[Sarai and Samiel]

This place was damnably dull. Yume had been walking for hours and hours, and had seen nothing. Nothing but an insanely huge expanse of rock, worn into a very mild rolling plains. There were no plants, no dirt, no sand, no mountains, no hills, no caves, no nothing. Not even chips of rock. The air was utterly still. This place was utterly barren .

The woman with scales of tarnished-gold was bored completely out of her freaking MIND.

Still, she kept going. There wasn't really another option, unless she changed her mind and suddenly felt like sitting absolutely still.

Then, out of nowhere, a song occurred in her mind, seeming extremely appropriate to what was going on.

"An' I would walk faive hondred miles
An' I would walk faive hondred more..."

Step. Step. Step. Yume was very glad she was used to constant physical activity, or she'd be tired as well as bored stiff.

"...Walking, walking, walking, walking
walking, walking, walking, walking..."

It had become kind of a mantra now, sung under her breath and rather tunelessly, if perfectly in pitch.

Abruptly, she came to a stop. This was absolutely ludicrous. What in the hell was going on here, anyways? At least the portals had brought her to interesting places before. What could possibly be the purpose of her being here?

"Who are you?" Came the shout, quiet as if from some distance.

Yume blinked. She'd not said that. Someone else had.

Someone else was HERE? What were they, insane? She'd have never come here willingly! Maybe they were also here because of something outside of their control?

Turning, Yume faced the source of the voice. For a moment, she looked at the Elite Warrior.

What in the frack? She thought. Did I jus' get plunked down in th' middle a' Starcraft or sommat? Somebody around here's been playing WAAAAAY too many video games, I'll tell ya that.

With a sigh, she raised her foot to walk a step towards the (in her eyes) Protoss Zealot, and then stopped.

It is extremely difficult to come to a complete halt mid-step. Mostly because for the majority of humanoids, the middle of a step is a time when the walker is utterly out of balance. They literally cannot stop, because leverage and gravity work against them. Yume had one major difference that made it so much more possible for her- she had a tail, which kept her in balance even mid-step.

Confused, the Elite warrior walked towards the strange woman with scales that were not quite gold. It had been sheer luck that he'd caught sight of her in the first place. She was still quite some distance off, and only the glint of reflected light upon the metal banding of her war-gloves had brought her location to some attention. Zado did not know it, but Yume's scales had, indeed, once shone with the brilliance of polished gold- however that had been lost long ago, color of scale dulled with the dulling of hope and joy.

He grew still more confused as he approached, and the odd humanoid (not of any type that he had ever before beheld) remained utterly motionless. Was this a statue, placed here so long ago, that had garnered his attention? Some sort of relic of whatever had been wiped from this planet, or whatever had done the wiping? It was a stunning contrast that the scaled lady made with the dull gray background, a splash of orange-yellow and green and red and sky-blue.

No, she was alive. She was not moving much, but she breathed still. Zado approached within a few feet, but she was not looking at him. Her eyes were locked over his shoulder. He raised one thick hand to wave before her face.

No response.

Stepping aside, the not-quite-Protoss turned, bringing glowing-bluewhite eyes about to look at the focus of her gaze.

She appeared to be staring at a valley. A bland, pointless somewhat lower area of dull-gray rock carved out of the surface of the planet. The Elite began to wonder just what it could be that was so interesting about that valley.

"Can't be..." Yume breathed, and he frowned, turning to gaze at her face again. Though the color had not changed much, he could tell that she was slightly pale- an extremely minor change that he only picked out because he was looking for it.

Yume, on the other hand, was staring at what she almost couldn't believe.

The stone where she looked was carved out in a long trench, a half-circle at its deepest point. Unlike the areas she had been moving across, worn smooth by some unknown agent, the trench was ridged. Nearly sixty feet wide at the widest, but ridged , as though it had been carved out by some giant worm, something rapidly chewing and then pulling its way through a hole left behind by so many stone-carving teeth....

As if in the dream that was here namesake, Yume put her foot down. Slowly, cautiously, she approached the valley, as if expecting something to burst out of it at any moment. Zado followed, out of curiosity.

