Lenan and Lampchops (Adam and Caoimhe)
Characters: Adam Walker (Hunter- Tapir), Caoimhe Brennan (Leanan-Sidhe-Sadie)
Timing: Before the events of Hell’s True North
Summary: The search for Nell continues on a deceptive world of sheep and stray sod where Adam happens to run into, Caoimhe, one of the music professors who isn’t quite as surprised about Sheep Hell as she should be.
Content Warning: Gun Use
Adam looked into a bright sky with unfamiliar stars and other verdant worlds of fields and jungles that loomed in the sky. Fields of soft grass extended unbroken toward the horizon, undulating in the breeze. Towering thickets of Illuabris Ferns, larger than he’d ever seen them grow on Earth, were pillars of black and violet that stood stark against the rolling green.
Vegetable Lambs grazed around the Hunter, paying him no mind as they basked in the off-color light of alien suns. Adam had been wandering for what felt like many days now, but the strange sky didn’t give much clue if that was true. Only the deterioration of his clothes, now bleached by sun and sporting tattered holes hinted that the Hunter had been hiking for far longer than he realized. He couldn’t even count how many of these barometz lambs he’d eaten to keep his strength up, the rest of the herds always just staring with dull dispassion as Adam butchered and cooked one of their number.
He was lost, and had been so long enough for his tactical gear to fray, fade, and make Adam look more like a beleaguered deserter than someone who’d come here armed to the teeth on a mission.
The Hunter had to admit that of all the worlds he’d been to so far while trying to find Nell, Lambchops Land was definitely the most surprising with its ass-kicking at the moment, and it hadn’t even given him a scratch.
Adam felt a flicker of a paranormal presence that definitely wasn’t another goddam lamb. He crested another hill at a slow cautious gait, raising his rifle at the…
The new music teacher?
Wait….was that her? Was he…?
Ok, so if her chest burst open and she’s been a Lamb Alien the whole time Adam was just done, so done.
“Hey ...uh..Professor Brennan,” said the sunburnt ragged soldier, “what brings you to Lambchop Land?”
It was like something Caoimhe had seen in a picture, or dancing between the flames of the bonfires they’d light in Ireland. It was a world forever just out of reach, only as permanent as any single tendril of flame. It was beautiful, painted in hues of blue and green, all movement as the grass swayed back and forth, a patchwork quilt of stars overhead, and–
And Vegetable Lambs. Vegetable Lambs as far as the eye could see. They dotted the otherwise pristine landscape, cutting figures of cotton-fluff and fruit against the horizon. The peaceful breeze brought with it the bleating of different herds. It was by far the best portal Caoimhe had poked her head into yet: picturesque with a touch of levity.
Then the view changed with the barrel of a rifle. She followed the length of it up until she was met with ruffled hair and sun-bleached clothes, and the kind of weariness only seen in well-worn travelers who hadn’t seen home in far too long. He looked out of place, a single ragged figure painted in dusty pencil over a backdrop of vibrant oils. It was a concept, but Caoimhe wasn’t sure it quite suited him. The way his grip sat against the rifle, she thought maybe he might better fit in the climax of an old western; the twanging of the guitar builds.
“Just me.” She held her hands up for a moment before letting them fall back to her side. He looked like he’d been prepared at one point in time. This trip wasn’t an accident for him. “Would you believe me, if I told you I just stumbled in? Can’t say I expected White Crest to be so...dimensionally inclusive.”
Adam cocked his head at the music professor, features moving from confusion to frowning wariness as her lack of disorientation set off alarm bells in his brain. The Hunter could feel that she wasn’t human but didn’t narrow things down much.
“I’d believe it,” Adam affirmed. “There have been some other folks that’ve gotten yoinked by these space rips,” the planar wanderer noted. “White Crest is in a weak spot in reality,” the apocalypse prepper claimed, not really bothering to pretend ignorance when he was gun totting on the Veggie Lamb Planet. “I just hope we can find some way to seal that shit up before everything goes to hell...like permanently y’know?”
Adam sighed. “So uh...you would have happened to have seen a portal anywhere?”
Yes.
Caoimhe hesitated a moment. She’d pegged it right, he was prepared. Whatever had actually brought him to a planet of Vegetable Lambs, he at least had a mission now. And it seemed like the knowledge to accomplish it, if he could ever find a portal again. If she helped him find a portal again. His expression shifted, and her eyebrows lifted; curious.
He needed help, something curious in and of itself, considering. The portal she’d come through herself wasn’t too far away, obscured by the rolling hills. If he could manage to walk a straight line for more than a few minutes, he might even be able to stumble back through it without her help. But the state of him told her he’d been trying just that, to no avail. If something had him that turned around–
“I haven’t been here very long, so logically there should be one not too far away.” She kicked the grass at her feet. “If we put our heads together, we can find a way out. Don’t think either of us will be doing much good solving the portal crisis here. Any ideas what’s caused it yet?”
