Stranded

[Ace Finn]

He was finally awake, but he didn't open his eyes; they hurt too much. He'd find out later that it was from the sunburn. Ace tried to move, and succeeded in flexing his fingers, also burned, and his whole body recoiled from the hot pain. For a while he lay on the sands, knowing that someone would come and help him, because clearly, judging by the way his skin hurt and his bones ached, he'd been in some sort of accident. And God was he thirsty. What he wouldn't kill for just a sip of water at that moment. He didn't even care whose water it was, or what the price for it was.

The water was there, caressing his legs, but he somehow knew it wasn't the drinkable kind. It was the ocean, salty, full of seaweed and fish pee. Somehow he was completely sure of that.

After a while, he opened one dark eye, and then blinked the other open. That one was full of sand, and he gently rubbed the granules away from his eye, wincing, feeling tears coming to it. The boy struggled to his knees even later and turned to look back at the endless ocean beside him. He vaguely remembered being on a boat, or at least something moving -- the plane? he asked himself, and thought that that had to be it. So it was true; she was still dead. And he didn't know where he was, only that he'd somehow survived the crash. But for some reason, he felt too exposed. He couldn't stay there, because, being half Irish, he'd fry to a crispy critter out there on the beach. It seemed he was already on his way there. So he slowly got to his feet and trudged along the beech, whispering ouches and other various sounds of pain every time a limb moved. Water... he needed water. He figured if he could even find a coconut and something to smash it on, that would be decent enough if he couldn't find fresh water. Being a spoiled, rich child, he didn't know that fresh coconuts took a lot more work to open than store-bought ones, but he'd no doubt figure it out, as he was intelligent, even with the lack of common sense. It would click eventually.

He came to a coconut palm that was leaning low to the ground and stretching toward the sun at the same time. It was laden with the hard fruits, and it was low enough that even his five-foot-two stature could reach it. It took some time, but he was able to wrench one off the tree. Being so tired, though, rather than trying to open it, he sat down and set it between his legs and stared down at it.

[Ace Finn]

Finally, Ace lifted a shaky hand to try to figure out if this oblong, green thing was even a coconut. He thought it was... maybe. He thought that was what coconuts looked like before they transformed into grocery store coconuts. Not that he knew how to open one of those either, without losing all the milk all over the ground. But he'd have to try, because he wasn't sure how far he could get to find water without having any hydration in the first place. With his left hand, he dug his fingernails into the coarse husk and started trying to tear away at it. It came off in layers of stringy, strandy flesh-colored bits. Finally, after about half an hour at it, he started to see the brown supermarket-coconut nestled inside its casing.

Shakily, ace got up and took the coconut back to the tree, where he smashed the green part, loosening it up so he could tear off more of the layers. In the back of his mind he thought this was taking much longer than it really should, but he had nothing to help him. When the husk was finally, mostly off, he started knocking the thing against the trunk of the tree. It broke in half after some time, and he was right; most of the milk spewed out onto the ground. But that was okay, because the meat inside was soft and moist, and he felt a bit rejuvenated after just a few scoops out of it. After that, he would never go back to supermarket coconuts, not ever. Those were too dry. This was delicious.

Two hours later, he'd had three coconuts to eat, and he'd found an aloe plant. His Ma used to keep those, and they grew giant, and she used to break off a leaf and rub it on him when he was scraped or burned. So he did the same, tore the leaf in half length-wise, and started to rub it over his aching, blistered arms and lightly on his face. He felt already like he should be on a TV show, teaching people about aloe plants and how to crack coconuts. Unfortunately, he felt he was going to get really good at breaking coconuts.

There was a jungle starting at the edge of the beach, and he thought that surely, there would be other fruits growing there, ones much easier to get to. He'd have to live off those until he could find some sort of civilization. And he'd have to find some defense against anything that might attack him, like maybe... well, he didn't know. But walking softly and carrying a big stick, he thought, could only help his chances at this point.

Off in the distance, though, he thought he could hear someone walking... not quite so softly. His heart jumped in his chest; he was saved! But then again, he didn't know who they were. They could be people-hunters for all he knew. Maybe the island was inhabited by monstrous, evil cannibals. Quickly and as quietly as he could, he slipped into the underbrush of the jungle. He could still hear them, and they were talking about him, though the didn't know who he was. And judging by the things they were saying, he didn't want them to.

[Ace Finn]

"Knew I just saw ye here," the raspy voice came, and Ace drew his knees up to his chest and bent his head forward, trying to still his shuddering breaths. "Come ou', come ou'..."

