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Chicken Stroll, Part 16


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#1 Guest_Laufey_and_Ophidia_*

Posted 01 December 2007 - 11:49 AM

Chicken Stroll


Part Sixteen

Edwin and Nalia walked slowly towards him. Edwin put one claw carefully in front of the other, bristling with rage in a very real sense- his feathers were standing out from his body and the way he was shaking with anger made them rustle together. He glared at Andorel unblinkingly.

Andorel scrabbled to his feet with an undignified squeak. “He was choking! He'd eaten this tasty lookin' grub but it went down the wrong way.”

“Teacher Dekaras does not eat larvae, maggots, worms, caterpillars, pupae, crysalids, instars or any other form of juvenile invertebrate organism.” Edwin hissed dangerously.

“Well, normally he won't, no matter how tasty I tell him they are, but this time he did. Don't think he meant to, though. Then he stuck his claws down his throat to try and puke it up. He nearly ripped his throat open!”

“I don't believe a single solitary word of it.”

“I don't think it's really any of our business, Edwin.” Nalia said timorously. “It's nothing to do with us what they choose to do together.”

“We weren't doing anything!”

“I told you to leave him alone.” Edwin snarled. “He doesn't belong to you!”

“He doesn't belong to you either.” Andorel snorted. “He's not your slave, ya know, though you treat him like one.”

“You both promised not to argue, remember?” Nalia pointed out angrily.

“He started it!” The two irate roosters shouted.

Just at that moment, Dekaras shivered and opened his eyes, getting unsteadily to his feet. The black rooster shook his head, opened his beak, and produced nothing more than a low hiss. He blinked in surprise.

“Vadrak? Are you alright?” Once again, Dekaras opened his beak, but produced no sound. He looked at the three chickens hopelessly. “Vaddy, please don't tell me you've lost yer voice. You total prat!”

Dekaras fluttered his wings in the avian equivalent of a shrug.

“Teacher Dekaras, what did that moronic simian...” Edwin fell quiet suddenly as Dekaras' glittering eyes glared at him.

“Hey, look!” Andorel suddenly said, breaking the silence. He bent over and picked up the bloody grub recently violently expelled by the assassin, then swallowed it. “Delicious! You really missed out there, Vaddy.”

This time, Dekaras wasn't the only one speechless.

***


Possibly the worst part about losing his voice, Dekaras thought, was that there wasn't really any satisfactory way to communicate his extreme displeasure about the whole thing. In retrospect, he had perhaps overreacted just a little bit. It wasn't as if he was normally all that sensitive about physical comforts. It was just...bad memories. Starving. The hot sun beating down on him mercilessly. But must keep walking...mustn't get caught. Keep walking. Feet torn, bleeding. No food, no water. Hunger, now and then ripping and tearing, then a dull hum. Crawling now, too exhausted to walk. But not giving up. Never give up. Something moving...small. Alive. Moist? Yes. Oh yes. The black rooster shivered involuntarily. That...taste. It had all brought it back and for a moment, he had half believed himself to be back out in that long-ago wilderness, alone and close to death as he had once been. I ate them that once, to survive. And once was enough. Well, at least he had managed to get rid of the thing, that was something. Being temporarily mute was a rather unsettling experience though. And it certainly wasn't made any easier by the way his companions fretted about the whole thing.

“Teacher Dekaras?” Edwin again, hovering nervously. “Are you all right? Does it hurt? Can I get you anything, anything at all? Water? Seed? Do you need to sit down for a bit, in the shade maybe? (Far too hot and dusty out here, how is he ever supposed to recover under these atrocious conditions? Why, back in Thay we wouldn't keep animals in a stinking pen like this!)” The wizard started flapping his wings vigorously, clearly aiming to produce a kind of fan-like effect. It did work, too. Well, sort of. Unfortunately, he also stirred the dust up even further. Dekaras succumbed to another violent fit of coughing, even as he leapt backwards to get out of the way.

“Edwin, stop it, you're making it worse!” Nalia, bless her somewhat more astute powers of observation, stepped between them, raising her wings in a negatory gesture. “Just calm down, would you? I'm sure he'll be fine very shortly, and he does not need you behaving like a...well, like a mother hen.”

“Or a confuzzled chick,” Andorel chuckled. “'course he'll be fine. He's survived worse, ya know.” He paused. “Or did ya?”

“If so, I'm sure it was all your fault, you parasitical parakeet! Just like it was this time!”

Andorel, you big green nitwit, would you stop enraging him? I really don't have the energy to deal with another cockfight right now. The green-combed chicken suddenly gave Dekaras an apologetic look, hinting that he had got at least the general gist of that thought. “Uh...sorry, Vaddy. No fighting, I know. Hey, maybe we should find ya another grub? Hair of the dog that bit ya and all that?”

