
Jungle Eyes: Part Four
by chocolateisamust
--------
Also by blubblub317
Ayrauna and Makiki awoke to the sound of Carren's deafening
voice.
"Get up! Get up!" it yelled. "The sun's about
to rise and we need to set off to collect some breakfast!"
The friends' let out long, tired groans and
then slowly opened their eyes. They were greeted by the image of a rather irritated
looking Carren. She was tapping her paw impatiently on the muddy ground.
"Hurry, you two!" she barked.
"We're coming…" Ayrauna wearily staggered to
her paws.
"Yeah, we're coming." Makiki did the same.
The three then paraded out of the cave and into
the jungle.
It seemed different during the morning for reasons
both Makiki and Ayrauna could not explain. They also could not explain if it
was a good different or a bad different. All they really knew was that it was
well… different.
"Are you guys having that 'different' feeling?"
Carren suddenly asked whilst gazing at the two worn-out friends.
Makiki shot her a surprised glance. "How did
you know?" he inquired.
Carren let a good-humoured laugh escape her
from lips and then responded to Makiki's question. "I had that feeling as well
when I first came to this jungle. It's simply that you're not used to waking
up in a cave and having to walk through a tropical forest to fetch your breakfast."
Makiki nodded in agreement. "I think you're
right," he quietly said.
The trio continued marching down the rain forest,
examining different creatures and plants that crossed their paths. They shortly
arrived at the familiar-looking shrubs, which contained much more berries then
the previous day.
"Awesome! There're more berries!" Makiki cheered.
He rushed to a jade-coloured bush and began
picking heaps of berries. Carren did the same and soon, the two were hauling
mountains of them in their arms and paws. However, Ayrauna did not hurry to
the bushes as the other two had done. She simply stood there and watched in
disgust as Makiki and Carren chewed on the berries and let the juice seep out
of their mouths.
"Awet you gong tu hav ay?" Makiki inquired,
his mouth bursting with the fresh fruits.
"No thank you!" Ayrauna scoffed. "I'm going
to go get some fruit from those trees."
Makiki shrugged. "Whatever," he retorted with
the dozens of berries swallowed down.
Ayrauna walked away from the cheerful duo and
began strolling through a rock-strewn pathway. The blazing sun had risen up
in the sapphire sky and was releasing masses of heat. Ayrauna's dishevelled
fur was quickly drenched in sweat and her eyes were beginning to shut from the
exhaustion of the high temperature.
"So…hot…." Ayrauna struggled with her words.
She let out a long breath, and wiped a bead
of sweat from her forehead. Gasping for air, the Zafara then slowly slid to
her knees. Her head was whirring around for a minute, but then everything went
black.
**************
Ayrauna awoke on a straw-filled mattress in unfamiliar surroundings, and her
head was throbbing now instead of whirring.
"Makiki… Carren…" She moaned, her eyes fluttering
open.
"Ah, the Zafara lives!" a voice excitedly yelped
from a few feet over.
Immediately, Ayrauna heard footsteps padding
over to the bedside. She soon realized that the voice and footsteps belonged
to no other than Jhuidah!
"What happened?" Ayrauna tiredly asked.
Jhuidah beamed and helped Ayrauna sit up.
"Well, it is a ve-"
However, Jhuidah was cut off when without warning,
Ayrauna cried, "WHERE ARE MAKIKI AND CARREN?!"
Jhuidah was slightly taken aback by the outburst
but afterward, placed her gentle hand on Ayrauna's forehead.
"Do not worry," she whispered calmly, "The two
are here and are resting from the long and difficult venture".
Ayrauna let a weak smile escape her lips and
then lay back down on the prickly straw mattress.
"Rest my child," the Faerie's smooth and melodic
voice rang, "I will tell everything that you need to know afterwards.
**************
The sound of voices was what woke Ayrauna the following morning. Her muscles
were still fairly sore, but her various cuts and wounds were quickly healing.
Ayrauna gradually pulled up her exhausted body and dragged herself out of the
bed. Her eyes were itching so the Zafara rubbed them with her two blue paws.
Ayrauna then caught sight of Jhuidah talking with a fretful Kolatra and Jade,
Ayrauna and Makiki's owner. When Kolatra perceived the thud of Ayrauna's feet
landing on the ground, she immediately turned around and gasped.
"OH, MY BABY! YOU'RE SAFE!" she exclaimed with
tears swiftly welling up in her eyes.
The adolescent scooped up Ayrauna in her arms
and give her an incredibly tight cuddle. "I was so worried about you," Kolatra
whispered in Ayrauna's ear while hugging her weary pet.
"I missed you too," Ayrauna whispered back.
Afterwards, the Zafara smiled and squeezed her owner much tighter. The two embraced
each other in their arms and whispered small remarks on how much they missed
each other and how they loved one another.
At last, though, Ayrauna and Kolatra let go
of their hug and turned their attention to Jade, who was smiling but had tears
streaking his cheeks.
He cocked his head to a sleeping and badly wounded
Makiki. This was the first time Ayrauna had seen Makiki in three days. It was
the longest time she had been away from him and she certainly hoped it was the
last.
Kolatra strode over to Jade and gently asked,
"Is he going to be all right?"