He'd gotten a decent look at the old grizzly man just moments before, and all his brain could scream was "PIRATE!" He looked like something from a movie, with the once good but now weather-beaten garb, a sword at his side, an unkempt beard and an overly large tricorne hat. If this had been, say, a theme park, he would have laughed.

The pirate cursed under his breath and kicked at one of the cleaned-out coconuts. "Lost 'im." He started away, but turned back and yelled, "Bull 'll find ye! Can't hide, mate!"

'Bull better not find me,' he thought, staying as still as he possibly could even while he watched the pirate's retreating back. 'I dunno who Bull is, but--' and then he noticed, at his bare and burned feet, a spider the size of his hand, huge, furry, and disgusting. Ace hated spiders. Put him in either a room full of spiders, or a room with his dad on a drunk and he'd take his dad any day. Seeing one of these out in the wild... how could people keep them as pets? HOW? They were sickening things!

He bit his lip to keep quiet and started scooching his butt backward, trying not to rustle the plant growth too much. He didn't know how well old Bull could hear, even though by this point he was pretty far away. Come to think of it, he'd take Bull over this eight-legged monstrosity whose eyes and pincers just stared right up at him like it was plotting the apocalypse or something.

Finally Ace got away, turned, and started walking briskly into the jungle, eyes on the ground the whole time, on the lookout for spiders...

[Elillithia Gainsboro]

It had been a while since she had been to Farnaze, and her first thought when she woke up was of how nice it was to be sitting in the sun not having to worry about anything except maybe a sunburn. Not that she ever got a sunburn anyway. Her purple hair was matted and stringy, but that could be fixed later with a good bath and a comb, if she could manage to come across one. The short woman sat up, examining herself to see what state she had arrived in this time. Upon doing so she really wished she hadn't. Her clothes were not in good condition, the once strong leather pants shredded and her coat was barely anything now. Her shirt had seemed to survive almost decently, but that was it really. And her boots, oh her favorite boots were gone. What distressed her more than that thought was how bruised she was. Why did she have to be dropped in the middle of the sea this time anyway? Lat time it was a slave life, and somehow I was here for two cycles of that. she thought to herself. A slightly sigh escaped, and Lillith decided it was time to get a move on.

Sand fell from her, even more so when she brushed herself off. She looked at her wrists, seeing the glint of her jocastii stones beneath a light crust of sea salt. That stuff had always stuck to her like crazy. For a moment she stretched, making sure all her muscles still worked in the proper manner before starting off. I'll have to get some salve out of my bag....

"MY BAG!" Her voice was melodic, but shrill as anxiety made it very high. Her bag was the only thing that ever came through unharmed. Only a few times before had it gotten away from her, and she freaked out hardcore everytime it happened. Without that bag she would be completely lost. Nothing. Everything she was was in it and she couldn't live without it.

Frantically she ambled down the beach, trying to keep an eye out for it. She passed a few spiders, kicking them out of her way as she went, deciding not to care about the consequences until later. That wasn't part of The Way, but no one was here to enforce her beliefs except for herself, so she'd lit it slide for now and kick herself later. I have to find it, I have to find it..... She didn't really notice when she passed someone, who looked like they were trying to be unnoticed at the edge of the jungle.

-pokes Ace-|-Tags|
451|-Words|
icky and not on polyvore. :3|-Outfit|
Mecha by Hadouken|-Listening to|
it's a bit ramblish|-Notes|

[Ace Finn]

Ace heard the shrill cry only moments after Bull seemed to be gone. Still, he whimpered and darted for the nearest underbrush. It was then that, like many, many times before, all he could think about was how much he just wanted his mother. But poor Ace, legally an orphan, had no one. Not even Nate anymore, not even his unrequited love. And there he was, shipwrecked on an island with a pirate, spiders, and a freakin' banshee. "Oh please, God 'elp me," he whispered, forming a cross with his right hand over his forehead and shoulders. Pirates and spiders and banshees, oh my... 'Okay,' he thought. 'That wasn't a banshee, Ace, they don't exist. You're an idiot.'

He quietly peeked out of the bushes, then stepped out gingerly, feeling with one foot for spiders. There didn't seem to be any. So he put out the other foot and hoisted himself out of the underbrush with a small 'oof!' and he wandered slowly back toward the beach just to grab one of his half-eaten coconuts and steal back into the jungle with it. In here, he was safe from everything, everything but spiders anyway. As he ate, he wondered what other things he might have the pleasure of running into, like panthers or tigers or Komodo dragons, or something worse... or pythons... or ... he shuddered to think. Ace dropped the coconut. He suddenly wasn't hungry anymore.

