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Good day all, please enjoy the wonderful ramblings of my mind.
Respectfully,
Eliana
IOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOI
5:35am
The phone screen light glared in her eyes enough to make Olivia squint, and rather irritated she slid her feather up on the screen to unlock it to see what notification had just rocked her out of a dead sleep on this red-eye flight. Ah. Growler of course, the internet’s dumping ground of haters and slime. They were having a field day with the Thorn’s near-loss last night, and of course she had fallen asleep with her headset on so she would hear the pinging of the notifications. She was thankful they didn’t do to her mind what they used to, but they were still annoying. A quick scroll revealed the expanse of the attention.
They were picking on Will’s quick fall when he had been knocked aside by a croc’s tail. In all honesty it had been done by accident by the predator, but it still got the attention of the keyboard warriors.
They highlighted the shot of Lenny taken a ball straight to the right temple – which, of course, they bedazzled with emojis and stickers to give it more zing.
They were even harping on Modo’s quick stop that he had to do after getting absolutely railroaded by the body odor-soaked grizzly that had given her mad creeper vibes. Thankfully her teammate had dug his claws in deep enough to stop himself from flying off the edge of the Peak City court, but it had still been enough to get Archie to haul over from well on the other side of the court. It was the first foul they had been recipients to this season.
These idiots were acting like they had been shut out. They had scraped by with a five point win, but at the rate that these basement-dwellers were typing you would have thought that it was a loss by fifty. The entire team had voted to just take a red-eye back, both to avoid the absolute annoyance of the screaming lunatics and for the sake of Modo not having to take a separate flight to make his meeting this morning. Two birds.
Olivia huffed at the old idiom when it flickered through her mind and lowered her phone screen to glance around.
Everyone was peacefully out, she could see from her spot on the couch at the back area of the seating space. Archie and his girls were snoring up near the big screen TV, Lenny was snoozing with his neck curled comfortably across the baggage rack above him, Will was curled up tight in his chair, as were Dennis and Jett. It had become an unspoken rule that everyone was to bring their own headphones to sleep, and it was serving well.
A flicker of light near where her feet rested on the couch drew her attention to the drawn curtain of the card room. Beneath the royal purple shade she could see the dancing shadow of a figure moving about rather vigorously, and when she reached up to click her headphones off she could hear their shuffling.
It was five AM. They had only been in the air for a small handful of hours. What the actual heck was the staff doing back there?
Olivia sat up with a sigh and pulled the headphones fully off, reaching her wings above her head in a strained stretch. She could clearly hear the sounds coming from the card room now. A mixture of clicking, jingling, some fabric ruffling, soft muttering… and then, rather filled with frustration, an annoyed hiss and a curse in some language she didn’t understand.
Ah-ha. It wasn’t the staff, then.
As she climbed to her feet, she heard that single hiss turn into a flurry of aggravated grumbles followed by a lightly choked breath. What in the name of dog was he doing?
She finally reached the curtain to pull it aside enough to slip in and spare her sleeping teammates the light, but she almost didn’t spare them the laugh that she had barely managed to swallow. The sight of big, bad Modo – the apex predator that people were terrified of and who was the subject of some very distasteful and slanderous posts online looked absolutely overwhelmed… by a piece of cloth.
Somehow or another he had managed to sling the tie he had through one of the safety bars on the wall and had caught its tail in his paws, the remainder of it wrapped shabbily but securely around the collar of his severely ruffled suit jacket. He had frozen mid-pull with his mouth wide open and pointed down (where he had intended to bite himself free), one eye focused over on the ostrich that was now holding a wing in front of her face to spare him her straining smile. The nictitating membrane blinked over his eye once, and then, without changing position, he sheepishly offered:
“Tie has captured Modo.”
Unintentionally Olivia lost control of one giggle, tutting him when he actually chomped and held on to the piece of offending purple and pink piece of fabric.
“Stop it, I’m coming,” she crossed the room over to him and tapped his paws free from their hold, using the new slack to unwind the remaining fabric from around his neck.