Jade nodded and replied, "Yeah, Jhuidah said
it'll take awhile, though."
Kolatra smiled kindly. "I see." She then turned
back toward Ayrauna, who at that point remembered Carren.
"Where is she!?" the Zafara yelped at Jhuidah,
now slowly folding a pair of dark green sheets.
"Who?" The Faerie placidly asked, turning toward
Ayrauna.
"Carren!"
"Oh…" Jhuidah gestured toward a darkened corner.
Ayrauna immediately burst toward it, and soon
she saw a bed, which was holding a sleeping Carren.
"Oh Carren!" she yelled, rubbing the Wocky's
cheek softly.
"Mmmmr…" Carren groaned, slowly opening her
eyes. "Is that you Ayrauna?"
Ayrauna nodded. "Oh Carren, what happened?"
"Long story," Carren murmured. She yawned, and
then sat up.
Ayrauna began listening intently as Carren explained
the lengthy tale.
"When you had left to go get some breakfast,
Makiki and I had simply kept eating our fruit. However, two minutes after you
left, we started hearing this awfully uncanny noise. It sounded so shrill that
we had to plug our ears as tight as we could. The noise was coming from this
pathway that I had never noticed before during my time in the jungle. When Makiki
and Iarrived there, this loud boom suddenly shook the entire jungle. That's
when Makiki and me got really scared."
Carren paused for a moment so that Ayrauna could
take in all the information at once. Ayrauna slowly gulped and resumed listening.
"As I said before, the two us were enormously
frightened. When we stepped inside the pathway, for some odd reason, it felt
like the sun was beginning to burn us. We became incredibly drowsy and couldn't
speak a word. And that's when Makiki noticed your paw sticking out from the
ground."
"WHAT?!" Ayrauna immediately cried out. "My
paw was sticking out of the ground?!"
Carren chuckled and replied, "Yep, it's true.
That's when it got to the point where Makiki and me were basically petrified.
It seemed as though everything was spinning and we couldn't focus on one single
thing. Finally, the last thing I can remember is feeling myself being sucked
through the ground and everything turning black."
"B-but then how did get here?" The Zafara frowned
and cocked her head.
"A couple of tourists found you suddenly washed
ashore on a beach a few miles from here." It was Jhuidah, who was slowly advancing
toward the pair, who spoke this time.
Both Ayrauna and Carren jerked their heads toward
her. "Yeah, what she said," Carren muttered.
Ayrauna nodded, slowly absorbing all of this.
She was about to speak when the door leading into the hut burst open and in
flew a white Uni, who on its back was carrying a young, redheaded girl and a
baby Kacheek.
"Oh Carren! Where are you?" the girl immediately
yelled, her eyes surveying the area for the Wocky.
"Right here, Kate!" A rather excited sounding
Carren replied.
Without more ado, the girl hopped off of the
Uni's back and ran over to the bedside.
"Oh Carren!" she cried, pulling Carren into
a tight, secure hug. "I thought I'd never see you again!"
"Same here, Kate," Carren whispered, returning
the hug gleefully.
Ayrauna could only figure that this girl was
the pet's owner. And also that they needed as much as a private reunion as possible.
Afterall, seven months apart from each other was quite a long time. Quietly
rising to her paws, Ayrauna padded out of the hut and onto the velvety soft
sand outside. Looking up at the sky, she let out a long breath.
"Pango Pango," she whispered, "ya sure do like
weird, dangerous things, don't you?"
And even though there was no real response,
Ayrauna could almost see the clouds nod. Satisfied, the Zafara shuffled back
into the hut, and over to Kolatra.
"Lotra," she murmured, "we have a lot to talk
about."
Kolatra smiled and nodded. "I'm sure we do,"
she replied, "I'm sure we do."
Ayrauna then went over to Makiki, who was still
sleeping.
"Hey, Makiki," she said, gently shaking him
awake.
"Huh?" he grumbled, still half asleep.
"If we ever go back to Pango Pango some time
in the future, promise me one thing."
"Okay…"
The Zafara grinned. "Don't offer what's in my
backpack. It'll save us both A LOT of trouble."
And although Makiki's eyes were still closed,
Ayrauna could tell that he was rolling them.
The End
Chocolate's Note: Hi you guys! It's Chocolate here! This is the end of
Blub and mine's four part series, 'Jungle Eyes'. We hope you enjoyed reading
it as much as we enjoyed writing it - and trust me, we had a lot of fun writing.
(Except for the occasional happening of somebody being too lazy to write the
next part…) Just to be clear, I did not write only a quarter, and Blub wrote
3 quarters, or the other way around. We both wrote equal shares of the story=)
Anyway, enough of my useless blabbering. I shall go now… Neomail either one
of us if ya wanna talk/have comments about our story!
Blub's Note: Oh no! It's done already?! -gulps- Anyway, thanks to all the
readers for taking the time to read "Jungle Eyes" and I sincerely hope you all
enjoyed reading it because Chocolate and I had a blast writing it! Oh, and don't
listen to anything Chocolate said about a certain somebody. She was the one
who was lazy and didn't do any work! It was all me! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Oh,
and if you have any comments about the series, I'm always open to Neomails!
THEY RULE!!!!!!!!!!!