There were quite a few extensive, carefully formulated and cutting phrases Dekaras would have liked to use in response for that. However, he had to settle for another hiss, but he did manage one that spoke volumes.

Nalia suddenly staggered sideways into Edwin. “Oh...sorry. I felt a little dizzy there for a second.”

Andorel shook his head and blinked, his crest flopping left and right. “I don't feel so good myself now. Just a bit odd, really.”

“Did any of you notice a slightly odd taste to the feed this morning?” Edwin asked, anxiously. “I have...a nasty...feeling...we've been...” With a faint sigh, Edwin keeled over, followed very quickly by Nalia.

Dekaras hissed and raced over to their side, anxiously nudging Edwin with his beak. He looked up helplessly at Andorel, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground.

“What in the Abyss is wrong with you guys? You're all actin' like someone spiked the seed!” Andorel wobbled on his feet. “Ok...maybe they did...feel a bit weird.” Andorel tried to walk a couple of steps, and fell over. “Feel very weird.”

***


“There.” Grat said, looking over the chicken enclosure. There were a number of chickens staggering about, and a few passed out on the ground. “We drugged them. We drugged a bunch of chickens 'just to be safe'. Happy now?”

“No. That one is still awake.” Thom replied, pointing at the large mutant cockerel, which was staggering around and shaking its head. “You try getting the dose right for a chicken. That one's a bit too big for it to work properly, I think. Still, look at it: it can hardly stand.”

“But that's the magic chicken! It can cast spells. It might blast us with a fireball.”

Grat looked critically at the green-combed rooster. Currently it was walking in circles, falling over every other step. “Yeah, it's really dangerous, I can tell. Just grab the black one and let's get it to the shop.”

Thom looked warily at the sleeping roosters. “No. You grab it.”

“Ok, ok. I have to do everything around here.” Grat sighed, and walked over to the black chicken- but the large mutant one got in his way. It looked at him cross-eyed, and opened its beak in a faint hiss, staggering sideways. “Stupid animal.” He muttered, and casually kicked hard enough that it flew across the enclosure and hit the side of a chicken coop. Then he grabbed the black rooster by its legs and strolled back out.

Thom shuddered. “You shouldn't have done that. It'll come after you. You'll see. You'll see.”

***


“Say, you don't think it's dead, do you?”

“'Course it's not dead, Barry! I bet it's only resting. She wouldn't sell it if it was dead, would she? Who'd be stupid enough to buy it?”

“I don't know, Rod, perhaps the boy who has the worst track record in familiars of anybody at school? Need I remind you of the last one?”

“Oh, put a cork in it, Persephone, you big know-it-all! That could have happened to anybody. Anyway, It's not dead, it's resting. Isn't it wicked looking? A familiar like that would destroy Scorpio Badluck, he'd be as green as his robes with envy.”

“I suppose it has quite beautiful plumage...”

“Hey, you two, stop fighting! It's waking up.” Dekaras blinked, wincing a little at the sound of the shrill voices cutting into his brain, and staggered to his feet, trying to make sense of what was going on. Then, he froze with surprise, staring at his surroundings. He was no longer inside the chicken coop. Instead, he found himself in a sturdy wire cage, large enough that he could move about freely, but not large enough to prevent boredom. It had a bowl of water in one corner, and some clean straw on the floor, and that was about it. The cage was indoors, somewhere. He could just make out rows of dark shelves in the distance, but to his rooster eyes they were too far away for him to see any details, except that they seemed cluttered. Outside the cage were three humans - children, in fact. Children wearing mage robes. With some surprise, the assassin realised that it must have been their voices he had heard. Moreover, he had comprehended them, which was a nice surprise. Of course. Higher voice range, that explains why bird ears can still make out the actual words. Now, what was it they were saying again? And where am I?

“Ha! Look at that, Miss Smarty-Pants!” said one of the two boys, a rather tall and gangly red with carrot-colored hair and more freckles than bare skin. The sleeves of his robes were too short for him, showing quite a lot of bony wrist. “Thought it was dead, did you?”

“Fine,” huffed the single girl, tossing her bushy brown hair back across one shoulder as she glared at the redhead. “So it's not dead. Fine. I still don't think it would be an appropriate familiar, it looks dangerous. And besides, we are supposed to summon our familiars. Buying one is completely against the rules, if you ask me.”

“Oh, rules.”, said the second boy, grinning widely as he bent forward to take a closer look inside the cage. Dekaras didn't much like the eager look in the green eyes behind the thick glasses - it reminded him far too much of Edwin eyeing a new spell scroll. “Who cares about that? You know the teachers only say that to take all the fun out of it by limiting our choices.”

“To make us take it seriously, Barry, something you have bad problems with!”

“Come on, Persephone!” It was the black-haired boy with the glasses again, trying to insert his fingers between the wires. “A black rooster would be a great familiar!”

I would make a great WHAT?!




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