1 Oix 4385: SURPRISE!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

This Morning's Nightmare

Chain Lightning woke me up and asked me, "Shouldn't you be heading back for Vheshrame?"

I stared around wildly. I was in the bandit queen's suite in their hideout. "Oh no! I'm still HERE? I need to get home! I'm going to be LATE WITH THE RENT!" I jumped out of bed and something stabbed me in the side. I looked down and one of my ribs was poking through.

"I told you not to talk!" Trust yelled at me. "I'm not going to keep healing you when you're just going to break yourself again!"

"But I have to get HOME!" I shoved the rib back inside and hobbled to the door. Mirhandrax, Nightbloom, Trust, Purrzhon, Void-Dancer, Tripriver, Studies-Too-Much and his Rassy friend were all waiting for me. They blew on terch-flutes and threw confetti into the air. "SURPRISE!" Tripriver wheeled a giant present to me with "WELCOME HOME DELIGHTED-TO-BE-DEVOURED" on its ribbon.

"But that's not my name ..." I said.

"That's all right." Kijji jumped out of the package and towered over me, a twenty-foot eight-legged fox with wings burning like two sheets of flame at his back. "These aren't your friends."

Everybody laughed and turned into silver birds or goat-people. The birds fluttered dizzyingly around my head while the goat-bipeds danced about me.

"AHHHHH everyone IS bonstables!" I shrieked in terror and tried to run away but Kijji caught my head in his mouth. "NOOO I don't want to be EATEN!"

Kijji giggled. "Oh I'm not going to eat you!" He wrapped his burning wings around me. "Yet! I'm going to cook you first!"

I writhed and choked on thick smoke as the flames got hotter and hotter until my fur sloughed off my body. Underneath, I was a bonstable.

"I didn't know she was one of us," Void-Dancer remarked.

"Anyone mind if I eat her anyway?" Kijji asked. They all shook their heads and shrugged. Kijji went back to cooking me to death. I woke up just as he finished.

Not Really a Surprise by Now

I threw off the light blanket and gasped for air. It was so steamy in the cloudnest that it felt like breathing water. Flokin burned like a bonfire in his sunlamp overhead. I peered around through the hazy air. A couple of ulgrane were preening their feathers. Mirhandrax was stripped down to a loincloth and brushing masses of shed fur from his chest. "Ugh Mirhandrax why didn't you wake me earlier it's afternoon ALREADY?"

"Sun lit a third of an hour ago." Mirhandrax brushed the fur on one arm. His undercoat came off in clumps.

"... really?" I looked up. Flokin seemed to shine even brighter.

He nodded.

I flopped against the too-hot bedroll. "That explains why I'm still tired."

But I couldn't sleep in the stifling heat and neither could anyone else. After everyone was roused (albeit groggy and ill-tempered) the ulgrane flew us down to the river. We all splashed around to cool off, even the ulgrane. It took some wheedling to get the ulgrane to fly us the rest of the way home and I had to promise to touch up their feathers again when we arrived because the heat-molt was making some of them look ragged already. But they did agree!

Home At Last

So we made it back to the city before nightfall! As soon as I'd fixed all the ulgrane's featherstyles I went straight to my landlord's to pay the rent so I wouldn't be late.

Then I went to the swimming hole because TOO HOT.

EVERYONE was there because TOO HOT. It was so crowded it wasn't even a great way to cool off although at least being in the water meant NO CLOTHES. There are people who wear clothes during hot Surprise which I do not understand. I wouldn't wear FUR if it wasn't attached.

I caught up with everyone while I was down there and told them all about our GREAT ADVENTURES like the plot by bonstables to take over the branch that we foiled by proving it didn't exist.

That's maybe not the best story from the trip. It is a funny one though!

Eventually the sun went out and it got a teensy bit less hot and I decided that since I was paying rent ANYWAY I might as well go home.

I didn't want to wake Glorious Blue in case she was home (she was working nights last month -- oh wait I mean in LAGE stupid Chirreb -- but I didn't know if she still was). So I didn't bring any light into the bedroom. As soon as I stepped inside, I slipped and skidded across the floor and slammed into the side of my bed. The floor was rimed with melting ice. "Ahhhhhhh Glory-Morey I LOVE you!" I rolled around happily on the blessedly cold floor. The whole room felt actually cool.

Glorious Blue rolled over in her bed. "Welcome home," she mumbled. "Now go to sleep."

So I did.