Freeing him, she held a wing out to sit under his jaw expectantly.
“Alright, drop the tie,” she told him, glancing over to the card table where he had draped a small sheet. Nail polish, his rings and choker that she just noticed was missing, and a couple containers of what looked to be make-up were neatly laid out. It was a stark contrast to the disaster in front of her.
Wait… she realized then that she still didn’t have the tie in her wing. She turned back to the Komodo who was looking at her straight on with his paws curled in front of his chest, but otherwise hadn’t moved. Olivia quirked a commanding eyebrow.
“Drop the tie,” she ordered expectantly again, wiggling her feathers.
Modo leaned his head back with a fractional growl of protest, his lips twitching with the urge to shred the blasted demonic fabric. Olivia clucked and snapped two feathers with a harder look.
“Drop it.”
A moment of hesitation and the Komodo spat it free with a hint of saltiness and it flopped into her palm. Satisfied, the ostrich pointed to one of the chairs by the table.
“Good. Go sit down – and take off that jacket, it’s supposed to be the last thing you put on.”
He sulked to do as she asked, flopping into the backward turned chair and slumping over it with his arms crossed. The suit jacket was tossed rather starkly over a second chair. Olivia rolled the tie through her feathers with a frown.
“How did you manage to knot the top of this?” she pressed, looking up to see Modo stick his lower lip out in a pout.
“Fancy clothes come with no instructions. Modo feel like bag of rotted potatoes in tissue paper wearing such nonsense.”
He rolled his shoulders and tapped his dress-shoe covered feet to signal his discomfort, his tail swishing back and forth with tension.
“I’m getting more of a ‘mess before the prom’ vibe,” Jett’s voice sounded from the door where she now stood, and Olivia giggled in agreement, “What are you two up to?”
“I’m trying to save Mr. Team Owner over here from a major wardrobe malfunction,” the ostrich supplied, holding up the tie that she was having trouble digging the knots out of with her feathers, “but it’s…there’s a lot to do. We didn’t wake you up, did we?”
“No, had to pee,” the predator responded, her eyes wandering to the Komodo who was still hanging over the back of the chair. She had to dig into the curiosity that had settled in, “Son, did you really put on a white dress shirt BEFORE you did your nails and make-up? You’re supposed to do that before so you don’t graffiti yourself.”
She felt her resolve soften when he gave her a soft sigh and the most endearing set of puppy-dog eyes she had ever seen while continuing to pout.
“Fancy clothing no come with instructions,” he told her sadly, lips turned down in a pitiful frown.
She hated when he did that. She was getting soft in her old age… but she decided to pity him.
“Chin up, Rex,” she told him with a light pop under his chin as she walked into the room and past him, “Your girls got you. Olivia, why don’t you let me fight with that and you try to work on…”
She gestured with a vague paw in Modo’s direction.
“…whatever’s going on over there.”
“You got it, miss lady girl,” her friend agreed, more than willing to hand over the disaster of fabric.
“Whoa, Modo you really did a number on this.”
“I agree.”
Olivia turned to address the sulking lizard as Jett began to pick at the knots.
“What kind of meeting do you have that requires a suit?”
“Is costume party forcing Modo to wear hobo suit as new commissioner sworn in. Meeting has dress code that says must be,” Modo held up his hands to wiggle his fingers for effect, “suit and tie formal. Is waste of Modo’s time and make him feel as though he striped horse with funny hair ruining fun during game.”
Olivia stared blankly at him. What?
“I think he means he feels like he looks like a ref. Potentially a sack of rotted potatoes too, based on what he said earlier,” Jett supplied in what she hoped was a translation, chuckling at the Komodo, “and I think the word you’re looking for is ‘ceremony’, Modo. It’s a swearing in of the commissioner, so it’s a ceremony.”
