Malice in Downunderland. Book One: Downunderland Duet

By Jennifer Crowfoot

Always taking her holidays in the country, Aussie woman, Rose White, expected noisy crowds, a frisbee to the back of the head, third-degree sunburn, irritating sand in hidden places, and squawking mobs of hungry sea gulls thieving her hot chips on her first-ever beach holiday.

What she didn't expect was the swanky boutique hotel she was staying at to be apparently devoid of other guests, and having the stretch of beautiful beach fronting it, all to herself.

After coming perilously close to drowning when she unknowingly drifts too far from shore and continually gets swamped by angry waves, Rose is rescued just when she's given up, by the stunning Rad Hatter, a heavily tattooed surfie with a penchant for dressing in purple clothing, for wearing Akubra hats over his long icy curls, and has a crazy habit of talking and arguing with himself.

But gorgeous Rad isn't a lone deal, he comes with three equally odd and sexy friends who all happen to work in the same organisation. They're Rebels who're working to dethrone the wicked Bogan Queen and her hen-pecked consort, the King of Pubs, and take back their country for the people of the magical world, Reflection.

Due to an old prophesy proclaiming her as Reflection's champion, Rose has been gently carried - confused and hopelessly in lust - into their world and into the cause for liberty. Reflection is a twilight world that continually befuddles Rose no end with it's unbelievable inhabitants, and its weird magic.

In Reflection, she meets Murphy, a clock-loving, monocle and top hat wearing White Rabbit who's as mad as they come, and Rad's housemate, Tark, a sweet mouse who dresses in long-shorts and flanno shirts and carries a tiny sword strapped to his back.
He's also a wizard in the kitchen, a fact which food-loving Rose appreciates.

After the Rebel's tea party is interrupted by the queen's guard, and Rose is captured, she's forced onto the back of one of the cranky cassowaries making up the Bogan Queen's royal herd by her two bodyguards, Bazza and Jono, a couple of smelly idiots who dress in black suits and look suspiciously like frill-necked lizards and taken to the queen's palace, Downunderland, Rose sees drunken animals staggering out of the front door, a pot of singing flowers in tutus and tiaras, and a musician cat who happens to have a trumpet attached to his head.

Oh, and as if that's not enough for Rose to take in, there's a dragon named Rodger, who used to be an active Rebel member, but who now lives under the Queen's spell as a spy, in one of Downunderland's dungeons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer Crowfoot
• Release date: Mar 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005710927

Jennifer Crowfoot

Married, Jennifer lives with her husband and her spoilt, feline fur-baby, Hades, in beautiful rural N.S.W, Australia.When not writing, Jennifer can be found with her nose buried in a book.She also has a collection of self-published books on Amazon.? ? ?

Book preview

Malice in Downunderland

Book One: Downunderland Duet

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Text Copyright © 2020 Jennifer Crowfoot

Cover Image © Photo by Ana Carolina from Pexels

Cover design by Author using Canva

www.canva.com

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Smashwords Edition Licence Notes

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction.

Characters, names, places, events or incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to places or incidents is purely coincidental.

Any places or towns mentioned are used in a fictional manner.

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademarked owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorised, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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Malice in Downunderland

H

Is rated 18+

It contains frequent and strong profanity.

Mild violence

Drug references/Use

Happily, For Now,

Or Then,

Or Later,

Or Never

Bloody curiouser and curiouser, mate.

Malice in Downunderland is written using Australian English.

And,

contains copious amounts of true-blue Aussie Slang.

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Dedication

To anyone who ever wanted to slip down a rabbit-hole

and escape to another world

for a couple of hours

♥ ♥ ♥

Cast of Characters, Places and Kingdoms

Otherworld – Earth

Reflection – Same-Different-Mirror-image world to Earth

Rebels – Army of underground Freedom fighters battling for Reflection’s Liberty

Enchanted Waters – Rebel safe house disguised as a resort hotel, situated in Otherworld

Skjaldmaer (Old Norse for Shield Maiden. I pronounce it as Scald-a-mare.) – Rose White, Heroine, Human and promised warrior for Reflection’s Rebel army.

