It's a little bit past noon, and it's the perfect day for a picnic. The spot definitely has tourists there, but it's not the //most// touristy place on the island, so locals may find it acceptable, too. It certainly has a nice view: the ocean in one direction, the forest in the other. There's a barbecue pit, and the general area is quite well-kept. Right now, there are a couple of groups of people hanging out here. Three young-twenties girls in one spot, a couple and their kids in another, several dudebros over near the tree line throwing a football around. Nothing too unusual.
Keegan is out for a jog down the beach, with a happy, panting mutt jogging next to him on either side. The Canadian-fish-out-of-ice-water is wearing a vibrant green t-shirt with the large words "E Komo Mai - Hawaiian Humane Society splashed across the front. Only his sleeve tattoos are visible, for the most part, though as he runs the occasional peek of abdomen and ink sneaks past. He's also wearing a nigh-omnipresent Toronto Maple Leafs ball cap, and...a fanny pack. That's right, a fanny pack with pockets sporting plastic bags, tennis balls, and other dog walking essentials. He and the pups jog past the group of chickies, and he pauses to let some of them fawn over the dogs. Just the dogs, of course.
Is it sad to picnic by one's self? Probably. So Fiona is not picnicking. She's simply hiking through the area and stopping to eat a lunch she happened to pack, carried in the light, drawstring-style backpack she has on her back. Otherwise, she's traveling lightly -- a water bottle and cell phone are about all she carries with her, one in each hand. She's not a serious hiker, it doesn't seem -- there's no Leatherman or Swiss Army knife and her hiking boots aren't $200 affairs from REI but $40 Skechers. Hey, at least she isn't in flip flops.
She's heading to the picnic tables from the direction of the forest but stops and smiles when she sees the happy mutts, stopping to admire the view. Of the dogs. Of course.
Akhlut stared intently across the beach like an unmoving moving statue. The man was in a raggedy pair of cutoff jeans. "Their ball will come loose, and I shall run for it. Balls want to be sent far away, because they know you'll chase them, just to send them off once more." Stroking his beard, he continued to watch the kids. "Nala... Why are they just holding it?"
Nala and Akhlut both off work during the daylight, it was nearly a Christmas Miracle... in June. And so, rather than waste it inside, Nala was out with Akhlut, naturally having a picnic. Of course it might not have been a picnic that you would see with a normal person, and the hamper overflowing with food and drinks looked like it was there to feed everyone, not just Akhlut and Nala, though there weren't any extra people joining them. The scent of roasted meat, some sort of sharp, ripe fruit that had been grilled, and hot bread rested around them as securely as any company might have, though.
Laying with her head on Akhlut's thigh, Nala looked up at him and grinned, chewing and swallowing the bite of hot, Hawaiian bread she'd taken. "They're playing football. It's the rules of the sport, you try to get the ball to the other people's goal and hit the ground with it to score. If you drop it, the other team can pick it up. You have to throw it to the guys on your team, but it can't touch the ground, unlike with Basketball." As if they may have gone shopping in the same section at the store, Nala wore a set of cut-offs that looked similarly as worn as Akhluts, though hers helped do some fantastic things for her tanned, very toned legs. Instead of a normal shirt, she had on only a bikini top that was the color of blue electricity and almost matched her eyes. her long hair was to the sides in two tight braids that currently pooled on the ground under Akhlut's leg.
As Keegan and his companion come into view, one of the kids who looks to be about two and a half or so turns to the woman who must be his mother. "Mommy! Doggy!" he cries, and he stands up, looking like he's going to toddle over that way. The woman, though, scoops him up. "No, Danny," she says. "You can't pet every single dog you see." The child lets out a little shriek of protest, but then changes tactics, looking up at her with widened eyes. "Please?"
One of the young women has noticed Akhlut, and she turns back to her friends, elbowing one of them. The trio looks over at him admiringly, before they start to giggle and turn to murmur amongst themselves. They don't go over there, though. Maybe one of them will get up the courage later.
There's a little rustling near the edge of the treeline, and a mongoose can be seen running around, weaving in between a few trees, then running up one into the canopy.
