Posted Nov 23 2012 - 04:03 PM
OOC: Here is something tasty me and Gravs cooked up.
IC: Kuhrin
The early morning sunlight peered through the canopy of treetops that sat at the roof of the small jungle surrounding Kini-Nui. Its young rays were voyeuristic, spying on the figure that seemed to glide silently through the dense jungle growth. The only sign of his movement was the occasional overgrown plant being brushed aside; were it not for that, his rusted armour could easily fit him in with the many other relics of times past lost to this region.
Kuhrin's mind was absent of these thoughts, but hardly far from them. The battle for Kini-Nui still sounded in his head as clear as the day it happened. It was on that day he had lost one of his only and best friends. They had attributed his 'leap over the deep end' to this, that their own idiocy was the cause of him going 'insane'. In fact it was truly the opposite. Nothing made him saner than understanding how selfish they really were.
There was, of course, another chapter of the story, that his train of thought had come to stop and dwell at now. The seeds of his change of heart and clearing of vision had been sewn long before Kini-Nui. When he was still a young, enterprising individual making his way up the ranks of the Ta-Koro Guard, the start of his journey through the grey had really began to take its first few steps...
* * *
'Cool' was not a slang word Ta-Matoran would use a lot, save in rants about Ko-Wahi. They would be more likely to use the word 'hot' in its place. Kuhrin was an exception to this rule. He was regularly referred to as 'chilled out', 'cool' and other things of the sort, thanks to his laid-back attitude to lava farming and surfing. In the same way that any non-Ta-Matoran would consider getting medical attention for lava burns, non-Kuhrin Ta-Matoran would be very cautious about how and where they farmed. Kuhrin hardly cared, and seemed pretty happy with that mindset, especially when he returned, triumphant and scorched to a crisp. "Rivers, the volcano, heck, even the falls," he would say, "ain't no matter to me where I farm. Let it come!"
Living life to its fullest was one of Kuhrin's primary objectives. But barely any of the crazy things he did would be half as fun as they were without a great companion to risk their life with him. This friend was the expert on living on the edge: Krell.
"You just gotta jump. Its not that bad."
Krell was many things, crazy, insane, crazy, and an adrenaline junky. But most of all, he was probably crazy. Or atleast, that's what they said. Krell didn't quite care, no one really bothered him, and he did the work assigned to him. But of course, when he took Kuhrin up the side of the volcano, he went the most dangerous way possible. The one that was overrun my lava flows, sheer drops, and brittle lava bridges. The path was so thin, a single misstep could send them falling into the lava far below.
"You totally know I've done it before," the black-armored Matoran added, crossing his arms. Krell was leaning up against the side of the volcano, on a cliff that overlooked a sort of natural slide that had been created and smoothed by a recent lava flow. Its path took it both inside and outside the volcano, coming dangerously close to the red, bubbling substance below.
Kuhrin gingerly lifted up the front of each of his burnt-orange feet in turn and shook the shingle and ash from between his toes - a nervous habit he had. His eyes panned across the boiling flow below. Krell was trustworthy, that he was certain of after knowing him for so long, so well, but sometimes the absolute truth in his stories seemed a bit stretched. His head turned away from the river but his eyes lingered on it for a moment before jumping back to his friend. "You sure you've done it before, man? That's a pretty big river."
"Sure I have, just take the leap of faith before I push you." Krell was clearly joking, but Kuhrin wasn't having the best day in the world. There had been rumours he and Krell were going to get fired for their 'reckless behaviour', that the Rahi were amassing for an attack on the jungle by the beach and that his a Po-Matoran he had his eye on, Noka, had an abusive grandfather. All of this frankly disturbing speculation was enough to put even someone like Kuhrin on edge. But hey, if they were going to get fired, might as well get fired with a bang, right?
"Alright, let's do it. On three..." a beat. "Three!"
Of course, Krell had lept off the cliff on "let's do this" and was already on his way down the mountain side. "Bro, don't just stand there!" the black-armored Matoran had called on his way down. The trick with anything like this was picking out a large enough rock dropped by the flow, one that would support your weight on the way down. And, of course, didn't smash into a million piece when you landed on it. If you missed that, well, some lava formations could be really sharp to slide down on.
Krell hit his chosen rock a bit awkwardly, and windmilled his arms as it started to slide down the path. Fortunately, he had managed to grab the edge with an armored hand, steading himself as best one could on an unstable ride whipping around random, lava-made turns. Krell looked over his shoulder towards Kurhin, a huge grin on his face and a wild look in his orange eyes.
Sure, people called him crazy, but Krell didn't care. He was crazy, but for a reason. Despite popular belief, he didn't just do it for fun. Krell didn't think about everything else filled other people's lives. Unecissary, little things that other people worried about, they weren't for him. Stuff like sliding down a dried lava-flow on a rock that could shatter at any moment provided a great distraction from everything else.