“Is psychotic,” Modo hissed back to her, tapping two polish-chipped claws to his temple, “They love say of Modo: ‘he crazy, unhinged, out of mind, needs of medicine’,” Jett barely swallowed the growl. She had also seen the posts, “but Modo does not dress in hobo suit to welcome in fancy snow deer to decision spot for fun. Many other things he could be doing. In this, Modo is much better.”
“Oh, I’m sure. I can’t imagine I’d be thrilled with the show either… you sure made this poor thing pay.”
Just holding the tie up elicited a growl of hatred from Modo.
“Evil devil cloth noose.”
Jett got a good chuckle out of that, turning her focus back to the knot she was working on. She didn’t bother to fuel the fire and correct him by telling him the new commissioner was a moose, not a deer – and she was leaving the travesty of destroyed fingernail polish and the raggamuffin lizard to Olivia who had already made her way over to him. She had finally freed the final knot in the fabric and smoothed it out when Olivia’s gasp caught her attention.
“Modo!”
The call of his name was framed in shock and disbelief, and Jett’s curiosity had her looking over to them. Olivia had swiveled Modo around and had his paws on the sheet-covered table where she had rolled the cuffs of his shirt back and had been looking at his nails with the aid of her cellphone flash light.
“You cracked these!”
“Just polish over it, Liv. You won’t be able to tell,” Jett told her from where she stood.
The look of panic on the ostrich’s face said otherwise.
“No, Jett – they’re cracked, not chipped! This isn’t painful for you, Modo?”
The team captain was over to Modo’s other side with her own phone quicker than she thought she could move on such little sleep, flicking his snout when the Komodo hissed at the added light.
“Don’t you hiss at me. Let me see.”
Four. Four of his claws had small cracks running up their sides, and one she noted a small speckle of dried blood glued to the green scales.
“What did doc say about these?”
“Modo not say anything to fuzzy tunnel digger, it not bother –“
“EXCUSE ME?!”
This time, Jett’s cellphone light turning into his face had both Modo and Olivia shrinking into themselves. Modo drew his paws back to curl them shut against his chest, head down and eyes timid.
“You didn’t tell Doc Burro about this and you finished playing a game on fractured claws on a stone court?! Have you lost your mind?!”
Two of the cracked claws tapped together sheepishly and Modo’s tongue gave a quick dart.
“…I’m going to get the first aid kit,” Olivia dismissed herself, not missing the almost pleading way that the Komodo looked at her in hopes of a rescue.
Oh no, the one predator Olivia Burke wasn’t going to mess with was Jett Fillmore when she was livid. Modo was going to deal with this self-inflicted butt-kicking himself. She made sure to take more time than was really needed to sneak to the front of the plane to retrieve her make-up bag and one of the first aid kits from near the main door before returning to the card room.
Thankfully both predators were still breathing.
“You wanna clean those disasters up, Olivia? I need to send a quick text.”
Olivia was happy to not be in her sights and set up her quick shop on the card table with the well-berated dragon. If Jett wasn’t so terrifying, it would have been funny.
“Didn’t mean to set you up there,” she half-apologized, even if the entire situation was actually Modo’s own fault.
He was quiet while she worked, so quiet that halfway through sealing the rough patches on his claws with enamel from the first aid kit and repainted the cracked gel coating them she grew concerned. Modo had almost dozed off where he sat, head slightly tucked and eyes glazed with fatigue – of Jett didn’t choose then to saunter back in, Olivia could well imagine that he would have been completely asleep.
The black leopardess retrieved the forgotten suit jacket from where Modo had tossed it a while ago, not missing the momentary lapse in the lizard’s concentration.
“You’re meeting them at two and they’ll file what they need,” she told him with a no-nonsense tone before shaking out the wrinkles in the jacket, “How’s it looking, Olivia?”
“All done,” she ostrich stated victoriously, fanning her feathers lightly to dry the remaining bits of nail polish, “Nice and polished and clean. I have a little work to do on the cosmetic side but it shouldn’t take too long.”
Eyeing the library of cosmetics wearily, Modo gave a flicker of his tongue.
“Bright powders no match Modo’s scales. He will look like Piglet with glam.”