Keegan finds himself being dragged away from the group of girls by one of the dogs, on the trail of new and exciting smells. His new course brings him past Fiona, whose gaze he greets with a smile and a tip of the brim of his cap. "Hi there. You like dogs?" He gets them to heel and sit and even offer a paw to shake. Through it all, one of the dogs, some kind of shepherd mix, keeps looking over and sniffing in the direction of Nala and Akhlut's feast, and finally the temptation is too great: the poor hound leaps off towards the cut-off clad gates of begging heaven. "Eee~eeexcuse me!" Keegan offers to Fiona as his arm is nearly pulled out of its socket and he catches his balance en route to Nala and Akhlut's blanket. "Well, aloha again, Nala and Akhlut. You're both looking...matching. It's good, it works for you guys! Sorry about Loki, he's an unapologetic chowhound." The aforementioned Loki has seated primly and offers a paw to Nala. Meanwhile, the heeler mix on the other side has his eyes locked onto something in the tree canopy, and Keegan's eyes slant swiftly, but briefly, in that direction out from beneath the brim of his hat.
"They're good dogs, Danny can come say hi if it's okay with you, Mom," he tells the mother with a smile and a wave large enough to be seen across the beach.
When Keegan draws the dogs close, Fiona smiles, bending to take the proffered paws. "I don't trust anyone who doesn't," she says, petting both -- until the one gets distracted and hauls Keegan and the other off to meet the couple a little farther away. She laughs, shaking her head. "No worries," she says, turning to look at what's gotten the dog's attention. She nods to the others in that friendly way strangers do, but doesn't appear to be about to join in that conversation as she's only been properly introduced to the dogs by a handshake, after all.
The heeler's gaze draws her eyes that way, too, and she narrows her eyes at the sight of the mongoose, having seen one recently elsewhere. She just watches, uncapping her water bottle to take a swig.
Akhlut continued to stare at the kids as they started whispering and giggle. "They still haven't thrown the ball." His eyes narrowed a touch. "They are taunting me, but I will not fall for their tricks." Looking down at Nala, his eyebrow rose. "Bounce or no bounce, the ball is happier in the water..." The man's mouth curved into a wide smile, "Keegan, brah! I see the sun has not turned you into a puddle. This is good! And you have brought animals." That same smile was offered to Fiona, "Aloha!" He gestured to Keegan with the blade of his hand as he continued to speak to Fiona, "This man is in need of hugs. And he keeps small animals in good health without eating them. This is a strong quality of a mate."
Nala grinned broadly up at Keegan and lifted her hand, looking pretty damned relaxed, even as the dog rushed up with his eager little canine paw. "Aloha 'auinala, Keegan. Nice to see you again." She lifted herself up to sitting with a flex of her well muscled mid-abdominals, peering over at Fiona with a wide grin. If the obvious expression wasn't one of amusement enough to be noticed, the sparkle in her vividly blue-green eyes would give it away. "And he's cute, that never hurts!" She co-winged with Akhlut a little and then glanced over at the kids with thier ball. "If you stand up and ask them to go long, they'll throw it to you, and you could always liberate it to sea. But that's technically mean." She chuckled and looked at the dog, then, reaching over to shake his hand and then scrub him gently behind the ears. "Hmmm... You feel like a turkey kind of dog." Almost like she was sneaking into the hamper of goodies, she pulled out a rather plain looking box that was, shock of all shocks, filled with meat. She held a piece up and looked at Keegan. "Mind if I give him a treat? He's obviously starving." The movement in the woods caught Nala's eye, which was rare in and of itself, but she only watched for a moment before she grinned. "If the other one's fast, he might get away from you, Keegan. Those little mongooses are faaaast. They have to be to hunt snakes."
Keegan's words make Danny turn back to him, and he claps his hands with the glee for ordinary things that only a two-and-a-half-year old can seem to muster. Since they are, after all, just dogs. Albeit quite cute dogs. The woman lets out a laugh, though, and relents. "Okay," she says, and she sets the kid down, who goes off like a shot toward the dogs. "Thank you," she says, and she follows after, just in case. There's ocean around, after all. She does the same sort of smile that Fiona does to the others, as well.
