Kahli opened her eyes to see a scruffy looking tamaven perched on her chest, looking very disgruntled indeed.
Tamavens were short, angry little birds with a fuzzy red plumage and pointy, black beaks. And this one had just about pecked her eye out! Talk about a rude awakening, and with that, all the pecking had quickly given her a nasty headache - which was an awful shame, considering how well Kahli had slept otherwise. She deserved to feel well rested, she figured, and this fiesty little bird had robbed her of that.
Kahli shoed the bird away with a hiss and a wave of her living wood hand, which spooked the poor creature immediately into fluttering into the air.
That's awfully rude of you, thought spoke the tamaven. Tamavens were notorious thought speakers, indeed, they were some of the first in Nomachiato.
"Sorry, it's just that I wasn't expecting such a rough way to wake up," said Kahli. It was common knowledge that you shouldn't get on the bad side of tamavens. At the very same time, it was also common knowledge that being on their good side had lots of benefits. So, despite her grogginess and frustration, Kahli did her best to put on a pleasant face.
Yea, well, I wasn't expecting a fucking dragon to knock over my brood's nest. You know, I'd have my buddies swarm you to bits if I wasn't an exceptionally generous tamaven who understands the extenuating circumstances you're currently experiencing.
"Sorry, what?" said Kahli. It was at this point that she realized she was laying on the cold dirt, and not on the scaly back of G'athoong the water dragon. She looked to one side, and she saw plants and trees. She looked to the other side, more plants and indeed more trees as well. There was absolutely no sign of Sahdi or Unit 5a23. She looked down, and breathed a sigh of relief to see that she was still wearing her handbag, and Froufrou was still writhing around inside. So all was not lost, it seemed to her. However, she was quite confused. Where was everyone? What had happened?
Oh my gods, you really have no idea what's been going on, do you?
Kahli shook her head. After all, she explained, she'd been asleep. Kahli was starting to wonder if something wild and crazy was bound to happen every time she went to sleep. When was the last time she'd gotten a good night's rest and awoken in the same place that she'd fallen asleep? Back in Gifflenberg, before the meteor crashed into the downtown: that is all she could remember. Was that really the last time she'd had true sleep? It seemed so long ago, but in reality it had only been a couple of days. A couple of extremely harrowing days. Days where she'd picked timelines, days where she'd learned to use a system, and days where she'd been up against the end of the world again, and again, and again.
Alright, well, I don't know everything, but here's what I can tell you. Sometime in the very early morning, and let me tell you I really do mean very - like, so very early that the sun hasn't risen at all early - early morning, my brood suddenly gets knocked out of all our neighboring trees by the descent of this... This huge water dragon. Thing's enormous. My elders hadn't seen a dragon that large ever, not that any of us see a lot of dragons these days anyways since they've all been in hibernation for five centuries or so or whatever. But, all that said, it literally destroyed, like, five hundred tamaven homes within a couple seconds. That's how massive this thing was. Now, why it fell, I don't know. Where it went, I'm not certain - although I do have a network of veritable eyes in the sky that might be able to help with that. All I know, is that there were three people on its back when it was crashing into and destroying my home, but the only one I could find - yes, they did task me with finding the people responsible, you see - the only one I could find was you. Now, I'm sure you're feeling possibly a little anxious at this. Don't worry, I'm not going to put you on the tamaven blacklist or anything. As far as I can tell, you've been unconscious the whole damn time and are just as out of the loop as I am, or at least close to it. Plus - and let's keep this between you and me, okay? - but plus, well, we tamavens know a thing or two about property damage. We do our best to build strong, lasting homes out of the finest twigs and discarded forest detritous, and we've even got our own legal and financial systems that organize around it, including - and this is the clincher - including insurance. The tamaven fluttered closer to Kahli, and then lightly pecked her in the forehead again. Sorry, force of habit. I'll try not to do that again, it just looked like you might've not been paying attention to me or were getting bored or something. Sorry.
