Boom! Headshot!

[Anonymous]

They had to be lost. They had to. Xala didn't recognize anything, and she didn't want to turn around and ask Nakaris if he recognize anything because he'd probably bark at her. Maybe. Better safe than sorry and the safe way was to not turn around and ask. Instead, Xala kept moving along, occasionally grabbing trees to keep her balance when the hills got too steep  and wincing and saying 'watch out' when a rock got free and tumbled down to the person behind her.

She might have done that on purpose once or twice. Maybe. But really it was an accident. Honestly. Xala looked over her shoulder before she found a relatively flat rock, she stood on it, hopped a few times before sitting and glaring off into the distance. "I think we're lost." She commented quietly, pushing her hair from her sweaty forehead. She unzipped her sweater and put her backpack off to the side.

"Soo, know where we are?" She smiled at him after fluttering her eyes.

[Rhindeer]

"No shit," Nakaris growled under his breath, happy to stop and take a break. He took a seat in the grass with his back against (after checking it for ants; too many bad experiences) and stretched his legs out in front of him, head leaning back against the rough bark. "We never been found. Fuck if I know where we are."

And quite honestly, he was perfectly okay with that. If he recognized the place, that meant he'd been there before. If he'd been there before, that meant other people would recognize him.

He didn't want that. While he couldn't remember everything he'd done--or that had been done to him--while under j'aari's influence...the bits and pieces that flashed before his eyes every time he slept...it was enough to make him feel sick and violated, make him wake up in a cold sweat, heart pounding and bile on his tongue, fear singing through his blood while he shivered like he'd been submerged in ice. It was enough to know he didn't want to remember.

It was enough to know there were people out there that would want him dead.

There were places he couldn't go. He had an inkling that those would be familiar places.

Taking out his canteen, Nakaris took a long swallow of water and chased the thoughts away, locking them back away. He didn't want to deal with them.

"I was followin' ya. Ya sayin' ya had no clue?"

[Anonymous]

While she knew something was up with him, Xala didn't know the specifics. It wasn't like they were buddy-buddy and talked about their problems while they knitted booties for their cats. She looked away and shrugged, biting her lip. "Well, no. We figured away would be good enough for now." her voice was quiet and she pushed a hand through her hair before looking away.

"We have supplies to last for a few more days, we should reach a town soon." Her voice, the strange two-toned noise that matched her mismatched eyes sounded a little put out. She wanted to ask, but she highly doubted Nakaris had every considered her a friend. Oh, fuck it, they may not be friends in the right sense of the word but she had been bothering him enough to not poke at this.

"What's wrong? You've been acting weird."

[Rhindeer]

"Weird?" Nakaris raised an eyebrow at the woman, then shook his head. "How so? Nothin's wrong. Jus'...ain't been feelin' so great."

He gave a little shrug and a frown. It was true, just not the whole truth. He wasn't about to admit that he was scared out of his mind and didn't even fully understand why, that he was no longer who he had been for the last...gods, who knew how many years? That his memories were all fucked up, a near-blank slate except for small fragments that flashed in his brain, slowly, agonizingly filling in the blanks.

He knew who he was. He had a general sense of self. He knew, intuitively, that he and Xala were friends though he couldn't recall much more than that.

"No big deal. Anyway, know what territory we're in?" Subject change!

[Anonymous]

Xala simply frowned. Not feeling so great. Sick? If he was anyone else she'd reach over and feel his forehead. As he wasn't anyone else she kept her hands to herself and chewed on her lip. "Okay, Naka." It was quiet, a small indicator that she wasn't going to pry since it was obvious he didn't want to talk about it.

"We're in Adela, We think. The Thunderblacks. We don't know this area - hence why we're lost - but we know a bit. Maybe we'll find something we recognize." She gave him a smile that could almost be called goofy, considering it was Xalas face. "We'll stop before the sun goes down and set up camp and I'll keep first watch."

[Rhindeer]

"Thunderblacks, huh?" Nakaris mused out loud, then shrugged and pushed himself to his feet. "Think I heard somethin' 'bout this area. Ain't there dragons here or some shit?"