It seems that the football guys are about to demonstrate 'go long,' because one of them pulls his arm back and throws, hard. He's either miscalculated or done it on purpose, because it flies past the tree line into the forest. "Dude, what the hell?" one of his friends calls, and he rolls his eyes, jogging toward the forest to try to find it. He disappears beyond the trees a second later.
Keegan crouches down between Loki and his vigilant packmate Sprinkles, giving both dogs a good firm scritch in the scruff. "Dogs are the best judges of character," he says to Fiona with a grin over his shoulder, which is all too quickly tranformed into a look of utter embarassment when his wingman and woman go to work on his behalf. Red-faced, he pulls his cap down like he's hoping there's a secret door to Narnia somewhere inside it. "No no, thanks, I'm all set on hugs." He peeks out from under his cap with a look of pleading to Nala and Akhlut, "You guys...I appreciate the effort...and the compliment, but I don't know if I'm cute so much as, you know, tough. And manly." Control those blushes, man! "Loki can have treats on my watch. He's a good boy. So's Sprinkles...leave it, Sprinkles, a little guy like that can't hurt us." Keegan gets Loki to sit and accept little Danny's attention - once Loki has been treated to Nala's offering of turkey. The shepherd mix pulls out all his best tricks in hopes that more treats are forthcoming. "A mongoose, huh? Wouldn't it be weird for their main food source to be this close to the beach?"
When Akhlut calls out to her, Fiona's eyes get a bit wide, and she glances over her shoulder in the classic, 'Who, me?' gesture. Nala's words, and Keegan's additional embarrassment and waving her off makes her own cheeks flush just a little, but she's got more of a natural tan to hide under, if no baseball cap.
Her attention is pulled away for a moment by the bro's bad throwing and his friend that follows. She'd be great at a tennis match, this one, eyes all over the place. Keegan's words and the allure of the cute dogs draws her a little closer to that group. "Where do they normally live? All I know about them is what I learned from watching Riki-Tiki-Tavi," she says lightly, smiling a little uncertainly at those gathered.
Akhlut gave the slightest shake of his head to Nala. "If I were to liberate the ball to the sea, it would be hours if not days before I saw land. It is the most joyous of traps. I am with you during the day, and I would like to keep it as such." His vision flicked to track the ball's path into the woods, and he sighed. "They know nothing of the desire of balls which is the only reason I can understand why they throw for the woods." Looking back to Keegan, Akhlut arched his eyebrow, his smile back and wide as ever. "The blood rushes to your skin. It is a sign of strong and fast circulation, so you are alive." The man stretched his arms wide, "Embrace it!" That broad and happy smile showed all his teeth, "I would have never found my Nala had I not." Clapping Keegan on the shoulder, the man's laughter rumbled in his chest, "She too made me blush as I was hopeless attracted to her. I sang many a song to her while my sister's giggled and just went over and danced with her." Looking to Fiona, the mountain waved her closer, "Come closer, Keegan's oddly shaped wolves do not bite, and if they did, I would swim with them until they didn't."
Nala gave Keegan a wide, happy smile and shook her head, eyes still sparkling with high amounts of mirth. "Nope, definitely cute. And you need hugs. I bet the dogs won't do for anything but sitting right up against you when you chill out and aren't running around. Dogs know when people need hugs, too." She winked at Keegan and then glanced back over to the trees. "Most of our snakes look like worms man, they don't even look like snakes at all. There are some moccasins around, though, and they like the water real well. Some jerk brought them onto the island sometime in the 60's and they've stuck around. But they're pretty rare to see, and they just get killed when they're spotted. Vicious things." Nala eyed the frothy edge of the woods for a long moment, brows raised. "He might have just found a cockroach nest or something. Or maybe some mice or rats."