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But yes, tamaven nest insurance is a huge industry. Now, usually, we tamavens just pay into our insurance, never expecting a payout. And, in fact, the tamaven insurance companies know and indeed expect this often. Really, that's the whole business model with nest insurance. I know you didn't ask, but trust me, this is relevant, my tauman friend. So, see, we've got this whole industry built around just collecting peoples' money and never paying it out, unless they absolutely have to. Usually, this is due to natural disasters. Forest fires are a big one, forest fires have destroyed so many tamaven homes it's not even funny, and the payouts are enormous because, usually, a forest fire renders all nearby trees as useless as the one that you were living in, and along with that ash is hardly an acceptable thing to use for nesting material. All of these factors combine into a huge payout. Now, I will say, there are actually whispers and rumors that - and you didn't hear this from me, okay? - but there are whispers and rumors that some forest fires are started by tamavens intentionally in order to get a payout from their nest insurance companies. Now, who can say whether all this is true? Certainly not myself, that much is for sure. Regardless, it's something that people talk about, and it's relevant to this as well. Because, you see, everyone who happened to get their homes wrecked - including myself, by the way - by this enormous water dragon was insured up to their beak. So, really, don't feel bad about being part of the group responsible for ruining the home I built with my blood, sweat, and tears - because I'm going to get a bunch of money out of the whole thing, and after that, heh, I'll be rich enough to pay somebody else to use their blood, sweat, and tears to build me a nest that's twice as big, if not bigger! So, seriously, you've done me a favor. The old place was getting cramped anyways, really, don't feel bad.
Kahli wasn't sure what to say.
Of course I do still expect an apology.
Kahli cleared her throat. "I'm sorry that I was with the water dragon that destroyed your home."
Yea, I'm sorry you were, too. I mean, hell, what were they doing? Was that dragon flying drunk or something? You know drunk flying is technically a legal offense around these parts, right? Although of course pressing charges against a water dragon is a hell of an ask, I doubt anybody would even risk it... Regardless, I'm just saying, it was a shitty thing to do. Along with that, your friends or whatever just left you here, unconscious, unguarded, and injured! You oughta rethink your companions is what I'm trying to get at here.
Kahli looked down at her right leg and groaned, seeing that the ice was only half melted, and as a result only about half of her wounds had healed up. "Ugh. This is a pain."
That's the understatement for the last five centuries, lady. Now, if I might be blunt - can I be blunt? - if I might be blunt, I think you oughta consider finding those goofballs that left you here like this a giving them a good 'talking to.' And of course, by talking to, I mean you ought to go find them and kick their asses.
Kahli grimaced. She was a little uncomfortable with this situation, sure, and she was mad that she'd been left here without explanation, but she didn't want to set out to kick anyone's ass - it sounded crude, and a little too vitrolic for her personality. She was more concerned with the why and how of all of these present events, and of course wanted to find Sahdi and Unit 5a23 in order to figure out what the deal was.
"Do you have any idea where they might've gone?" asked Kahli.
Well, no, I don't know, replied the tamaven. However, a little birdie told me that they're somewhere in those mysterious ruins right over there. The tamaven pointed a wing to a narrow pathway through vines and bushes to a thronging, ancient ruin that itself looked to be being quickly reclaimed and absorbed by nature. Only thing is, you've got to be awfully careful if you go in there. People have died going in there alone, although people die all the time, and I do have it on good authority that there's a group of plant elementals doing some research in there... Somewhere. So, just try and run into them. They've probably seen the scummy lowlives that dumped you and left you for dead, er, I mean your friends.
Kahli didn't necessarily agree with how dramatic the tamaven was being, but she did he best to politely ignore that fact. "So you're saying that if I want to figure out what's going on, I should go into the ruins?"
Precisely, replied the tamaven with a smug tone. I won't be going in, though. That place gives me the creeps.