Mmmn, that's good comments! [Conflicting, but good anyway[ I shall see what I can do!



*Chapter 18: A gathering storm*

Jazz looked up from cleaning his gun and sniffed. "Huh, doesn't smell like rain, looks like it's gonna be pretty wet pretty soon though." Scratch the plans for spending the afternoon in the country with Eva then; pity too; he'd been planning it for all of three days, given his limited attention span it was practically a record. He wandered around until he found Eva, sunning herself in one of the more private courtyards. [In order to avoid getting a tan line she always sunbathed nude; three staff had been fired for accidentally coming across her, and it was pointless anyway; all that fur prevented both tanning and skin cancer, though she worried about both, ignorance is a great motivator.] "Hey Eva; sad to say the afternoon stroll is off, you'd better get inside too, looks like it's going to get pretty wet around here sooner or later. [The palace, being as it was several thousand years old, had developed eroded channels which often led to water appearing in interesting places not just during, but up to several weeks after heavy rain. There were miniature stalactites in the north tower, a permanent pond in the west wing and a temporary stream would cross the great hall, complete with fish. Granted, being made of old stone also meant that during rain the ceiling leaked almost everywhere and thus servants often got rooms with a view, and mildew.]

* * *

Trixi stared at the pile of... stuff in the corner. What it had been originally was hard to tell; years of being buried under yet more stuff, combined with a leaky water pipe had rusted and rotted them together into a strange musty mass. She poked it cautiously with a finger and regretted it instantly. "Dear Lord! Why did you have to dig up this stuff? I was happier not knowing what we had back here!" It was true; some interesting things had been dug up as Schrock chipped away at years of accumulated junk. A surprising amount had turned out to be valuable; this had been piled into a small but glittery pile in one corner, hidden rather well by the somewhat larger pile of stuff that could be pawned for something. A much, much larger pile of absolute trash had been repeatedly taken out back and burnt. [Setting fire to the neighboring building at one point, but it was easily put out, and the rabbits didn't seem to care much about smoking things around this district.]

The back room now had a surprising amount of empty space, unfortunately it exposed a floor, and in places walls, that hadn't been cleaned for quite possibly generations. Schrock knew there'd be weeks worth of work ahead, none of which he had technically been hired to do. Still it was good to have something to preoccupy oneself. Trixi had had to be shifted from her makeshift bed, but this was quite easy, she was light and hadn't woken up. [She'd been put on the junk pile and almost burnt though; fortunately she'd got up to go to the bathroom in time.]

Schrock looked up, and up, and up, at the small patch of sky visible between the two buildings he was between; anything was better than looking at the dreary graffiti stained walls around him, and noticed that it had rather quickly got cloudy. Turtles were supposed to like water, but, like most species, they disliked rain, it was cold and would slow them down, and it was very hard to dry oneself out when one has a shell on. [Contrary to popular belief, Shellian's shells were not removable; they were living tissue, though nerveless, and fused to their spines. This meant that the first yoga center to open on Shellian was out of business in six weeks.] Schrock sighed, well; at least it would be a bonus to be inside for once.

* * *

Spaz pulled himself up from the assemblage of undergrowth he had accreted about his person during his brief tumble downhill and looked up apprehensively at the small building perched very far above him, clinging to the cliff face above. That was were he was supposed to be standing guard; perhaps he could get back up before anybody noticed he was missing? There was a flutter as Kira cut a neck breaking dive into a sudden swoop, to land almost soundlessly on a nearby bush. She looked around almost apprehensively, then stared straight ahead with a glare powerful enough to melt lead. Spaz followed her gaze; he looked at the sky for a long, long time. Finally he spoke "Oooh! Pretty!"

The view from the mountain was quite impressive; on one side was clear blue sky; but a storm was moving across the land, far, far faster than wind could possibly move it. The clouds were a deep bruised blue color and were piling up into a gigantic front, miles into the atmosphere in their eagerness to fill the sky.

The riders were coming, and they bought the storm.

.