And then, something furry came flying toward his face. "AAAAAAH!" he screeched, flailing, putting his arms out in front of his face. The thing hit his arm and perched on it for just a second before falling back to the ground with a dull thud. "SPIDERS!" he screamed, starting to flail his entire body. "They're on me, they're all over me, oh God they're on me..." And with an almighty punt with his foot, he sent the offending one flying smack into the trunk of a banyan tree. Then, he stared at the woman who'd kicked the spider. Stared daggers. "Tha'. Was. DISGUSTING." he said, starting to compose himself, but still breathing heavily, still feeling the phantom spiders all over his body. "Watch where you're flingin' those things. Are you the banshee that lost her bag? 'Cause I thought I saw it, like, over there." He pointed to the first underbrush he'd been hiding in. He'd seen it, didn't know how it got there, didn't know what was in it, and didn't want to find out. It could have been Bull's bag of torture instruments for all he knew.

He turned away, looking toward the beach. Someone would be looking for him, he knew. He'd been in an institution a padded cell short of an asylum; someone had to know he was missing. Nate had to have noticed, and told them that Ace was gone and they had to find him. But what he didn't remember was that none of them had been on the ship. Just him and a boatload of other people, most of whom had perished.

"Were you on the boat too?" he asked. Where had they been going? Maybe he'd been going back to Ireland; maybe it was the ferry. Perhaps it'd been steered off course. Maybe he was still in some hick-nowhere place in England. He wouldn't rule it out, and Bull had sounded kind of English anyway...

[Elillithia Gainsboro]

In the midst of spider-kicking she didn't pay much attention to where the furry things were being flung. So it shouldn't have come a a surprise when someone else decided to take a turn at screaming. And she thought she'd been alone this time. Ha?! Fat chance. The shifts never happened to just one person, she knew that. They happened to multiple people, all being thrown through time and space in a way that no equation she had ever seen could explain. Gally might have known, but Lillith hadn't seen her loving compaion since the whole mess had started of so many years ago.

"Tha' was disgustin' " someone said, making her stop in her tracks completely. She turned towards them as they asked if she was a banshee, yellow gold eyes watching carefully for any sign that he was a pirate, or worse, a slave to the amazonians who lived here just ripe to give her up for a reward. For a second she considered attack, until he said something about her bag.

First off, I am most certainly NOT banshee. They broke off from us eons ago, poor bastards. And secondsly, you say you say my bag? Because that has everything I could ever need in it, and if I have it I'll be mostly sane again." Mostly because something almost always went missing in the transfer, the price she had to pay for even getting to keep the bag at all. She looked in the direction the younger boy had pointed, hoping it wasn't a trap. Those weren't fun. Not here, not now, not ever. She just needed to stay away from those damn amazonian women. Lat time she was here the current queen of then had killed three or four different other women vying for the position of queen. And that was in about sixth months. Only two cycles!

He had a look on his face that said that there was trouble, for someone anyway, hopefully not her. When asked if she was on a boat she had to think. Think hard. Had she gotten here by boat this time? She was almost sure she hadn't, that there had been no one with her.

[/color]

No. I fell from the sky this time. Right ino the ocean, although there were bits of sinking vessel all around. Maybe whatever happened there caused enough temporal distortion to create a focus point and that's why I dropped through there. It would have had to have been something big though. Some kind of magical explosion, or a large amount of deaths opening gateways. I've rarely come through into the ocean, not so far out. Usually closer to land where the ley line energy can grasp ahold of the water before they cancel each other out. If he understood anything she had just said it would be a miracle. Sometimes she went on like that, forgetting that not everyone in the world worked on her level of thought, no matter how hectic it was.

"So to sum it up, no, I wasn't on a sailing vessel."[/blockquote]

-pokes again-|-Tags|
527|-Words|
still sandy|-Outfit|
same as before|-Listening to|
technobabble. She has it.|-Notes|

[Ace Finn]

"Banshees exist?" Ace's jaw literally dropped. "I thought they were mythical screamin' things. Like, we call things that scream banshees. I dunno." But he nodded. "I saw a bag. Not sure if it's yours. But I saw one. I thought it was that pirate's bag, the one I was hidin-- you're not a pirate, are you?"

