the lazarus job - tmnt (2)

twelve

CHAPTER 12

HOME

▼

NADIA DIDN'T mean to get a face full of sand when she hit the ground. 

It was just that, she accidentally opened her mouth when she realized that they weren't falling for anything soft. It was all just sand. 

Well, what more could someone expect from a desert. 

Nadia fell right into the sand, her mouth filling with the small fragments as soon as her side hit the floor. She didn't exactly stop either. With a yelp, she began to aggressively fall down the hill with rolls that didn't slow down much. 

She flipped, slid, stumbled, and collapsed, but she didn't stop until she reached the bottom of the sand dune that she had rolled off of. 

By now, her mahogany hair had fallen out of it's long pony tail and was filled with sand to her scalp. Her nose had a few small grains of sand, but it was her mouth and ears that seemed to be filled. She sat up, shaking her head side to side while running her hands through her hair. 

Her hands were ashy with sand, but she still rubbed at her eyes and rapidly blinked to stop the sand from scratching her brown eyes. 

Nadia gagged at the dry feeling in her mouth while she tried her best to spit out the sand stuck in her gums. 

"Nadia?!" 

"Down here," she croaked to the best of her ability. Her voice was dry, but she managed to speak loud enough for her to be heard. 

As Nadia roughly ran her hands through her hair to try and get the scratching brown sand out, the turtles and Florence slid down the sand dune without slipping or falling. 

Raph ran up to her, crouching to cup her face and move her head around as he searched for any cuts and bruises. Nadia mumbled a few protests and pushed his hands away, but he was still there to help her up. 

"I'm fine," she whined when he took her arm and frowned at the scratch marks. "It was the sand." 

"You should've held on," he huffed with an amused yet worried tone as she rubbed her right eye with the back of her hand. It strangely reminded him of a baby; how they'd rub at their eyes with the back of their hands before yawning. 

Nadia didn't yawn, she just pout. 

"I did," she mumbled as she looked to him, her lips curling up into a smile. "You shouldn't have let go." 

"Okay we can decide who held on and who let go later," interrupted Florence with a sheepish smile. She pushed up her black rimmed glasses and loomed her yellow eyes around in worry. "Until then, mind telling us where we are?" 

"Terranova." 

It was the way she said it that caused Leo to turn around. It kind of sounded like Mikey's tone when he spoke about pizza, or Donnie when speaking about his inventions to Florence. 

It was the thing she loved most. 

"Your home." Raph found himself smiling as he spoke. He turned his head to Nadia who was grinning and nodding her head. 

"I know this place like the back of my hand," she smiled. "If we get to my village, we can refill our water packs and get more food before heading to our final destination." 

"So this is our last stop?" Donnie wondered aloud. "I thought that this journey would take a few weeks, not three days." 

"It's been a week," chuckled Nadia as she stood and ran her hands down her dusty jeans. "Time is different when traveling through dimensions."