In Africa, the summers could be torturous... moreso than the United States could ever be.
This was on the mind of a young person that peered through a pair of binoculars, looking hard for something. However, all that she could see was the elephants, zebras and lions of various ages in the tall grass…just the sort of things you would see in this part of the world.
The binocs were lowered to show that they belonged to a young woman. At five foot two, she was considered a bit short, although that didn’t really bother her as most her size would be, as well as stout. That always fooled people, for she was stronger than she looked, and so did the fact that she looked like she was in her mid-teens, although she was thirty.
Currently, she was wearing the style of clothing that was proper for this region, khakis, gray blouse and a pith helmet that covered most of her shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair.
“The things I do...” she grumbled. The young woman lived on the East Coast, but one day, she found out about something called the Secret Lair. She wasn’t sure as to if the source was playing a prank on her or not.
Behind her, she heard a fit of jovial giggles.
The woman turned and looked at the other one with her: an amorphous being that currently was shaped like a little boy made out of silver.
“This is all your fault!” she snapped, rolling her eyes, which made the creature laugh more.
She shook her head. It really was the creature’s fault. Her own muse had, a month ago, left her and went to briefly visit and taunt Moonbeam. When it got back, she had heard all about it…and it had let slip about the Lair. She tried to get an address out of him, but he refused. She was about to just disregard it for good when her muse taunted her for it, calling her a yellow coward. She got mad at that and before she knew it, she was out here. To her mind, this continent was a breeding ground for imagination and inspiration... maybe an ideal place for the Lair to be. All she had to do was find it... and put up with the company.
Currently, it was almost sunset, and still hot weather. The woman took a drink from her canteen and continued on.
She had heard from locals that there was a jungle some ways off…the best place, to her mind, to start looking for critters like muses. Now, she could see it a little ways off, so she trudged towards it.
Right at the edge, she heard a voice calling from her left.
“…eeey! “
“Hm?”
“Heeeyyy! Is that you?”
The woman snapped up her binoculars and saw, in the distance, a little girl, about 9 years old, in similar clothing, but her long, pale blonde hair was currently in a ponytail.
As soon as she was close enough to the child, the older woman asked, “What’re you doing here, Marissa?”
“Wow, it is you! Father, Kitty and the others are on a case…and they weren’t about to leave me by myself at the Foundation,” Marissa answered, “How about you?”
Unlike most internet fanfiction writers, who used handles like KnightSky or Knightshade as their pen names, she used her real name as hers. She had decided on that when she started doing fanfics.
“I’m out here looking for a place. This nutcase muse of mine told me about it, but refused to give the address. Hey, have you heard of Moonbeam?”
“Huh? Moonbeam…? Sorry, no.”
The woman sighed, “I see.”
“Hey, you think maybe there’s something connected to the Mystics here?”
“Hm? Now that I wouldn’t know for sure. Why’re you asking?”
“Well, there’s another writer that’s here, too, looking for a missing muse. Saw her in a village, asking about it. Maybe a couple others, but I know of this one, and now you.”
“Oh? Who is it?”
“Um... Knightshay…something like that.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Knightshay... that sounds like someone I might know. Knightshade?”
“Yeah!”
She nodded, a bit excited. Knightshade was pretty popular. If she really was here, maybe she’d know where this Lair was. Problem was, she didn’t know what Knightshade looked like.
“Okay, thanks. You’d better go find your father and Kitt,” she said, “Wouldn’t want them to get really worried about you. Give ‘em my regards, will ya?”
“Oh, I will. Thanks!”
The young woman watched as the little girl took off. She rather liked Kitt and Devon, each for different reasons. Kitt was sentient, as well as intelligent and funny. The Englishman was more like the father she never had.
“Maybe after I find this Lair, I’ll go visit them,” she murmured to herself, “It’s been some time since I did. For now, though, I better keep looking.”
She continued on, deciding to go ahead and step into the jungle proper. She just hoped that she didn’t have any unwelcome surprises, like anacondas, poisonous spiders…or worse, Garthe Knight.
Nervously, she patted the two weapons she had on her. One was a 38 caliber pistol, and the other was a sword, close in shape to a katana, but not quite….and rather sharp. She wasn’t sure, but she thought that it would look better with a heron engraved on it.
As she trudged on, her muse was close behind her, looking around at the strange trees, vines and tall grass. Finding things to whisper to his mistress about, no doubt.
As she continued, she found herself looking around, as well as up. In a place like this, anything could happen... including dinosaurs popping in from nowhere, like over at that amusement park she had heard about...
“I sure could use Aireel here,” she muttered, “Or maybe Teal’c. He’d be good to have. Well, I gotta do with what I got.”
At one point, she came out into a clearing and saw two things: a human shadow and a net that contained a creature that looked just like her mischievous muse.
“That’s the—“ she whispered.
Her own creature shivered…something he had done the last time he came across Garthe Knight.
Something inside her whispered that it didn’t look like Knightshade but someone more ominous.
It’s a muse! What the hell is it doing in a net?! It looks like I caught the thief, too!
It made her really mad, people stealing muses. If it was Garthe or someone nasty that has snatched one, she didn’t want to think of what such a one would do.
She took out one of the weapons (the gun) and primed it, then said, her own tone rock solid, “Freeze! Hands up. Hand over the muse you stole and nobody gets hurt.”
The shadow looked back for a second and definitely refused to put his hands up. Instead, he ran.
She was able to get a couple of shots off first before he disappeared. She looked all around her.
“Damn, whoever it is got away, and with no trace,” she growled, “If I see whoever again, he won’t be so lucky.”
The woman holstered her gun and continued on.
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