Rad Hatter – Rebel

Quoll – Rebel

Chill – Rebel

Stevo – Rebel

Tark – Rebel. Rad’s housemate/chef/tough-talking, sword-wielding rodent.

Murphy – Rebel. Loony white rabbit.

Feelgood – Power source used on Reflection. Derived from Earth’s natural resources

Heartland State – Capitol of Reflection. Located in Hart Kingdom

Downunderland – Once an elegant, stately mansion existing for the people’s pleasure, now a Casino and seedy Brothel run by criminal elements

The Bogan Queen – Madam, Gambler and self-styled Ruler of Heartland and the Kingdom of Hart

The King of Pubs – Floyd, the Bogan Queen’s hen-pecked partner-in-crime. Joint owner of Downunderland

The Frills aka: Bazza and Jono aka: The Frilled Arseholes in Black – Lizard twins. Bodyguards, idiots and main muscle to the Queen and King.

Kingdom of Diamantes, Shovels, Pubs and Harts – The Four Kingdoms making up the world of Reflection

♠ ♣ ♥ ♦

Chapter One

Miss Rose - The Arrival of Our Skjaldmaer

Otherworld – Rad Hatter

BLESSED FUCK. SHE’S HERE.

Miss Rose. The Skjaldmaer is finally here.

I wouldn’t have ever admitted this to anyone, but I was beginning to lose hope that she’d come.

Too much precious time had been lost already in the long, long wait for her.

Under the twisted reign of ones who should never have risen to power, the lives of my countrymen have been needlessly extinguished, stolen, sold and enslaved, or simply tortured and left to fend for themselves.

The latter, only if they lived long enough.

All for, as the human’s say, shit and giggles, but as I say, for the depraved amusement and sport of a select few who think their shit don’t stink, and who are under the illusion that they’re the true leaders of my world.

And it doesn’t matter a fat fuck who agrees with them.

With a casual wave of one soft white jewelled hand, it’s all, off with their fucking disagreeable, loser-heads.

But of even more critical importance, my world — my home — is fading, losing the magic, spark and vibrancy that inspires everything in it to thrive, multiply and grow. Feelgood, our name for the natural, and once unlimited resource that we filter in from this world of the humans, to replenish mine, is dwindling.

Being compromised and stolen.

Our world is fuelled by otherworld’s full moon. The beams are powerful, comprised of wishes, hopes, love and happiness. It’s a precious and valuable substance that fuels and supports the life in my world, gives us a form of power, and allows us to exist in comfort.

I scratch the scruff on my chin with the point of my thumb nail as I consider the two worlds I regularly straddle and the difference in the way they power themselves.

I suppose, once upon a time, my world’s use of power was similar to the way the otherworld inhabitants use fossil fuels to fuel their machines and vehicles. Every time I visit, I’m constantly amazed how the human’s use the power of air, and H2O, to rotate the enormous water-wheels hidden inside their stone towers, to generate the shifting of atoms and molecules and convert them into lectricity.

Lectricity. That form of power is a jaw-dropping wonder, one that us rebels make full use of when we need to slip out of Reflection and stay any length of time at the safe-house slash undercover-motel, Enchanted Waters.

A building I’m presently staring at from the watery surface of my gently bobbing board.

Seeing as my world doesn’t have a Sun, we must rely on two permanent moons as our only source of light when outside, due to the lack of feelgood flowing into our villages, and towns, to power and light up the external street and town lanterns.

And we can’t just flick a switch when we enter our dim homes and other public dwellings like the humans do.

Because our source of power’s not unlimited anymore.

Oh, it’s still streaming in as it’s done for as long as our two worlds have existed. But it’s become a very exclusive commodity, savagely controlled, and used by only a select few.

