Free Fallin' (Ch. 5: Day 1)

Greens · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 5:22 pm

"Coulda fooled me," responded Ace with his usual charm. His gaze tried to make sense of the scenery, but it was clear from his bewildered expression that this much was a fool's errand. "But... where is 'here'?"

At first, Ace tried to perform his usual morning routine of flexing out every little bone in his body (he was mostly feline, it was kind of a given), but when all that came out was a pained cough and the realization that that was a stupid idea, he was forced to actually get out of his foreign-looking bed and take his chances walking around the place. It must've been the smell of cooking food that made him realize that he was actually really hungry. It felt like it'd been at least a full day since he had eaten, combined with the nonstop action of the days... or weeks previous. His stomach growled audibly.

He shook his head. "Uh, hey, uh... what's your name. Donald. Can you ask this guy where we are?"

Mie · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:05 pm

A gradual clatter of movement bustled from the corridor at the far end of the long room, its source slowly but surely breaching the doorway. A thoroughly ruddy, plain and tall girl emerged at last, bearing a large, very old-looking metal serving platter laden with at least a dozen small bowls of varying size and material, and several heavy-looking clay vessels, some of which appeared to be teapots, and others simply jars.

"ཡོཨུ་ ཨརེ་ ཨཝཀེ་," she started with a flutter of two or three well-punctuated blinks, then beaming enthusiastically at the collection of weary guests occupying the room. The lanky loris offered an awkward little partial dip of her head and shoulders in greeting as she shuffled slowly to a low table in the midst of the beds, where at last, she stooped to set down her tray.

Greens · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:36 pm

"Ah--"

Oh, sapient interaction. With homely politeness, at that! It actually caught him off guard.

Ace stumbled through a few meaningless syllables before patting his hands to his thighs and offering a bow that probably hadn't been practiced for at least a decade.

His brows furrowed for a moment before settling on a final answer.

"Uh... ma'am?"

Mie · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 10:06 pm

Their hostess' very large, indistinctly greenish eyes widened and glittered at the feline's seemingly insubstantial response.

"You are from the western country!" gasped the maiden with an excited clap of her hands. She bent forward at the waist once or twice more, before dropping to her knees at the table, where she immediately set to work filling each of the bowls with the slightly thick (...?), steaming, eggplant-colored (?!) contents of the pots and jars. She promptly pushed each filled bowl into whatever hands around her remained empty, as the prattling began...

"How please we are to have you stay in our village! We do not have Chaos Cola, so I bring po cha. Do you have before? Dinner is preparing now, but probably is different from normal hamber-gurs and peet-saa for you. Do you come for mountain expedition? How is it you fell out from the sky? Also, do you bring any batteries? Do you know Sonic Hedgehog or his friend Diluss? How big are your mansions like? What is your names? And tell me about..."

Unless stopped, she'd probably keep on and on, until long after their mysterious purple beverage(?) went cold.

Nuzlocke Griff · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 10:14 pm

Watching their chef chatter nonstop was just the thing to break Desmond's focus. He could only look awkwardly at her, head tilted slightly sideways, as she continued with her possibly nonending speech.

Kazz · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 11:12 pm

Mako slowly got to his feet, still clutching a blanket around his shoulders, and peered quietly into the bowls as they were filled, his face distorted into an expression of crossed curiosity and disgust. He looked at the nearest person (Ace) and mouthed:
Is that supposed to be edible?

He didn't realize that the loris was speaking English until she began her long-winded, somewhat-gramatically-incorrect tirade. His jaw fell slack for a second, staring at her. ... now was as good a time as any. Raising his voice a little bit to speak over her, the shark said:

"Uhh. Miss? Ma'am? ... where th'heck are we?"

MuffinUnsane · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 7:48 am

Grateful for the warm cup in her hand, Ember almost took a large gulp. Then she took a look at it closer. Discreetly, she poked at the liquid with a finger only to find it to be thick. Far too thick. It gave off the unpleasant reminded of cough syrup.

It was a gift though. A hot drink served by a smiling girl that made Ember feel special for simply being a stranger. That was worth choking down almost anything. Closing her eyes, she tilted the drink back into her mouth; keeping mind of the bandages.

It certainly went down like cough syrup and Ember half-wished it tasted like it. It was like the result of a terrible cooking incident. The tea was so warm though and just for that reason she braved another drink.

Giving an involuntary shudder, she gave a weak thumbs up to the others.

"Its the best guys. Just, uh, think of it like soup."

Mie · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 12:31 pm

Suddenly, the loris went quiet as the be-finned blanket monster's query rolled around in her head. The large pom pom atop her toboggan lulled off to one side as her head fell to an introspective cant, brows furrowed as though she must have misunderstood something.

"You..."

The sentence seemed to take a second or two to come together, as she set down her teapot.

"You are not intending to be here for mountain climbing? This Bhatguri. Village at base of Qomolangma, tallest mountain in the world."

Greens · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 5:50 pm

Oh, praise the heavens. Somebody in this winter wonderland spoke the same language they did.

