U-chan: Right now I should be updating Phoenix Overthrown... ::ahem:: Well, anyway Tana's in the middle of something so I'm pretending I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. ::pretend, pretend:: And I'm really trying to keep my updates of ANY story going... Of course, by the time this gets out on the net it could be a year later so I'll just shut my trap and get on with it.

Fuu Hououji1: I read it!! I read Artemis Fowl. It was good. I don't know how it reminds you of my stories, but hey, I liked it!!

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Tana Fell

Chapter 4: Stranger-boy

He runs. The sky thunders in fury and the boy runs. Breath tears in and out of his lungs as the men chase him, lust in their hearts, greed in their eyes. He runs through the meadows, the forests, the fields. And they follow like hunting dogs, never far behind, looking for the boy, sniffing his scent like hounds after an elusive fox. The boy does not pause, does not hesitate. His heart hammers in fear, in flight.

From above she is caught up in the chase, urging the boy faster, farther. She can do nothing but watch as they follow him. She is useless and cannot stand it. She tries to grab for the boy, to protect him, to hide him. He slips through her fingers like air, like wind. She follows him, trying to direct him to safety, but he cannot hear.

The men aren't even tired, eating up the ground with their long, mechanical strides. The boy bursts out of the woods onto a meadow. She stops in horror. The horizon is filled with metal and smoke. Machines and men fill the world before her, chasing out the boy. The sky is dark with deadly air and lightning streaks across as if trying to drive the humans out. They pay no attention. They destroy and pollute without notice. And the boy runs. She turns back and finds him gone, the forest gone. All gone. She races to find him, to protect him.

Finally after searching and worrying and hiding she finds him, curled in fear in a hole. Hiding from the men who follow him with lust in their eyes. They are not far away. She goes to him. Tries to hold him, to comfort. She knows she must do something, anything. But what? How? Frustration fills her. She needs a safe place, a protected place. Somewhere he can stay. A place to regain his joy. She thinks furiously as he trembles like air in her arms.

He needs nature. The humans chase his essence like elusive treasure. He needs protection. From them. From the deadly, killing men. But where? A thought comes to her. A forbidden thought, but it is something she is willing to risk for this boy she knows so well yet has never met. A forest, a protected place where he would forever be safe. Her forest, her home. Take him there, Tana. Bring him with you when you return. He will be safe. There he will find peace.

She holds tighter to the boy she cannot touch. She is leaving, of her own volition this time. And he is coming with her. He must, for the safety of purity. The two vanish as the humans search for the boy, the pureness that they did not understand and would never have.

Her eye blinked open as she felt something jab into her side. Into her tickle spot, the one spot where she was more sensitive than all the other spots on her rather tickle-spot-filled body. She screamed at the intrusion and lashed out.

After the initial smack of contact there was lots of cursing and the sound of someone running into objects to get away from Tana who, for all he or she knew, could lash out again as soon as her other eye opened.

However, Tana was more curious than angry because this person was not the he-she Breena nor was this person Breena's father, the hairy rebel king. This person looked oddly familiar from upside down. Except this time it was Tana hanging upside down from the side of the bed and the stranger who stood with their feet on the ground. Tana awkwardly rolled off the bed, trying not to let this familiar stranger out of her sight and ended up rolling into an over-turned table which she barely avoided with a nifty lunge to the left.

Finally in an upright and locked position Tana surveyed the new-comer, though it was difficult in what little light was left from the day. Seemed she had slept well into the twilight.

The new-comer was holding his cheek and giving her the queerest look, as if she scared him. Tana wasn't particularly perturbed. At the palace she'd gotten that look more than a few times.

"You're tweeked, do you know that? Absolutely loony," said the strange familiar boy.

"Who are you?" Dream confusion still had its hold and prompted Tana to ask, "When are you from?"

The boy-stranger shook his head and spoke to the tall wardrobe that stood in the center of the room, moved there by Tana's destructive flight earlier in the day, "Tweeked, I tell you. The girl's bonkers. We can't keep her. She'll infect all of us!"

To Tana's consternation, a voice came from the wardrobe. "Of course we'll keep her. Lightning Water addiction isn't contagious, Nolan, as you well know."

Stranger-boy shook his head sadly, still addressing the wardrobe. "Lightning Water may not be, but I think she's more off her rocker than is warranted. I'm thinking she was born like this and Lightning Water only enhanced the crazy."

During the interlude questioning Tana's sanity, she had surreptitiously edged her way toward the wardrobe, looking for the mouth that spoke from it. She let out a noiseless 'eeee' when Breena stepped out from behind the wardrobe carrying what looked to be a nightstand. Tana watched in open-mouthed fascination as muscles bulged in Breena's neck as she hefted the table back to its rightful position beside the bed. Might be a good idea to steer clear of getting physical with Breena, the manshee.

Stranger-boy ignored Breena's display of über-muscle and watched Tana warily. Speaking to Breena, the stranger asked, "How'd she even move all this furniture? You think she was looking for something? Trying to escape? Lookin' for a weapon, even?"

Tana, coughed delicately in her hand as she remembered how the room fell into such a state. Not that she'd ever tell them what happened. Finally Breena turned from her organizing, trying to catch her breath. "Whatever it was, I don't think she found it."

