Zuri, Abby, Strips ~ Private

[zash]

Zuri had almost got a hold of what had just happened but didn't quite get it. He ended up landing on his back. The wind had been knocked out of him and writhed in pain for a second. "Oh man that really hurt." He stretched out and kinda squirmed a bit. Eventually he stood up and looked around. Before he started to comment on where they were he figured it would be a good idea to apologize and ask how everyone was. "Uhhm how are you guys. I'm sorry for what I did back there. I just hope I didn't hurt you guys." Zuri lowered his head in shame. He felt really bad for what he did back in the cave.

[petdr89]

After both standing, Abby took a step back, kind of hiding behind Strips; ears flattened against her skull. She ran her fingers across her stomach; her wounds had already healed, though she still had some form of blood on her pants. She knew Zuri couldn't really hurt her, but she was still a little weary of him, and just felt safer behind Strips.

Strips just kind of shrugged, "Ya didn't hurt me, and I don't think ya hurt her either. So yeah, no need for apologies." He wasn't sure if he actually forgave Zuri, but he wasn't in the mood to reprimand him again. Zuri seemed remorseful, so that was good enough for him, for now. Really, he just didn't want to talk about it.

[zash]

"Alright." Zuri said in a small voice. "So we're in Darigan huh? Any idea where the thing is here? But actually, we should probably find a place to rest for a minute, if you guys think thats a good idea. We could probably use a bed right now. Or at least a safe place to rest." Zuri thought that since they've been through so much lately they probably needed to sit back for a bit and rest They deserved a good nights rest. Plus it was getting kinda dark out already. It was probably evening, and like the Haunted woods, this place really didn't look like a good place to be out at night.

[petdr89]

"I'm thinkin' we outa find some place to stay for the night. I don't know about you guys, but I'm dead tired." Strips had been ready for bed for a long time; it had been a long day and he just wanted to fall asleep and forget about all of it. Well, actually he wanted to get hammered, pass out, and then forget all of it; but he'd save that for another day.

"Don't you have a house here?" Abby asked, still hiding behind him.

Strips kind of wished Abby hadn't brought that up. "Yeeaaah, I do. I suppose we could stay at my old house." It would be free, anyway. And since they didn't have any money, that was about their only option. If you fell asleep on the streets on Darigan you'd probably wake up with no money and no clothes. "Well, come on, I'll take you there." With that, Strips started walking down the street; looking like he knew exactly where he was going.

[zash]

Zuri waited a few seconds and followed. He wanted to have his space and give them theirs. It seemed that Abby was completely freaked out by Zuri and dead afraid of him. So he figured it'd be best for him to stay back a bit. Zuri just remained quiet the entire time, unless someone spoke to him, and even then it took a few repeats for him to answer. He was pretty much depressed. He was ashamed of what he did and sad that he had scared off the only person to ever really get close to him. He didn't even think. He just sulked in the silence of everything.

[petdr89]

Strips walked down the streets like he knew exactly where he was going; stopped at a small house. As soon as they got to the door, Strips picked up a rock beside the door, and picked up a key that had been under the rock. He unlocked the door and entered the dust-covered room. The first room they walked into was the living room, and to the right of a living room was a small hallway. “Abby, you can sleep in my parents old room if you’d like. It’s down the hall to the left. Zuri, I don’t care where you sleep.” Strips himself went down the hall and to the right, to his old room. Abby followed but went to the left. Strips immediately went to the bed, flopped down, and fell asleep within seconds.

[zash]

Zuri saw an old couch as soon as he entered. After Strips said wherever, Zuri just went to the couch, dusted it off a bit and laid on it. He did care for a blanket or anything. For all he cared he didn't need one. Zuri just laid down, got a cozy spot and closed his eyes. He just began thinking about the day. How horrible it had really been. It just wasn't his day today. He really didn't think to himself or anything. After his thought process was over he fell asleep, with one tear going down the side of his face. The side that had the missing layer of scale. As the tear ran across it steamed and dissapated.

[petdr89]

Everyone seemed to fall asleep pretty abruptly, without really exploring the house much; maybe because both the narrators were dead tired. Strips, himself, fell asleep right away. He didn't seem to mind the fact that he was laying in a blanket of dust, nor the fact that he was still in street clothes; not at first, anyway.