Mostly sane? "So I'd be sane if I had a bag? I need a bag." He usually did have a bag, and it carried his markers, his pencils, and his sketch pads and journal. But these, he knew the water had probably destroyed, if he even had the bag on him, and it was true...having the bag did calm him, and having the things in them made him a little more sane. But he had been sent away for severe depression... insanity, in the eyes of most people. He was insane enough to want to constantly attempt to end his own life. His eyes widened and he smiled when he realized... here, he could do that. But not right now. Not in front of this not-banshee.

"You... fell from the sky... were you in an... airplane?" He said the last word with a visible grimace. His mother had been killed flying one, after all. "Oh... I think there were loads of deaths, yeah. I remember there being dead people in the water while I was floating... it was..." He wished he had died, too. With all his heart, he did. But he kept escaping death, even when he looked for it. The rest of what she said, he had no idea about.

But wait...

She'd said this time.

"You've been here before? Tell me... what's it like? What about the pirates? There's this one, he called himself 'Bull.' Do you know 'im? Wait, go get your bag. Before Bull gets it. He's who I've been hidin' from, said he'd get me. And it looks stormy out here, wouldn't want it floatin' off, right?"

Ace didn't really know what to do anymore. There was another person stranded with him, and as much as he was afraid of her, he didn't want her to go away. She might be his only companion. She might be possible protection.

[Elillithia Gainsboro]

She laughed quietly for a moment, grinning at how surprised he seemed to be. Did people really think that Banshees were really that unusual? Of course, she had grown up with them, so they weren't unusual to her. Besides, they weren't the same as the legends of banshee's on earth. No in her society they were honoured as bringers of the Eternal Sleep. At least, it was eternal some of the time. Nine lives wasn't always enough for some people.

" Well, I guess you could say they are mythical, in your timeline anyway. And they do scream. But they scream because it means that someone is going to be going to the Summer Fields." She explained to him. It was kind of funny to have to explain how things worked to someone, because not many people asked. Or they asked too much and she didn't answer them at all. She just shook her head slightly, trying to take in what was happening. She really hated this part, where she had to figure out what happened now.

" Listen, I'm sorry about the spiders. I honestly didn't mean to kick them at you. Come with me while I get this. I promise I'm not a pirate, not this time anyway." The very last part was muttered under her breath, and she hoped he didn't hear it because he was obviously terrified of them. She would be to i she hadn't been one of them previously. So many cycles she had lived here in these realms and she was still learning. Then the boy made her laugh again, asking if he's be sane if he had a bag. She wasn't so sure about that. It worked for her of course, but she was pretty sure she was a special case. Her whole life was in that bag.

" You might be sane if you had a bag, I'm not really sure. Everything I am and have ever been is in mine." She replied to him. " I wasn't in an aeroplane. I just fell from the sky this time because of the temporal distortion. Which was caused by the dead people. She huffed and started to make her way over to where the bag was, muttering a few things along the way about pirates and sand and spiders and the places they could all go together.

"I've been here a few times before, but I've never heard of this "Bull" person. I'm Elillithia by the way. You can just call me Lillith, or Lil. Last time I was a slave for the amazonians. I was at least treated almost halfway decently because I'm female, but here that doesn't account for too much. She just shook her head.

spiders.....and Ace. :3|-Tags|
488|-Words|
sandy|-Outfit|
birds and lawnmowers. :3|-Listening to|
SPAZZ!|-Notes|

[Ace Finn]

He listened intently, as he usually did, hanging on every word. "And the Summer Fields, that must be where people go when they die? I mean, in your ... wherever you're from. People like me go to Heaven... or Hell. Or Purgatory. It all depends." He knew that she wasn't human, because for humans, banshees didn't exist. And there was just something about her eyes. While she looked human for the most part, maybe from far away, her eyes said that she was something else.

"Okay, I accept your apology... just don't kick any more at me. I really hate those things. You have no idea." He remembered when he went camping with his parents, and his dad found a spider, took his pocket knife, and speared the thing on the tip of it. Ace didn't know why he did that, but he could remember the way the legs flailed and convulsed, and it just didn't seem right to him. Arachnids just didn't seem right. They moved too weirdly to be natural.

He thought about her words on the bag... but he couldn't do that. Everything he was, and had ever been... he would have to put his mother in a bag for that to happen. But they'd found no trace of her, just ashes and unidentifiable bones. And a charred collar device of a spread eagle, which Ace, even now, held clasped in one hand. It was the only thing he had left of her. Damned airplanes; it hadn't been Midori's fault the plane had gone down. It was something with the turbines, the FAA had said the day they handed that silver eagle to Ace.

