Accept the deal, preening from a fish.
“I’ll help you however much I can, but I’m already telling the truth. Why don’t you tell the truth about how you got here, seeing as your story is obviously just a lazy copy of mine.” The lioness huffed.
Lori rolls her eyes.
“Ugh, you and every single person on that beach. Why does no one believe me when I say I’m human?” She looked exasperated. Maybe a little disgusted. But even when angry her voice was amazing, just listening to that annoyed shout could be music in its own right.
“How about you tell it in full, if you were human you wouldn’t be out in these woods in a secluded lake next to a waterfall.” Daniel’s logic was flawless. Or so she assumed.
“How did I get here? Same story as you, if you’d believe it this time. I’d managed to chat with a few people by the docks and catch fishers near the beach, mostly just asking for help and if any of them could call my dad for me. After a few days these guys show up, like four or five of them, and start firing darts at me while throwing nets into the water.”
“And then what, you ran away?” Daniel cants her head to the side.
“No. I swam away silly.” Lori splashes her tail at him, water surging over the lion’s front paws and chest. It wasn’t high enough to wet the face. “Woke up in the middle of the ocean as a fish lady for some reason, no one really wanted to help me or believe me but lots kept wanting to hear me talk at them or sing little simple songs. Then weird people with tiny dart guns attacked. They got me in the arm with one, but it was really tiny compared to those big ones on you.”
“As I said before they really aren’t more than an annoyance on me, and I … huh. I did hear one guy shout that I wasn’t the right target. Oh, and there wasn’t a measly five. It was twenty of them, all armed to the teeth and going after everyone.
“I don’t think I could have escaped that many. See, I swam down deep and their guns just kept plinking against the surface. Darts didn’t handle moving through water too well, but they kept chasing. Got this little white boat and searched everywhere. I uh, I knew they’d get me eventually if I stayed in the lake. So when I saw this huge river leading upstream I figured, it’s got to go somewhere I can hide. Right?”
Daniel chuckles. “And that’s how you end up here.”
“Yeah.” She looks off to one side. “How about you get in the water. It’s cool, it’s deep enough, and it let me get at that dart you have in you’re neck.”
“And my stomach.” Daniel takes a glance down, but staggers up onto four paws.
“O-oh wow you look so much bigger up close.”
Splash. A lion’s paw instantly connects with the bottom of this wading pool, just deep enough to reach above the ankles. Another step, sliding in past Lori and displacing much of the water. Daniel alone took up almost half the pool, and Lori soon realize there wasn’t much room left to swim. At the same time however the waters were a lot higher, rising up to lip over the edge of its banks.
Daniel spun around so that her tail was toward the waterfall and she could keep eye downriver.
“I think I’m only just starting to realize that, picked a car up off the ground not too long ago.” The sphinx might have sounded prideful.
“And you didn’t just step on all of those fish catcher agents?” Lori smirked. She braces onto her tail and extends her upper body higher, grabbing at the long dart in Daniel’s neck. “H-hokay, One. Two. Three. PULL!”
Daniel barely felt it.
And Lori was wincing back in fear, holding the dart to her chest as if expecting some sort of retaliation.
“Those things don’t exactly hurt, you know. Some of them bounced right off my skin.” The lioness huffs. Settling down into the soft mud, watching the water grow murky at her presence. The constant flow might clean up soon of course, this was a river and not a lake.
“Gosh. Well you can’t deny it any more, you really are made of stone and here’s proof positive.” She puffs her lower lip out. Holding up a needle about as long as her hand, with a wide tip and a heavy yet aerodynamic looking cylinder which once held some sort of liquid.
“Look, I understand if I were still human that would have sucked to get shot with. But trust me it’s honestly just a sliver. My biggest problem is the fact there’s a lot of them, and some of the parts they hit are numb.”
“Oh, I guess I can keep looking. You mean that one on your-ohmygoshwow.” As she was leaning to one side Daniel lifts her wings up, a burst of wind from the sudden flap and exposing all of the fur she had hidden beneath.
“That one right between the joint in my wings is the one that really, really stings.” Daniel winces, eyes shut tight as she tries to keep her wing held open.
“I see it, yeah. Hold still while I …” Lori stretches up the length of Daniel’s flank, having to balance mostly on her powerfully built tail while leaning onto the lioness for support. The mermaid’s skin felt smooth and slimy, something that’s been sitting in a pond and pushing through moss for far too long.
A pull. A hiss as Daniel breathes through gritted teeth. And yet the needle pulled out still did not have blood on the end.
“Phew, thanks.” The lioness sighs softly.
“Gosh you sure have a lot of them …” the mermaid sunk back down, mumbling up some question.
“Hmm. What was that?”
Written by Arbon on 28 April 2017