Mainly the royal bosses, thugs and assorted criminal elements that help run the Downunderland casino and brothel. These despicable turds have completely stuffed up the natural order of things, slowly ruining what was once a gorgeous, vibrant world and turning it into a crime-riddled, perma-dark, dying shitshow.

That’s why she’s so important to the rebels of Reflection, why we’ve been waiting so long for her to heed the call I sent out so many countless years ago. We need her untapped power and commanding human abilities and skills, to help us in the fight to regain control of feelgood, and ultimately defeat and destroy the perverse bogan queen and her obliging lover, and complaisant puppet, the King of Pubs.

Only this otherworld woman can lead our army.

Powerful woman against powerful woman.

Because of the greedy crime syndicate’s stranglehold and absolute control of our power source, we now have to use either lanterns, kamel fat candles or spiny luminslugs — glowing invertebrates mined from caves located in the Diamante Kingdom — to illuminate our homes. The luminslugs come packaged with thick leaves layered over their upper bodies only, leaving their slimy rippled underbodies exposed, and with the lot wrapped up good and tight with string.

The instructions stamped on the top, state you leave the leaves on so you can safely handle the slugs as you stick them to the wall, before cutting the string and peeling away the leaves.

Pity the poor bastard who ignores these instructions, because those leaves are there for a reason. The slimy fuckers have a row of tiny needle-sharp spines running the length of their bodies. These’re usually relaxed and flat, but if accidently brushed against, poked at, or touched without the protection of the thick succulent leaves, they’ll instantly grow erect, stab you and then, just for the hell of it, snap off in your flesh.

Farrrking painful.

Not for the slugs though, those pricks grow a new set of deadly spines within the hour.

Once their lights expire, a process which can take anything from an otherworld month, up to two, their mucus simply dries up and they fall off the wall.

But none of these choices of lighting are popular with the citizens. The candles burn too quickly, and the lamps have a habit of flaring unexpectedly. They have been known to explode on occasion, and they stink like fucking innards as they burn.

Understandable really, seeing as they’re powered by balls of shit collected from domesticated herds of cyclops-dragons – a member of the drongo family, but less inclined to bite. The dung is processed into a flammable, waxy olive-green liquid, and then sold in large gourds, for a fucking ridiculous amount of dodo feathers in the combined markets of the four kingdoms.

Most of the citizens can’t afford to buy it.

Instead choosing to take the cheaper, and more painful route, by risking their personal comfort and wrestling with the slimy and spiny fucking wall slugs.

Still at the end of the day, I suppose it’s a better option than having your lighting exploding and watching your house burn to the ground.

Personally, I prefer to use the scented beeswax candles I take back with me by the boxload from Enchanted Water’s gift shop. Us rebels, or to be more precise, the skeleton staff living at the hotel on any given rotated shift, order and buy top quality pot from the friendly hippies who live in the commune nestled away in the delightful verdant forest backing onto this sleepy beachside village.

In return for our excellent, and consistent ask-no-questions-tell-no-lies-patronage — the latter much to Chill’s perma-stoned glee mind you, because he’s one greedy bastard on the green, especially seeing as he particularly likes to take his smokes via his genie pipe — they give us shitloads of handmade scented candles they fashion to flog off to the tourists who swarm to the local flea markets the next village over.

The candles being an illuminating benefit I greatly appreciate in the permanent twilight of my world. Yes, I admit I like the pot as well, especially when it’s shredded and brewed into a pot of tea, or baked into the little treats that Tark, my, for want of a better word, rodent-housemate, conjures up.

My brows furrow as I consider the concept of flea markets. Why anyone would want to spend good coin — I’ve noticed that unlike in my world, humans don’t use dodo feathers as currency. Instead preferring to hand over flimsy strips of plastic paper or a billion random coins — purchasing a bag of vicious fleas as a gift for a loved one, or for one’s own personal use, is frigging beyond me. I try to avoid the vindictive spitfire-flowers at home that carry fleas in their mouths, because they’re fucking irritating wee parasites when they land on you.

