<b>Seagrass Plains, Elseworld.</b>
Two figures stride across the expansive grasslands with a purpose in the brisk morning air, dew glistening as it collects on their coats pants, and HJurin's tail like small liquid gems. In the distance, hunkered into the foothills of a range of mountains like a wounded beast is a forest, full of dark browns and greens, a place of large, jagged leaves and wickedly curved thorns.
Despite his mysterious trust in the crimson demon he travels with, the forest makes Hurin uneasy. For generations it had held dark faerey-tales and legends, of how it was a hostile place to all outsiders, demon and mortal alike, and only the beasts of the woods could roam it's leaf-carpeted floor, move amongs the twisted vines and branches of it's myriad outstretched arms.
<i>It embraces itself in a constant song of hatred, holding a black old curse close to it's blackened heartwood</i> hurin thinks to himself, remembering one of the songs sung by bards in these parts.
The young Chantha warrior is broken from his reverie when Achari stops in front of him, looking off to the left, still as a stone in the sighing, shifting sea of the grassland. His glare sweeps back and forth, and then he grins.
<b><i>"You can come out that i may tell you a message for your Master..."</i></b> He extends his left hand, clawing his fingers and small, wickedly curved talon extend from the pads of his fingers. <b><i>"Or you can stayu cowering where you are, and let your deaths serve as the message. It matters not to me."</i></b>
His deep, hard velvet voice travels unnaturally across the plains, to the ears of his targets, and their voices come back as a shout.
"Rand is our comrade, not our master, Red Devil!" The male cubi's voice is clear and sibilant, like a deep red wine in a crystal goblet.
Achari only laughs softly as the two cubi warily fly closer, but not too close, and Hurin, equally wary, draws the boneblade, crouching, ready. Whilst his memory on the event remains fogged, he recalls that he had recently been attacked by a demonic force, and paralyzed.
<b><i>"If he is truly a comrade as you say, how would you have known to whom i refferred, 'comrades'?"</i></b> the beast cxhortles at the smaller, achingly attractive demons.
Again the male rises to the implied insult and steps forward, but is styopped by a cautioning hand of the female. Hurin fights the urge to follow the seductive sway of her large, smooth breasts.
"Speak your message, beast, that we may leave." It may be a terstament to her wariness that the female does not try to tempt, or does not even smile at Achari. Were Achari not so amused at nettling the male, and hurin not so enraptured by the female's hypnotic body, it may have occurred to them that she may have even been consciously supressing her natural seductions and charms.
The creature smirks. <b><i>"Tell him and the grey-haired one to meet us at the entrance to that place."</i></b> Achari gestures to the forests off in the distance. <b><i>"the time to leave approaches, one way or another."</i></b>
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<b>Warrimbull translation expedition, The Forest.</b>
"The calibration is out a few degrees here, and here. Try lifting the gain a few herz....yes." Emma stands up from the equipment and the tech she'd been crouching next to, and stretches, looking around the clearing with the awe she'd first felt when she'd first seen the polaroids. Over every surface of the ruined structures, and the bloated trunks of the trees ringing the large clearing are multitudes of symbols and writings, and as she had suspected, the move! She watches as before her eyes, a passage moves up the trunk of a tree, changfing as it goes. This is why she and her team had struggle so with the translation. This was a language in perpetual motion, trying to understand a few photographs was like trying to learn latin when all you have seen are a few letters.
Emma is filled with an excitement he hasn't felt in years, the academic fire again burning bright in her mind, so much so that even the uneasiness of the non-science members of the expidition doesn't disturb her. She hardly even feels the heat anymore. <i>My god, what is it saying? what has it been saying all these years that we've missed? is it a repeating message? We can't lose any more of this!</i>
"Start recording as soon as the equipment is set up. We can't afford to miss another second." she tells the tech, Simms, according to his uniform. She has already turned away and is setting up more of the recording and analyzing equipment before the tech can answer her with a "yes ma'am".
