp, it was the same as it had always been.
"I know it is a long v'alk," he added, chancing a glance at her again. He would admit it - he wanted her to like this place. "But v'hen v'e get there, there is a river, and a v'aterfall further down. And once I restock the firev'ood, it v'ill be nice to have a fire."
A droplet from the recent rain dripped off the leaf of some branch above him, bouncing onto his ear and causing it to flick thoughtfully. As beautiful as the scenery was, and as excited as he was to be able to bring someone to such a place, he wouldn't relax until their campsite was in sight.
The jungle was always dangerous. It was best not to underestimate it.
He grinned, though.
"Do you like fish?"
Fish would make a good dinner. Tapirs, too - but he didn't think she'd enjoy the thought of eating the sweet and adorable animal they'd spotted farther back along the path.
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 8:31 am
She watched his strange dance, wondering just how flustered one could get at the thought of death. Why was he blushing, anyway? She had asked a simple question, hadn’t she? Whether or not he wanted to off her to get her out of the--
Off. Not up.
Off. Knock one off.
Knocking one up was….----!!!!
Crap!! She had said something unintentional again! That was so bad. She was totally embarrassed… But to admit she was wrong would be even more embarrassing. She could just… play if off! Ignore it! He’d forget it eventually if she did. Yes, the best course of action was most definitely to avoid the subject altogether.
Which is why a very relieved sigh came from the girl when Valeriu changed the subject.
“Well,” She looked around, trying to find the right kind of words to use, “It smells kinda weird, but it’s definitely a better smell than the city.”
Another look around, how was someone supposed to sum all of this up?
“It’s really pretty… I just don’t wanna get all distracted looking at it and then have like a jaguar come out of nowhere and kill me.”
She continued to follow obediently. Actually, everything she did had to be obedient. She had worn closed-toed sneakers, long pants, and a sweatshirt as per his request, and not brought anything that might attract animals… In fact, she had hardly brought anything. Valeriu had made it clear that the jungle was something else altogether, and objects from the city would mostly just take up space and be extra weight to carry. Aside from an “Emergency Kit” consisting of tampons and midol, Tepin was pretty much without goods.
“Mmmmrrrrr.” She let out a whine, looking up at him with puppy dog eyes, “You’re not gunna tell me that we’re gunna go kill ‘em, are you? I don’t think I can eat something that was just swimming along with it’s family… And them BAM! Dead and in my stomach? “
She frowned, picking her way around a particularly long tree root.
“Why didn’t we just bring our own food?”
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 10:08 am
"As long as I am around, no harm v'ill come to you," he vowed. He had to resist the impulse to pick her up and carry her as protective as he once had; but she wasn't a little girl anymore, and probably wouldn't appreciate the gesture as much now.
Something about being able to walk on her own two feet - that was what his mother had yelled at his father.
He snorted, ruffling Tepin's hair wryly.
"Unless you v'ant to be a vegetarian for this trip. Either v'ay, it v'ill end up dead and in someone's stomach," he patted his tummy. He looked forward to dinner - the fish here lacked the strange taste of those in the City. At first, it had been startling and a bit off-setting; someone raised on the taste of the City's food wouldn't easily take to anything else.
But once he'd took, it'd stuck. Instinctively, he'd recognized - this was how food was supposed to be. To taste. It made going back even harder.
They'd reached the end of the wild steps, and truly entered into the forest. The light here was more dappled, harder to see through for now, and the hum of the insects ever louder. But he could hear the waters of the river already.
"Many reasons," he elaborated for the girl, patient as ever and lifting up a bogged down branch in their path for her, "First: Tezcatlipoca does not like artificial constructs being brought into his...artificially constructed v'orld. The most he ever allows is the clothes upon our backs."
It was a fight to get Tepin's "extras" approved.
Valeriu was still not allowed to bring a razor.
"Second, v'e v'ould have had to bring non-perishables - everything else v'ould have spoiled. No fridges here. And finally, if there v'ere to be an emergency, like a flash flood - v'e'd need to move fast and not be v'eighted down or dependent on our supplies."
That was a decent rationale.
"Plus," he confessed, weaving his way around a trunk, "it is tastier. Much tastier. Many things here are edible, and delicious. Capybaras, lizards, sloths and pigs-" he was listing off of his fingers by now, tail brightly waving behind him. "I v'ant to try caiman this time!"
That was a man's revenge on the giant crocodilian beast that had attacked him: find his kin, and eat them.
Mm. Delicious kin.
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 6:52 pm
She followed behind like a duckling, mirroring his steps with the utmost of attention. One wrong slip, and she could fall on some kind of poisonous bug or something!!