Interestingly, the Elite did not find himself perturbed by the way that Yume seemed to be ignoring him. Perhaps it was the way the valley seemed to bother the female (or so he assumed. Slim shoulders, wider- if still slim- hips, fatty deposits on the ribcage- odd how one apparently reptilian matched the profile for a mammalian female's build.), or perhaps it was that she did not seem to have really chosen not to notice him. Though her reaction to the valley he had just walked through was most interesting. Perhaps she had not noticed the multitude of other, similar ones dotting the landscape? It was easy to lose these features, subtle as they were, both in an expanse of toneless gray stone as well as at a time when one was more used to recognisable, distinct geography.

Yume did not really notice Zado watching her as she crouched to rub one hand against the rock. Hard. Not that she had expected otherwise. She had not seen what had carved out this trench- but the lack of anything on the planet's surface spoke more than enough to her. She knew of only one thing that could cause this sort of obliteration, and that left this sort of mark.

Kry'tull.

But there was something wrong with this. Kry'tull normally consumed ALL. The atmosphere, even the whole of the planet, and the space that it had occupied. The way this was... it was almost as if the worm had decided that it did not have time to remain here, had left in a hurry, leaving the less-significant portions of the planet behind. Some sort of cosmic leftover- a concept that did nothing to dull Yume's own hunger from lack of food despite the lurch in her stomach it caused.

Though, she supposed, it could be that Kry'dull had not been here. She had not seen all that there was in Reality- this Reality or any other- and did not presume to be sure.

She would have to find someone to ask.

Hey. Some little portion of her mind said to the rest of her. Speaking of someone, isn't there someone right here?

As if breaking out of a daydream, Yume suddenly shifted slightly, and seemed to flow more naturally. Her breathing remained even, but she resumed the minor organic movements- slight shifting in balance, blinking, tensing and relaxing of minor muscles- associated with life. She turned, smoothly, to face the Elite, and tilted her head.

Zado blinked, the twin glows of his eyes dimming, then resuming their usual brightness.

"Yo." Yume said. "Never 'spected I'd see somethin' like you livin' an' breathin'. Whatcha doin' here on this hunk of rock?"

"Well-" Zado started, only to be interrupted.

With an abrupt 'Whoa!', Yume fell. It wasn't until she had latched onto Zado's foot and dragged him with her that he realized that she had just fallen straight through solid rock. And so had he, as a matter of fact. Shouldn't he be dead now? He couldn't coexist in the same space as rock, it would prevent his biological processes.

Which was when he realized that he was in air again. Again? When had he not? His mind refused to remember the transition period, not that it had been of any recognisable length.

And also, falling.

****************************

"Aw, man, not again." Yume commented, then reached out and grabbed a ledge on the side of the building, gripping the stone facing of the skyscraper. Her other hand lashed out and splayed its fingertips on Zado's left arm-armor piece. The friction should have been nowhere near enough to stop him, but the grip, strangely, held, and she hauled with her shoulder.

"UnnnnghhhA!" She grunted, forcing his momentum to swivel about her shoulder, turning his fall down into a swing up, and then hurling him through a closed (but fortunately large) window.

As the toes of her boots got their purchase on the wall as well, she shook her right arm, attempting to relax the strain- she'd nearly pulled something, having not been properly warmed up. Still, she clambered up and through the window, landing both boots on the floor.

Warily, Yume looked about, and saw that the room was apparently some sort of a boardroom- Zado and most of the window (in many many pieces) had landed on a long wooden table, and there were those stereotypical wheeled executive seats all around the table. Fortunately, the room appeared to be empty other than Yume and Zado.

"Ah... I'm Kouryou Yume. You c'n call me Yume. Sorry about this. Whatta way ta meet, huh?" Her tone was amused, but carried a hint of resignation and irritation. She was starting to hate those stupid portals.

((Okay, a good start so far. Zado, I'm going to be very interested in finding out what your character was going to do, if someone else will take care of it, what will happen since his carrier's crashed. It may even wind up getting to be a place the story visits. Or not. I'm whimsical like that.

X-3, I have no clue at all where you are, so I can't even hook you into the story. However, you look like you've got something going on, that may make an interesting side-plot eventually- we'll see.

Alright, I'm now opening this up for up to three more to join, since only two joined last time. If someone has a character that they'd like to put as having been present in the boardroom when Zado and Yume made their unexpected entrance, I think that would be pretty cool. However, it's not neccessary.

Keep it coming, folks. Give each other your best, huh?

-Reiko))