In Dire Straits

Children had scattered like a flock of startled pigeons. Twitch herself had been off like a shot, tail helicoptering, nose to the ground.  She'd gotten tangled in the foliage more than once, and was now sporting a few crushed purple flowers clinging to her fur.  Here and there, mostly in her ruff and tail, a stray twig or leaf was also entangled.  More deliberately placed, Twitch was also sporting several feathers, collected from new and unknown birds she had never seen before.  Treasures to take home.

As she wiggled under another bush, Twitch's skeletal countenance popped out of a bush.  From her new, unleafy vantage point, she could see the muddy green boy enjoying his soak.  She'd seen him on the way, but she'd been too busy investigating the passing landscape than to pay attention to everyone around her.  What she had noticed, were those cool lizards.  Now there seemed to be more of them, bright purple things like the trees.  How had he gotten purple ones so fast?!  She'd only managed one purple feather to add to her collection, and the big purple beetles with the funny faces could FLY!  How was she supposed to bring one back to show Embsay if she couldn't catch one?  Maybe the lizard wrangler could give her some pointers. 

"Hey!" Twitch's disembodied head called, her voice still young and girlishly sharp. "How'd you get more so fast?"

The bush rustled as she tried to crawl the rest of the way out, but got snagged by a lower branch.  The whole bush swayed as she strained against it, but refused to budge.  Plan B.  She backed out, her head disappearing with a snap of a few twigs.  Then she found a thinner spot of bush, and half ran, half jumped out onto the small rise that sloped down towards Croc's Bathtub.

Even as children, their size difference was grand.  He, like his namesake, was large, green, and built with muscle in mind.  She, on the other hand, was as small and spectral as her mother.  The littlest banshee.  A bright spirit who had escaped the eternal suffering of Saboro in her mother's shattered womb.  Her little black horns, mostly obscured by tangled curls and caught foliage, were dwarfed by her oversized ears, which added to her small, fennec-like appearance.  It was her tail that was her largest, and most active feature, bobbing and swishing like an eel on the tide.  She looked like a hellion, and she was, but darkness did not become her.

Politics and bloodlines were something that had not yet been explained to Twitch.  Her parents quiet existence was reclusive, and her family was about as out of touch as they could be.  In fact, this very public outing was probably the first time Twitch had even seen so many members of Gemini at once.  Something too grandiose for her developing mind to fathom at the time.  For now, she remained focused on the little things, of prey and prizes.  Embsay had to see one of those funny-faced beetles.  So she had gone on the side quest to learn animal handling from the green boy.  But before either children had a chance to so much as sniff, there was a stranger in their midst.

For all her outgoing nature, Twitch had a very clear definition of personal space.  As the dog came close, her tail puffed up and she arched, visibly leaning away as he sniffed her. Her bubble had been previously breached by Embsay, who had already been a part of several collisions, but that had been different. He had never meant to touch her.  This dog was too close tooclose tooclose! Her large, expressive ears went back against her head, and a small, keening note came out of her mouth, eerily steady and going on for longer than her little lungs should have been capable of.

"AhhhhhhHHHhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee." She whistled, a bit like a boiling teapot.

The sound would abruptly stop as soon as Dali took a step from her.  If he didn't, she would back away a few steps until she had some distance. Her tail remained puffed up like a cat's.  While she would one day be as big as Dali was, she had not yet grown.  As she was now, he was bigger than her by a long shot.  While not able to articulate her discomfort, Twitch's odd reaction should have caused some notice: This one is wired a little weird.

"I'm Dali, by the way. I'm one of the Pages, so I make it my business to get to know everybody. Totally business. Not being nosy at all. Nope."

"Ah’m Crocodile. We’re from Gemini."

" 'M Twitch!" She quickly announced, not to be left out.

As if to accent her declaration, her tail swept around like a dancing cobra.  The fur along her back and spine was starting to lower back down, but strange ripples still rolled down her back, and one ear suddenly flapped like a startled bird.  Her head jerked to one side in a sharp shake, but she maintained eye contact like it didn't happen.  Clear signs of her over-stimulation, but she was doing her best to maintain her attention, changing her focus from Dali back to Croc as he spoke again to her.

"Ah just got that charm. Ya gotta be nice an’ gentle, slow."

Then he offered her a lizard, and she became engrossed in the moment. Her haunches dropped in a very deliberate sit, and she held out a paw. It was one of the greens, a clearly bonded creature to have come all the way here with her new friend. When the lizard stepped from Crocodile's paw to hers, they were almost touching. The shiver from the close proximity washed down her in a waterfall of fluffed fur, but she held surprisingly still. Again, the difference of purpose was a big deal, even though the little girl wouldn't be able to explain why.

The lizard made it's way cautiously, and her fur rippled away from it like the surface of a pond disturbed by a stone. One of Twitch's ear was doing its bird dance again, but she let out a girlish giggle of delight. She'd been covered in ants before, but the lizard was bigger, heavier, and created a scratching-sensation over her coat as it moved. She endured the creature's crawling escapade through her thick ruff, but when it began the return trip across the underside of her throat, she lost it.

Squealing, her head jerked sharply. Instead of connecting with her shoulder, which would certainly have crushed the lizard, she reared up onto her hind legs. Now she resembled a baby goat, wiggling side to side before she dropped back down. All the while, the lizard's destination paw remained up. Her other foreleg flailed out before it touched the ground again, and she extended the lizard quickly back to Crocodile. Her tail lashing back and forth.