Re: The Glorious Championship! [S3G5] [Round Two: The Kestalvian Rainforest]
08-07-2011, 11:26 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.
Gaurinn stared scornfully at AMP as the construct bobbed happily before him, plates still busily whirling through the air with sharp whistles and gouging huge chunks out of the nearest tree. Occasionally they paused with an interested hum, oblivious to the blackish sap that coated the makeshift blades more and more on each blow. A squid-like creature swung down from a low branch and tried to sell AMP a watch before it was bisected by a piece of shrapnel and crawled sadly away in different directions.
Cailean giggled and poked Gaurinn in the side. “Gaurinn, psst. Gaurinn, I don’t think he liked my song very much.” He warbled another stretch of the music, miraculously managing to miss every single note. Far above them, a songbird died of shame.
“Shut up, Cailean, you killed a bird.”
“You didn’t like it either?” The centipede twisted around, surprised at the genuine sadness in the man’s voice. Cailean was looking at Gaurinn as though the insect had broken his heart. “I tried, Gaurinn. I try really hard at everything all the time and no one notices.” He sniffled. “You don’t even like my song.”
Simultaneously unnerved and amused, the insect leaned in towards Cailean’s face, avoiding a halfhearted shove. “Cail. What the fuck.”
The soldier turned away sulkily, valiantly trying to hide from something attached to his own torso. He mumbled something incomprehensible and started to walk away from the clearing, but was stopped by Gaurinn’s claws grabbing the sides of his face and twisting his head forward.
“Look, I know you’re probably upset about your stupid problems, but-” he stopped and squinted at the soldier’s face. “What the hell’s going on with your eyes, Cail?”
“Whose eyes?” Cailean said blankly, staring downwards at the sap eating away at his boots. He seemed to be doing his best to look anywhere that wasn’t currently occupied by a centipede, which was proving difficult.
“Yours, idiot. Who the fuck else’s? Your pupils are huge.” Gaurinn frowned, which wasn’t easy to detect on a face made of chitin. “You’ve been acting weird ever since we did that little time trip thing.”
“My pupils are fine!” Cailean whined, breaking free of the clawed grip. “I’m fine. You don’t even have pupils Gaurinn, I’m better off than you any day of the week. Listen, is it okay if I call you Gaur? Your name is like,” he gestured in a manner that might have indicated a dolphin working a can opener, “stupid hard to pronounce. Gaaaauurinnnn. Who even names their kid that? Your mother was a wonderful person but she made some poor decisions, Gaur, I’m really sorry.”
“Cailean,” Gaurinn said, an odd chill settling in his stomach, “What was in that martini?”
“Fuck if I know, it was free.” Cailean said. “Gaurinn, no one here appreciates my singing and I think we should leave.”
“Wait, w-”
“They hate me, Gaur, I didn’t even do anything to them and they hate me! I just wanted them to like me, Gaurinn, I wanted to- heh- I wanted to be a contender. Talk them down for me, I’m out of here.” With a heroic cry he threw himself behind the tree AMP was sawing through and rolled clumsily, ending with his back pressed against the shady bark of a diseased-looking conifer. He laughed giddily and slapped the dirt off his armor, pausing briefly to giggle at his reflection.
“What the fuck, Cail?” Gaurinn spat out along with a mouthful of dirt, bristling with fury. “What the fucking hell-”
“Shh!” Cailean snapped, stroking the centipede’s head and eyeing the undergrowth. “They’ll hear us. Gaurinn, before we die I want you to know that you were my closest friend. Ever. You never even tried to kill me that hard! You’re my best friend, Gaur. Best friend since Tam. Did- did I ever tell you about Tam? Tam’s my horse. Was. Was my horse. Little grey mare. This high,” and he flailed his arm in a way that completely failed to resemble a measurement. “Gaurinn, I loved Tam. She used to bite my hair.”
The centipede managed to get the first syllable of a sentence out before Cailean’s hand slapped over his mandibles. “Shh, horse. I’m telling you about my horse. Gaurinn, I would kill you to get Tam back. I would kill you. I’d strangle the life out of your stupid body to see my horse again. I would watch you die, you…” he started to laugh. “You horrible insect. I’d kill you! I’d kill everyone here!”
