See Part One for Disclaimers. Rating: PG-13 for language.
Rayden frowned at the bog. He would have frowned at himself or his fingers, but that might just have precluded looking at anything but bog for some time. Since his ability to swiftly transfer himself hither and yon seemed on the fritz, he wasn't certain he wanted to try out immortality: yes or no? in a bog. Among other considerations, there was always the wonderful one of could one breathe bog and would he spend the rest of eternity alternately suffocating and recovering? It occurred to him that this just might teach him not to snag toys he didn't know anything about and play with them without out instructions. He allowed himself a mental sigh and wondered if the owner of the device would possibly be looking for it.
His answer came when the praahr, the dragon, the seaquest addict and Grace all folded into existance around the bog.
(The Godzilla-phile and the Klingon Muppet had been sent back to dragon's lair with Tes as guardian because they were beginning to get whiny about being hungry and tired. Tes, a trifle peckish and grouchy after all that sunlight and Darwin's peculiar ideas about fun, had agreed to baby sit back at the lair. Waaay too much sun.)
Well, almost all of them around the bog. Grace, quite gracefully, but unsuccessfully, teetered on the treacherous verge of the bog, lost her balance and joined the thunder god in the muck. Splat! Her immediate urge to scramble out of the bog was stifled by several incoherent shouts from dragon, et al.
Grace pulled her besmirched face out of the muck, shook her head to get her hair out of her face, as much as possible, and said, "What?"
"It's a bog. Don't struggle."
"Actually, she landed quite well for getting out," dragon observed. Grace shot her one of those looks that would carbonize a tyranosaurus rex if it could and spit out some bog. She carefully pulled her arm around to where she could get a hand to her face to wipe things off her face and out of her eyes. Blink. Blink. Rayden. About three feet away. Up to his chin in bog. Grace smiled at him.
Rayden had to admit that it was a definitely day brightening smile and, had he been someplace other than buried up to his chin in a bog, he would have had absolutely no difficulty in responding to that smile. He gave her one of those raised eyebrow looks that tended to alternately annoy her and make her feel just slightly guilty.
Rayden turned his attention to dragon. He frowned. He looked really displeased. dragon began to wonder why she wasn't cinderized. "Get * me * out * of * here." The words were evenly spaced, not particularly loud and dragon gulped.
"Swim."
"What?" That one was a bellow.
"It's the only way out of a bog on your own power. You have to remain relatively horizontal and slowly do the Australian crawl to the edge where you can, slowly, maneuver yourself -- out -- of --- the ----- bog," dragon ended in a very small voice.
Grace considered dragon's words. Swim. OK. She could do that. Experimentally, she gently stretched her arms out in front of her and very, very cautiously, pulled them down to her sides, horizontal movement only. (The idea of digging her way into the bog did not appeal, needless to say. But I said it anyway.) She could feel herself moving across the surface of the bog. Pretty icky, but not too bad.
"It works! Could I drag Rayden along?"
"No --- but if we can find a rope," dragon and the seaquest addict were digging frantically through pockets and the backpack. (The seaquest addict pulled out something that looked suspiciously like a rolled up hole out of one pocket, shook her head, and put it back.) "We can toss it to you and you could probably help him get a hand on it." dragon looked at Grace severely. "It. Not you. It." She refrained from pointing out that a grateful thunder god might have lots of nice ways of saying thank you, later.
Grace gave her a wicked look, grinned and took another slow stroke that carried her the rest of the way over to Rayden. Oh, my. Even buried in bog, he was so -- so -- Keep your mind on business, she reminded herself with a mental sigh. She waited to see if the rope was forthcoming.
dragon, scrounging around in the bottom of one backpack was looking disgusted. It was only peripherally her fault that Rayden was in danger of drowning/suffocating in the bog. After all, she hadn't offered the tesserect to him, she'd tried to grab it back, she really had not intended to get caught at all. On the other hand, if she hadn't wanted to hose down the terrible trio of Zhou Zhin, again, he wouldn't have gotten his hands on the thing. Grrrfff.
RevSam cleared its throat. "Uhm, dragon."
"Not now. I'm looking for a -- rope --" She peered nearsightedly at the end of the rope RevSam was dangling in front of her nose. "Thank you!" It came out a little exasperated, but dragon was having a trying day, much can be forgiven.
They tossed the rope to Grace who proceeded to help Rayden get it tied around his chest, under his arms. He took the precaution of holding his breath as his head slid beneath the surface of the bog.
"Heave!" yelled dragon. dragon, the seaquest addict and the praahr took hold of the rope and pulled. Nada. They pulled again. Something gave. They pulled, Grace swam and finally they had a gasping, grateful he wasn't sucking in heavy breaths of bog, thunder god on dry land. dragon gave Grace a hand getting out herself. She looked down at her elegant black cat suit and grimaced.
