Laugh, Kookaburra Laugh

He wasn't sure exactly how he had ended up in his current predicament. One moment he was aiming his rifle at something-or-other and the next he was overbalancing, plummeting towards the sandy red soil. He vaguely remembered hitting his head against the gnarled trunk and the things had gone a little...fuzzy. One thing he was sure he didn't remember, however, was hitting the ground.

Oh. Right.

That was be cause he hadn't.

Lawrence Mundy re-gained consciousness to find himself hanging upside down in an acacia tree in the middle of the Australian outback, the sun blaring down at him relentlessly. His somewhat gangly limbs hanging limp in the breeze, he resembled a rag-doll. He was sure that it would be amusing to anyone who happened to be watching – not that there was much of a chance that anyone else was this far out into the outback – but this was a serious problem. Things could turn life-or-death very quickly with situations such as his, dehydration being a major issue.

There was no way he could swing himself back up without breaking his ankle, so he wasn't going to do that unless things got desperate. His kukri machete was still inside his camper van, so he couldn't cut the branch and even if he could, the ground below him was littered with sharp rocks, meaning he would likely break a few ribs in the process. He cursed a few times under his breath. How the hell could he have been so careless?

A very feminine sounding giggle made it's way to his ears from somewhere just behind his line of sight. His arms flailed around uselessly as he tried to re-gain some composure but he eventually realised his efforts were in vein.

“Well now, how did you get yourself caught up there like that, Mr Kookaburra?” the mysterious voice teased.

Lawrence just huffed moodily in reply. “Well Oi didn't bloody mean it!” he snapped, unused to being caught like this, trapped and helpless. He had to admit, he wasn't enjoying it very much.

More laughter met his ears. “Sure you didn't, mate. Hey, nice hat!” The source of the voice finally showed herself, scooping up his hat and inspecting the neat line of crocodile teeth that ran around the brim.

Lawrence was speechless for a second. Not - he told himself - because he was entranced by the woman’s shock of fiery red hair, or bewitched by her emerald green eyes, but simply because she had his hat. No one touched his hat.

“Hey! Don't touch the hat!”

“Fine then,” she pouted, dropping the offending object, “Do you need a hand getting down or should I leave you there to bake?”

Lawrence grumbled something incomprehensible.

“Fine then, ungrateful wanka.” The woman turned on her heel and started to storm off.

“Wait! Would ya...” Mundy began, relieved when he saw her turn around and cock an eyebrow at him, “Would ya mind... maybe... helpin' me down, Sheila?”

“Of course Oi'll help you, ya bleedin' idiot,” she grinned, quickly scaling the acacia. “Wow. You really got yerself caught good.”

A few moments passed, the stranger pulling out a hunting knife and sawing at a few branches with the serrated edge.

“Oi can't untangle your boot, loike Oi was plannin' on doin' – your foot's wedged to good for that,” she said. “How the hell'd you even end up loike this?”

“Well, Oi-” He was cut off by a loud creek, closely followed by a snapping noise. A flash of horror registered in his mind before he was plummeting the rest of the way towards the earth, only just managed to stop himself cracking his head on the ground. His ribs, on the other hand, weren't so lucky.