He wondered if that crash had caused a temporal distortion, too, and if more people like this one had fallen through, onto Earth from wherever they were from. It was possible. There had been a few dead that weren't burned. Maybe they died from a fall. Maybe that was how, though until then, everyone had thought that when the plane got low enough they'd tried to jump. Ace didn't bother asking her about that. Nor did he hear really the things she was muttering, but he walked with her and pointed her toward where he'd seen the bag.

"Oh. Well, Bull isn't nice, so you don't want to ever hear of him. Hi, I'll call you Lil, if you don't mind. I'm Ace. Ace Finn." His eyes widened. He'd heard of Amazons, or at least had heard really tall women were called that. "So... if they're Amazonians... then we're in the Amazon... which is in... how the hell did I get so far from Ireland? Or even Japan, I could be there with my grandparents, but noooo, I get dropped in the middle of the godforsaken Amazon!" He huffed and sat down after punting another spider out of the way. He folded his hands under his chin and stared daggers at the ground. "So how do we get out of here? I don't suppose Bull will let us borrow a ship. I'd really just like to get to ... somewhere, I don't care. My grandparents'. Wherever Nate is. I wouldn't even mind going back to my foster parents at this point. Anywhere but here!"

[Elillithia Gainsboro]

Lillith looked at Ace as if he were slightly crazy. He had no idea where they were. He thought they were on Terra. Old Terra by the way he spoke of things, not one of the new Terra colonies. Well then, he must have been pretty new. First time round in this verse most certainly, unlike her with so many years inhabiting this strange plane of existence. She moved though the grasses for a moment until she came upon the weathered beaten bag she was looking for. It was smallish looking, but she wasn't a reality manipulator for nothing.

"Got it! Anyway, we're not in the Amazon. You're not going to like this either, but we're not in any place you've ever known. I wish I knew how to explain it the simple way, but when it comes to Universal Mechanics...ya, that was one class I kinda scraped and slept may way through back at the academie"At least, that's what You'll just have to get along with for now. The woman just shook her head, coming back over to Ace. She carefully opened a pocket, pulling out what looked like a long thin blade. But she made a flick of her wrist, and it snicked open, revealing itself to be a shukusen. Her fan-blade. Last cycle she had lost her Glaive and was quite sure she wasn't getting it back, but this she could keep, and did.

Another few objects were pulled out, including a well worn journal. The purple haired woman flipped the pages open to look at a map spread over two pages of the strange book.

"It seems we need to move of this way Ace. The village is that-a-way, and we don't want to go there quite yet. If it hasn't been too long then I should still have a hide away we can use. It's got some food stocked in it, so I think we'll be okay. Maybe." She closed the book, looking at him through golden eyes to see if he was going to follow or not.

Ace!|-Tags|
361|-Words|
will be on polyvore soon!|-Outfit|
Strange Weather by Keren Ann|-Listening to|
Sorry it's been so long!|-Notes|

[Ace Finn]

Ace huffed, his hands still folded under his chin. Well if they weren't in the damn Amazon, where were they? "Oh my god, so next you're gonna tell me we're, like, in outer space or something. As if this day wasn't horrible enough? Tell me, are we even still on Earth? Oh, or maybe we're in some kinda bullshit alternate universe, like that last Star Trek movie. Right?" He kicked at a clump of forest grass and then got up slowly. Once he saw the fan blade, he thought maybe he should stop whining. Maybe she didn't like whiners. "So what you're saying is, this is nowhere near home, so I'm never going to be home. And I'll never see Nate again. Right?"

Then he saw the journal and peeked over it to look at the map. "What's at the village? The amazons? No, I guess we don't wanna go there, then."

His eyes widened at the 'Maybe.' Maybe they would be okay? What did she mean, maybe? "Well, if it ever comes to we're gonna die, just take that fan blade and shove it through my throat, okay? I'm serious. You know, maybe just do it anyway. I'm not kidding." He lifted his chin to expose the pale skin of his throat. He didn't really think she'd do it, and she probably wouldn't. But maybe if he could somehow get ahold of one of her weapons he could just end it all himself.

Once he figured she wasn't going to, he shook his head and turned to follow her. Some part of his mind said that maybe this wasn't bad. That it beat living with his father. But that was really the only thing it beat. Sure, he'd been in a home for the mentally disturbed, but at least he'd had Nate there, Nate in all his skin-draw-y, hard-to-get-playing, sheer sexiness. So now Nate was probably certain that Ace had made good on his word and finally killed himself. He said he was going to, so he was sure that's what everyone thought. They knew he was a high suicide risk. So they likely figured that he went up into the rafters or something to do it because now they couldn't find a body. Because his body was in an alternate universe.

