Untitled	 Rating: PG-13, I suppose, for violence 
Pairing: none 
Spoilers: none, unless I missed one. 
Note1: Very strange things fall out of my brain sometimes.  This is one of
those times. 
Note2: "carabao" is a water buffalo in the Philippines.  No, I didn't know
that when I started this fic, nor is it particularly relevant. 
Warnings: Deathfic (yeah, it seriously weirded me out, too) 
Disclaimers:  The usual - unowned but not unloved, yadda, yadda, yadda. 
If they get dirty or overheated, I'll hose 'em off before I put 'em up. 
Anything more than a friendly handshake is at your own risk, folks, just
like real life. 
Feedback: yes, please.  Comments to mhhealey@iastate.edu 

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

Birdie and the Buffalo Soldier 
MHH 

Ray Vecchio muttered something under his breath and stretched on the sweet
dry grass, content.  Asleep.  The first really sound sleep he'd been able
to enjoy in what seemed like centuries; he dozed under a bright summer
sun, wrapped in the profound silence of a world at peace. 

Except for the whisper of the zephyr through the seedheads, that is.  Ray
pressed one ear to the ground and sighed.  White noise, he thought
fuzzily.  Nothing but the soft summer breeze rattling a few grass stalks. 

And the fretful call of mother birds to their exuberant young. 

And confused diurnal crickets. 

And the buzz of diligent insects. 

Ray had almost convinced himself to ignore these small breaches of the
peace when a little light-footed SOMETHING settled with a quiet whirr on
his right shoulder.  Yelping, he rolled to his feet and pawed fruitlessly
for his gun. 

Awake as adrenaline surged through his sleep-fogged system, it took a
moment for Ray to realize he had no gun.  In fact, he had no clothes.  The
world looked a little skewed, too, but that might just be his somnolent
eyes.  He was just beginning to wonder why he'd been napping nude in a
field full of crickets when a ragged bundle of white feathers landed a few
feet from his newly-wakened nose. 

The dustmop shook itself and resolved into a marginally tidier white bird,
slim and quick.  Ray was surprised at its nonchalant proximity; he'd never
been good with animals, nor one to draw their confidence.  He was almost
grateful for the company in this puzzling situation.  Then the bird
spoke.  "Geez, Vecchio, nice to see you, too.  C'mon, c'mon, we gotta go
see Fraser.  I've been flying recon all morning looking for your sorry
butt.  Get a wiggle on, willya?  He won't wait, you know.  He'll just go
charging off and then we'll have to find him, which is a whole lot harder
than finding you.  He won't wait.  He never waits." 

The bird subsided into incoherent mutterings and an impatient shuffle
dance.  Ray sighed.  Fraser.  Every weird thing that ever happened to him
could be put on Fraser's account.  Why should this be any different? 
Talking birds and sleeping in his birthday suit in a meadow probably did
maximize the bizarre, even for Fraser-class eccentricity.  Resigned to his
place as the permanent punchline to some cosmic joke, Ray sighed again,
flicked at a persistent fly with his tail and prepared to follow the
birdie. 

Flicked a fly.  With his tail.  Fly.  Tail.  Ray whipped around, trying to
figure out where he'd gotten a tail and the ability to use same.  He
didn't seem to bend that far.  Whirling until he was dizzy, he changed
approaches and stopped.  Breathless, he waited for the earth to quit
lurching under his feet.  His FOUR feet, he noted somewhat hysterically. 
He closed his eyes and thought about moving the tail he knew he didn't
really have.  Nothing.  Ray wasn't sure whether the lack of response was
good or bad, but he felt a certain amount of relief all the same. 
Concentrating on his rump, he barely noticed the bug on his ear or how one
lazy flap of that appendage evicted the pest.  The motion of a fringed
earlap caught his peripheral vision and set off another frantic
tarantella.  Eyes rolling wildly, Ray finally had to admit that whatever
lurked just beyond his sight was somehow attached to him, even if trying
to get a good look at it was like trying to track a floater on his
eyeball. 

The bird took all these gyrations in stride.  "C'mon, Vecchio,
pitter-patter." 