A grin spread across Kuhrin's red Hau. It was high time he tried out a new trick he'd thought about the night before when he was trying to get to sleep. Simple logic: you can slide down on a rock, why not... a bamboo disk? "Hey Krell!" he called, not expecting to be heard over the roar of the wind in Krell's ears. "Check this bad boy out!" The disk was infinitely more flimsy, and he knew it, but sliding on something that was designed to never ever be slid on was always more exhilarating and humorous.
He unstrapped the disk (which he had used before, thank you very much) and twiddled it in the air for a moment to show what he was holding then lightly tossed it over the gap. It took a running jump for him to follow it off the edge and into the deadly open space over the mother of all lava slides over the mother of all lava rivers. Time slowed. He closed his eyes, feeling the air resist his fall in vain. This was it. This was the life.
Then he hit the disk, and the world returned returned to its usual state. The air pushing up at him on his way down was so strong he found he could hardly breathe, but it was so insane and so exciting that the stupid grin plastered on his face stayed plastered. His disk slammed into the slide at the ideal angle, and vibrated beneath him as his velocity carried him at top speed after Krell.
"Geronimo!"
Krell heard something along the lines of "check this out," and his head whipped around to look. There Kurhrin was, sliding down the mountain, on a disk. OH KARZ NO. Krell wasn't exactly going to stand for that. Oh wait, yes he was. Krell leaned to the side, narrowly missing a black, rocky pilliar. The Matoran heard it whoosh past his ears, and his arm almost brushed up against it.
With that out of the way, the black-armored Ta-Matoran turned around, so he was facing Kuhrin-the-disk-riding-maniac. Now riding completely backwards, Krell didn't stop there. Planting his feet flat, the Ta-Matoran released his hands, before raising slowly up to a standing position. "Ha!" Krell said, victoriously fist pumping. The action almost caused him to fall over, and the Matoran's eyes got wide for a bit. After regaining his balance, Krell looked over to his friend, maniac grin on his face.
"Hey Kuhrin! Check thi--"
Krell didn't get to finish, as the rock he was riding on suddenly shot off one of the natural made ramps on the path. The Ta-Matoran was suddenly in the air, standing on a rock, facing backwards. He might have said something like "KAAAAAARZ" but it was hard to tell. There were a few seconds of "I'mgonnadieI'mgonnadieI'mgonnadie", but they disappeared once he hit the ground again, shaken, but otherwise seemed okay.
He made it a point to face forward this time.
Back on the slide, Kuhrin looked on in awe as Krell slammed into the ground, which apparently was not quite as painful as it looked. The Matoran smiled nervously, secretly hoping that was one of the more truthful tales Krell had told. During a less fast-paced part of the slide, he straightened his back to try and get a better look at his friend, who was still lying on his back... Shaking?
Thinking time, however, was over, as Kuhrin realised when his insides suddenly jumped up, signifying a sudden downward fall. But that became the least of his worries as a sudden jolt in the middle of his disk shot him into panic mode. His hands snapped to the sides of the disk, both of which began to move strangely, like they were independent of each other. Then he realised it.
The disk had snapped.
At the speed he was moving at there was no way he could just hop off now. If the landing wasn't painful normally, it sure as karz was going to be now. He struggled to keep them together as he came to the ramp. Suddenly he was launched into the air by the incline, the two halves of the disk flying off to their respective sides, helpless, much like the ragdoll of a Matoran Kuhrin had become as he soared through the air.
With a thud and a sharp pain in his wrist, Kuhrin hit the dirt and rolled a few times to lay face down on the ground. He could hear Krell's voice but the dirt muffled what he was saying. Probably something to do with the shaking I saw, thought Kuhrin. He tried to push himself up but found his wrist was in a lot more pain than he thought. "Don't you dare say I've broken it," he said, partly to the world at large and partly to Krell. But his friend could get any words of response out. He hadn't been shaking. He was laughing.
"Hahahahahhahahahahaohyoushouldahahahahaaseenyooaahhahahaa..."
Kuhrin couldn't hold it back. Krell's laugh was freakin' contagious. So the two of them lay there, the rest of the world meaning little to them. To any normal Matoran, it would be one of the most strange and wonderful days of their life. But to Krell and Kuhrin, it was Tuesday.
Yeah, he thought as he laughed. This is the life.
* * *
That was the life.
No! No, it couldn't have been. Makuta was his life now. Such defective thoughts were for the weak! Krell was gone, he was nothing to him now! Certainly not a friend... Kuhrin didn't need friends.
He beat these thoughts to a pulp and buried them at the back of his mind where they belonged. All that mattered now was to find the other followers of Makuta and catch up on what had happened in his absence. Nothing else in the world was important. Not disk-surfing. Not Ta-Koro. Not Krell.
Nothing.
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