VRDET Op:  The Marraketh Connection
Segment #9: "Song birds - Breakfast of Rangers."
By: Nexxus Kline
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	The night went by slowly, and was suprisingly uneventful 
for such a remote location. She had been expecting more than just 
a couple of random beasts watching from the edge of the clearing. 
It may have had something to do with Shad though. After all, it 
was a rare thing for a dwagon such as himself to wander through 
these woods, a very rare thing indeed.
	The next day started off as soon as the sun rose, thanks 
to a very rude bird that was in the habit of serenading the sun. 
Unfortunately for the bird, as it was about to find out, he'd 
chosen the wrong tree to sing from.
	"Wha..?" Nexx grumbled quietly, perking her ears and 
looking up. She narrowed her eyes slightly. A Bird. "Better shut 
that thing up before it wakes everyone." she thought, having a 
stretch at the same time. Unstretching herself, she sat up and 
sniffed the air. "Breakfast time!" she thought. "Singing bird, 
prepare for the final curtain." She padded quietly towards the 
tree, staying low to the ground so the bird wouldn't see her. 
Unlikely considering the thing was busy crowing it's head off. 
She crouched down, eyes narrowed, tail flicking. Mr. Big mouth 
bird was sitting on a low branch, mistake number two on his part. 
Nexx narrowed her eyes till they were barely open, setting her 
sights on the birds neck, her tail flicking slowed till just the 
tip was twitching and she settled into her crouch-spring 
position. "The show, Mr. Bird," she said. "Is now OVER!" and with 
the last word, she leapt, her mouth closing around the silly 
birds long neck.
	It let out a feeble cry of surprise, flapping it's wings 
in an attempt at defending itself but Nexx bit down harder and 
batted it with her paws, claws extended. This caused the bird to 
lurch backward, in an attempt to escape the attack, which in turn 
sent the pair crashing to the forest floor with Nexx landing on 
top of the bird. She morphed herself into human form, keeping her
paws where they could grab the birds neck once they became hands, 
and snapped the birds neck. It gave off one last strangled 
attempt at a cry as it died. Nexx picked herself up off the 
ground and dusted herself off. "That'll teach you to sing." she 
said, bending down to pick up the bird.
	As she stood up again, she heard a rumbling voice 
comment, "Good catch." She turned around to see Shad regarding 
her, still lying curled up but with his head raised and eyes 
open. "Thanks."  she replied. "A rather tasty catch as well, if a 
bit on the noisy side." Shadur grinned, then unfolded and got up 
in one massive origami-esque move, stretching like a cat. "The 
bird didn't wake you up did it?" she asked. "I was trying to shut 
it up before it woke everyone."
	"I wasn't asleep." came the reply.
	"Then what were you doing?" She questioned. "Pretending 
to be asleep?" she asked, tossing the bird down on a log near 
their previous night's campfire.
	"No, I was asleep." came the cryptic reply.
	Nexx raised an eyebrow, "You were not asleep, and you 
were sleeping... sounds a bit like mental confusion to me." she 
stated. "Are you going senile?"
	Shadur regarded her amusedly. "Rens was asleep. I was 
not."
	"Oh!... oh... wait a minute, I thought you *were* Rens," 
she said, suddenly becoming a bit confused. "Where did Rens go? 
And who are you?"
	He tilted his head slightly to one side. "Oh, I'm here, 
no fear... And that was Shad."
	Nexx regarded him silently for a few minutes in an 
attempt to let the idea sink in. She had never stopped to 
consider a thing like this before. There had never been a need 
to, she was Nexxus no matter what form she took and had always 
assumed this applied to everyone else who shapeshifted. "OK."
she replied with a slight shrug. "It's about 7 AM, you think we 
should wake the others? We really do need to get moving."
	Shadur grinned evilly. "You might want to plug your ears 
right now...." Nexx looked blank for a moment more until the 
sight of him taking a deep breath painted the picture, at which 
point she covered her ears with her hands and held on tightly as 
a deafening roar seemed to shake the very mountain.
	Nexxus put her hand over her mouth in an attempt to keep 
from laughing as a rather excited looking Selvane came flying out 
of the shelter with a gun in his hand, followed by a very 
disgruntled Aris and a still half asleep Phoenix. "What the hell 
was that?!" Selvane asked, ready to shoot on a moments notice.
	"It was a 'roar'." Aris stated through a yawn. "A 
*dwagon* roar to be exact." she continued, giving Shad a dirty 
look.
	"What time is it?" Phoenix asked, yawning as well.
	"It's seven, we really do need to get going." Nexx 
answered. "I caught breakfast if anyone is hungry for bird."
	"Hungry for what?" Selvane asked.
	"Bird." she said, pointing towards what looked like a 
large pile of pink and blue feathers. "If you want it, go ahead. 
I'm not really in the mood for fowl this morning. I'll pack up 
the shelters while you guys eat."

				***

	It was 8:30 before they were all packed up and moving out 
of the clearing. With a bit of luck, they'd come very close to 
the summit by nightfall. All energy was focused on getting to 
Marraketh, Kat's life depended on it. The terrain was becoming 
more and more difficult. Thick forest began to thin out a bit and 
large boulders started to appear at regular intervals. They soon 
found themselves climbing more than walking and this slowed their 
pace considerably, the snow making the whole situation worse. 
Despite all that stood to hold them back, the pushed forward with
determination.

TBC in  "Please fasten your seat belts"