But sometime during the night he woke up to a loud, echoing shriek, which sounded like some sort of animal. At first, he wasn't sure if he had actually heard the noise, or if it was just something he had dreamt. But after sitting straight up, and being fully awake, he realized the house was dead quite and determined it must have been something he dreamt.

It was at that point that he realized how uncomfortable he was still sleeping in his clothes. Luckily he was at his house and all of his old clothes were still there, though were probably pretty dusty.

Strips rolled over and crawled out of bed, walked across the room and opened one of the drawers of the dresser. Inside the bottom drawer were pairs of sweatpants. He picked one on the bottom because the dust hadn't contaminated it yet.

He took the pants in one hand and went to the door, opened it and then went to the right. At the end of the hall was the bathroom; he went inside. Luckily no one was in there; he figured Abby or Zuri might have wandered their way down there or something. He turned the water to the shower on hot before striping down to his bare nothingness, and then climbed in. Sure he hated water, but he knew he could use a shower; it had been a few days since he had had a real one.

There was soap and shampoo still in there, though he wasn't sure if it was still 'good' after all these years. He didn't really care too much, though; it seemed alright to him anyway. He thoroughly scrubbed his hair and fur; watched dirt pour off him and seep down the drain.

Once finished, he climbed out the shower, grabbed a towel from the cabinet under the sink, and dried off. He rinsed the dust off his comb before using it to untangle his hair, and then put the sweet pants on. Who needs a shirt and underwear anyway, right?

He left the bathroom steamy; walked back into his own room and began ripping the sheets and blankets off the bed. He replaced them with cleaner sheets from the chest at the foot of the bed, and then crawled back into his now nice, clean bed. By this point in time it was nearly four in the morning. He lay on his stomach so he could spread his wings out. Not even ten minutes later, he was asleep again. Apparently he was so tired that not even a shower had really fully woken him up.

[zash]

Zuri laid motionless most of the night. Then we woke up when he heard the noise of water running. He really didn't fully awaken till he heard someone moving around. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "What the heck. Who in the hell is awake this early. I wonder who it is. Ah well." He then laid back down and tried to go back to sleep.

Then he felt the rushing of water himself. He sat back up. "Ok, now I need to get up. I got to pee like freaking crazy." So Zuri sat up all the way, turned to the left and stood up. Still kinda dazed he stood there for about a minute and started walking. He heard the noise of water rushing somewhere down the hall. So he started to walk that way. He got about half way down when he saw steam coming out of one of the rooms. "I'm gonna guess thats it." He walked all the way down and it was the bathroom.

"Dang, its pretty hot in here." He thought to himself. "As nice as a shower sounds, I think I'll wait till later." He lifted the lid on the toilet, and well yeah, he did the usual. He then flushed the toilet and put the lid back down. He really didn't know why, maybe Abby will come in here, that way it'll be down for her. Maybe that was the reason he did it. Well he then went over to the faucet and turned on the hot water. "I'm surprised he still has water. Ah well, works for me." He then found some soap, kinda dry and nasty but it'd do. He washed his hands, turned off the faucet and then dried off his hands. He then exited the bathroom and went back down to the sofa and laid back down. His wings were handing off the sofa as he faced inwards towards the sofa. In about another 5 minutes he fell back to sleep.

[petdr89]

((I think Strips must of pee'd in the lake. XDDD))

Although Abby had gone into the bedroom, she never actually made it to the bed. As mentioned before, she had been getting way too much sleep lately, and she still blamed it on Strips and Zuri. Sure, she could have fallen asleep, but she didn't see the point if she didn't need the sleep. It had been a long day, but it wasn't that long.

She was nosey; walked around the room like she owned the place, opening cabinets and drawers. She couldn't help it; she was curious. Strips's parent's room was nicely decorated; she rather liked it. The dustiness of the room got to her a little, though. Again, she couldn't help it; she just had to clean the place up.

She found a nice rag and began dusting things off; also, changed the sheets and blankets on the bed, and put some of the really dusty clothes in the laundry hamper. By the time she was finished, the place was sparkling; you couldn't even tell it hadn't been used in a long time.