As Fiona came closer, Nala turned her hundred watt smile to her and shrugged slightly. "I imagine they go wherever the food is, and have their little homes in places that feel safe. So probably in the forest if we're talking Oahu. You might find some on the less green side of the island, but I feel like they wouldn't get enough food unless they're seafaring." Akhlut's words caused Nala to look over at him with her wide, happy smile. "I'm not sure everyone worries about what the ball wants, ko'u aloha. And your sisters are awesome. But I hope you'd never think I'd have turned you down for anything. I probably would have said yes to just about everything the second you came up to me on that beach and asked me to go with you for a swim." She reached over and rubbed Akhlut's rather large shoulder affectionately after putting the lid back on the box of meat and slipping it away into the hamper. "If I'd seen you first, I might have left my friends behind to see if you wanted to go somewhere else anyway." Nala chuckled and glanced over at Fiona, then at Keegan. "Better to jump in with both feet than end up wishing you had gotten wet and losing the chance."
Danny seems to have been trained well in the ways of dogs, because he is very gentle as he pets Loki, his movements about as slow as a 2-year old's movements ever are. It's pretty good, at least. "Doggy," he says again, his voice a little wistful. Wouldn't it be great if he had a doggy, Mom? Yeah, it would.
Meanwhile, the guy with the football doesn't seem to have come back, and one of his other friends is getting annoyed. "Ken!" he calls. "Stop messing around!" He rolls his eyes, and starts off into the forest then, too, getting lost from sight soon enough among the trees.
Keegan gets a sloppy lick of encouragement from Sprinkles, which wrinkles his nose and distracts him from the burning red in his cheeks. Giving the speckled heeler mix a good scratch behind the ears, he grins over at Fiona as she approaches, thankful for the change in topic from the subject of hugs and people who need them. "Yeah, same. I wouldn't know a mongoose if I saw one myself, honestly. I'd probably call it a big-ass ferret." He looks over at Akhlut and clamps his mouth shut. Tight. A couple of snickers still escape his nose, as renegade snorts. "The desire of balls...I know it well, Brother, I know it well. It's not unlike the preferences of pucks. Something you probably remember from Alaska, not much else to do up there." He rumbles a laugh. "I guess it's always good to have robust circulation." He clears his throat and quickly changes the subject again.
"So Nala, you and Akhlut met swimming? Must've been love at first sight, unless you two are better at chatting while swimming than I am. I mean, for more it's more...gasping for air and trying not to sink. That's interesting about the snakes, but good news, eh? I hear mongoose, I think cobra, and then I immediately think...nope." He chuckles again at that and tips his face up into the sun. He speaks to Nala again, only slightly inclining his face down towards her, a half-grin tugging his lips. "Some people can't jump in with both feet, not if you don't know if you'll catch yourself again." Such a pessimist, seriously. Downer.
But Keegan can't help but laugh again as Danny pets Loki, and a jealous Sprinkles comes over for his turn, nosing under the child's hand now that his guard duty is done. "Doggy, yep! This is Loki, and this is Sprinkles. They both need homes, if you or your Mom know anybody who wants a doggy of their very own." Shameless, that pitch. He smiles apologetically to Mom, the looks into the forest and shakes his head. "Dude's getting himself lost in there."
"There's a lot of them," Fiona says, moving a little closer to the group, possibly ignoring the talk about blushing and getting feet wet deliberately. Or she's just distracted by the mongooses. She glances at Keegan and nods. "I just saw one the other day and called it a ferret, but then looked it up and saw I was wrong. I think they're a bit meaner than ferrets," she says, looking back at the one in the tree. "Curious thing," she says, pointing out to the one up in the tree, in case anyone else missed it. "He's worried about where Bro Thing 1 went off to," she adds, with an apologetic smile to Bro Thing 2, in case he overheard, but he's on his own trek into the woods.
She looks back to the others, and smirks at Keegan's plug for adoption, and shakes her head. "Owch. Good luck getting out of that," she asides to the mom, before taking another swig of her water.
Akhlut shook his head and offered a warm smile to Nala, "If you find someone that brings you more happiness than I, I would not want you to hesitate for a moment. You deserve the best that you can catch. I would create and sing songs of you. The sky would less bright with my ublureak, but it is a shine that one cannot forget." The broad gently took hold of Nala's chin as he knelt to stare in her eyes, even as they narrowed a moment later. "I believe more than a ball is being lost to the trees. The boy calls for help, and I don't believe it was the tube rat." The stand stood up, taking a few careful steps over dogs and small child as he clapped Keegan's shoulder again as he walked by. "People that see ice and get knives to tie to their feet. It is entertaining. Please have fire if there are womb-eaters." The man brought an arm over and behind his head to start stretching it as he strode to the woods, offering a nod to Fiona, "I believe you are right." The man took a deep breath and went bolting for the woods.
