Poisonous Shellfish (Open)

Jaci didn’t enjoy the rain too much if she was honest, it always felt like it was dampening her sense skill as she got constantly distracted with the drumming going on as water impacted the world around her. She had seen the clouds building and had taken to her heels, looking for somewhere else to hunker down while waiting for it all to just fade again. The world after the rain was always so much more beautiful, and everything had the most beautiful shine to it. Well seemingly except here. She really hadn’t been paying attention and had turned up somewhere she didn’t much like. The world here felt heavy and kind of wrong if there were ever a better way to describe the atmosphere of a bog to her mind that’d be it. She started to look around rather carefully, hoping to find some means to just get away from this place, but she didn’t want to go back into the coming rain, so forwards was the only real path.

Opting to float instead of walk through the mess and was using her best stick to gently poke at the strange not ground not water that bogs always made. You just couldn’t trust the floor around these parts, it was while she was curious about a strange looking lump that she heard the screams in the distance and while it was probably a bad idea to head straight into trouble. It would probably prove to be a better distraction than whatever was half under the bog anyway. The demon coming across a rather strange looking individual, she’d not seen anything like him before, it might have been a demon she’d had the displeasure of meeting back in the realm but he felt kind of wrong. She couldn’t put her finger on why. Best not to be too friendly. Though it did seem like he needed some help. There were several things from the bog coming for him, maybe that was what was throwing her sense off here.

Raising a hand calmly she started a barrage of small blasts, hoping to distract and knock back the things walking towards the stranger. Though she didn’t opt to try and call out or reassure the stranger just yet. Sometimes it paid to see how they reacted to her before she opened her mouth and made it more obvious that she was a demon than she should.

WC: 404

Jaci seemed a touch confused at just what was going on, with the thing that was biting him removed it was rather obvious that the person she had accidentally saved was in fact a human. Her senses clearly needed some work. She stepped forwards carefully after the human called out to her, trying to stay out of reach despite the likelihood that she was going to be the one capable of killing him were the need to arise.

“Hello? Am Jaci”

It would have to do as a response. She didn’t want to have to check the book just yet to see what she needed to say to ask him the question, with any luck the slightly confused greeting should have done the job of making it assume that she wasn’t all that hostile. To add to that she wasn’t using any of her energy for a change. Just to be sure, humans tended to freak out about the whole flying around and firing energy. That was when the suits came out. Having said that, she wasn’t sure just what this man was doing here in the first place. If it turned out he was harming this natural yet unnatural world, he was already dead.

WC: 205
TWC: 609

Jaci was actually a little happy seeing someone so happy to see her. It didn’t happen anything like often enough, ever really. Her father had considered her nothing but a disappointment. The humans had mostly tried to kill her, and people being just this happy about her presence made her grin a little stupidly and nod to the man, drifting over to try and listen to what he was telling her regarding the area. It was apparently not always like this and this happened recently? How strange, maybe something was unnatural around here that she could maybe fix? She looked at the mud the man held up, it must have been vaguely important if he was showing it to her. But she couldn’t really see anything about it other than it was really goopy mud that probably shouldn’t be here.



“Where is home? Jaci can’t stray far.”



She hoped he would understand what she meant by that, it was more than just curiosity, she didn’t want to venture too far out into the world unless more humans decided that they were less than happy to see her and more power suits came to harm her once again. It would be quite the ordeal, she’d barely gotten over her loss to the last one that had taken her home from her. The little demon looked lost in thought at the trail of thought and trying to figure out just what could be the cause of the sudden swampland. It was likely beyond her if she was honest. She didn’t understand anything like as much nature as she should considering her time here.



“How turn swamp?”



WC: 274

TWC: 883

She turned a little to look at where he was pointing. That wasn’t a good thing, he was looking at leaving the area and going back to where the humans lived. They probably wouldn’t react well to little Jaci. Humans rarely seemed to deal well with the little demon and her lack of understanding. She just didn’t get what they wanted from her most of the time, she was always just acting like she normally did and then they freaked out, started shouting at her and she had to flee.