Their non-stop bites make you crazy-itch like a mad-arse-bitch.

Laughing, I scratch an imaginary itch on my scalp with curled fingertips as I think on fleas, before dropping my hand and shaking my head in wonder at this world’s inhabitants, my long heavy curls sticking to the salty, sun-kissed skin of my shoulders, back and chest.

Raising my arms arrow straight above my head, I bow my back and extend my fingers to the sky, making wonky five-pointed stars from my hands. Beneath a brilliant, buttery sun, battle-hardened muscles in my upper arms and forearms grow taut and ropy as I stretch. Continually forming fists and relaxing them, I methodically work at unpeeling the puff-pastry layers of tension encircling my bones and clogging my veins and nerve-endings.

Satisfied guttural groans lazily rumble from me, as muscles, tendons and stressed joints pop and creak as some, not all, but some, of my own world’s cares drain away into the extremely salinated waters of otherworld, the mirror-world to mine.

Dropping my, now relaxed, arms to my side, my inked fingers plip-plip-plop into the sea, my hands bobbing and basking like sunbaking otters in the warm briny liquid. Waggling rapidly pruning fingers, I delicately wave at the small fish I see from the corner of my eyes swimming around my dangling digits, who, curiously and without fear, nibble on my patterned skin with hard, rubbery lips.

Turning my head away from the shoreline, I dip my chin and watch, my eyes darting from side to side behind dark lenses, as a small herd of sleek silver bodies the size of my index finger duck, weave and dodge beneath the rolling cerulean surface of the sea as they take turns gnawing on my fingertips.

Nonplussed, I let them explore. None of the creatures that drift and prowl the sun-speared, or shadowy cooler depths below my bobbing body are a threat, even the single-minded eating machines that all of this world fear – the animals they call, sharks.

My world has more fearsome creatures dressed in luxury clothing and dripping in ostentatious wealth hiding in plain sight, so a toothy fish with a bit of a healthy appetite is no threat. Besides, I’ve never been approached by a single one yet, and we’ve seen each other quite a few times over the many centuries I’ve been crossing through the barrier and riding the curling, froth-topped waves. They’ve had opportunities a plenty to nibble at and on me.

Looking away from the busy little fish, I shift on the board, fat waves washing over my lower body as the breeze playfully herds them towards the shoreline.

Humans do have some bloody weird as hell predilections. Soaring overhead, watchful Sea birds caw-caw-caw succinctly in answer, in-between bombing the cresting waves as they fish. I’m not worried by their lack of communication, I understand them being short with their replies, after all they’ve got families to feed and can’t be chatting with me all day.

Turning my face up to the sun, I close my eyes behind the protective dark lenses and absorb its delicious warmth, as the birds once again start up their cries.

So, we’re in agreement my feathered allies? I ask, the breeze snatching up and carrying my voice over the lacey-topped waves and depositing it onto the sandy shore. How ironic then that my world’s survival depends on one flea-purchasing, non-feather carrying, human female, I tell the now screeching birds.

Lowering my head, I open my eyes, just in time to see the large white shit plop onto my board between my spread thighs before a wave sweeps over the bumpy waxed surface, washing it away. Nice one arsehole, I mumble as I watch the board go from shit, to clean in the blink of an eye.

But back to the candles our fellow potheads craft, they burn evenly, they’re practically smokeless and they’re long-lasting. And, they make me and my house smell like lemongrass and lime, scents which I rather enjoy.

I wonder if Miss Rose likes those scents?

My mouth twists up wryly at that random thought, and going limp, I fall backwards on the board with a groan. Folding my arms across my chest, I watch sea birds fly in criss-cross formations from behind the protection of my heavily tinted glasses. Here in otherworld, we have to wear mirrored, or heavily tinted sunglasses outside. The lighting shift from dual moonlight, to bright sunlight, hurts our sensitive eyes unless we protect them. One exception exists to that rule, the hotel. Its windows are protected with a special clear tint which allows light in, but filters more of the painful out.