"Euwwww!"
dragon chuckled. "You'll wash."
"Where?"
"Uh -- well -- somewhere around here. Or home." dragon turned her attention to the still icky thunder god. "Uh -- well. Uhm. Lord Rayden."
"Yes?" he said quietly, almost hissing.
dragon's throat tried to seal up. She cleared it and asked where the tesserect was, since she didn't see it. He pointed. The bog. dragon sat down with a thump. "Great. I don't suppose you'd see your way to -- retrieveing -- the -- tessserct??" she ended on a worried, very quiet note. Then it occurred to her that his eyes didn't look like the plasma at the heart of a star, and there wasn't electricity crackling around his fingertips and that there just might be a problem here.
Flap. Flap. Flap. The sound of leather wings being flapped in rhythmic but very slow manner. RevSam looked up, adjusted its trifocals. Blink. It removed the trifocals, cleaned them on the hem of dragon's shirt and settled them on its nose again. Yep. It was a dragon. It was winging toward a nearby mountainside with -- ah, yes, a cave mouth opening toward them. The very large reptile settled toward the cavern, skimming in with unexpected grace. A few seconds elapsed and a gout of flame erupted from the mouth of the cavern. Yes, that would explain the char marks around the upper edge of the opening and it would explain a --
"Mooooooommmmmmmmmmmm!"
-- few other things.
dragon blinked at the seaquest addict who was looking decidedly annoyed. "Yes?" she asked mildly. Unfortunately, she and RevSam both knew the answer.
"Portal!??!"
"Uhm. Er." dragon looked at RevSam, Rayden, Grace and the general vicinity for inspiration. There wasn't any. "Well, it does kinda sorta look that way," she agreed.
RevSam let loose a snort. "That probably explains --" It nodded at Rayden's still soggy and dirty person.
Rayden's face was getting cloudier by the minute. If someone didn't explain things in a clear, concise, single syllable manner very, very soon -- "Explain what?" he asked in a very dangerous sounding soft voice.
"Portal." The seaquest addict sounded disgusted. "Sorcerers, sorceresses, dragons -- dumb dragons :: she glowered at her mother who tried looking innocent:: and a limited pantheon of gods."
"Limited?"
"Yeah. Six. And all the slots are filled right now."
Rayden's fingers seemed to be exercising on their own. He could feel his power just tantalizingly out of reach. He was going to explode, soon. He felt a slender arm slide through his.
"It's OK. dragon is very good at getting out of things. I'm sure she'll find a way to get out of this," Grace assured him with a smile. "Maybe we should find a creek -- or a brook -- or something."
Trying to find himself angry with this dirty, but enchanting young woman, Rayden gave up and smiled. He settled her hand in the crook of his arm and nodded. "Water should be relatively easy. After all, the bog has water, there has to be a source." He found himself smiling back at Grace as they wandered away from the others.
The seaquest addict rolled her eyes in customary teen fashion. RevSam looked worried, shot a look of inquiry at dragon and got a nod. It followed, discreetly. dragon sat down beside the bog and wondered how the heck she was gonna get her tesserect back out of the bog.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
interlude, not in a bog:
Grace discovered that wet ties were difficult to untie. Not that her catsuit, which had already shed most of the muck, had ties, but Rayden did. Buttons weren't part of his culture. And when you can change clothes with a gesture, well, all those neat looking knots weren't a problem. Until some mortal lass discovered that untying them to get the present unwrapped was a definite chore.
She sat back with a laugh. "Maybe we ought to wash you in your clothes," she suggested.
Rayden sighed. "I sincerely wish it was not so complicated to unclothe without my powers."
RevSam blinked. It had an idea. Cautiously, it cleared its throat. "Excuse me. No wish to intrude, understanding that humans tend to be --" It closed its mouth again, realizing that it had startled both human and god, and that it now had the full attention of both. If it could have blushed, it would have done so.
Rayden took pity on the large felinoid and smiled. "Go on."
"Well, if you tried -- rhyming?"
"Rhyming?"
"Rhyming."
Rayden was at a loss. Rhyming. For what?
Grace, aware that the twisty crennelations of dragon's mind were probably translated into something like a spiral staircase where the praahr was concerned, considered for a moment. "To access his power, he has to rhyme?"
"Possibly."
Grace swung her gaze to Rayden. "Knots."
"Pots."
Grace giggled. "No. Getting out of knots."
A few moments passed in really bad doggerel before they managed to abruptly unknot all of Rayden's ties. His clothes fell open. And some fell off. RevSam decided descretion was the better part of friendship and wandered back to tell dragon that they might have found a way to get the tesserect. In a while.
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