He brushed bark and grass from his clothes and then stretched, looking about the area. Yeah, he was pretty sure he'd heard something about dragons--and he knew for a fact that he didn't want to meet any of them.

[Anonymous]

Xala chuckled, it sounded a little eerie when her voice was made up of two seperate ones. "Yeah. Dragons" She smirked and then copied Nakaris while wiping off her clothing. "But it's not the dragons you have to really worry about." She smiled, "Just stick close to me. They won't attack you if i'm here. At least I don't think they will."

A few steps and she paused, "Well, not here. Once We get to the area i recognize. Then we can worry, hm?" She smiled widely at him before carring  on. "Unless you have a problem, we're going to walk until we drop. We'll clear the mountain and then figure out what we want to do on the other side. Sound good?"

[Rhindeer]

"Sounds good," Nakaris agreed, and then paused and gave Xala an odd look, eyes squinted. "Whatcha mean th' dragons won't attack while yer 'round, anyhow?" As far as he was concerned, she looked human. Either she was very confident in her abilities or very deluded because he couldn't see how anyone had much of a chance against a full-grown dragon.

Unless she was some sort of...dragon-whisperer or something, like how some people had a gift with horses. But he doubted that. Sure he'd heard Adelans rode dragons like horses and they were in Adelan territory, but he didn't think the ones that would be hanging up in the mountains would be tame.

He fell into step beside Xala, letting her lead for now. "Ya got some sorta gift with lizards or somethin'? Smell funny 'nough they won't see ya as dinner?"

[Anonymous]

Hm, how to break this to him gently. Xala kept walking and then pondered. He could run and scream away like a little sissy girl or he could stare in horror and vow to never speak to her again once they were over the mountain. Either way she wasn't really counting on him taking it nicely.

"That's exactly it. We smell funny, so the dragons will think we're one of them." She wasn't exactly lying. She rolled her shoulders and puffed out her cheeks before she sighed and then turned around and gently placing her hands on Nakaris chest to stop him. "We're not human." Obviously, if the funny coloured eyes weren't enough along with the voice. "At all."

"We're a sort of mimic." How to explain this, "We are a dragon,  is what we mean." Maybe mention the rest of it, "Do you remember a girl? She had scales on her face, but she wasn't there when you..." She trailed off, looked away but started up again, "She got away, but she was weak. We were twins, so she couldn't turn, but she did, but now we're trailing off the point."

"Anyway. What we want to say is you don't have to be worried about the dragons." Xala gave a sort of grimace-smile before she turned back around and started to walk again.

[Rhindeer]

...Well, color him utterly confused.

Nakaris stared blankly at Xala. He'd suspected she was something other than human, given her slitted pupils. They were very cat-like--or reptilian. So, uh...he guessed that explained the dragon? He blinked slowly and felt the urge to laugh bubbling up inside his chest, because come on, having an average-sized human-looking girl announce they were a dragon was kind of fucking hilarious. It was the seriousness of her voice and expression that killed the urge.

"Um..." Nakaris scratched the back of his neck, trying to follow what the hell she was even saying. He got the part where she was apparently a, er, dragon and that she smelled like dragon but nothing after that made a lick of sense. Girl with scales? Twins? Couldn't turn but then she did? What?

He held up his hands when she was done and shook his head. "Okay, okay, back up. All I got outta tha' was yer, uh, a dragon, got a twin, an'...somehow all those things are connected or some shit?" He rubbed his left temple and tried to absorb all that, but she might as well have just announced that she was a flying, pink-striped unicorn with one eye and a glass rhino's head for all the sense she made.

[Anonymous]

Xala closed her eyes and she groaned, it almost sounded musical. But she smiled at him regardless and then tilted her head to the side before she gently took his hand  walked over to a rock and sat him down before she sat down on lower ground, an unintentional and unconscious way of her trying to prove she wasn't a threat.

"We were twins. But with our clans magic twins done work. They're half a person, half a mage, half a dragon. One can perform magic, which is Xana and one can morph. Turn into a dragon, which is Tala. They can't... Do the other, without harming themselves. And Xana turned too many times, she was going to die. So now they're me. Us." Xala nodded before she twirled some grass against her fingers, she didn't understand it totally herself, but the idea worked and that's what counted.

