[Thread] Ruby and Speed

[notsomuchakitty]

Who: Ruby, Speed
What: Random outdoor encounter?
When: Nowish
Where: Outside
Rating:PG-13 (ruby's got a mouth on her)

Comments

[notsomuchakitty]

Ruby continued flying upward, going faster and faster until she was finding it a little hard to breathe. That had been quick. She hadn't even noticed a sonic boom. Maybe Paradisa just had a very low atmosphere? Or the castle didn't want them heading out very far. Whatever.

She bent backward slightly, angling her wings so she made a wide, backward arc into a dive back toward the ground. She closed her eyes. She was falling. Falling, falling. Falling was nice. She couldn't feel the terror that humans did at falling. She had wings. Falling wasn't a fearful thing. It was a release. Falling was nice.

She finally felt the ground approaching and opened her eyes again. At what was probably the last possible moment for a creature her size Ruby pulled up her wings and forced them downward a couple of times to pull her straight and slow her descent enough to not be painful. She still hit the ground hard enough to cause it to shake considerably. Tree branches rattled and groaned and dirt went flying in a wave in every direction around her. She looked down. A little crater even. Very nice ruby. She looked smug then turned and took her claws to another tree. It exploded into splinters. She smiled for a moment then made a face of irritation as she realized that she'd gotten chunks of wood in her fur. This wouldn't do.

She sat down on her haunches and began to pick the debris out of her usually pristine fur, destruction of the forest totally forgotten in favor of grooming. she pulled the last significantly sized piece of wood out of her fur then shook herself vigorously so the rest of the dust would fly off. She actually looked pretty comical, something that was usually powerful and graceful (in this form at least) shaking like a puppy.

She then stopped and sniffed. Speed? She wrinkled her nose. Was he CRAZY? shouldn't he be running away from her? Ah well. She looked around. He couldn't be TOO close, she didn't see him...unless he was hiding.

"Speed?" she quested.

[go_speedle_go]

Tim Speedle stopped short when he heard the next thundering boom. That time it had been different. It wasn't an explosion, but rather sounded like something large crashing into something else. The ground maybe? The sound sure did echo enough in the forest whatever the case may be.

He started forward again cautiously now. He peered around, shoulders hunched forward as he crept along. His hand hovered over the gun holstered at his hip, still being worn despite his Paradisa-invoked problem. It was habit to strap it on, habit to reach for it in time of danger. He didn't even realize he was doing it.

Another noise caught his attention. Speed stopped to listen. It faded, but something else twittered softly at his ears. He strained to listen with all his might.

He walked forward cautiously, extremely slowly. The noise stopped again. Then he heard the voice.

Sighing out a deep breath he hadn't even realized he was holding up until that moment, Speed relaxed and walked forward more quickly. His hand still hovered over his useless gun and his eyes darted here and there with caution, but he wasn't so afraid anymore.

It was only Ruby.

He stepped through a particularly nasty set of brambles, slightly off the path he had been following up until that point, and slid into view of the large, pink dragon. He looked at her skeptically and then shook his head.

"What have you been doing?"

[notsomuchakitty]

Ruby turned her ears forward to listen for Speed. His smell was strong enough but she couldn't see him still. It was strange to see her with her ears forward. She very rarely did it because she thought it made her look like a pink Jackal.

A sigh. He was close. She dropped her ears back down and relaxed. He knew she was there, she figured he'd be there soon enough. For a second she sort of thought that she wanted to be alone....but then changed her mind. She wouldn't mind Speed's company at all.

She yawned cavernously to the side and quirked one ear slightly as he asked her what she'd been doing. Her form glowed, wiggled, and shrunk then changed into that of a small pink cat-thing with wings before she even really thought about answering his question. Not that the answer required a lot of thought.

"Blowing up trees. What are you doing?"

[go_speedle_go]

Speed almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all. Here was this small, fluffy, pink creature hardly the size of a small house cat, and they were discussing her "blowing up trees." Granted, she had just transformed from a much larger, much more intimidating, dragon form... but still. What a world, what a world indeed.

Trying to keep a straight face, Speed did his best to reply as matter-of-factly as possible. "Oh, really? And what, pray tell, did the trees do to you do deserve such punishment?"