“Compare yourself to that side of bacon again and I’ll be the one to dig into you next,” Olivia warned him, tossing and adjusting the towel Jett had retrieved over his chest to protect his shirt, “It’s called ‘blending’, and I’m actually really good at it I’ll have you know. Now hold still, I have some work to do.”
They were quiet for a bit then save the low purring of Jett’s contentment as she smoothed out the wrinkles in the suit jacket and Modo’s own contented rumblings. He had happily melted back into himself, tongue escaping the side of his mouth and his eyes blinking lazily when he wasn’t entranced watching the pink feathers flutter around him with focus.
Olivia’s clap of happiness signaled the end of her task.
“All done! I’m an artist.”
“Modo want to see!” the Komodo declared excitedly, his tail twitching in anticipation.
“Not yet, let’s finish up first. Let’s get this toad into prince mode,” Jett announced, a summoning bump of her tail to Modo’s a hint that she wanted him to stand, “Up you go.”
He was quick to do what she asked, happy to let the two females fix the cuffs of his sleeves and sort out the wrinkles in the fabric. Such attention to detail… this he liked. He liked it until Jett flipped up the collar of the dress shirt, after which he gave a protesting nip to the available tail of the tie that she wove around his neck. She smacked it lightly against his snout, and his tongue lolled in a sign of surrender.
“Stop it,” his captain corrected, her paw pads deftly weaving and ducking the fabric into a clean knot that she measured up to his neck. Not bad for being horribly out of practice – it had been years since she had tied her dad’s ties for him, but it felt familiar still.
Taking a half-step back she approved of her own work, reaching back to flop his collar back down. The jacket went back on smoothly this time, and neatly she buttoned the front of it shut while Olivia lightly dusted the shoulders and back with her wings.
They both took a couple steps back. Modo fidgeted a bit under their inquiring glances. The urge to be flattered was steamrolled by the feeling of being in a pressed suit, and he was trying desperately to gauge what they saw by his own eyes and darting tongue.
“You clean up good,” Jett finally stated, reaching into her pocket to grab her phone, “You wanna see now?”
“Yes! Show Modo!” he was quick to answer, his whole body almost trembling with excitement as she snapped a quick picture.
When she flipped her phone around he caught sight of the photo, and with gleaming eyes and an ecstatic trill it was snatched from her hands into his as he danced about.
“Olivia and Kapitan are greatest of artist! Modo does not know this snack - is it Modo?!” he changed his expression to be more debonair, “Is this the most handsome of Modo?! He glows brightly like freshly-broken glowstick in hobo suit!”
The two females shared a look and exchanged an amused smile at his loving purr as he gazed at his own image, that confident rumbling quieted when Jett retrieved her phone back.
“Alright, we got the look now we need to get the vibe. Why don’t you give us a lap?”
He blinked in confusion, his head twitching back and forth.
“Jett wants to see you walk,” Olivia supplied, holding up a feather when he went to move, “Remember, this suit isn’t going to work like your looser clothes, so you have to be a little more…. controlled.”
She rolled her eyes at his pout.
“It’s not that bad, you princess. C’mon, give us a twirl.”
He did, one paw pressed to his chest with a beckoning look on his face.
“Not bad. Walk away,” Jett instructed, holding her chin in her right paw as he did what she asked with a bit of flair, “Now back to us. Add a little more energy into it.”
He strut back to them, a daring look in his eye as he reached out to quickly retrieve one of Olivia’s wings and hold it up to his lips with a wiggle of his brow. That got a laugh out of both of them.
“Aright, a bit too much. Take it down a couple notches, playboy,” the feline told him, Olivia rolling her eyes in humor and snatching her wing back.
“…Modo would like to say thank you,” Modo offered them rather sheepishly, tapping two of his fingers together, “No like hobo suit but feels better with support from ladies.”
What a charmer, he was.
He was thrilled to receive a hug from both of them, hesitant to return it too strongly.