"This would make for an interesting book," he said. "Except I'm sure there's no pleasant ending. It's probably Ace never gets reunited with his true love and dies of heartbreak. Or Ace finds poisonous plants and gnaws on them for a while before keeling over. Or Ace gets stuck with Amazons and dies because he's the main course. Then he gets eaten. Yum. There's not a lot of meat on me though. I'm pretty underweight. Maybe they'll spare me."

[Elillithia Gainsboro]

Normally her patience lasted a long time, but today it seemed was not Ace's lucky day. Lillith didn't like these trips, didn't like having her life uprooted every cycle or every few cycles. She'd never be able to have a normalish life because she hadn't figured out how to make it so she could choose where she was going or when. There wasn't a way for her to just stay in one place. And right now it was making her cranky. The kid said something about never going home and she muttered something that he couldn't hear, which wasn't all too pleasant. And really, it involved doing anatomically impossible things with fish and other such creatures. Of course, she wasn't going to repeat it right now.

"No, going to the village would not be a good idea. She told him, trying to watch the map and see if it was going to start picking up on life signs. Usually it would, be the woman wasn't sure that it had switched over yet as if was reading life signs that weren't there. Some of the names she recognized from her old cycle. Damnit. I really wish Gally was here. Everything would be so much faster. Everything would work if she were here. The eridithian mourned the loss of her companion, whom she hadn't seen since she started her way though the seemingly endless turns. Then Ace started to say something about killing himself, which really just pissed her off.

In a movement that would have been a blur to him the short woman locked an arm around his throat, holding the sharp end of the fan just under the soft spot of his neck. She didn't have patience for that kind of attitude, in anyone.
" Really? Is that really what you think? Because a little more blood spilt is no skin off my nose. I've done it before and I'm not afeared to do it again. I've lost enough in this damn mixed up 'verse that one more loss won't weigh too heavilly on my mind." She snarled the words softly, not scaring just how scary she was being. After a few moments of silence she roughly let him go, grabbing the bag she had flicked aside and walking off towards the trees.

" I'll make sure to point out all the poisonous plants just for you." She shot back over her shoulder. The spoiled kid had no idea how much his life was about to go to hell. Where by the Goddess did he live all his life? Fire and Rain! I've never met one who complains as much. At least though I know he cannot outclass me in mobidity. I'm quit sure that I win in that. Lillith had to give a sarcastic rough laugh though at the idea of the Amazonians sparing him because he was too stringy.

Aaaaaaace|-Tags|
didn't count this time|-Words|
full of sand|-Outfit|
A Thousand Kisses Deep - Leonard Cohen|-Listening to|
Sorry for errs and general blahness|-Notes|

[Ace Finn]

"Then do it, damn it!" Ace cried, lifting his chin. If she wasn't afraid, she would end him, like he wanted. She'd be doing him a favor. He waited hopefully for the blade to go in. He thought of Nate, what he might think, but Nate had given him permission to die, so that didn't matter. But she let him go, roughly, and he fell back onto the leaf-scattered forest floor, rubbing his neck. So she was scared. Either that, or she was enough of a bitch to want to watch him suffer. I'll make sure to point out all the poisonous plants just for you," she said, and he just glared at her. Maybe she wanted to watch him do it. Maybe it would give her some kind of sick pleasure to watch someone die.

He got to his feet slowly, his head hanging in solemn sadness that it didn't just end there. Now he was still here, still stranded, and still with some crazy not-banshee. "Who are you really, anyway?" he asked. She was still different and still alien to him. "And how come you just don't go back to where you came from when you switch worlds again? That'd be the logical thing, you know. Wait, let me guess. It's not logical. Right. Forget it." He trudged quietly, for once, after her, toward another copse of thick trees, just trying to figure out how all this worked. If another mass amount of people died...

Wait.

Was that how he got there? Did a bunch of people die, at Highgrove? What about Nate? So did that mean Nate was dead, too? And could Ace somehow be dead? Maybe that's why Lilith didn't kill him... maybe he was just already too far gone. He wanted to ask her, but he didn't. Partly because he knew the answer; that was absurd; he couldn't really be dead. And somewhere in his heart he didn't think Nate was dead either. He'd have remembered that.