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Sep. 20th, 2007 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gone_byebyeSplut.
It was a woefully inadequate word for the noise the oozy, muddy, tenaciously sticky substance of the riverbank made as an overloaded parapsychologist-turned-alchemist suddenly smacked into it, but splut would have to serve. There wasn’t a lot of call for fancy vocabulary in this part of the swamp.
Ray pushed himself up with two shaking arms, blinking the mud out of his eyes as hard as he could. A moment later he’d shucked off his backpack, but only so that he could clamber out of the river’s way and start wiping the mud away with both hands. “Okay,” he said to himself, more out of a desire to confirm that his voice still worked than anything else, “this isn’t Milliways. And it sure isn’t Riva.” He glanced up at the dangling vines on the trees. “I suppose Dagobah would be too much to ask for. . . ow!”
Mosquitoes, it seemed, didn’t much care about mud. Ray swatted the first one away.
And the second.
And the third.
And then he had to stop swatting, because he’d just spotted what looked like a leech trying to make its way up the boot he’d bought a few years ago- oop, no, two leeches-
In the trees overhead, something screeched. A flurry of wings went up, and the drone of some insect he’d never heard before filled the air.
And the mosquitoes came back.
Nature at its finest.
Yes, splut! was an inadequate word. Perhaps “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGH!”would be more suitable. At least Ray seemed to think so. He certainly repeated it enough.
Fortunately, so did someone else; a few minutes after Ray’s last scream of indignant, nature-hates-me-and-frankly-the-feeling-is-mutual pure rage died away, a flat-bottomed boat crept its way down the river. “Who’s there?” called a recognizably human voice. “Identify yourself.”
“I’m- wait, what?” said Ray, turning back towards the river. Sure enough, there it was: a small, flat-bottomed boat, its sides painted with serpents in colors Ray couldn’t even put a name to, and several unenthusiastic-looking soldiers in it.
The one at the prow of the boat pointed a spear in Ray’s general direction. “You. The screamer. Identify yourself, in the name of Queen Salmissra. And don’t try anything funny. I’ve had quite enough berry-eating would-be swimmers for one day.”
Ray put his hands on top of his head and whimpered.
It was a woefully inadequate word for the noise the oozy, muddy, tenaciously sticky substance of the riverbank made as an overloaded parapsychologist-turned-alchemist suddenly smacked into it, but splut would have to serve. There wasn’t a lot of call for fancy vocabulary in this part of the swamp.
Ray pushed himself up with two shaking arms, blinking the mud out of his eyes as hard as he could. A moment later he’d shucked off his backpack, but only so that he could clamber out of the river’s way and start wiping the mud away with both hands. “Okay,” he said to himself, more out of a desire to confirm that his voice still worked than anything else, “this isn’t Milliways. And it sure isn’t Riva.” He glanced up at the dangling vines on the trees. “I suppose Dagobah would be too much to ask for. . . ow!”
Mosquitoes, it seemed, didn’t much care about mud. Ray swatted the first one away.
And the second.
And the third.
And then he had to stop swatting, because he’d just spotted what looked like a leech trying to make its way up the boot he’d bought a few years ago- oop, no, two leeches-
In the trees overhead, something screeched. A flurry of wings went up, and the drone of some insect he’d never heard before filled the air.
And the mosquitoes came back.
Nature at its finest.
Yes, splut! was an inadequate word. Perhaps “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGH!”would be more suitable. At least Ray seemed to think so. He certainly repeated it enough.
Fortunately, so did someone else; a few minutes after Ray’s last scream of indignant, nature-hates-me-and-frankly-the-feeling-is-mutual pure rage died away, a flat-bottomed boat crept its way down the river. “Who’s there?” called a recognizably human voice. “Identify yourself.”
“I’m- wait, what?” said Ray, turning back towards the river. Sure enough, there it was: a small, flat-bottomed boat, its sides painted with serpents in colors Ray couldn’t even put a name to, and several unenthusiastic-looking soldiers in it.
The one at the prow of the boat pointed a spear in Ray’s general direction. “You. The screamer. Identify yourself, in the name of Queen Salmissra. And don’t try anything funny. I’ve had quite enough berry-eating would-be swimmers for one day.”
Ray put his hands on top of his head and whimpered.
