In fact, they were so surprised that they forgot to be afraid of the dark red-furred weresmilodon.
"Er..." Sylvia responded intelligently. Suddenly, she blinked, snapping herself out of her stupor. "Wait! Miss..." she stumbled to a halt, not sure how to refer to the were.
Their captor dropped the gleeful appearance. "Eh, call me Ran..." she stopped for a milisecond, "...Ko. Ranko is my name," she finished, hoping that they didn't catch the pause.
Fortunately for her, Sylvia didn't notice, and Trish was still stunned. "Miss Ranko," she started, wondering at the strange name, "what happened to our friends?" She noticed, with growing dread, that their captor had began to adopt a smile that she really did not feel comfortable with. Kinda like a mix of mirth with sadisticness, along with a strong supply of cuteness, and a sprig of boyish humour, whatever the hell that was.
Trish stared stupidly at her elven partner before coming back to her fear riddled senses. She stared at the bane of all werecats, who began to adopt a quite feral grin. "Y-y-you didn't!" she cried in shock.
"What, eat them?" Ranko asked innocently, noting that the were-whatchamacallit was trembling visibly. Then she began laughing. "HAHAHA! Of course not! And they ain't dead, too," she added, to prevent anymore questions about their state of living. Then she grinned slyly. "Of course, they prolly wish they were," she remarked.
Sylvia stared. "They... wish?" She jumped a bit when Ranko suddenly collapsed in giggles, tears coming out of her eyes. The magicless mage wondered what had happened that made her react like this. Then she prayed that whatever it was, it didn't happen to her.
***
The forest was filled with an uncomfortable silence.
The reason why the silence was uncomfortable instead of some other adjective is this: the silence would depend on the moods and situation of the inhabitants.
Usually, the normal inhabitants are stuff like trees, rocks, birds, squirrels, and the occasional predator. Since they exist in a stable ecosystem where the trees grow nuts and the like, the birds and others harvest the fruits of the trees, the predators would then masticate the birds, then they would choke on a small bone and die, decomposing and becoming the nutrients needed by the tree, it was rather relaxing. Mostly because all of the animals and whatever knew what their place was and had no real intention of changing it. Therefore, the silence was a sedate, or relaxing, silence it that case.
In the case of a logging camp, the lumberjacks would work hard chopping down trees and thus destroying the fragile ecosystem, then go out onto the town dressed in women's clothing like their dear papas, the silence of the logging camp after a long day's job would be a satisfied silence, though somewhat tinted with a silence of pain and agony of the trees and squirrels and predators. Of course, no one really pays attention to them, so it's a rather moot point.
In the case of a wasteland, where either a plague had wiped out the inhabitants, a nuclear warhead impacted causing radioactive fallout, or a certain purple dinosaur, that should all means be dead, decided to have a live concert, the silence would be desolate, and agonizing.
However, this particular silence was uncomfortable. Suitable, for the inhabitants of a certain tree were quite uncomfortable.
"... Any luck?" one of the hunters, human and male, asked his comrade, who was struggling beside him.
The male elf sighed in annoyance. "For the fourtieth time, NO! This knot is tied too well," he replied, trying, unsuccesfully, to untie the rope that had all six of the hunters hanging ten feet in the air in one bundle.
One of the female humans sighed. "Ugh, this is embarrasing," she remarked, looking down at her feet.
The other human girl frowned. "It is, but there's no reason to GET EXCITED ABOUT IT!" she screamed in the guy's ear next to her.
"Ow! Sorry, but... well, you know!" he tried in vain to console her, but was interrupted by the last human.
"Well, it's the only way that you'll get to touch one of those, girl," he joked. He began trying to wiggle away as the said woman tried to bite him. "Hey, hey! Cut that out!" Of course, their antics began to get everyone riled up
"Would you just shut up?" the elf asked, still trying to get the knot untied.
All obeyed his request, and the uncomfortable silence rolled back in. Then it rolled back out when one of the women looked down at the ground.
"... Do you think that Sylvia and Trisha are still alive?" she asked.
The elf sighed. "Can't say for sure. The male weresmilodon hasn't killed anybody, yet, but this is the first encounter with a female. We also know that the male didn't like magic users much, so if they're in contact, then perhaps both of them are doomed..."
The uncomfortable silence waded back in, but didn't dive in because a new silence of mourning, along with a faint sniffling from one of the girls, also inhabited the area.
"I just wish that she didn't leave us in our skivvies," one of the girls finally remarked. Another human shrugged his shoulders as well as he could.
"Hey, it's better than being naked. Besides, she left our clothes at the base of the tree."
"Actually, I would mind being naked like this..."
A instantneous cry of "PERVERT!" from the rest of the group, along with a chomping sound and a faint whimper of pain spiked through the forest, then was covered once again by an uncomfortable silence.
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(Posted Mon, 26 Jan 2004 22:26)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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