“I uh...can’t find my way,” Adam admitted. The Hunter reached into his pack and pulled out a battered compass. Adam closed his eyes and placed home at the forefront of his mind, focusing on the faces of friends and the DIE fraternity house. The compass Penelope had enchanted on the eve of their last night began to spin. The sorceress’ magic sensed the intention of Adam’s heart and soon the compass needle was dutifully pointing the way to portal back White Crest.
The only problem was, no matter how far Adam walked on these paradisiacal rolling hills in the direction of an exit, he kept circling back and retracing his way out.
“This compass was enchanted by a witch to help me find the way,” Adam said, choosing to simplify the painful knot of emotions that came with this gift. “But no matter what happens I keep circling back.”
Adam shook his head at the question of a bigger picture. “I know there are keys and big-ass worm boring through dimensions but I’ve got no idea how they all fit together yet.”
“I’ve gathered.” Caoimhe grinned up at the disheveled Adam, obviously having been wandering for longer than he ever should have been. Curiosity brought her the rest of the way up the hill to stand next to him. It was a neat trick, to say the least. With a needle to point him exactly where he should go, he should have found his way out long before the sun could bleach his clothes. The hills were just redundant enough to be confusing, but not that confusing.
“You focus on the compass, then. Nowhere else, just the compass. I’ll make sure we’re not doing any circles.” Placing a gentle hand on his elbow, Caoimhe led them in the direction the compass pointed, a direction she knew would eventually yield a portal and a ticket home again. “You know, if you ignore the fact this portal has you all sorts of twisted up, it’s kind of beautiful.”
It was. Blues and greens and yellows and the gentle bleating of the Vegetables Lambs. It was rather harmless, but then, Caoimhe still knew exactly where she was standing and in which direction she needed to go. “Keys and worms. That’s...way too vague. Have there always been portals, or did I just move in at the wrong time?”
“Yeah in a Little House on the Prairie butter-churning sort of way,” Adam admitted, controlling himself enough not to flinch Caoimhe put his hand on his elbow. His Hunter senses send icy hot pinpricks through him at the paranormal woman’s touch and not in the sexy way. Adam was thankful that his time in White Crest had made the feeling of being around supernatural beings routine enough that he didn't go into fight or flight mode as much as he used to.
“So uh, is finding your way out in the country just a superpower you’d got then,” Adam asked as they crested another hill of strange colorful plants whose tendril polyps writhing and curled in the sunshine. Outright asking ‘what’ Caoimhe was seemed a bit on the nose considering that she was in a helpful mood.
“White Crest is in a like, dimensional weakspot,” Adam posited, seeing no reason to conceal the information considering how literally to hell everything was going. “It’s properly why there are so many demons and whatnot around, but this is definitely a huge spike in Hellmouth stuff.”
With Adam following, Caoimhe let go and walked a few steps ahead. Her fingers curled into her palms and she spun herself through a few different answers. What she did wasn’t a superpower, though some might construe it as such. With their eyes glazed over and their hands moving over the keys of a piano, with a whole world of inspiration spreading itself in front of them. The divine muse. Caoimhe swallowed. It wasn’t a superpower. It was a mystical science at best. She wouldn’t go so far as to say a curse; she could hear her mother screaming from Ireland.
“Have you considered you might be exceptionally good at getting lost?” She cast a glance his direction, tone light. She had a feeling he wasn’t. She had a feeling he’d see right through her dancing around the point. “I’ve spent a lot of my life traveling, you tend to get good at the cardinal directions.”
She didn’t want to be seen. “Lovely. Welcome to White Crest, right? Portals and Hellmouths, and– what, what is that?”
The sun blotted out and the bleating seemed to increase in volume. Something deeper and louder broke through the din, then. Something Caoimhe could feel rattle in her chest.
“I mean...that’s fair,” Adam allowed, sunburned face breaking into a smile at Caoimhe’s counterpoint as he kept his eyes locked on the compass as they weaved their way through blossoming heaths and swaying forests of Illuabris Ferns.
Caoimhe’s exclamation raised Adam’s gaze to the verdant valley spread out below them.
In a cleft between four grassy hills was a circle of cairn stones. Within the cairn circle was what seemed to be a pit of pure sunlight that shone like a beacon in the sudden gloom that’d encroached across the sky.
Beyond the sunwell was what Adam had first taken to be an enormous tree before it shambled forward on hoofed feet. It was then that the Hunter realized it was a giant Barometz, bigger than any Earthly ecosystem would’ve made possible. It’s roots were a cluster of long hooved legs and scrambled forward like a bovine millipede. Engorged clusters of Vegetable Lambs hung from its branches in the matter of grapes on a vine, their discordant cacophony of shrieking growing closer.
“Well shit, its like a…. Megalamp King.”