Nala grinned and almost laughed, looking at Keegan for a moment as he enjoyed the humor he could pull from what Akhlut was saying. When he asked her about the meeting. "Not exactly, I was hanging out with a group of friends at the beach. He walked up to where we were around the bonfire, offered his hand out to me, ignored everyone else, and asked me to come with him. I took his hand... we ended up spending several months in Alaska after taking a really, nice swim." Her eyes sparkled, the blue-green looking like some sort of precious stone. "Best decision I ever made. My friends were pissed, too, but I think they were just sad he didn't have a fleet of buddies along with him to make offers to the others." She winked at Keegan, then looked over at Fiona.
"That's kind of weird, they aren't really local here, either. Mongooses. I mean, they brought some in I'm sure, but there's only a couple of animals that are even local to the island at all." Nala shook her head and stood up, turning to look at Akhlut in time for him to stare in her eyes saying sweet things. Of course, the response she might have given was somewhat cut short when he noticed the concerning situation in the woods. "Hold up, ke keiki, I'll come along to help." You never know, maybe Nala MIGHT not get stuck in a tree this time. She made a high pitched wistle somehow, using just her tongue between her teeth, and dodged a bit around people and pups. "Hey Keegan? You want to bring the dogs, they might help.. or not. I don't know. They might run off." She looked thoughtful and then shook her head, not wanting to be so far behind Akhlut that she lost him in the woods. Even mountains hid behind that much foliage, after all.
"Mommy, I want that one!" Danny cries when Keegan tells him this, and 'that one' seems to be both of the dogs. The mom lets out one of those laughs that parents give when they actually do not want to be laughing, but in fact are slightly annoyed. "Honey, we're on vacation," she says, and she smiles apologetically to Keegan, picking up her son. She looks over at Akhlut and Nala going into the trees then, though, but she doesn't seem to think much of it. They're nice trees, after all.
As the two get a little further into the forest, they both look up just in time to get a look at two mongoose, one of whom has launched itself at Akhlut, and one at Nala. Their little claws are bared like they're going to try to catch them and hang on for dear life.
Keegan gathers up the leashes of both nods and nods his understanding to that poor Mom. "I'm sure there's plenty of great dogs where you're from, too. Enjoy the beach!" He's not exactly hurrying off, but he has definitely gathered the pups closer to him. "Loki and Sprinkles say it was nice to meet you, Danny." As Nala and Akhlut go charging into the woods, only to have a ruckus commence, Keegan's brows narrow and he looks aside at Fiona. "Do you think they're okay? If something's wrong, I don't know if I should take the dogs, but..." He bends down and scratches the two dogs, now tense and staring daggers at the woods. "Loki, stay. Sprinkles...stay." Both dogs oblige, with Loki's gaze straying to the picnic basket. "They might need a hand," He gives Fi a grin and touches the brim of his cap. "If you hang around a minute, would you make sure these two don't devour the whole picnic? If not, no worries. They're good boys. They'll stay." And with that, Keegan starts into the forest. "Nala? Ak?"
Fiona waves to the little boy when he gets scooped up. She turns when Akhlut and Nala both take off running. That's when she frowns. "The mongoose are attacking those guys," she says, with a little gasp, just around the same time as Keegan asks what she thinks about the situation. She turns toward him as he asks her to look after the dogs, her eyes a little wide. "Sure, I can watch them..." she says. She moves to pick up their leads, giving them a lot of leeway so she doesn't pull them as she climbs up onto the bench of one of the picnic tables to get a better view of the attacking mongooses.
She glances down at the dogs. "You might be pushing your luck. Bad shit happens when I'm around. Sorry, doggos."