"Now the dragon part means we're not a threat. Humans smell like a threat, you steal babies and teeth and scales and blood." She patted his knee and then continued, "We're human, but we have a special bred ability. Does that make more sense?"

[Rhindeer]

Twins. The more she talked about twins, the more something pinged in his memory, some niggling thought pinging in his memories. But it was distant, that weird sense of knowing you know something but being able to recall it, and so he decided it must be unimportant.

Something to think about later.

Especially since the girl with him was spouting crazy.

Nakaris's eyebrows continued to climb with every spoken word. When she was finished, he crossed one leg over the other--ankle resting on his knee--and leaned forward. "Sooo..." He cradled his chin on his hand. "Uh, alright. So yer, uh...a shapeshifter, in other words. An', um..." He scratched at his cheek. "Yer...sayin' yer...two people in one?"

He paused a long moment, trying to process it. Then, finally, he said, "So like...ya mean yer possessed?"

[Anonymous]

He had it! Xala almost smiled. Then he said posessied and she paused and then looked around, feeling slightly confused. Then it clicked. Maybe that would be easier to explain. Or no. No it wouldn't. She just sighed and kept her hands to herself not wanting to risk them getting slapped away if she tried to pat his shoulder.
"Two in one. Two seperate beings in one sack of flesh." At least he got the shapeshifter part. That made things easier. "Anyway, we only told you this so it'd be easier to travel. Unfortunately you're still too... strange... to processes it fully." Really, what was wrong with him. Like he'd forgotten everything. Whatever.  As long as he stopped hitting her.

[Rhindeer]

Nakaris raised an eyebrow and gave her an odd look that was something between bewilderment, confusion, and amusement.

"Uh..."

How to put this? Well, Nakaris never had been one to beat around the bush, so after a small pause he decided to go the usual direct, blunt route. "So...yer like...two people in one, s'what yer sayin', with shapeshiftin' an' somethin' 'bout dragons an' shit an' I'm th' strange one?"

[Anonymous]

Blunt was good. Xala could deal with blunt. She could also slap him upside the head and ask him why he was suddenly retarded.
But she wouldn't do that. She was feeling nice, maybe it was because Nararis hadn't slapped her. Huh. Yeah, he was broken. Xala simply went quiet and smiled, "Yeah. That's about right." Another smile and she looked around, "okay, read to head off again now that you know you'll be safe...Ish?"

[Rhindeer]

With a small grunt, Nakaris rose to his feet. After all their traveling, it had felt good to just sit for a while but he knew if he remained any longer, he just wouldn't want to get back up. "Sure. Let's put yer little...theory to th' test. I mean, ya ever actually been 'round a real dragon to know it'll work?"

[Anonymous]

Xala smiled at him apologetically. She'd have liked to sit and stop moving too, but the sooner they got over the mountains the better it'd be for both of them. Sort of. Well, for her. Xala wasn't sure why Nakaris was following her. He seemed really out of it the past while, and while she desperately wanted to ask what the hell was wrong with him. She didn't.

He was her only friend ( even if he didn't think of her as anything but an annoying stranger ) and darnit if she wasn't going to try to keep this one sided friendship intact!

Of course, his question made her laugh. It was breathy, hollow and obviously forced. "Real dragons? No. Not really. But if it works in theory, then it working in practice is higher." Xala cleared her throat and started to walk, "C'mon Turtlebutt. We probably won't see any dragons either, and Adela might be a nice change of pace. We hear they have grass."

Grass. A nice change from dirt, fallen tree bits and roots.

[Rhindeer]

Nakaris opened his mouth to say something, but snapped it shut, deciding better of it. Wonderful. So she didn't even know. Well, hopefully they just wouldn't encounter any dragons, then, because he had a feeling they'd be screwed. Maybe Xala would be all right, but he wasn't so sure about himself.

He had no dragony bits in him, as far as he knew.

Well, anyway, what were the chances?

He started after her, picking up his pace to fall into stride beside her. "Turtlebutt, eh? Hey, I'm pretty sure it was you wanted th' break to begin with, so who ya callin' slow?"