Abruptly his voice rose to a snarl, and without warning he slammed a bloodstained hand down on Gaurinn’s throat, pinning him to the ground. His own neck snapped sideways and he wheezed in forced sympathy, baring his teeth at the stunned insect. “I’m being reasonable, aren’t I, Gaurinn?” he hissed, digging his fingers into chitinous plates as bruises flushed underneath his jaw. “All I want to do is slit your throat and watch your filthy blood drain out into the dirt. Just like mine did. Look at my face, Gaurinn. Look what happened to me.” A laugh pushed its way up out of his chest and seemed to be fighting his words for control. “Ha haaaait doesn’t even h-hurt, little insect! Not after the first cut, I’ve m-made so many-”
Maowyn’s dagger was suddenly rolling in his hand, its tip impossibly bright in the shadows as it came down-
“Sir Cailean!”
The soldier’s face went blank. The dagger dropped harmlessly to the ground next to now-smoking centipede. “What?”
“Sir Cailean,” AMP said helpfully, “Your current behavior is highly unusual in comparison to your ordinary threat levels. I must ask for an explanation for this sudden change- unless…?” Plates whirled around in a cloud of bewilderment, annihilating a nearby swarm of flies. Cailean winced. “Unless this is some previously unknown ritual involved in the cutting down of trees?”
“Cutting… what?” The soldier shook his head. “The hell are you talking about, I don’t- FUCK! FUCK FUCK GAURINN WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
Sparks exploded like fireworks as Gaurinn’s quivering body rose from the ground, spitting stray tongues of electricity and crackling with energy as he pumped jolt after jolt into Cailean’s body, screeching wordlessly. The soldier yelped with pain and futilely looked for somewhere to flee before Gaurinn’s head collided with his and he fell back against the charred tree.
AMP watched in polite confusion as the pair fought, alternatively slapping and electrocuting each other as they debated enthusiastically about various topics including the illegitimacy of Gaurinn’s birth and Cailean’s complete lack of intelligence, although both of them seemed to lack supporting arguments beyond their own conviction. He wondered briefly if he should stop them, but as a wildly misaimed punch slammed into the tree and Cailean called it a bitch AMP concluded that this too must be a part of the ritual, and that it would be rude of him to interfere.
In the meantime, he had a forest to disassemble.
______
High up in the globular branches of the sickly-looking tree, in fact in the late stages of a degenerative illness that would soon cause it to gain sentience and run for political office before dying in an opium den surrounded by prostitutes, a quantum-sensitive bat awoke to the sound of its home being called a bitch.
It peered out from the enveloping shade of its wings with an irritated expression on its doglike face. It liked this tree. It had raised two litters of pups here without any disturbance other than the occasional mutter about two-party systems and tax hikes, which it didn’t mind despite them being a little insulting since bats weren’t enfranchised in this section of the forest. There was no call for such rudeness against its home, the bat thought as it stretched sleepily, brushing the tree’s trunk with the tips of its six wings. No call at all.
Needle-like claws hooked into the branch as the bat swung upright, shaking the dew off its fur and flapping for balance, internally adjusting its chronometer to the cycles of daylight. The motion disturbed the closest of its neighbors, featureless white bumps among the countless slumbering bodies of the colony. They shuffled irritably in the cocoons of their wings and sniffed, displeased at the interruption. The bat’s ears lay flat against its head as it gauged their hypothetical reactions versus the importance of defending the honor of its tree. Surely it wasn’t enough of a concern to wake the entire colony?
As delicately as it could, the bat spread its wings and swooped down to get a better view of the interlopers. It seemed that a small pack of them had taken up residence at the foot of the tree, though the bat was at a loss to identify their species. They had no camouflage to speak of and no obvious way of defending themselves; it found itself wondering how they could have survived long enough in the forest to reach maturity. Perhaps the level of noise they were creating was enough to drive away predators? It was certainly loud enough to warn away anything in earshot of their presence. These creatures had no shame, the bat thought scornfully. One of them didn’t even seem to have a proper regard for gravity, and the other-
The bat was so surprised that it stopped flapping and ran into a tree.
Not him.
Not here.
Thrusting its wings frantically, the bat sped upward and flapped above its sleeping colony, issuing a single note far above the hearing range of the contestants squabbling below. Thousands of glittering green eyes flew open as the colony awoke; the bat felt their hatred burning against it as the swiftest of them discovered that no disaster was imminent and no predators were lurking nearby. With a thunder of wings the nearest ones rose to devour the bat for its folly, but stopped in their tracks as they too felt the freezing chill of the energy radiating from underneath the tree.