Akhlut ground to halt as a mongoose came and leap at him, scratching him. The mountain of a man raised his arms like he was about to scare the creature when the mountain just started laughing. It was sort of uncontrollable laughter in which one bare stay upright. Holding his chest, he waved helplessly to Nala. "NALA! The tube rat is attacking me! I don't think he knows!"
Nala was moving along behind Akhlut, apparently just enough behind that she spotted the Mongoose that came flying down from the trees above and spun a bit to the side. Less graceful than a dancer would do by far, it really looked more like some sort of Tae Bo workout maneuver that left her two braids flinging around her. When she looked up at Akhlut and the little scrapes along his shoulder from minute animal claws, then down to the two dive bombing weasels, she grinned and shook her head. "They were taller than you a moment ago, Ak. Maybe it made them brave?" She eyed the ground, watchful, and obviously curious. "Kid?! You out here?" Nala called out loudly into the deeper forest, obviously trying to look for the kid that had gone off running for the ball.
The mongoose kisses in Akhlut's face, baring its teeth, but then it launches itself off him again, scurrying away. At least it didn't continue to cling. The second one that missed Nala has run off, too, scampering into a thicket of vines that definitely does not look natural. No, it looks as though it has just sprung up from the ground and knit itself into a wall, and it's from behind that that yells can be heard. It must be thick -- they sound relatively faint. Or maybe they're being herded away from the picnic area by whatever is making the plants grow. "I'm stuck!" the faint voice cries, and then another one joins. "Ken! What the hell! Where are you?!" It's also coming from behind that place, but they must not be together if the second doesn't no where the first one is. Then after a second, another yell. "GET OFF ME YOU LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT!" And then some squeaking.
Keegan is only briefly shocked when Fiona confirms that the tube rats, sorry, mongeese, are attacking the Lost Bros. "Crazy little ferrets don't know what's good for them," he says with a grin over his shoulder from the edge of the wood. "Hey...thanks for looking after the boys. I'll be right back, I think." He pushes through the tangled branches in the wake of the mountain and the Tae Bo master. "Nala, Ak? You okay in there? Did you find the guys?" As the man in the ballcap approaches the sound of scuffling, he stops abruptly in his tracks. He draws in a deep inhale, and a shudder rips through his entire body. Then he winds his arm back and slaps himself across the face. "Focus, man."
""Shit," says Fi, when she hears the calls from the boys farther out, squinting from her spot on the table. The dogs are probably confused as to why she's up there, but at least she's pulled them away from the picnic basket. "Be careful," she tells Keegan. "I'll, uh, stay here and call the police if you don't come out..." She looks a bit wary and maybe a little bit guilty, if someone were good at reading those sorts of expressions on a stranger's face.
When Keegan slaps himself while heading into the fray, Fi's brows rise, but otherwise, she doesn't say much. She looks down at the dogs, then back to the forest. "Yell if you want me to call for help!" she calls out. She is not help, apparently.
Akhlut was still laughing even as the mongoose launched itself off of him. The man threw his head back, still laughing. Shouting to the sky, he again pointed at the mongoonse to scare the thing off before he broke out laughing again and hanging his head. "You do well, my little friend! Fierce fighter in such a small packet!" The man's shoulder shake as he neared the end of his breath, scooping a handful of sand up to rub on the scratch. "Good times..." The man continued into the woods towards the growing plants, "It is a shame none of you are breadfruit." The man arched a brow and glanced to the canapy, "Are you breadfruit?"
Nala was still grinning at Akhlut the the fearsome attacking strips of hat fur when she heard the noises of the kids. Looking at the thick, much too heavy walls of the now rather dense forest, she let out a soft sound. "AK! Look... it's all growing together." She moved forward, reaching to to grab hold of vines and starting to tear them apart from one another. It wasn't easy, not in the slightest. Her muscles bulged under her skin and she really put her back into it, solidly spreading her feet to shoulder width apart and jerking back on the vines one after another using her full body weight and power to do so. "Come help me!" She called back over her shoulder to anyone close enough to hear. "They're stuck in this!"