She ducked under the branch, smiling at him before turning her attention forward once more. It seemed that no matter how deep into the jungle they ventured, Valeriu knew the way. By some gift of the Gods, or just from sheer familiarity, he seemed no less lost than he would have on the streets of Middling.
Heck-- Tepin thought to herself as he rambled on about food-- he probably knew this world better than Middling. He seemed to love it so much more than the real world. But really… So far, aside from the danger looming behind every corner, what was not to love? The temples were so warm from the sun, carved with the strangest yet most interesting figures and designs. Not a single one registered in her memory, but somehow they felt nostalgic; like remembering the melody but not the words of a childhood song.
“If there’s floods, and there’s jaguars, and there’s all this scary stuff…” She jumped down from a root, closing the gap between the two, “Why aren’t you more worried being out here?”
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 7:21 pm
He hummed thoughtfully at her question, eyes closely following the surprisingly quick and meandering path of a gargantuan, blue and violet butterfly drifting overhead.
"Because, in the end, it is safer than the City," he finally decided, a sharp grin playing around his lips. "I know the floods, and the jaguars, and the scary things here. And none of them are as scary as humankind."
Clambering over a fallen log, he finally skidded down a short bank as the thickness of the trees gave way to open area and bright, unfiltered sunshine.
Here was camp. Valeriu's home of many months that resembled nothing more than a slice of paradice. There, the river gently flowed out of the thundering roar of a semi-distant waterfall. The waters were mostly clear, or clear enough to see the bright scales and small splashes of fish darting beneath the surface. Farther to their right was a rope bridge swinging over to the other side of the river - and beyond that, farther away from the edge of the water and nestled safely in the crooks and crags of a strange and high rock formation, was Valeriu's pride and joy: his hut. Replete with washing line, firepit, sunning rock, and rope-swing for a short drop-off into the river.
His waterproof, secure, warm, and well-made initial venture into building a home, from scratch, with local resources, all by himself.
Technically, it wasn't the first - he'd gone through three other huts that had all met with abysmal failure in the first few weeks.
He tried not to remember those, honestly.
"Here it is!" he announced quite gloriously, puffing up proudly at the sight of his built-it-with-my-own-two-hands cabin.
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 7:38 pm
She smiled mischievously, hands clasped behind her back as Varu explained the dangers of the world compared to the horrible creatures that this jungle seemed to hold. She wanted to tease him, but once she thought about it, he did have a point. Here, in this fabricated world made by his God, they were the only two inside. That meant that as long as they were here, there was no chance of running into other players, and no way to be harmed by them.
When he showed off his camp, she couldn’t help but go silent at the sight of it. It looked like something out of a storybook or castaway video game. And he had… built all of it. That meant that there were nights that Varu had to go without a home. The nights that were spent building this little camp must have been horrible, terrified that at any moment you could die.
The camp felt slightly less dangerous than the rest of the forest, so Tepin allowed herself to move in front of Valeriu, taking in the sights with more detail. Even a camp in the jungle seemed so meticulous. She was sure that all the fallen leaves and animal droppings would be taken care of post haste, if Varu had anything to do with it. Eventually this clearing would be just as clean as their real home.
This was the home away from home, after all.
“So,” She turned, looking back at him anxiously with a wide grin, “What do we do first? Firewood?”
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 7:49 pm
"Yep!" he grinned, more energetic than he'd ever been in the City. He considered the girl before him, contemplatively rubbing his chin. "I've got some stocked up in the cabin for now, but see if you can find any dry v'ood around here. I'll clean everything up and get lunch going."
He cheerfully clapped her on the shoulder.
"V'atch out for the fire ants and termites!" he happily advised, grinning wider.
He might be mean. Just a bit. But he'd keep an eye on her - no jaguars entered this area (it was well-known that it belonged to him), so she wouldn't get into any trouble. In reality, he'd already cleared out all the colonies of insects to be found here.
One day, he'd had enough of being sent running for the river and being eaten alive. Walk softly and carry a big, insect-crushing stick - that had been his motto.
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 9:12 am
Her horrified expression that turned to him had tears in her eyes.
“F-Fire… ant…?” She continued this look, her lips trembling as she spoke before quickly cutting out, “What’re those!?”
A quick look on the ground around her, and she had rushed back to Valeriu’s side, a hand carefully (Deathgripped) holding onto him.
She did not want to deal with whatever fire ants were.
“C-can I just stay here and clean too?”
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 10:26 am
He may or may not have snickered like the awful jerk that he was, grinning wider and giving her a reassuring hug.