"Stanley?!?" 

"Don't CALL me that.  I hate that.  Nobody's called me 'Stanley' since I
left the nest." 

"You're a bird." 

"And you're a water buffalo.  So?  You mean something by that?" 

"I'm a what?" 

"A water buffalo.  Big flappy ears, grey hide, split feet, and a tendency
to lick the inside of your nose.  Digusting habit, by the way.  Really
grosses me out."  A practiced hop and snap signaled the demise of some
winged insect. 

"You eat bugs!" 

"Yeah?  At least I don't stick my tongue places tongues shouldn't go." 
With an impossible contortion, Raybird wiped his yellow beak on his rump
and preened his flight feathers with the collected oil.  "Will you shake
your tailfea ... uh, rump already?" 

He felt like arguing, just to be contrary, but it wasn't like he had any
other plans for the day.  He hadn't even planned on being a water buffalo,
but apparently his was the last opinion consulted in these matters.  Head
down, he plodded in the direction his birdbrained companion indicated, and
held fast to the thought that he was going to see Benny.  See him, and
kill him. 

The long footslog offered an unparalleled opportunity to reflect and
contemplate.  Ray amused himself with thoughts of bloody revenge, images
of trampled serge settled comfortably in his bones.  Kowalski alternated
between frenetic leaping and flapping after the bugs Ray stirred up in
passing and querulously perching on Ray's right horn. 

The images of rumpled Stetsons gradually lost their allure, replaced with
scenes of bloodied birds.  Only gradually did the content of Kowalski's
monologue register on Ray's tired and distracted brain.  They were headed
into a firefight, to join Fraser in his usual headlong dash to disaster. 
The opposition, aka forces of evil, were well-prepared and dangerous, as
f.o.e. tend to be.  Their chances of success hovered uncertainly between
"none" and "negative none".  Ray lumbered to a vexed halt. 

"We're headed toward certain death, is that right?  Why?  What's the
point?" 

The egret replied, "The point is that Fraser's our friend, and we stand by
our friends, doofus." 

"That's it?  'This is Fraser, so just shut up and die already'?  Where is
that written?" 

"Look, Vecchio, it's not like we haven't been through this before. 
Fraser.  Certain death.  You moan and I freak and somehow it all comes
right in the end.  You'll see.  Just remember to cut me some slack when we
get closer up and I lose it, okay?" 

Ray thought about it for awhile, shifting a little on sore hooves.  They
were going to Fraser because Fraser needed them.  Right.  Good.  That made
sense.  Danger or no, Benny needed him and he would go.  Stupid or not, it
was the right thing to do.  He couldn't help thinking a little wistfully
about the advantages of grenades and assault rifles, despite his current
lack of opposable thumbs.  If all he could offer was himself,
uncomfortably clad in hooves, horns, and tail, then that's what he'd bring
to the table, ante up, and put on the line for his friend.. 

"Okay.  Lead on, McFeathers." 

A short way on, the earth turned blackened and scorched, although the soil
itself was cool and dry.  Carcasses, antelope and zebra, kudu and okapi,
littered the ground.  The egret flew short search patterns, circling an
increasingly anxious water buffalo. 

When Kowalski gave an excited cackle and shot off, Ray broke into an
uncomfortable amble.  Muttering threats against avian life, all avian
life, he organized his limbs into a stiff canter.  Topping a rise, head
lowered for more push, he smacked forehead-first into something yellow. 

Ray skidded to an awkward halt, wondering yet again why he'd been saddled
with a bulky and graceless form, and stared at the lion he'd accidentally
upended.  A very large lion, not as large as Aslan in the Narnia stories,
but still a very substantial lion.  The animal rolled partway down the
incline, bowling into and over various other veldt wildlife as it tumbled
end over end.  Something in its size and cumbersome recovery reminded him
of Turnbull.  The stammered apologies clinched it. 

"Hello, Ray." 

Another lion, not so large as Turnbull, but with more presence. 
Charisma.  Serene and powerful where Turnbull dithered. 