The mongooses have, at least, dispersed for now. The guys continue to yell, and one of them sounds like he's in pain -- not terrible pain, not like he's going to need an ambulance -- but he isn't super happy. "Somebody?!" he calls, and then Nala strikes hand through those creeping vines. There's a bit of blood on the hand, as well as a superficial scratch across the wrist that must be from one of the obnoxious little creatures. He starts to pull away at the hole she's made, too, letting out a little pained grunt of effort.
Keegan shakes his head to clear it, and he's probably going to have a little bruise on his jaw later, but he dives into the thicket of vines after Nala. Apparently those muscles are still good for something, because with a little grunt of effort, Keegan and Nala rip apart the vines holding the bleeding dudebro. As soon as the vines part, he takes a few very large steps back to behind Nala and offers her a high five. "Nice work, Nala. You're a beauty and a beast!" He chuckles at that, crossing his arms over his chest before eyeing the young man and very pointedly not his wrist. "Dude. What did you even do to get caught like this?" As he looks around, he grins back at Akhlut, chuckling. "They're way too skinny to be breadfruit. Unfortunately. Diet breadfruit."
At the call for help, Fiona loops the dog's leashes around the table leg so they can't get far -- Keegan did say they'd stay, but there's that picnic basket nearby just begging to be gotten into. "Stay. Good dogs," Fiona says, and moves into the forest, a little cautiously, glancing at the trees and looking for the feisty mongooses. She nears the others, glancing at the overgrowth and frowning.
"The other day, the mongoose at the party... some dumb message popped up on their screen. Go home, ra-new." She pronounces it Rah-new. "Is someone training ferrets... mongeese? to attack people?" she asks. "It's either that or I'm cursed. I'm not sure which I prefer. You guys okay?" she asks, glancing at the two she saw get mongoosebombed and then the boy with the bloody hand.
James dropped Scene Object.
Akhlut managed to catch his breath as Nala and Keegan moved in to pull the roots off the teens. Rather than just add an extra body to the mix, the man searched the ground for a moment. Finding a log, Akhlut knelt to lift it into his arms as he stood. Taking a couple steps, he rolled it into the growing brush, and held it there. "There's your path out of there." The man shook his head, smiling at the trees and wild growth. "Did a tube rat come and tickle you as well? It is no result to be this upset."
Nala looked at the kids they'd freed, shaking her head as she pulled them out of the overgrowth the rest of the way by force to get their feet untangled. "Whether you found your ball or not, why don't you get out of the trees for now?" She made the suggestion with a soft smile, her breath already starting to slow down back to normal after the exertion. When Akhlut rolled the log to provide the blockade to additional plant life getting in the way, Nala turned and gave him a wide grin. "That... is seriously sexy." She shook her head, then glanced over at Keegan, lifting her hand to give him a solid high 5, her hand slapping against his soundly before she gripped his hand and gave him a proper fist squeeze. "Mahalo for the help." Fiona's arrival was greeted with a smile, and a slight shrug. "That would be crazy, but... I mean stuff doesn't just grow like this. I mean it does, but usually the plants have help." She knelt down and watched as some of the vines started to shrink back away, watching them curiously. "You see, this is why you always say Aloha to the trees, to the waves, to the sands. To let the place know you come with love in your heart, not anything else. Love begets love. And if you're dealing with something like a kupua? One of the tree's people, well. They can have fun with you in a mean way if they're feeling in the spirit of things." She frowned a little, poking at a vine that kind of melted away back to its small size, slithering down into the forest floor. "I don't think this is a strong one, though. Maybe one of the halflings, or someone teaching their child how to pull the pranks on humans." Nala stood up, looking thoughtful.
The two dudebros get pulled out, and one of them is quite bloody indeed. He has several scratches on his neck, and while they're also superficial, they look worse than they are because of all that red dripping from them. "What the hell?!" he says again, and he's obviously shaken. When Ken -- the first one -- sees his friend, he freaks out a little bit more. "Oh my god, are you okay?" he exclaims, and he gets an arm around him to help him. "I don't know," he replies to Kegan, shaking his head. "I just went to get the ball, man. Then they just started closing up on me." The bloody guy nods, also shellshocked. "Thanks..." he says, his look encompassing all three as they walk quickly out where Akhlut is holding the path open. It does appear to be getting wider as they speak, though. Nala is right. The vines are receding.
