Storyline: What Price Love?

Sterquilinium
But this was in the future, a future that would be formed out of the deeds of Daggerfjord and Rompkins, in a manner so innocently resembling a young boy shaping melted candlewax into the image of his dog, or perhaps his cat. This droopy, malformed future was as yet even congealed; its viscous nature was proved by the immediate events that tore Daggerfjord from his reverie.

Suddenly, a voice spoke beside him from the deep Singaporean brush - a voice that awakened every nerve in his body, and sent a thrill down his spine like the electric jolt of an East German streetcar.

"Oh... smooth move there, Ex-lax" said the voice. But it was not WHAT the voice said, but HOW the voice said it, for just as Daggerfjord's normally libidonous ears became aroused to the breathy/sultry voice beside him, his eyes focused out of their blur onto the face of an angel - or a succubus.

"Eltha?" Daggerfjord spat, blood flowing afresh from his engorged lips. For indeed it was Elsa - that raven-haired beauty that filled Hansel's dreams and tortured his conscioussness; that vixen of vixens who had torn aorta from ventrical in her incandescent rampage through his heart. There she was, beside him, a strange expression of calm on her face, her lips (never so full as Daggerfjord's) slightly parted below her petite Malaysian nose, her forehead unwrinkled, and with her smiling green eyes peeking out from inside the massive sherpa-hood that engulfed her slightly ovular face and her skin the color of creamed coffee.

"Je suis, mon Hansel... c'est moi," Elsa breathed again, as she rose slowly from her haunches to her feet. Hansel could see her, partially silhouted in the strong Singaporean sun. She pulled her sherpa-hood back, her black hair turning blue in the light, particularly when contrasted with the silvery wolf's fur that lined the hood. For a moment, one tress of her lustrous locks became wrapped around the hilt of the massive claymore sword strapped to her back, before she freed it with a negligent wave of her delicate hand.

Peering forward through the palm leaves and fronds, she observed the beginnings of the Singaporean's search through the brush, for Corporal Ying had taken Colonol Snack's orders, and seemed intent on locating "The Scotsman."

Elsa McConkey thought wryly that this was quite amusing - Singaporean police, acting on behest of a Canadian Marine, scouring the scrub looking for a battered Scotsman (who was in fact of Norwegian/Gypsy descent) all the while being observed by an actual Scotswoman - or, that is, a Malasian/Scotswoman. Elsa pictured herself for a moment, stripped to nothing but warpaint, drawing the claymore and descending from the scrub, yelling in Pictish as she lay about her with the enormous blade. The vision of battle lust almost overwhelmed her, and she caught herself just as one hand inched toward the lip of her parka. No... no matter how much she must feed the beast inside her, she must bide her time. There would be killing later. For now, she had to get Daggerfjord to safety. For she could lose the opportunity to slay, but she could not, again, lose the man she loved.

Slowly she inched backward, quieting Hansel with a finger to her lips. Holding Hansel's artificial arm under the crook of her elbow, she grabbed the leg of one of Daggerfjord's trouser legs with her free hand, and slowly began pulling his lanky frame down the hillock and toward the raft. Hansel groaned as he slid across the abrasive jungle floor, as nettles and burrs were ground into the back of his head, and tangled in his scarlet locks, to flow out freely behind him in the dirt, he wondered whether the intense pain of being dragged by one leg was anything compared to the pain in his heart; the deep soul-ache awakened now to the torment of having every bodily sense assailed at once in the never ending rigours of Prometheus chained to the mountain and slowly flayed alive by birds of prey. No, he thought. He could endure the beating of Singaporean gendarmes, brace himself against any manner of physical torture. But how could he endure the touch of Elsa?

For her part, her heart was atwitter at proximity to this man she adored. And yet, despite the strange lightness - the intoxication of his nearness, her mind probed her conscience, and she wondered how she could ever tell him that she was being forced to work in an Andoroccan Death Squad since Sultan Zhpat had kidnapped their baby, the love-child that Daggerfjord didn't even know existed.