Above them the lone bat circled, wailing its despair into the daylight.
The End of Time had returned.
Gaurinn stared scornfully at AMP as the construct bobbed happily before him, plates still busily whirling through the air with sharp whistles and gouging huge chunks out of the nearest tree. Occasionally they paused with an interested hum, oblivious to the blackish sap that coated the makeshift blades more and more on each blow. A squid-like creature swung down from a low branch and tried to sell AMP a watch before it was bisected by a piece of shrapnel and crawled sadly away in different directions.
Cailean giggled and poked Gaurinn in the side. “Gaurinn, psst. Gaurinn, I don’t think he liked my song very much.” He warbled another stretch of the music, miraculously managing to miss every single note. Far above them, a songbird died of shame.
“Shut up, Cailean, you killed a bird.”
“You didn’t like it either?” The centipede twisted around, surprised at the genuine sadness in the man’s voice. Cailean was looking at Gaurinn as though the insect had broken his heart. “I tried, Gaurinn. I try really hard at everything all the time and no one notices.” He sniffled. “You don’t even like my song.”
Simultaneously unnerved and amused, the insect leaned in towards Cailean’s face, avoiding a halfhearted shove. “Cail. What the fuck.”
The soldier turned away sulkily, valiantly trying to hide from something attached to his own torso. He mumbled something incomprehensible and started to walk away from the clearing, but was stopped by Gaurinn’s claws grabbing the sides of his face and twisting his head forward.
“Look, I know you’re probably upset about your stupid problems, but-” he stopped and squinted at the soldier’s face. “What the hell’s going on with your eyes, Cail?”
“Whose eyes?” Cailean said blankly, staring downwards at the sap eating away at his boots. He seemed to be doing his best to look anywhere that wasn’t currently occupied by a centipede, which was proving difficult.
“Yours, idiot. Who the fuck else’s? Your pupils are huge.” Gaurinn frowned, which wasn’t easy to detect on a face made of chitin. “You’ve been acting weird ever since we did that little time trip thing.”
“My pupils are fine!” Cailean whined, breaking free of the clawed grip. “I’m fine. You don’t even have pupils Gaurinn, I’m better off than you any day of the week. Listen, is it okay if I call you Gaur? Your name is like,” he gestured in a manner that might have indicated a dolphin working a can opener, “stupid hard to pronounce. Gaaaauurinnnn. Who even names their kid that? Your mother was a wonderful person but she made some poor decisions, Gaur, I’m really sorry.”
“Cailean,” Gaurinn said, an odd chill settling in his stomach, “What was in that martini?”
“Fuck if I know, it was free.” Cailean said. “Gaurinn, no one here appreciates my singing and I think we should leave.”
“Wait, w-”
“They hate me, Gaur, I didn’t even do anything to them and they hate me! I just wanted them to like me, Gaurinn, I wanted to- heh- I wanted to be a contender. Talk them down for me, I’m out of here.” With a heroic cry he threw himself behind the tree AMP was sawing through and rolled clumsily, ending with his back pressed against the shady bark of a diseased-looking conifer. He laughed giddily and slapped the dirt off his armor, pausing briefly to giggle at his reflection.
“What the fuck, Cail?” Gaurinn spat out along with a mouthful of dirt, bristling with fury. “What the fucking hell-”
“Shh!” Cailean snapped, stroking the centipede’s head and eyeing the undergrowth. “They’ll hear us. Gaurinn, before we die I want you to know that you were my closest friend. Ever. You never even tried to kill me that hard! You’re my best friend, Gaur. Best friend since Tam. Did- did I ever tell you about Tam? Tam’s my horse. Was. Was my horse. Little grey mare. This high,” and he flailed his arm in a way that completely failed to resemble a measurement. “Gaurinn, I loved Tam. She used to bite my hair.”
The centipede managed to get the first syllable of a sentence out before Cailean’s hand slapped over his mandibles. “Shh, horse. I’m telling you about my horse. Gaurinn, I would kill you to get Tam back. I would kill you. I’d strangle the life out of your stupid body to see my horse again. I would watch you die, you…” he started to laugh. “You horrible insect. I’d kill you! I’d kill everyone here!”
