The Forgotten Zodiac

"I don't care what it's name is." Rynyn grunted, glaring up at the man in the tree. "I couldn't care less, actually." He added, looking away. He looked back down at Subject and then up at the man again. This guy was at least four, maybe five years yonger than him, so he wasn't too worried about him.
 

"I think you should care," The boy said, staring down at Rynyn with a dangerous look in his eyes. He clicked his tongue, then said, "Jack, threaten, if you will." The snake opened its mouth, showing off its fangs. It brushed said fang against Subjects leg, tightening its coil around the boy's ankles.

Subject's eyes widened, staring at the reptile in shock and terror. "Rynyn..." He whimpered, shaking. "Make it get off..."

"Don't bother trying to get it off yourself," The boy put in. "He'll bite if you touch him. He's very well trained, don't you think?"

Rynyn glared up at the boy. "Do you need something?" He growled, standing close to Subject as the snake sat on his foot. "Because we really have somewhere to be." He continued to glare unblinkingly up at the boy in the tree.

((Wait a second, how'd he get up in the tree if he only has one arm?))

((His snakey-friends helped him. If you hadn't guessed already, he has more. Here, let me elaborate.))

"That's all fine and dandy, but perhaps you can tell me where you came from? It's not often I see a broken boy and a...natural man wandering about together." The boy said, sliding off the branch and dropping to the ground. Something held onto him until he was on the ground; in the pale moonlight, it looked like a rope of some sort, but it was easy to tell from the way it returned to the tree that it was an even larger snake than the one around Subject's feet. "My name is Veneno. You've already met Jack."

Rynyn scowled angrily as Veneno came down from the tree. "Perhaps you can let us be on our way?" He said, mocking Veneno's tone as he spoke. Sure that was a rather childish thing to do, but he was irritated with everything and wanted to get away from this freak.

"Certainly. After you tell me where you came from." Veneno said, looking slightly angered my Rynyn's mocking. "Or I'll sing my song to Jack, and your friend will pay for your mule-like personality."

"Wh-why?" Subject managed to whimper.

"So I can wipe it off the face of the planet. Simply put." Veneno said bluntly, though he looked even more annoyed by the question. At least he was telling the truth.

Rynyn stood silent for a moment. "It's back that way, obviously, though you won't be able to get in; they sealed the doors behind us." He looked down at Jack again. "Now let us go. He growled. Looking back up at Veneno, he sighed frustratedly. This was taking entirely too long. 

Veneno examined Rynyn for a short moment, taking two steps forward so he was face to face with the older man. He then searched Rynyn with his eyes, possibly looking for signs of deception. "You are telling the truth...how far back that way?"

"Tw-twenty minutes..." Subject bit his lip.

"Hm. You've been surprisingly cooperative. I didn't expect that. Most people throw rocks at me and demand that I go away. Then I have Coal eat them." Veneno narrowed his eyes at them, but stepped back anyways. "Very well. Jack, off." He clicked his tongue, and the snake slithered off of Subject, into the bushes. Veneno turned away, walking off and singing a short song under his breath. "Red touches black, friend to Jack. Red touches yellow, kill a fellow..."

((We'll see him again, mmmmyeesss. o3o))

Rynyn stood just about stonefaced while waiting for Veneno to get off their backs. "Come on, Subject." He said, ignoring Veneno's pathetic little song. He looked down at Subject's foot again. "That thing didn't hurt you, did it?" He asked, wanting to be certain he wouldn't have to deal with him whining about his foot and the snake and whatever else he may whine about.

Subject swallowed hard, looking down at himself. "No...I think I'm okay." He let out a heavy sigh of relief. "Thank goodness! Come on, let's get away from here, before more snakes come along...I don't like snakes." He took Rynyn's hand again, smiling a little bit again. "You scared him off...thank you."

Sighing, Rynyn nodded and gribbed Subject's hand tighter than before. "Good." As they started moving on again, he looked down at Subject as he started talking again. "Eh, it was nothing." He shrugged slightly, focusing less on walking. "The whole situation took much longer than it should have."

"Right," Subject nodded. "But you still did it. That was great." He smiled genuinely at Rynyn before looking down at his feet to watch where he was walking. At least they were out of the forest now; they turned east, just as Subject said they should. They crossed two more hills before finally spotting the 'silent people' town. At this hour, only the streetlights were on. Everyone else had gone to bed, right on schedule.

"Well, it's good you think so." Rynyn said and nodded in response. He also kept his feet on the ground as they walked. He finally saw the lights of the town and frowned slightly, wondering why the streetlights were on if everyone was in bed. He shrugged it away as they neared the town. "So what should we do now, Suject? Since you know more about this place than I do."

"Uhm...I dunno." Subject blinked. "I don't know much about this place, I just know that people don't talk to each other if they don't have to. So they're really quiet all the time, and also they see people like you and me as invisible. We could punch them and nothing would happen. They'd just get up and keep walking along like nothing ever happened. We could totally steal a guest room or something to sleep in for the night, and they wouldn't notice. And food! There's food here, too."

Rynyn's eyebrow lifted as he listened to Subject. Interesting town here. He looked around at the buildings as they walked through the streets of the town. He considered Subject's words, about sleeping, and frowned. While sleeping would be nice, he really didn't feel like it'd be a good idea. They didn't have a lot of time on their hands for things like sleeping. Rynyn's thoughts wer interrupted when his stomach growled. "Where would we go to get food?" He asked, putting his hand over his belly, realizing just how hungry he was.

"Anywhere," Subject nodded. "A restraunt, in the houses...it'd be best to go for a house, because we can't order food at a restraunt, because the silent people ignore us." He shrugged. "Most places are like this. Did you not know that? It's the drug. The utopia or something like that."

Rynyn continued to listen to Subject. "Not really." He shrugged. "I haven't really been around people, silent or otherwise. My sister and I were to ourselves out where no one really bothered us for the majority of the time. He looked around. "The people won't notice missing food?"

"Oh, I see. I used to come out to this town sometimes, before the bad people started trying to track the city down. So we all had to stay inside, so the city wouldn't be found." Subject said. "They just dismiss it as rats, I guess. Not too sure why. Everyone is drugged. If you were on record as a person, you were drugged. I was drugged. It made me this way, and the different place made it worse, and it's still getting worse, and there's no cure, and I think maybe there's a snake following us." He said in one breath, peeking behind them nervously.

"That makes sense." He sighed, thinking a bit more about the city they'd left behind. Once Subject started talking about the drug, Rynyn scowled and shuddered a bit. He started to feel more and more tired as they walked and Subject continued talking. He stiffened about when Subect mentioned the snake. Letting out a quiet grunt of frustration, Rynyn glared at thr ground. "Are you sure?" He asked softly, trying to control himself. He was getting fed up with all of these distractions and hinderences.

"No. There's nothing, just my imagination..." Subject shook his head, then shrugged. "Let's go, I'm hungry." He led the way to the city, humming slightly. The tune was jumbled and made absolutely no sense.