“It’s coming our way, is what it is.” And directly in their way. Caoimhe thought throwing a dog on a piano might sound better than the thing trampling its way towards them. She’d heard middle-school bands who could give it a run for its money. Which was all entirely ignoring the fact that one misplaced, vine-thick hoof could squash her. It was a beautiful place, but she really didn’t want it to be the last place she ever saw.
“We shouldn’t be too far from the portal, but…” The sound of shuffling and the increasing din of the creature moving towards them was almost too loud, “We’re going to need to get through or around that. And unlike you, I don’t have a rifle.”
Nor were her gifts particularly suited for Vegetable Kombat. Round one, fight. “Any ideas?”
Adam reached behind to his back and produced a metal sphere topped with a fuse clip and safety to offered it to the professor. “I’ll fire at it and try to draw the Lamb Tree off the side,” he suggested as the towering Barometz began to lumber up the hill. “Run to the portal while I distract it. When you get there, pull this clip and throw this explosive at it.”
Adam doubted a handheld grenade would actually kill something this big but it’d at least buy a moment or two hopefully. “That might give me enough to run to you and we can get the hell out. Sound good?”
A bomb. He handed her a bomb. And really it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise, considering the rifle with which he’d greeted her, but Caoimhe still took a moment to stare at it. Her strengths had always been a little more subtle. It was in gentle but purposeful touches, encouragement, making someone weak just for existing and creating in a space with her. Adam’s strengths appeared to be explosive weaponry.
“...Sounds better than anything I could’ve come up with.” Caoimhe took the metal sphere gingerly, like it was liable to go off if she squeezed it too hard. Okay, she knew how a grenade worked. She’d watched movies before. She was entirely prepared. She nodded, “Just make sure you don’t get lost trying to find me.”
She cast a grin over her shoulder and ran. And it was shaky at best. The kind of grin worked around a desperate joke and a heart hammering a sharp staccato against her chest, through legs that felt more like jelly than muscle and bone. The ground shook as she did her best to flank it, each thunderous footstep displacing the earth around it. A quick glance up and Caoimhe could catch wide-eyes with different clusters of Vegetable Lambs dangling off the main beast, their mouths dropped open but the cacophony too loud to pick out the individuals.
She was going to throw up. Perhaps not right in the moment, but later, after the adrenaline fully wore off. After she had a chance to remember how tightly she’d been holding the grenade and how many times she’d almost tripped over her own feet. How the grass itself seemed to tangle around her ankles and she could only catch glimpses of Adam through the weaving roots and swaying lambs. She might even laugh, too. Since when was a lamb so horrifying?
By the time she spotted the portal, her chest burned, and it would be so easy to jump through and be done with the whole experience, but Adam. She pivoted around, pulled the pin, and lobbed the grenade as hard as she could.
Adam sprinted out of the ensuing cloud of splintered wood and sheep guts, wiping fleece and gory vines out of his eyes. He bled from an array of bites from entire clusters of ravenous sheep and burns from vine constriction. The Megalamp Tree staggered in a panicked frenzy, thrashing out wildly in the splinters and smoke. Enormous limbs carved deep furrows through the bright grass as they slammed blindly down. Adam wove back and forth among the heather as he tried to avoid the descent of column-like branches and the vegetable lambs being flung everywhere like shrieking dandelion seeds.
Adam sprinted over to Caoimhe, plastered in bloody fleece and leaves. He looked over to the vortex swirling between the cairn stones. “Thanks! Nearly got strangled by the Bo-Peep there.”
Caoimhe almost didn’t expect to see him come out the other side. Between the thrashing off the Megalamp Tree and Adam’s penchant for getting completely turned around, the odds were not in their favor. But he rounded the thrashing beast with a thanks and Caoimhe promptly doubled over, dry-heaving into the once-serene, swaying grass. For a moment, a thumbs up was all she could manage over pulling in one breath after another.
She was made for classrooms. For violins in bar bathrooms and crooked smiles and french horns and running from her problems. Adam was obviously built of tougher stuff. He didn’t seem much phased by red-stained fleece and sticky leaves. He had a rifle and a bomb, and something twisted in Caoimhe’s chest, but she wasn’t going to question him when he’d handed her a ticket out. He was made for something else.
“I found the portal.” She rubbed at her eyes and grinned behind the column of her forearms. She found the portal, and he fought their way out. Caoimhe supposed she should be thankful. “Wouldn’t have been much good if I had been crushed, though.”
The ground shook as clumps of lambs fell wildly onto the ground, little feet scrambling every which direction, lost. Whatever Adam was made for, she was glad she’d found him. “Thank you.” She crooked a thumb over her shoulder at the mess of a beast behind them, “That was all you. I think...I think maybe we’d both have been stuck here.”
She stopped short of a ‘we make a good team,’ and settled for a thankful smile, stepping back to make sure he was able to pass through the portal and casting one last glance at the mess they left behind them.
