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(just a reminder of Ku’s personality, so you don’t end up completely hating her after this post… she grew up orphaned in the slums. She is very rough around the edges and has trust issues (but adores Abirami, though she tries to hide it, even from herself sometimes) and she plays dirty… very high survival instincts and a bit pessimistic/over-cautious. But she also despises herself as ugly and of little worth. – and she can control insects)

Ku’aya

The vision in my left eye switched from scene to scene as I focused upon my friends. It didn’t matter that everyone in the room would be revulsed by them. My horseflies couldn’t be beat when it came to reconnaissance. They easily flew faster than most birds and were small enough to fit near anywhere, mostly unnoticeably.

But this castle… chaos was too nice a word for it.

I kept my vision on one of my flying spies as it flew into a hole in the wall. There were springs and gears everywhere. They interlocked with innumerous cogs that spanned the entire wall and more.

Further down, the fly flew and ducked under the room it had just been in. A vast space opened up, and the interworking of under our feet became clear… well, visually clear. Mentally, I still couldn’t grasp what I was seeing.

Boxes the size of rooms were moving, shifting, and even changing sizes. The massive mesh of gears and machinery was unfathomable.

It gave me a headache, so I shut the vision off and gave my spies a running order to continue searching. They would inform me if they found something important… like a tannink’esh, or treasure. Hmmm. Surely a castle like this one had treasure in it. Especially with all that junk down there and the moving rooms. Moving rooms meant secrets. Secrets meant danger, and danger meant something worth protection… which could only mean treasure, right?

I walked over to Abirami and knelt down as he finished taking the poor man’s pain.

“Yup. Stupid.”

Abirami shut his eyes, falling unconscious.

He’d always been too kind a soul for this life. His heart was so big, you could just poke it full of holes. Bleeding heart, and all that. The boy had no sense. Life was hard and mean. If I could just protect him from that, even a little… perhaps I could repay just a bit of what I owed him.

Not that I could ever repay him fully.

I couldn’t help but smile at him, sleeping there. My big, dumb brother. The first and only person to ever tell me I wasn’t ugly. Me, with my green skin and sticks for ears.

A fancy other-world lady walked up and took something off of her clothes. Just how much clothes was she wearing? Layers? Who was crazy enough to wear layers in summer? Not many could afford it, even in winter. Hah, must be nice being rich. Maybe she’s royalty… Abirami sure knew how to pick em… he must be a princess magnet or something.

I chuckled, then shut my mouth, realizing it probably wasn’t an appropriate time to be laughing.

The girly girl from another world pressed her cloth down in Abirami’s wound.

I raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“Do you think I enjoy washing blood out of my clothes? I should just let you bleed out, you’re the one stupid enough to try to take on both at the same time,” she said.

Stupid girl. It’s your clothes, your problem. Not like he was going to bleed out anyway. Meh, oh well. Not my problem. Abirami will probably be up and about in a few hours. Tomorrow morning at the latest, though the wound won’t completely disappear for like a day or two.

My fly spy I had ordered to watch the strange man Abirami had healed buzzed a warning in my head. I had fly spies on everyone in the room.

The man was walking toward us, hand on his weapon. I quickly sized him up, analyzing a plan of attack should I need it.

I already knew there were six exits in this room and where each one was at the present time. My insect friends were keeping an eye on more than just those other-worlders in the room.

No, five doors now. One just disappeared. Such a strange place.

My childhood habit ran through my head. I’d once thought of trying to get rid of it, always being suspicious of everyone and having two plans at the ready : a plan of escape and a plan of attack – but it’d come in handy so many times, I couldn’t bring myself to stop.

This man seemed formidable, and the fear I felt probably meant he was skilled and experienced. But all men had their weaknesses.

I couldn’t use my escape plan. Not without abandoning Abirami. But this man seemed cocky as he approached. Cocky men were always easy to fall.

I could send my termites to eat through his shoes, cause him unbalance, then send my bullet ants in. He’d have to be super-strong to be able to stand after one of those bites.

The man stopped and reached a hand out to the lady who Abirami had healed. There was something about him I didn’t like. He was trying to be smooth, I think… but he was trying too hard. Bet I could take him.

If the feet didn’t work, he had plenty of other openings. A well placed hit to the face with my staff, and I could unload some bullet ants there, or perhaps some burrowers… send them into his ears or up his nose. The nose was always a good trick. It made the eyes water without fail.

He smiled as the lady replied to something he’d said. Then he looked over at me, a wary gleam in his eyes. I really didn’t like him.

The edge of my mouth tipped up into a smirk. If nothing else, I could always hit him between the legs. He was, after all, just a guy.

A whistle blew through the air, but I didn’t think much about it. Then something happened I wasn’t expecting.

 

(have fun with that ending. hehe… =) )