[notsomuchakitty]

Ruby could tell that something was amusing Speed but she couldn't put a paw on what could possible be so funny about what she'd just said. She HAD been blowing up trees. There wasn't anything particularly funny about that as far as she knew. Maybe it was an inside joke.

In the spirit of joking she gave Speed a big grin at his question. What had they done to her? "They barked." she stated matter of factly then gave Speed a wink.

She so rarely joked about her resemblance to a cat that she sort of startled HERSELF with that one but it had just been too obvious to pass up.

"And you didn't answer my question," she reminded him, landing on a large fallen log next to an intact patch of grass. She glanced at it, contemplating sitting on it, but decided against it. It wouldn't feel as nice against fur as it would against skin but she didn't feel like changing forms again at that particular moment.

[go_speedle_go]

Speed couldn't keep the laughter in. He chuckled lightly and grinned down at Ruby genuinely amused. "Barked, huh? Go figure." He glanced at a nearby tree and lightly tapped it with his forefinger. "Bad tree."

He watched her for a moment, deigning to answer her question right away. He snapped his fingers softly to get her attention, then raised his hand to his shoulder and patted it twice lightly.

"Me? What am I doing? I'm acting normal. I'm just out for a nice stroll." He finally answered, waiting for her to respond to his offer.

[notsomuchakitty]

Ruby had to grin at Speed reprimanding the tree. She'd just been blowing them up in punishment. Tapping them was comical after they'd had dragon fire rained down on them. Of course it was also always a bit of a treat to make Speed laugh. He always tried to be so serious. Maybe serious wasn't the word. Composed. He always tried to be so composed.

She contemplated his offer as he finally answered his question, eyeballing his shoulder critically. After a moment of debate she flicked open her wings and made the short hop over to where he stood, landing lightly on his shoulder and flipping her tail casually around the back of his neck for balance.

"Normal is relative, Speed." She grinned, "There's nothing abnormal about me blowing up trees. It's a good way to release excess energy." The real word she should have put in place of energy was frustration but there was no need to announce her inner turmoil to the world.
The last thing she really wanted everyone else to know was that she was distressed. People fussing over her usually just made it worse.

[go_speedle_go]

Speed just raised an eyebrow at her words, specifically the "excess energy" ones rather than anything about being normal or not. Something told him the wording was off, but that was only a gut feeling and no hard evidence was around to back it up. He dismissed it, but that didn't mean he couldn't wonder about it and keep it in perspective anyway.

"Really now," he said simply. He reached back and swatted at her tail once--it was tickling him there. But he made no effort to move it or anything, just dropped his hand back to his side.

He began walking again, easily backtracking until he found the trail and started on it once more. "So you just randomly blow up trees, hmm?" he mused aloud. He stepped around a fallen tree trunk. He could tell with a cursory glance that it was rotten on the inside and had likely died for that reason. "I guess that's like me going for a speedy bike ride. Or--more like Calleigh going to the shooting range and unloading several clips of ammo at a single target." He couldn't help but smirk at the image formed in his head at that one.

[notsomuchakitty]

Ruby just giggled softly at his attack on her tail and wiggled it a little more...just to be a shit. She nodded to his 'really now' though she figured she hadn't been meant to respond to it.

She settled herself down comfortably on his shoulder as he walked back to the deer path. She had actually never really been down here much. When she was in the woods it was usually for blowing up purposes. She'd taken a nap in a particularly nice patch of sun once but she hadn't exactly been taking in the scenery then. It was actually a pretty nice forest. Better than a lot of the ones back home. No monsters here.

She made a sound of agreement when he described his and Calleigh's ways of blowing off steam. Sounded similar to her. "Sounds similar to me. Though I can't usually hit targets multiple times..." She grinned and shrugged her shoulders. It was more of a roll of her shoulders than a shrug but it was the best she could do in this particular form.

[go_speedle_go]

Speed snorted--very unattractive. He glanced down at the fuzz-ball on his shoulder and then shook his head as he looked back to the path.

"Yea, I bet." He smirked. He tried to continue ignoring her tail, but she kept twitching it every-so-often. He was about to swat at it again when he stopped short.

