It took Razz a moment to adjust to the dim lighting. The room he had revealed was only slightly smaller than the banquet hall in the Castle, and lit by a softly glowing red orb suspended from a curved ceiling that he guessed to be mimicking a natural sun. The walls and doorway were draped with sheer purple, pinstriped cloths, and in front of him a tree had stretched to the ceiling, then slowly spread vines across and down the walls. It's leaves and tendrils, trimmed back to allow entry, tickled the backs of Razz's ears as he came through the doorway. The floor gave slightly beneath his feet as he walked around the tree. He did not expect such aesthetic fastidity from the L'zrd; they were chary of too much pleasure and believed it to dull the senses.
The room narrowed as he walked into it, closing in like a cave. There was a small levitating platform beyond the tree in the smallest part of the room, a bed. Draped in black, the thin funereal silks appeared slightly macabre, clearly allowing the shape of a body to be seen, and Razz no longer hesitated. He sprinted the rest of the length of the room and would have flung himself at the figure but at the last moment, hesitated, cleared his vision, looked close.
The figure was lying on it's side, it's back to him, unclothed beneath the sheets and every needle-like bone of it's spine stabbing through the thin cover. It shook almost imperceptibly, but with regularity. It's head was covered and now Razz reached gently for the black cloth, sliding it off the figure and revealing, as the cloth fell to the floor, a long and tangled mane of pale, light colored hair sprawled over the bed and two long and slender, tawny ears streaming back through it.
Razz drew the blanket back from the body and caught his breath. The woman lay naked before him, young, almost a girl, but dazzlingly beautiful. She did not wake when the cover was removed, but the small sun from the height of the room caught and illuminated a thousand tiny points of light in her ragged blonde fur. Razz moved to her head, and realized with a start her eyes were open, startling violet eyes that looked beyond him and beyond the room, glazed grey with years of not seeing in front of her. Razz spoke, softly as he could, for the first time, the name of his cousin.
"My name is Razz, Larh'ii," he murmured, but she did not, or could not hear him. Every one of his senses screaming, Razz placed his hands on her soft body, able to feel every bone, the velvet fur under his hands making him tremble. With effort he tore his eyes away from her prone shape, with regret he watched his paws wrap her naked body in the black shroud she lay upon.
When he lifted her, her arms went around his throat, clinging to him, and she buried her face in his neck, vocalizing raspily. Razz craned towards her, trying to hear, but her sounds were nothing more than sounds, and he knew he had to leave.
"I'm taking you home, Larh'ii," he said to her shivering body, "we're going home."
When he pulled the heavy doors shut behind him they closed with a gong, and Razz did not stop running from that corridor until he had reached the highest deck of the temple. From here, a communication could be hijacked and patched into the Chief- and the Chief could get him out of here, although he had no idea what had become of the rest of his team. Crossed wires and sparking connections seemed to take an eternity, but finally the comm clicked open and Razz keyed numbers in frantically. A bad hologram image appeared, the serval in his armor straining to see Razz's expression.
"MaTazz," he said instantly, "You've been out of contact for more than 8 hours. The recon team has been evacuated. What is your status? Where the hell are you?"
Razz drew his breath, "Chief, sir," he said, "Unable to make contact with headquarters until now. Reporting from hacked communicator in L'zrd temple on Medivo. I have retrieved the princess Larh'ii and request a pickup immediately. Repeat, have obtained the POW and request pickup at the nearest location, immediately." The Chief's voice was barely more than a growl as he made an obvious effort to contain himself. "Officer, you have the princess in your possession? She is with you now?"
"Affirmative."
There was a very short, very pregnant pause, and then, "This mission was reconaissance only, MaTazz. Your orders were clear. You think you can just go in their and take the L'zrd's most prized possession and they're going to be okay with that? You think you're going to be able to just walk away with the thing that fulfills their prophecy for galactic power and they aren't going to retaliate, at Carrotian monarchy, with any and every means they have?" His anger was palpable but Razz felt his own mounting. "Chief. With all due respect. Sir. This is not a thing, a weapon, an object." his breath was heavy and he wiped a drop of blood from the keypad as he turned the hologram to the hunched and shaking girl in the chair beside him, making sure the Chief could see her.
"This is my family."

The serval cursed viciously at Razz, who said nothing, and the last thing he saw was the Chief's paw crashing down on the buttons of the communicator, and the hologram closed without a flicker.

---

Thanks, all. I have to say that the story doesn't exactly improve, I am not sure what I was thinking while writing it, but it gets a little lame and I think I must have just got tired of the whole thing. Regardless, I'm not going to take the time to edit it now, so whatever.

Unknownie, I know exactly what you mean, and I think for that exact reason I've never written about the Jazz universe. I know that anthropomorphic characters on this board are really diverse and are creatures like big cats and wolves, and it has always seemed totally out of sync that they would exist on a world where rabbits are the dominant species. Therefore I try to make only small mention of them, and I chose the lizards as the main enemy because they are a very prominent enemy in the games, and, well, aren't we all tired of the constant battle against turtles?
I think I should also mention that I didn't really think when I made Eva like ten years older than Jazz in the story. Oh well, she always looked older anyway.

Noted about LC. I was only going to post it there mostly because it is so dead and because I love Jonesy. :P

I actually did art for this story too. Of Razz anyway. He's so sexy.