"I am just teasing. There are none in this area." He mussed her hair. "But v'e have enough wood to last us the night, and I v'ill collect more later on today. How about..." He weaved over towards the cabin, releasing her to quickly make it to the door, inside, and back out, proudly dropping a hand-made broom into her hands. "You sweep, I fish!"
Of course Valeriu would make cleaning supplies when stranded in a jungle.
But it was obvious he was more than eager to leap into the water - the second he'd bestowed the broom into her waiting hands, he was already moving off to the river banks, shirt deserted on some passing rock.
It was lunchtime, and Valeriu wanted him some fish.
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 11:34 am
She looked at the broom, a collection of reeds that were tied around a well carved tree branch. It looked like something a witch would ride on.
And with Varu holding it, the image was complete with a black cat.
“Hey!” She frowned, waving the broom at him menacingly, “Cats hate water!! Let me do it!”
Trotting behind with both hands on the broom, she followed a few paces behind, trying to make a point.
“Or at least let me see how you do it! You know what they say, ‘Bring a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he can do it himself and eat until the fish run out!’”
She sped up, now alongside him as she lifted her shirt up to her chin, “Look! I even brought my bathing suit just in case!”
Sure, she hadn’t gotten a new one yet, and the sunflower tankini had made another appearance. Before, she had to stretch to get her stomach to show; now, the poor bathing suit barely stretched over her chest, appearing far more like a bikini on such an oversized body. The silk-screened flowers crinkled and stretched in protest to being put on such a huge form, but the girl didn’t seem to mind either the deformed flower pattern or the fact that her chest was barely contained in the bathing suit.
“Besides, you like to clean!”
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 11:44 am
"I'm not a cat!" he asserted, giving her a dry look and a twitch of the ear. "And no. Fishing is for men," he stressed proudly, puffing up once more. For he was man. "V'omen gather, men hunt. Da?"
Me Valeriu. You Tepin.
"Besides, fish do not like noisy things-" he cut off with a strange hrrk noise at the abrupt showing of her bathing suit, quickly reaching over to tug the shirt quite firmly back down, face aflame and flustered.
"That! That is not a bathing suit!"
No! It was indecent, that's what it was! It was, it was--
He grumbled, and embarrassedly rubbed a hand down his cheek.
"Fine, fine, just -- you can v'atch, just keep your shirt on."
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 11:53 am
“Men date women. Women date men.” She retorted with a frown. Whoever Valeriu thought he was, he was not the person who should be talking about gender roles. After all, not only did he date Quinn, but his hobbies included cleaning and cooking at the top of the list. “Women clean, women cook, and women take care of the babies.”
“And men. date. women.” As if she needed to remind him once more… But really, she wanted to make that point quite clear.
When she shoved down her shirt and scolded her, her frown only deepened. “It is too!” She defended the poor suit, “You bought it for me like a month ago!”
“I’ll be quiet, I promise. I don’t wanna be alone out here, though.”
When they finally got to the water, she squatted down by the side, looking at the water with longing. She wanted to play and have fun in the water, too! But if she interrupted hunting, she’d get in trouble. And if Varu saw how tight the bottoms were on her… she’d never be allowed outside the house again, let alone the jungle.
“I gave him a ton of extra food and filled the sink with water.” She announced, still staring at the water, “And I added a little extra litter to the litter box after I cleaned it yesterday.”
She frowned at the water, Mr. Slinky would be fine, right? It’d only be a couple of days, right?
“We should bring him back some fishies when we get back. He’d go nuts.”
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 12:08 pm
He frowned right back, nose scrunching at her audacity.
Bratchild. Do all sweet little princesses turn into demons when they become teenagers?
"So you are saying I should date a v'oman?" he answered loftily, crossing his arms. "I could." He could. "If I v'anted to." If he could ever get over Quinn. "They are pretty." Quite pretty. He hadn't ever before, but he didn't think he'd mind - it wasn't like guys interested him.
But then again, it'd be an injustice to the woman. He wasn't the kind of person that was exactly a safe relationship.
"The v'oman at the store v'as very nice," he added, perhaps a bit too thoughtfully. He shook it off, though, and began wading into the waters. Carefully, step by step, not wanting to frighten away the fish so far that they never came back.
"Mr. Slinky v'ill be fine. I think he v'ill enjoy a little quiet time - and I did tell Ms. Lawrence to check in on him v'hen she gets the chance."
The waters had calmed again, and he made sure not to move a muscle, crouched down against the gently moving current with his hands curled beneath the water.
It was interesting, to watch the fish return, swimming around him until he could tickle their bellies if he wished. Valeriu didn't exactly tickle, though - he swiped, faster than he could blink, and the fish was tossed out of the water and onto land, flopping quite uselessly.
He grinned.
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