the Forest of Emmitaenu

Damage Control

Lara helped Zeftx clean his room after they finished cleaning the kitchen. This was the first time she had ever been in it, but from what she could tell it wasn't much different from Jades. His bed wasn't a canopy bed, but it did have four posts and on the top of each end was a sphere carved out of wood. Or at least, there used to be a sphere on top of all four bed posts before the gargoyle attack, but now there were three. In all the chaos, one was snapped in half.

His pillows had also been thrashed and his quilt was torn to pieces. He went to the dresser at the foot of his bed (just like Jades) to extract extra bedding from the bottom drawers. The gargoyles hadn't forgotten it either though. The left side of the dresser slumped lower than the right as if the weight of the world had fallen on its edge and collapsed the stubby legs beneath it.

Lara walked around the bed, pulling off the shredded strips of cloth as Zeftx replaced them. What used to be a blue blanket was replaced with a forest green one.  Lara was careful not to snag herself or the fabric on the corner where the broken bed post was.  It looked rather jagged and potentially hazardous if one wasn't paying attention.  She wondered if maybe there was a way to reattach the broken bit, and bent to pick up the severed end from the floor.

"Zeftx?" She called to him quietly. She stood frozen with her hand hovering over the broken piece.  Her expression was one of disbelief, with her eyebrows raised questioningly and her eyes wide as she stared unblinking.

"What is it Lara?" Zeftx asked, already rushing around to her. He pulled her back a few steps and looked over her head into the dark corner for signs of danger. She pointed down and directed his eyes toward the broken sphere.  He released her shoulders and took a step closer to the bed.

"Look," she whispered. On the ground surrounding the wooden shard was a thick pile of grey dust and rubble. She could almost make out the details of a gargoyles wing in the broken lumps.  The sharp edge of the broken bed post was stuck in the center of it all, with the sphere end pointing up as if it were the sword in the stone. Except this stone was crumbled and this sword was more of a stake.

"I think the bed fought back," Zeftx observed out loud. "A gargoyle must have landed on it, whether on purpose or not I don't know, but it broke like everything else with one exception. This time it stabbed the heart of the beast that landed on it... and so returned it to dust." He theorized, picking up the post and turning it in his hand so they both could see it better.

"No wonder they all took off so suddenly," Lara realized, "I heard it die." She shuddered remembering its dying scream. Zeftx set the post on the dresser and finished making the bed with Lara's help. Neither spoke again until Lara moved toward the archway to the bathroom.

"Don't go in there!" Zeftx piped up sharply. Lara jumped, spinning around to face him questioningly, though with no desire to disobey his command. "Sorry," he lowered his voice, "but trust me, if it's anything like Jades room you don't want to see." Lara didn't know what the monsters did to Jades bathroom, but she took his word for it and walked a few steps away from the archway to appease him. He seemed to relax a lot more. "I'll clean it myself." He explained.

"Ok," Lara nodded a few times then added, "I'll meet you in the entry." She wasn't really sure what he called that room or what Jade called it either.  The common room perhaps, it was a bit too large for a vestibule, perhaps if they added some furniture it would make a nice living room or den.  Either way he seemed to understand her meaning so she left him alone and went back to where it all started.

It was so late it was early by the time the two of them finished cleaning. While Zeftx took care of his bathroom, Lara used the broom from the kitchen to sweep as much candle crumbs out of the rug as she could get. Then she used half of a clay plate (that they picked up earlier in the kitchen) as a dustpan to scoop it up and dump it out the now gaping wide window space.

Zeftx joined her and she watched as he dematerialized around the room, shoving the posts in the walls back into place from within. Lara had to shake herself and wonder how she was accepting everything around her that seemed completely impossible or imaginary just a few days ago. If someone told her Friday morning that she would get lost in a jungle and discover nomads, demons, gargoyles, cupids, and fairies she would have told them they were crazy. Now here she was on Saturday night recovering from her encounters with them all.

By the time Zeftx finished with the walls Lara was lost in thought half asleep as she laid on her back on the rug. He laid down next to her and sighed. Lara turned her head and met his gaze for the briefest of moments, smiled tenderly, and drifted off to sleep. He watched her for as long as he could like that before he too fell asleep.