"Benny", Ray acknowledged.  "I like the hat.  Never go anywhere without
that Stetson, do you?" 

Fraser shrugged one eyebrow and surveyed the horizon, eloquent in
silence.  "It's good to see you, Ray." 

"Good to see you, too.  What brings you here?" 

"I first came to the savanna on the trail of my father's killer.  You know
that, Ray.  Are you unwell?" 

"You could say that, Benny."  Ray laughed, a resonant basso profundo
wheeze.  "I'm not myself today." 

"Ah." 

"So fill me in.  Pretend I haven't heard any of it before, and start at
the beginning." 

Fraser's eyes narrowed, in irritation or thought.  "The full exposition
would take hours.  The shorter version, leaving out the most tangential
and least relevant historical background, still takes an hour or more to
impart.  Very, very briefly, condensing our situation into the most
succinct telling possible, the villains are there, we are here, and those
we protect are moving as rapidly as practical towards safety over there." 

"We're all that stands between the bad guys and the public?  That sound
familiar."  Ray stretched and looked around at his fellow defenders. 
"There's more of us than just the dozen or so of us here, right?  Please
tell me there are reinforcements in reserve somewhere out of sight?" 

"No.  Just us." 

"Figures.  How many baddies?" 

"At least fifty, perhaps more." 

"Sucky odds", Ray muttered.  "Okay.  What do you need me to do?" 

Fraser grinned with a mouth full of very pointy white teeth.  "Be
yourself.  Do whatever you see needs doing.  Hold on as long as possible. 
The longer we can hold them here, the more innocents we save.  Oh, and
please stop knocking Turnbull over.  He IS on our side, after all." 

"Evidence otherwise notwithstanding", piped the egret, an animate plume
nodding incongruously atop the Stetson.  Ray looked at the young lion,
who'd regained his position on the height.  Saw him tremble but overcome
his fear long enough to speak soothingly to the white-eyed zebra beside
him. 

They settled down to wait.  Fraser has been right, there wasn't time
enough for even the condensed version of the tale.  Ray felt the ground
vibrate, saw dust rise in a choking cloud, watched the massed opposition
grow larger and much more threatening.  No mere fifty, they numbered
closer to three times that.  All big bruisers, not a meerkat or egret
among them. 

Ray took one last deep breath.  "This is it, huh?" 

"I'm afraid so." 

"That's good.  That's great.  I can do this.  Greatness.  See ya on the
other side, wherever that turns out to be."  With a scream that sounded
more like a laugh than anything Ray had been able to rumble, the
lightweight bird launched himself into the air.  Fierce and fearless, he
careened through the sky like a demented shuttlecock, drawing every eye. 
Two pounds or less of feathered defiance.  The opposition had nothing
light enough to touch him.  To crush him, they'd have to catch him first. 

Ray grinned.  He'd be easier to catch, but harder to bring down. 
Three-to-one wasn't great odds, and he'd probably have to bring down
Stanley's three as well, but he could do it.  He had to, and he'd always
been good at doing whatever was necessary.  Shoulder to shoulder with
Fraser and a kudu with beautiful five-foot long spiral horns, he waited
for his destiny. 

Fraser had chosen well.  A dozen determined creatures could hold the
ground against a somewhat larger force.  Against overwhelming numbers, a
dozen peaceful, cornered creatures lasted exactly fifty-eight minutes and
change. 

White feathers smashed, ground into soil and gore, lost. 

Long spiral horns spiked through flesh, alone. 

Bloodied zebra stripes stretched beneath tawny fur, unmoving. 

Meerkats entwined, broken. 

A Stetson, and its owner, shredded. 

Grey hide streaked with sluggish rust. 

Ray gasped and sat up.  Groped for the lamp on the nightstand, and was
more than a little surprised by the sight of his own long fingers on the
switch.  Human fingers, not buffalo hooves.  Thought about waking somebody
for a talk, but decided that he'd let his partner sleep.  A dream that
strange would keep until daylight. 

That was the LAST time he'd let Kowalski order the pizza on a night that
Turnbull picked the movies. 
  

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