Although, I’ve noticed that several rebels still choose to wear sunglasses whilst they’re there.

Not that I mind wearing them. The sunglasses make me look edgier, moodier, darker and more mysterious and dangerous than I probably am.

Lazily removing a hand from my chest, I scratch at my stubbly cheek. Dropping the arm down across my muscled gut, I toss the other above my head, tattooed fingers dangling temptingly in the water like colourful worms.

I run my tongue over my top teeth, my head rolling from side to side as my aggressive ego considers my limp self-assessment. What the hell, Rad old boy? You’re the fucking darkest of the dangerous darky-dark, ask anyone. Why do you think people shrink when your eyes flash? It’s not because you’re about to hand out cheery felicitations, singing balloons and lollypops.

My lips purse as another thought strikes me. Above me, sea birds screech, swerve, dip and dive, distracting me. I’m easily distracted, like a puppy or a human-child. A flaw of mine, I’m afraid, and one I dislike immensely. But one I can’t eradicate, no matter how much I chastise myself, nor how old I get.

What the fuck, it is what it is. Giving in to the moment, I scrunch my face and watch them, my eyes darting in all directions as I follow their erratic flight.

The birdlife is so strange here. So…Normal. You could say…boring even.

Well, I could say it, and I do. And I think it as well. I’m thorough with shit like that.

There’s no spitting, sizzling-globs of acid-saliva. No bladed leg spurs. Birds are of a regular height. Nothing attacks with a beak so sharp and teeth so jagged and deadly, it can rip and strip the meat off a drongo’s stocky frame in the blink of one blinking eye.

As the rolling ocean swell lazily rocks me, the action above me vanishes as my mind flips from attacking birds of my world, to the woman of this world I eagerly watched arrive earlier. I force a swallow down my neck, my throat bobbing with the firm motion. Behind my ribcage, my heart pounds out a heavy beat as I ponder the age-old emotion of self-doubt.

Does Miss Rose like her men mysterious? Slightly unhinged and murderous? Maybe that’s not the kind of man that makes her purr. Maybe she likes the kind with arrogant attitudes, big cocks bulging the front of their well-fitting jeans, long supple tails, cute little fangs and silky fur? Or ones who ride tricked-out motorbikes and live to get stoned?

Eyes narrowing, my fists clench as an unaccustomed knot of jealousy pinches my chest. I don’t understand why I’m feeling the foreign emotion at all. I have no problem whatsoever sharing women we’re all aroused by, and attracted to. And I certainly have no doubt about the size of my cock. In the bedroom, no one pushes, shoves, or fights to go first, or longer.

When we fuck, we take turns and the rest either rest or watch, kinda depends on the moment. But it’s always a mutually agreed upon arrangement, settled before nakedness happens between me, Stevo, Chill and Quoll and our chosen lover.

One that suits us all.

But, this situation with Miss Rose, feels different. Just with the short viewing I got of her, I find I don’t want to share. I covet her. For myself. Not sure if I want anyone of them watching me with her either.

I stab my index finger into the warm air. Stab. Stab. Stab. Getting ahead of yourself there, mate. You haven’t even met her yet. She might attack you. But we know she’ll love our scent while she’s knocking us out. I smile happily at that truth.

And just to guarantee I get that winning edge, I’m glad she’ll see me first.

I wouldn’t trust any of my mates near her for the initial meeting. They’re just fucking drooling animals who’d take one look at her and immediately think with their cocks. At least I have some restraint and a smidgeon of gentlemanly ways about me, when I want to flash them about that is. Not always much call for courtly manners in the circles I frequent.

But in saying that, I wouldn’t dream of yanking my big fat horn out within one second of meeting a woman, and demand she climb aboard and ride me like I’m her favourite unicorn. That’s not cool.

Flopping my arms straight out from my shoulders, I rotate them at the elbow, my hands sinking down into watery world beneath me.

