by Saless
Chapter 33

Sarah awoke in the morning feeling miserable. The first thing she did was take more Midol. Just when I was getting used to this, too… she thought.

She lingered in the shower with the water as hot as she could stand, but it didn't help much. By the time Mike came for her she'd just managed to get ready and hadn't eaten anything. "You ready to go?" Mike asked as he stepped through the door. Sarah's only answer was to pick up her new purse and nod. Mike led her out to his car and drove her to work.

"You okay?" Mike asked as Sarah was getting out of the car. Sarah nodded and closed the door. Mike said goodbye and left.

Sarah struggled through her work day, all the more so because she had to work with Kris again. She was finally getting the hang of the job by the end of the day, so Sarah was looking forward to being back to her normal job on Wednesday.

"Hi Sarah, how are you doing?" Mike greeted her when he arrived to take her home.

"Fine." Sarah replied without looking up. Mike shrugged and led her out to his car and drove her home.

When they entered the apartment they found Jill already working on dinner. "Want some help?" Sarah asked.

"Hi Sarah, no thanks, there's not much left to do. Dinner will be ready in ten minutes or so." Jill replied.

"Okay." Sarah replied, walking over to the sink and filling up a glass with water to take more Midol with. "How did women survive before Midol was invented, anyway?"

"With difficulty!" Jill replied with a laugh. "Seriously, though, it's different for each woman. Some really don't have much trouble at all."

"Lucky them." Sarah grouched.

Dinner was ready quickly and they sat down to eat. "Do you have any plans for tonight?" Jill asked Sarah.

"Well, I do need to check on the chicken and figure out what else I'm going to make on Thursday." Sarah replied.

"Why don't I help you with that, then we can do something." Jill said. Sarah agreed and they all headed over to Sarah's apartment.

"So what did you have in mind?" Sarah asked as she stirred up the chicken to make sure the sauce hadn't separated and all the chicken absorbed some of the marinade.

"Saw through me, huh?" Jill replied with a grin. "Yeah, I was hoping we could make another trip to Xanth. You guys didn't really get a chance to see it last time, we only saw the Magician's castle."

Sarah shrugged, "Fine by me. I was thinking about baking some quick bread, what do you think?" she asked, pointing out a couple of breads in a recipe book.

Jill looked at them and pointed to one, "That one looks good."

Jill and Sarah mixed up the bread and poured it into a pan. After covering it they left it in the fridge to bake Wednesday.

"Ready to go?" Sarah asked once they'd cleaned up their mess.

"In just a minute." Jill replied. She'd left a bag near the door when she came over. She slung the strap for the bag over her shoulder and pulled out the book. "I want you to use this book. I've marked the place."

Sarah took the book and looked at the marked place. "Healing spring?" she asked curiously.

Jill nodded and showed Sarah the contents of her bag. There were four two liter bottles inside. "I figured if we're going to be going to dangerous places we would benefit from having some of that water on hand to heal injuries." Jill explained.

"So that's what that's for! Good idea Jill!" Mike said. "Let me get the sword, and then we'll be ready to go."

"Don't forget that knife, while you're at it." Jill called after him. He nodded and continued out. Sarah gathered up her archery gear while he was gone.

"I hope we aren't really going to need this stuff." Jill said.

"With Mike's transforming and my portals we probably don't, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared." Sarah replied.

"True, and we know Xanth can be dangerous." Jill agreed.

Mike returned with the sword, tied on with a piece of rope again. "Ready to go?" he asked. The others nodded and Sarah opened the portal. She set the book down and they walked through.

On the other side they found themselves in a clearing of a forest. The healing spring dominated the clearing. Jill and Sarah immediately started filling the bottles with the magical water. "You going to help Mike?" Jill asked.

"I am helping, I'm making sure nothing catches us by surprise." Mike replied. Jill shrugged and got back to filling the bottles.

They'd just finished filling the first two bottles and closed them when there was a noise from the forest. Sarah set the full bottle down, picked up her bow, and set an arrow. Mike had already drawn his sword and was holding it in both hands.

Out of the forest ambled a small group of goblins. On seeing Mike and the others they charged at Mike. The first one never made it to him as an arrow sprouted in his chest. Mike parried the charge of the second and kicked it in the face, sending it sprawling. There were still six left and three of them peeled off to attack Sarah.

Seeing this, Mike felt the familiar pain of transformation. A moment later he found himself unchanged from the waist up, but with a long serpentine tail for his lower half. The sword was still in his hand so he used it to parry the attack of the one goblin unfazed by his transformation. He spun around to go after the other three goblins, knocking the remaining goblins down with his tail without realizing it.

By the time Mike made it to the other group of goblins one of them was already down with an arrow in its leg. Mike ignored him and threw himself at the other two. As before his new body was as natural as his original form, so he was able to hit both goblins at once, one with his sword and the other with his tail. The goblin he hit with his tail took one look at the changed Mike and ran off. The other goblins that could did too. The one with the arrow in its leg crawled off after them. Two were dead.

Mike watched carefully until all the living goblins were out of sight, even the injured one, before turning to check on Jill and Sarah. He found Jill holding Sarah's hair out of the way while she threw up everything she'd eaten. "Is she okay?" Mike asked worriedly.

"She's just upset, she'll be fine." Jill replied. Sarah had stopped heaving so she helped her clean herself up. Sarah had dropped her bow at some point and it was lying on the ground near the spring.

"Come on, lets fill these up." Sarah said weakly, picking up one of the empty bottles. Jill nodded and grabbed the other one and they started filling them. Mike slithered around the clearing, watching for any more intruders. There weren't any and they'd soon filled all the bottles.

Sarah grabbed her bow and opened the portal. Mike waited for Jill and Sarah to go through before following them.

Back in her apartment Sarah put her archery equipment away. Turning back to the others she noticed that Mike was still a naga. "Uh, Mike, you might want to change back before you wreck the place with that long tail of yours." She said.

"Huh?" Mike replied, accidentally knocking over the recliner with said tail. "Oh." As before he concentrated on Sarah being safe and he was able to change back. "I guess that answers one question."

"What question? We already knew you could change back on your own." Jill asked.

"I'd only done it once, though. But the question I was referring to was whether a magical form like that could survive in our world. I thought I might revert when I came through the portal, but I didn't." Mike replied.

"That's a good point, in the Xanth books magical creatures couldn't survive in Mundania. I guess our world has enough magic in it for a naga to survive." Jill said.

"Are you alright now?" Mike asked Sarah, who was lying on the couch.

"Yeah, I guess." She replied weakly. Then she saw the bloody sword in Mike's hand and ran to the bathroom to throw up again.

"I guess she's not alright, after all." Mike commented.

"Maybe you should clean up that sword." Jill suggested, looking a little green herself.

"Oh, yeah, okay." Mike went into the kitchen and cleaned off the sword. He made sure it was dry before sheathing it. He untied the rope from his waist and put the sword down on the kitchen table.

As he was walking back into the living room Jill and Sarah were returning from the bathroom. "What's that?" Jill asked, pointing at the window.

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« Sarah's Shadow - 3 - Fear »

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