Abruptly his voice rose to a snarl, and without warning he slammed a bloodstained hand down on Gaurinn’s throat, pinning him to the ground. His own neck snapped sideways and he wheezed in forced sympathy, baring his teeth at the stunned insect. “I’m being reasonable, aren’t I, Gaurinn?” he hissed, digging his fingers into chitinous plates as bruises flushed underneath his jaw. “All I want to do is slit your throat and watch your filthy blood drain out into the dirt. Just like mine did. Look at my face, Gaurinn. Look what happened to me.” A laugh pushed its way up out of his chest and seemed to be fighting his words for control. “Ha haaaait doesn’t even h-hurt, little insect! Not after the first cut, I’ve m-made so many-”
Maowyn’s dagger was suddenly rolling in his hand, its tip impossibly bright in the shadows as it came down-
“Sir Cailean!”
The soldier’s face went blank. The dagger dropped harmlessly to the ground next to now-smoking centipede. “What?”
“Sir Cailean,” AMP said helpfully, “Your current behavior is highly unusual in comparison to your ordinary threat levels. I must ask for an explanation for this sudden change- unless…?” Plates whirled around in a cloud of bewilderment, annihilating a nearby swarm of flies. Cailean winced. “Unless this is some previously unknown ritual involved in the cutting down of trees?”
“Cutting… what?” The soldier shook his head. “The hell are you talking about, I don’t- FUCK! FUCK FUCK GAURINN WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
Sparks exploded like fireworks as Gaurinn’s quivering body rose from the ground, spitting stray tongues of electricity and crackling with energy as he pumped jolt after jolt into Cailean’s body, screeching wordlessly. The soldier yelped with pain and futilely looked for somewhere to flee before Gaurinn’s head collided with his and he fell back against the charred tree.
AMP watched in polite confusion as the pair fought, alternatively slapping and electrocuting each other as they debated enthusiastically about various topics including the illegitimacy of Gaurinn’s birth and Cailean’s complete lack of intelligence, although both of them seemed to lack supporting arguments beyond their own conviction. He wondered briefly if he should stop them, but as a wildly misaimed punch slammed into the tree and Cailean called it a bitch AMP concluded that this too must be a part of the ritual, and that it would be rude of him to interfere.
In the meantime, he had a forest to disassemble.
______
High up in the globular branches of the sickly-looking tree, in fact in the late stages of a degenerative illness that would soon cause it to gain sentience and run for political office before dying in an opium den surrounded by prostitutes, a quantum-sensitive bat awoke to the sound of its home being called a bitch.
It peered out from the enveloping shade of its wings with an irritated expression on its doglike face. It liked this tree. It had raised two litters of pups here without any disturbance other than the occasional mutter about two-party systems and tax hikes, which it didn’t mind despite them being a little insulting since bats weren’t enfranchised in this section of the forest. There was no call for such rudeness against its home, the bat thought as it stretched sleepily, brushing the tree’s trunk with the tips of its six wings. No call at all.
Needle-like claws hooked into the branch as the bat swung upright, shaking the dew off its fur and flapping for balance, internally adjusting its chronometer to the cycles of daylight. The motion disturbed the closest of its neighbors, featureless white bumps among the countless slumbering bodies of the colony. They shuffled irritably in the cocoons of their wings and sniffed, displeased at the interruption. The bat’s ears lay flat against its head as it gauged their hypothetical reactions versus the importance of defending the honor of its tree. Surely it wasn’t enough of a concern to wake the entire colony?
As delicately as it could, the bat spread its wings and swooped down to get a better view of the interlopers. It seemed that a small pack of them had taken up residence at the foot of the tree, though the bat was at a loss to identify their species. They had no camouflage to speak of and no obvious way of defending themselves; it found itself wondering how they could have survived long enough in the forest to reach maturity. Perhaps the level of noise they were creating was enough to drive away predators? It was certainly loud enough to warn away anything in earshot of their presence. These creatures had no shame, the bat thought scornfully. One of them didn’t even seem to have a proper regard for gravity, and the other-
The bat was so surprised that it stopped flapping and ran into a tree.
Not him.
Not here.
Thrusting its wings frantically, the bat sped upward and flapped above its sleeping colony, issuing a single note far above the hearing range of the contestants squabbling below. Thousands of glittering green eyes flew open as the colony awoke; the bat felt their hatred burning against it as the swiftest of them discovered that no disaster was imminent and no predators were lurking nearby. With a thunder of wings the nearest ones rose to devour the bat for its folly, but stopped in their tracks as they too felt the freezing chill of the energy radiating from underneath the tree.
Above them the lone bat circled, wailing its despair into the daylight.
The End of Time had returned.