In the center of the clearing, the transports had been set up in a ring, and used to make a type of a barracks. The marines are busy setting up perimiter turrets and clearing obscuring foliage at the edge of the clearing, much to the disgust of the members of willis' team.
At the center of the vehicles, Major Stanton has set up the base of operations, where she watches the progress of the setup of their new home for the next three days. She growls orders at her men, and practically snarls at the science teams that come to her with requests. The major's stance on scientists had always been clear, which made it an even greater mystery as to why she'd been transferred to a scientific outpost.
Emma looks up from her work on the recording equipment in front of her, and catches Seth, the para mercenary's eye as he goes about clearing the foliage and watching the perimiter. He grins back at her, a cigartetted dangling from his mouth before continuing his patrol.
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<b>Behind <i>The Irish</i>, Warrimbull</b>
There is very little that's actually irish about the small pub refferred to as The Irish in Warrimbull, apart from a cartoonish carictature of a leprechaun on the sign, and three types of guinness on tap in the bar. There also isn't much that's open for business about the place this late at night, and yet, out back of it, light from a ring of cars fills the parking lot, and shouts fill the air.
Jaden is breathing heavily. The ringing in his left ear makes the shouting, jerring crowd of people a little hard to hear, but his focus is not on them anyway. He has eyes only for the fat, hairy man in front of him, also breathing heavily, and bleeding from the mouth and nose, and a cut above his eye.
Jaden himself is sporting another shiner, a cut on his jaw, and a numb shoulder from a solid kick earlier on in the fight. Despite being fat, his opponent is still quite tough, and seems to have good stamina. <i>A solid jaw, too.</i> Jaden thinks, clenching and unclenching his aching fist.
<i>Hitting that lardass body is pointless</i>, Jaden calculates. <i>There's real muscle under all that fat, i gotta go for the head. shame i can't go for the legs...if i smashed his knee he'd go down like a sack of pigshi-</i>
He quickly doges a swing for his head, and the small but rowdy crow shouts and jeers. He answers with an uppurcut, just glances the man's chin, and has to dance to the side to avoid a fierce jab. the two continue to circle, throwing punches, blocking, dodging, looking for an opening.
Suddenly, jaden sees what he's been waiting for. The man's left guard drops, and jaden throws a poerful punch, but before he can connect, he feels a mighty impact hit the side of his face, feels his feet leave the ground, and feels the gravel bite into the bare skin of his back as he hit the ground.
Dazed by the enourmous punch, he stares up, listening to the muffled sound of the blood rushing through his head, his senses a jumble, his thoughts scattered for a few seconds. <i>It's sort of comfotable, like this...</i> his first thought floats to him. <i>Numb...</i>
The world comes back into focus as he feels two sets of hands grab him under the arms and drag him painfdully to his feet. A middle-aged man is staring into his face, looking from eye to eye, asking him questions, shining a torch nito his eye.
"you got hit pretty hard then, Jaden. Not often you get counted out."
"...what?!" the boy asks, incredulous.
"Full ten count. Usually you only get those if you're unconscious. How many fingers."
"Three"
The man nods. "Good. But that's it for tonight. I'll drive you home." The man puts the boy's arm over his shoulber and helps him walk to a dirty car, japanese, '80's make, some cheap piece of crap that just won't die.
"How much?"
"in the end?" the man thinks for a moment. "about fourty, after my fee." Jaden nods, and then grimaces as the man helps him lower himself into the car. "You should think about taking a break, kid, at least 'till you're a bit older, got more bulk behind you. Fights're getting tougher."
"I'll think about it," Jaden says sardonically, a grimace on his bruised face.
<i>If i didn't know better,</i> Michael thinks to himself, <i>I'd say the boy likes getting himself beat up.</i>
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OOC: not all i wanted to put up, but i wanted to have at least something done by now. expect more emma marrak soonish /OOC
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Last edited by madadric on Sat Feb 19, 2005 5:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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