All this cleaning went on all night; she didn't get done until probably eight in the morning. But she figured everyone else was still asleep, so she stayed in the room and continued going through Strips's parent's things.

[zash]

Zuri was still asleep. He slept soundly for the rest of the night. He just laid motionless the entire time. He was lazy and felt like sleeping in as well. Eventually the sun seemed to glare just a bit and went through the window. He hit Zuri in the back of the head. At first he didn't wake up but after a bit it disturbed his sleeping. So he moved a wing ot lay over his head. It didn't help much but it did its job. It prevented the sun from distubing him any longer. So he just fell back to sleep after that and continued to sleep.

[petdr89]

About three hours after Abby had finished cleaning, around 11 in the morning, Strips finally woke up, again. He rolled over onto his back, crunched one of his wings under his weight, and rubbed his eyes. His wings were pretty used to abuse, though, so he hadn't hurt them; just popped them a little. His eyes stared up at the ceiling, and observed the stars that he had plastered up there when he was a little kid. "Oh man, I completely forgot those were up there."

He stared at them for a few minutes before he finally sat up, turned his body around so that his legs dangled over the side of the bed. He still felt some-what tired, but knew he had already gotten too much sleep. He went to bed probably around six yesterday evening, and although he had gotten up once during the night, he hadn't really officially gotten up until eleven.

After a few more minutes, he stood, stretched, and walked across the hall to Abby's room. He opened the door to find her going through old photo albums, which she quickly slid under the bed to hide what she was doing. He didn't really care what she was getting into; he was more curious about the current condition of the room. "Did you clean up in here?"

"Noooo....Maybe a little." Abby replied, a small smile on her face.

Strips laughed, "You're an odd one".

Still smiling, she half shrugged. "I suppose. But hey, now that you're up, I think I'm going to take a shower."

"That's fine. You can wear my mom's old clothes, if you'd like. They should fit you, might be a little big around the waist... or maybe not." Strips got a curious look on his face; Abby seemed to be a little rounder to him. He wasn't sure if she actually was getting bigger, or if his eyes were just playing tricks on him. He merely shrugged, watching Abby collect some clothing, and then showed her to the bathroom so she could get cleaned up. He, himself, went into the living room to see if Zuri was still asleep.

[zash]

Zuri was still "asleep." He had probably woken up about 15 minutes ago but didn't bother to move. He just kept his eyes closed. He figured he should just sit there until everyone else was moving. He had the thought about just getting up and leaving somewhere earlier but he ended up falling back to sleep. He heard Abby and Strips moving about so he figured they were up. So he just turned over and faced the ceiling. Still laying there, not really doing anything. His arms were on his chest, crossed, and his wings were laying across him like he was in a cocoon. He just stared at the ceiling blankly. His stomach growled once or twice but that was about it.

[petdr89]

Strips walked into the room, immediately noticed Zuri all wrapped up. "Ya awake, kid?" Why did he still occasionally call Zuri 'kid' when Zuri was only three years younger than he was? Bad habit, perhaps? Or maybe the way Zuri was laying reminded him of a little kid, so it automatically slipped out.

Meanwhile, Abby was in the bathroom getting undressed. She had already turned the cold water in the shower all the way on, and was brushing out her hair before she stepped into the water. She got all cleaned up, using the soap and shampoo Strips had used before, and then dried off using a different towel. Like Strips, she combed out her hair. But unlike Strips, she felt the need to completely clean the bathroom before she left; it was still mostly riddled in dust.

[zash]

Zuri just kinda snapped out of his trance. "Huh, oh yeah. I'm awake. So whats going on?" Zuri really didn't feel like saying anything un-needed. He figured he'd just answer questions for now till he knew what terms he was with everyone. He was still a little depressed but he wasn't as bad as yesterday. He was fully awake now and full of energy. He was able to sleep off some of his drearyness and catch back up on regaining some energy as well. But for now he kinda looked up to see Strips standing in the door way kinda looking at him funny. He really didn't think of the "kid" thing as being odd. He was kinda used to it, in fact he said it from time to time too, just not with older people.