“I told you we got you,” Jett reminded him when they broke apart, Olivia moving to start packing up the cosmetics and forgotten pieces of jewelry on the card table, “I’m going to guess this ceremony is early for you to be ready now.”
“Driver wait for plane to land. Modo go to… ceremony until one.”
“Then you have your appointment at two.”
Modo gave her that look again – that one that she hated because she nearly always folded. As Olivia slipped from the room Jett found her resolve.
“You’re going to that appointment, and I had best get a text from doc saying she saw you.”
He bobbed his head in defeat.
“Then Modo have appointment at two. And meet with license board at three, new maintenance manager at four. Then have much papers to go through. Piglet terrible business manager, very bad work done.”
Her arms crossed in front of her, watching him as he pulled out and sat on one of the card table chairs. Correctly this time. That slight droop in his shoulders was back, as was the glazing of his eyes.
Jett had played with him on the team for five years. The Thorns were his first and only team in ROAR, and Modo had been one of the few that she never really had a performance problem with.
What had happened in that game last night, that swipe from the grizzly that he should have easily dodged, was the first that she had ever seen him fail to make a move. She had been at this at this level for fifteen years, about ten before that in grade school and high school, and through all of it she had learned one very hard rule:
One mistake could happen. Two was non-performance.
Non-performance in this game could have devastating consequences, and Modo was on the highway to hell right toward that devastation.
With Olivia still on the other side of the curtain he was letting that guard down more, and she took the opportunity to address the Modo in front of her – not the one that she knew. That Modo, she worried, was being trampled and pulled apart as he tore himself two ways.
“Just how long do you plan to keep burning that candle at both ends, Modo?”
He curled his lips back with a light hiss of indignation at her, to which he got a quirked eyebrow.
“As long as takes. Modo is no hatchling. He can handle himself.”
“Good moxy, Rex. But how about you drop the façade, stop trying to change the subject, and answer my question.”
Modo let out a grumble from his chest, holding one paw out in front of him to observe the glittering polish that coated his claws. It was a comforting motion for him, and Jett chose to wait him out. This Modo needed time to process things, the nagging tired had become an anchor to his usual ability to leap from one mindset to the other. His old habits of meditation were long gone, probably lying as dormant as his ability to get more than an hour of sleep at a time. That kind of wear would eventually make anyone’s fuse short, and it was her best play to wait him out. Her patience paid off.
“Modo work on hiring someone for to help with finances.”
“It was a good call to clean house, but what you need is a general manager. We should probably try to shift focus there and get some of this off of you. You’re only one person.”
“Modo is Modo.”
He said it with a playful wiggle of his eyebrows to try and lower the tension. Jett rolled her eyes.
“Yes, but Modo is only one Modo and Modo can only take so much. You can’t keep trying to be two different people at once, that’s all I’m saying.”
A soft knock on the back door to the staffroom drew her attention momentarily, and she gave the nod of understanding to the young cheetah who let her know that they were getting ready to begin landing. The sun had begun to peek through the airplane windows, and she realized that there would be no sleep for her – or Modo – until it set again.
“Kapitan.”
She looked back to him.
“Modo is careful, he is fixing mistakes of Piglet and keeping safe Thorns. Team is important to Modo, he will protect them and fix for to make better for all. Please let Modo do this.”
Her heart ached and she let out a sigh. The last thing Modo expected was another embrace from her, so in his shock he jumped and felt his back go rail-stiff when she scooped him up… until he softened in her hold. If this helped her, he would more than happily allow it.
“Just… don’t worry so much about us that you forget about you.”
“Modo will not lose team again. Modo will fix things. Do it for them,” he told her where his head rested over her shoulder.
When Jett and the Thorns waved him off not a half hour later, that haunting nagging still nipped at her neck. By her measurements, there couldn’t be much wax left for that candle to burn.
IOIOIOIOIOI
I hope you enjoyed, all.
With hope, this may be the lead-in to a multi-chapter if I can nail down some moving parts.
Respectfully,
Eliana