It’s so serene here in this world. Nothing stalking or trying to kill me. Eat me. Decapitate me. Fill my already overfull and spinning head with some new shit the bogan queen’s pulling. I can rest and recharge my body, even if it’s just for a couple of hours or a day – if the boys come with me.

Come. Fucking fuck. In response to that word, my semi-firm dick rods up and throbs in my shorts with that word’s snug, hot, wet, explosive implications. I need to have sex. Badly. It’s been six dual moon rotations since I’ve lain with a woman. I’ve been too wound up waiting for the Skjaldmaer’s arrival, and with never-ending rebel business, to even think about anything but taking care of myself when I get home. That’s if I’m not too stuffed and stressed to get it up.

I groan with the complexities of females, contrary erections, mating rituals and the new and unexpected problem of jealousy and brotherly competition in the bedroom.

Automatically I react to the flares of anxiety shooting through my veins, and my stomach hardens. Fingers curl tightly into my palm, forming rock-hard fists, before I relax them and wriggle them spasmodically in the water. All the while tiny rubbery mouths tickle my forearms and nibble on my fingertips.

I sway my legs backwards and forwards, my feet, calves and knees slicing through the warm water as my inner wedge of sanity yells out his argument to the endless summer skies, Why do you even care what she likes Rad, you stupid crazy bastard? You don’t know her, nor she you. She’s not come… — I hiss out a pained breath through clenched teeth at that loaded word — …to be defiled by you and your over-sexed mates. She’s the saviour, pure, untouchable, and your world’s foretold warrior. As if she’d ever be interested in you, or want to smell your fucking house. I sneer up at the cloudless blue sky, inked arms slicing backwards and forwards through the water. "She’s so out of your league it’s beyond your level of crazy to even comprehend that fact. So, stick your fat cock in women better used to, and suited to your rough and lowly station.

My arms still and with eyes narrowing, my lips thin.

Temper simmers in my belly and heats my blood.

I kick through the rolling swell beneath me with more vigour.

You. Moody. Fuck! I scream at the disagreeable ego that shares the tight living quarters beneath my long, white curls, my fists clenching and unclenching beneath the swell, my quick-to-flare aggression scaring away the curious bait fish. Why wouldn’t she like me or my home? I argue, my usually strong voice cracking with my fury, and made tiny and lost over the roar of the waves breaking on the shoreline, as the previously tender-hearted sea breeze, grows some balls and strengthens into a raging bitch on heat.

Wispy puffs of newly arrived clouds draw close, growing larger, before shrinking, as I bob up and down with more energy with the growing swell rumbling beneath me. I shift on the board, pools of seawater sloshing as I break the seal between bare flesh and waxed fibreglass.

It smells good. I smell fucking good. We smell sexy. I chuckle darkly and thrust up my hips, my baggy board-shorts tight across the pelvis, my thoughts and body again turning to frantic and wild mating. Would she have sex with me, I wonder? I’m an amazing catch. Handy with a gun and my fists. I’m healthy, my body’s in fine order, I can make an excellent pot of tea, and going by the eyes I catch staring at me, I have all the right bits that women of both worlds like. No, I have to admit it, I’ve got a fucking incredible dick, all eight and a half inches of it.

The base of my throat throbs in time to the throbbing in my shorts and rapid beat of my heart.

Sitting up, I grab and adjust my hard cock before dropping my chin to my chest, eyeing the water sluicing across my board, tracing rapidly pruning fingers through it.

With my finger’s motions, my mind flips again like a playing card being twirled around and through my fingers.

Flick-Flick. Flick-Flick. Flick-Flick.

♥. Red backing.

Flick-Flick

♦. Black backing.

Flick-Flick

♠. Red backing.

Flick-Flick

♣. Black backing.

Flick-Flick

Round and round and round the kingdoms go, where they stop, nobody knows, I croon and tipping my head back, I bark out a harsh laugh as the clouds skim across the sky, opening it up to allow the sun to bathe my face and body in warmth, and glorious golden light.