Keegan nods abruptly to the pair of shellshocked young men, bringing his hand to his mouth and nose. "Glad you're okay. 'Scuse me," he blurts out, and turns on his heel making tracks out of the forest as quickly as possible. He dashes right on out of the trees, pats the dogs while moving, and doesn't stop until he's standing waist-deep in the ocean.
Plants? Fiona hadn't noticed the plantlife growing, for all she was focused on the mongoose, it seems. Her eyes move to the bloodier young man, and her brows knit together, her scowl deepening, shifting from curious and mildly concerned to, well, wary and nervous. When Keegan runs past her, she turns her head slightly, his level of upset and sudden rushing into the ocean not doing much to calm her.
"I...need to go. Bad shit keeps happening around me," she murmurs, taking a couple steps backward before turning around and rushing away from the little group. "It was nice to almost meet you all," she adds over her shoulder, taking long steps to put more distance between herself and others. Apparently she's going with the cursed theory, despite Nala's mention of the kapua.
Akhlut waited for the others to pass, but as the plants start to retreat back to their normal size, the man elected to roll the log back into his arms and return it from where he got it in the first place. With a groan, he set it back down gentle. "It seems only fair to not have you all bear the weight of this. I do appreciate your relaxing though. Mahalo nui loa." The bear of a man nodded to the forest, watching Nala stare at the plants, "They are happy, you can wave to them on or way out." Akhlut took a couple of steps towards Nala, bowing at his wrist before her, and lifting her to lay over his shoulder. Patting her rear, the man wore a wide grin, "If you wish, we can return later, and visit them." Taking his long, sure-footed steps on his way back out to the forest's edge. The man offered a wave to the retreating Fiona which require a pause and picking up a foot to wave to woman before continuing as stride. "Keegan! Thank you!"
Nala made a non-committal hmmming sound as she heard Akhlut talking. It wasn't until she was midway through the air and heading for his shoulder that she blinked in surprise, her bright blue-green eyes widening. "AK!?" It must have been pretty damn familiar, though, the sudden view of his back and the large man's rear as she was folded over his shoulder. "You know.. my legs carried me in." She chuckled and drummed out a beat on his ass with the flat palms of her hands. "Aloha, na ulula'au nani!" She called the words loudly, as if she were encompassing the whole forest as she spoke. Then she lifted an arm to wave to the trees as she propped herself up on the upper curve of Akhlut's rump with her other hand. "We should go swimming, Keegan ran out to the beach. Maybe we can go swimming with the dogs?" This conversation had while the man carried her in a fireman's carry back out to the picnic area they'd left earlier.
When she spotted Fi heading away, Nala lifted her hand and waved to her as well. "Aloha, nani wahine! See you again!" It was friendly enough, to be sure, but likely looked absolutely goofy. Still, happy goofy.
Keegan returns from the ocean soaked and dripping, but looking less like a man on fire. He raises his hand to wave after Fiona as she starts off, crouching down by the worried pups as he calls after her, "Hey, thanks again for looking after the boys! It was nice to meet you...I'm Keegan by the way. I'll get your name next time..." As Akhlut returns with Nala on his shoulder, Keegan just laughs and shakes his head. "You have one of those relationships where everybody pulls each other's weight, huh? Hey, you guys really helped those dudes out. Thanks for that. Sorry I wussed out at the end there. Could you share any more of your picnic with Loki and Sprinkles? They're worried, but they stayed right here out of harm's way, even though they would probably love to chew on a mongoose." As Nala hollers, Keegan cants his head curiously. "So...her name's Wahine? Getting a hug from her probably wouldn't be too bad, now that you think about it."
The dudebros don't even really notice that Keegan suddenly just walks away, and they don't pay a whole lot of attention to Akhlut and Nala either, despite the carry. They're freaked out, and clearly already figuring out how they're going to reconcile this in their mundane minds. Soon enough, it'll all just be a bad dream caused by a gas leak. It's always a gas leak. Even in the forest.
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