He didn’t know either what had happened here. So, it was some sort of strange occurrence that had caused the natural loveliness here turn into strange muddy swampland with odd biting creatures that had caused the humans problems. On the one hand she kind of wanted to just leave the human here to his fate, it’d mean one less human to cause her problems down the line. However, if she was nice to them. They might turn out to be friends with her like the little monkey girl that visited her in the forest before it was burned down.



She wasn’t entirely sure if she should just take that hand being offered or not, it could be a bit of a trick from the human. But considering that he was having trouble with the silly little biting thingies. She didn’t think that he would pose much of a threat towards her if she was careful and kept a close eye on him. Ignoring his hand to an extent, the demon gently picked him up by the collar and floated up a little, just enough so that his feet weren’t touching the ground. This seemed like a better way of getting him home since he seemed to be having some trouble moving on the injured leg.


“Okay, Jaci help home. No tricky things.”



She started to gently float the pair at a leisurely pace back in the direction he had pointed them towards, hoping that it was in fact the correct direction and that these miles he spoke of weren’t too long a way away. She wanted to get back to the area and see just what was going on with the strangeness. Maybe there was a source she could decipher and stop, or take it away to somewhere else and cause less problems in a better area for swampland.



WC: 399

TWC: 1282

Power Level: 8,678

---

“Thanks a lo- eh??” the farmer blinked when Jaci floated over and then actually lifted him up by his collar, “Gack!”

He adjusted so that his shirt wasn’t choking him and then settled back down. It wasn’t the most comfortable. But it was way better than walking on his injured leg, “Er, thank you.”

After a few minutes of quiet floating, the farmer cleared his throat, “So, er, you’re one of those guys that can fly and shoot them Kahmayuhs, right? That’s gotta be handy, I guess.”

Then again, she hadn’t been able to talk well. Would she even understand his prattling? Ugh, this was awkward. He settled back more comfortably in her hold, or as much as he could…

After several long minutes the swamp began to turn back into the forest the farmer was more familiar with. The sounds of animals began to return. Even the skies seemed a little brighter…

“Yeah! We’re almost there!” He pointed slightly more towards their left, “There! Down that way. Just a bit more.”

As the farmer and Jaci stepped free from the woods, they could spot Kondai from across the clearing.

“Eh?” the farmer grunted in surprise, “L-lots of strangers today…”

---

Word Count: 207
Total Word Count: 929

Jaci was definitely of the twitchy persuasion now as the Saiyan approached, her brief time with Lettuki had shown her just how violent and powerful the Saiyan race could be, and she didn’t fancy her chances in another fight with one of those things. She was thankful for the time spent studying the book she’d been given, that little translation was a wonderful thing. But she decided very quickly to hide behind the curtain of poor language with this strange one. She stared at his hand and leaned away from it, being very careful to not have the palm facing her.

“si mi tesantamaso, jaci ui hefoc lettuki”

She wanted to know if the name meant anything to him, either his or her own. If there was a connection to Lettuki maybe he was concerned for her and had found one of his own kind to seek her out. While very similar to humanity, the strange tailed versions seemed inherently nicer to her than humanity had been. Maybe it was the closer connection to animals.

“Kon.. dai. Big human, fluffy tail. Bad moon”

She didn’t intend it to make a whole lot of sense, at least to the farmer. The likelihood was that Kondai knew what it was that was scaring her about him now, though her gaze did sweep out towards the way the farmer mentioned. It might be worth running for it the opposite direction to that. No sense heading towards yet more humans all things considered. Though soon enough the little demon was looking back towards the bogland that she had just carried the farmer from and gently rubbed the stub of a horn under her hair before carefully moving the white as snow strands back into place, leaving only the intact little horn exposed.

“Jaci find..”

She gave the farmer a beaming little smile back, it was there and gone quick as a flash before the demon huffed a little and started to float just a little off the ground, fully intending to go back towards the bog. It would probably be better than staying here, outnumbered by humanity and scared for her life now that this human had led her straight to a powerful warrior. Thankfully the conversation seemed rather pleasant instead of threatening like she’d expected. But it was hard to shake a decade of having the same fact drilled into you over one nice meeting

WC: 402
TWC: 2018