...

...now if she'd only stop.

In the midst of her rambling, Ace eyed the bowl of steaming hot mystery-juice with carefully balanced levels of curiosity and caution. He jiggled it gingerly in his palms, noticed how little the concoction responded, and, against his better judgement... took a whiff of it. He almost spilled it in the short coughing fit that followed, (*kaff kaff koff* "oh, jeez" *kaff*) but managed to place it on a nearby dresser of sorts before slowly turning back to answer the strange girl with a deeply unsettled look in his eyes.

"...Bot-gurry?"

Nuzlocke Griff · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 8:16 pm

Following procedure, Desmond took hold of one of the bowls containing the anonymous beverage of sorts inside. Giving it a good whirl to check the solidity of the content, he deemed it drink worthy and settled on taking a quick gulp to at least show a bit of courtesy to the chef who took her time out of the day to prepare it.

As the warm liquid dashed his tounge, the ferret felt a bitter taste swirl down his mouth. Finishing his promised attempt at drinking whatever the container held, Desmond kept a steady glance at his drink in an effort to make out the ingredients of the drink he sampled.

"It's not so bad" he concluded as he wiped his face clean with his sleeve.

Splitting his attention from his treat, he tried to listen in on the cooks prattle, trying to place a pinpoint on wherever she said they were. Only drawing blanks he endeavored to question her further on the matter. "Uh, lady" he asked in an almost pleading tone, "could you maybe show us on a... uh, map or something of where we are?"

Mie · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 12:13 am

"You not know where tallest mountain in world is?" the loris asked the ferret dubiously, calling into question her preconceptions of western education systems. She settled into a sitting position with her legs folded beneath her, taking a hearty swig of her own butter tea, oblivious to her guests' aversion to it.

"We do not have world map, here," she answered with an apologetic frown. "But tallest mountain located in Chun-Nan. That is opposite side of planet from your country."

Sheff · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 1:32 am

The hedgehog of the shuttle-wrecked crew watched the whole new conversation unfold before him in tired silence, eyes darting between speakers, particularly being focused on the native citizen of the foreign country for long stretches of time (due to obvious reasons). The appearance of the girl and her choppy yet comprehensible English did bring some mild surprise to Geoff, however, at least glad their was one person who could bring about sense to the whole situation.

Listening intently, his eyes migrated down to the bowl that, only moments before, had been promptly shoved into his hands. His brow furrowed in light disgust, and reminding himself of the others' reactions to the brew, he subtly set the bowl aside before the loris would notice.

"So, in conclusion," he said, finally joining the conversation as he gave a sweeping glance of the room. "We ain't going to be seein' home any time soon." He gave out a weary sigh as he looked to their hostess. "Thank you, though. For the hospitality." A small pause. "But — not to sound in a rush or anything — what's the fastest way outta here?"

Meanwhile, if anyone had been keeping close attention, their recent numbers would be short by one. If they had been totally capable of speaking the native tongue, however, they would have learned of some dark figure that had been spotted and quickly darted off only hours previous, paving a way through the snow with ease before disappearing into a nearby valley.

Mie · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 2:11 am

The simple girl evidently did not understand the finer nuances of the hedgehog's query. Her brows knit together in consternation, and slowly (very slowly, one can be assured), her tawny head righted itself and dropped to a new cant on the opposite side.

"That door leads to other door," she answered, after a single, sloth-like blink accompanying overt mental scrutiny. She nodded indicatively toward her point of entry. "Other door lead to foyer. Foyer lead to outside."

In short, she had no earthly idea how her employers came and went before arriving in humble little Bhatguri.

Greens · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 5:55 pm

Ace was left... reeling in the slow-rolling revelation as softly as he could manage. No, he didn't know or assume that he was stranded somewhere in the ass-end of Chun-nan, (and justifiably so, hardly catching a glimpse of the outdoors in consciousness even now,) so when that bombshell dropped, it dropped pretty damn hard. It started as a long-drawn breath in, and ended as a slow-motion "Hhhooohhhkay...," in the way one might say when trying to control their blood pressure. Eventually, he nodded with begrudging understanding.

He picked up the bowl once again and sat criss-cross aside from their host. "Forget it, Geoff," he said, hiding his disappointment by staring into the bowl's contents. "Rock sent us here for a reason. He wants out of the picture for as long as possible, and he got it. Let's just try and get our bearings here, alright...?

It seemed like he was at least trying to get past the smell of his bowl's contents, but it curiously went unattended.

MuffinUnsane · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 8:01 pm

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure leaving now will turn us into ice pops," Ember added in, "We're stuck for now. I doubt any of us know about climbing a friggin mountain."

Even if there was an offchance they could make it, the bird wasn't keen at all on the idea of trudging through snow.

Finishing her tea with a grimace, she set down the empty cup down.

"I dunno, I vote for letting ourselves heal for once and maybe catching a ride with a climber headed down."

Free Fallin' (Ch. 5: Day 1)

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