Taking in a deep breath, I release it noisily and drop my head back to my chest, with my memories of peaceful and plentiful times in my world.

Easy-going and harmonious eras before the King of Pubs, and the bogan queen’s treasonous coup d’état slaughtered our Hart Kingdom’s reigning royal family.

I blink away the memories, and lift my head, my mirrored reflective gaze settling once again on the hotel’s gleaming façade.

The safe house where our precious saviour, Miss Rose, the Skjaldmaer, is at present.

Her introductory training and immediate slotting into the rebel’s ways and cause, is my main concern, not my recollections of lighting, or whether or not she’ll have sex with me.

Or, whether or not, I’ll have to punch my mates for the right to have her to myself.

With her here, I know times will change.

For the better.

The writings of Carroll Louis — our world’s wisest and greatest Philosopher, a mysterious traveller from beyond our lands — decreed it in a premonition he left behind when he suddenly departed our world.

If I remember, it went something like this…. Although, some of the words may be off. Or just wrong.

Hey, I’m not known in my world as the batshit-crazy-fucker for no reason.

The four opposing kingdoms of Reflection,

will once again gain each other’s trust,

open their borders to travellers,

and those looking for a sea-change.

In turn, the lands will blossom and prosper.

And peace and good-will will again flow, and be free to all.

But heed my tale, for only will my words come to pass,

when Miss Rose,

the dark-haired beauty with the skills of a warrior maiden,

the one and only, true and rightful Skjaldmaer,

and Queen to the fairest of all males,

returns to doggedly fight for her true home,

her hands, heart and soul joining with the four braves.

To be honest, I’m not sure what half of that crazy shit means, but I suppose it’s not for me to know. It’s for scholars, students and for brains way smarter than mine to mull over. My job is clear.

Fight the bitch and her lover.

And with our promised human-warrior, Miss Rose, we will fight with every fibre of our bodies.

Hard.

Vicious.

Relentless

And we will triumph.

Once Heartland state is purged clean of the shit currently polluting it, my world will breathe its first deep breath in centuries.

Licking the salt off my bottom lip, I consider my previous term for Miss Rose. I run my hand backwards and forwards over my hatless wet curls, the board rocking and rolling with the continuous heaving motion of the sea.

The board plunges into a trough and another rush of warm water washes over my lap as the passing swell cruises on towards the shore, curling under and white-capping as it hits the sand beneath.

Under the hot rays of the Sun, the layer of salt left behind swiftly dries to a crispy coating on the exposed flesh beneath the short’s hem.

The fingers of my right hand rap out a beat on my thigh, the inked skin warm beneath my touch. Fuck Rad, maybe saviour is too strong a term for her, I argue with myself. Again. Gulls squawk overhead. Tilting my head back I watch them battle against the rising wind. She’s not tested, so best wait until you take her back with you. May not even be her. Pursing my lips, I dip my head in agreement with myself. There’s a first time for everything, right? Shit, yeah. That’s true. Didn’t consider that. But then she did answer the ad.

I frown, twisting my lips as I think.

As my right fingers carry on with their random drumming, my left hand rises and I jab my inked forefinger in the salty air before me. She did find and enter the hotel. Only the Skjaldmaer would feel the pull of the enchantment in the wording I used. So, what do you think about that?

I shrug.

I have no answer to that.

But despite that small argument with my brain, I smile as a swirl of pride unfurls and heats my chest.

As I release a pleased laugh, a pod of sleek grey dolphins breaks the surface on my left. Rising onto their tails, their giant, shining bodies wriggle backwards and forwards as they effortlessly hold themselves above the undulating surface. Long beaky mouths open and I watch sets of pointy elf teeth gleam in the sunlight as they honk and squeak at me, before falling silent and smoothly diving beneath the surface as one unit.

The only indication they’d been there, a small fountain of frothy bubbles bobbing on the surface. I look away from the last of the bubbles and back to the hotel, laughter still