Tana wondered vaguely if she should mention that Krum said it was not befitting of a lady to talk about people as if they weren't in the room. Instead, shouts sounded from outside and captured Tana's attention. Shouts like, "Where the bloody 'ell is that hammer?" and "You've stolen it 'aven't ya, ya bloody thievin' cretin!"

Breena turned at the commotion, hands resting on her hips as her shoulders heaved from exertion. "Oh Goddess, Thaghorn's up in arms about something."

Stranger-boy divided his attention between Tana and the shouting. "When is he not up in arms?"

At this strange phrase, Tana had a mental picture of the hairiest hairy-faery being lifted into the air and squeezed by a large faery until his face returned to the puce color she had seen it at the meeting. Up in arms?

Tana realized with a start where the hammer that Thaghorn was "up in arms" about was. Under her pillow. Must not draw attention to myself...

Meanwhile, stranger-boy and Breena had gone to the door to watch the commotion. Keeping an eye over her shoulder, Tana slid one delicate hand under the pillow, gripping the handle of the hammer she whipped it out and shoved it down the leg of her pants. Maybe no one would notice the hammer-shaped bulge along the back of her thigh...

So as not to look suspicious, Tana followed stranger-boy and Breena to the door. She watched the fairy named Thaghorn puff out his chest in a circle of faeries who merely shook their heads and crossed their arms.

"Thaghorn! What's in your craw, now?" came a jolly call from the crowd.

"Someone's taken me bloody hammer, that's what! Theived right out from under our noses! Now who do ye think it'd be that'd do somethin' so dastardly?"

Feeling a strange itch between her shoulder blades, Tana followed the sensation and met Stranger-boy's suspicious gaze. She finally noticed she had creeped outside and closer the argument as it has progressed. He was watching her from the doorway and she wondered belatedly if he had seen the outline of her hammer. She casually dropped her hand down to see if it was still in position. Her expression turned frantic when she found it missing. Turning in circles, she searched the ground, but saw it no where. A muffled laugh came from the doorway and with a sinking feeling she looked up to see her beloved hammer dangling from Stranger-boy's finger tips. It must have slipped out when I passed by... Damn.

He came up to her slowly, as the crowd behind her hooted and joked as Thaghorn screeched at them all. "Lose something, m'dear?"

Feigning innocence she watched a lark dart among the higher branches of the trees. "I don't know what you're talking about. I just woke up. Besides that, I haven't anything at all in the world to lose. Since I've been drug from my home and held hostage amongst you dirty rebels." She said this last with a sneer and earned a cold glance from Breena.

But Stranger-boy only laughed. "Well, that's a shame then. Wait a moment. It seems I've found Thaghorn's beloved hammer. He'd hate to lose such a thing. And the camp would hate it as well since he is our only smithie and he refuses to work metal without this particular tool."

He turned from her and approached a bellowing Thaghorn. Speaking quietly the boy returned the hammer with a smile and a pat on the back. She watched in fascination as Thaghorn's face turned from an ugly purple to a slight, embarrassed pink. He huffed gently and seemed to be chuckling to himself as he tottled off to his own hut.

Tana was confounded. It seemed these people lived to ruin her careful planning. Plus, she had grown fond of the shiny.

Hands jammed on her hips, she turned with a pout to the hut. Hesitating slightly at the expression she was getting from Breena, Tana stalked back inside, gathered the covers from the floor, bounced onto the bed, and buried herself under the softness. If they tried to speak to her they would be met with a cold silence. Not a word would leave her lips. Only her icy disdain would they get from her.

"So, who were you goin' ta kill with the hammer?"

"I wasn't going to kill anyone!" came a shout from the bedcovers. Damn. "Shut up! Leave me alone! Do your dastardly deeds and leave me out of it!"

"What? Eat my bastardly leaves and dance on out of here? You are tweeked, aren't you?"

Tana growled from under the covers. Sitting up and glaring at him she said, "Stranger-boy, I said, 'Do your dastardly—' oh, nevermind. What does it matter, anyway? Dirty rebels only understand war and devastation. Rooting in the dirt like bugs. Scrounging for the scraps of the empire. Disgusting!" Tana broke off her rant when she noticed the look that came into Breena's eye. Sort of like that of the fruit bat she'd stolen the mangoes from on a particularly dull Day of Constitutional Restoration.

Before Breena could cross the room and strangle the life out of their hostage, Stranger-boy intervened. "Nolan," he said.

Tana stared at him for a long moment. "What about no land?" she finally asked.

Shaking his head and dropping his shoulders in defeat, he repeated unnecessarily loud, "Nolan! My name is Nolan! Not Stranger-boy."

Not having a word to say to that, Tana merely waited for him to go on. When he didn't she filled in the silence with, "Well, I knew that. Manshee over there said it when she was redecorating. And I thought to myself, you're a stranger yet you look oddly familiar. So in my head I started calling you strange familiar boy, but that took too long to think so I changed it to Stranger-boy which is shorter but still unnecessarily long. I was thinking of changing it to Stray just to cut down on time, but it'd make you sound like an adopted monkey so for your sake I kept it the way it was. I'm not normally this generous so you are allowed to grovel."

Breena stared with a mix of consternation and disbelief. Nolan laughed. For a long time. A long, long time.

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Obake-chan is outta here. I updated. I congratulate myself. It took a particularly gruesome chem test to force me into it!