The CSI paused in his step and glanced down where his next step would have landed. A tiny amphibian scuttled across the path, probably looking for some watery place to reside. His brows rose curiously, but he kept quiet and stoic otherwise.

He continued walking. "Well, it tends to also be a stress reliever," he said idly, or at least made it sound as such.

[notsomuchakitty]

Ruby stared at the amphibian, her body tensing and a different part of her tail twitching as if she was planning to pounce on the thing as it scuttled across the path.

She felt more inclined to chase things like that in this form. She did have to hunt for herself when she was at home, after all! She had the hunting instinct of any predator. She shifted her weight from her right back leg to her left a couple of times as Speed spoke.

When he'd finished she gave him a look, cursing internally that he'd started walking again. She'd had every intention of pouncing on that little creature.
"Yeah I s'pose if that's what you want to use it for that works too."

She grinned a little. Clever Speed. He could tell....or at least had a hunch that something was off with her. He had better instincts than most humans.

She wondered if he was just taking a random stroll or if they had a destination where she'd be able to chase bugs take a nap or something.

[go_speedle_go]

Speed's eyes flicked to Ruby without any head movement to accompany them. He kept quiet for a moment as he stared at her impatiently.

Finally he sighed and looked back at the path. He wasn't going to push it. He was not going to pull her own trick against her; it wasn't in his nature. He wasn't nosy--unless it had something to do with a case.

He kept walking down the path, becoming increasingly more curious as to were it led as he did so. He'd never been outside in the forest like this before, not except once or twice on the edge just to pick at some trees idly. He'd never gone inside of it, never explored any of the small game trails. It was wonderful, but he was growing tired of it.

Just when he was about to turn around and head back "home," something caught his eye. It wasn't anything shiny or anything like that, just different. He peeked through the next few bushes recently overgrown on the path and saw what he thought he'd seen. Past the couple of bushes stretched a small meadow. On the opposite side ran a small stream. He wondered why he, or at least Ruby, hadn't heard it, but then he noticed it wasn't really moving too fast and the forest probably stunted the sound.

Or maybe Ruby just hadn't said anything to him. That seemed more likely.

He stepped around the two bushes and into the clearing. It was quaint, and definitely peaceful. He could hear the stream now and it was quite peaceful. Briefly he wondered if this is where the amphibian had come from, and if so how had he gotten so far away from his home?

He walked further into the meadow, heading for the bank and a rock to pick up and play with.

[notsomuchakitty]

Ruby was glad he didn't push it. She wouldn't have told him. It would have gotten a little messy and uncomfortable if he was a pusher. She didn't want to talk about it. She didn't need to. If Nall was there it'd be different. But then it probably wouldn't have been an issue in the first place if he'd been around.
She shook the thoughts out of her head. Useless to think about. Especially right now. Speed didn't really deserve to have her in some ridiculous crappy mood.

She smiled a little at the little stream as they walked toward it. Streams were nice. They had fish. When they reached the bank of the stream she sat on Speed's shoulder for a few moments then unwound her tail and hopped off of it onto a rock, looking intently at the surface of the water. Sure enough. Brook trout. Yum.

Of course she wasn't particularly hungry. It was just fun to catch them.
She leaned over the surface of the water holding perfectly still for a moment, her paw very slowly creeping over the surface of the water. At the last moment she thought better of it though and sat back, looking at her paw. She didn't want to get wet.

She tapped her paw on the ground thoughtfully then looked up at Speed. Let's hope this worked. She had screwed it up a few times and she wasn't sure how well speed would react to seeing her totally naked in human form. She concentrated on the movement of the water and began to change forms. When the pop that signified the change was over sounded she looked down urgently. Shorts and a black tank top. SWEET! She'd done it right.

She chose not to look at Speed but her hand shot into the water and emerged with a fish, flopping around in panic. She grinned and looked up at Speed as she dropped it back into the water. For a second she thought about saying something corny but chose not to. It was a peaceful meadow, no use messing up the quiet with some pointless and even stupid comment.

She chose, instead, to wiggle into a different position on the boulder and stick her toes into the water.