56 Deus Wrecks (1/2)

The stone forms lay on their sides and backs.It seems that very few people being attacked by a snake-chickens are standing in a balanced enough way to stay upright once transformed into stone.

Nelda's hands were shaking.[This will work.] She hoped her potentially-magic unconscious mind believed that.

Reg had dropped the unicorn horn, and it was found beside his frozen, contorted form. [If he'd been holding it, would it have turned to stone? Then we'd really be screwed.]

He was the closest, so she pulled it lose from the mud, cleaned the tip with her sweatshirt, and touched it to his chest.

[Nothing.]

She touched it to the skin on his check.

There was a faint ripple.She leaned forward, [Yes!].The pale stone started to bloom with a tint of color.As she watched it move outwards, at first slowing and then with an all-encompassing flash.

Reg slumped back onto the ground and took a deep whooping breath.

Nelda didn't wait any longer.They can't breathe as stone, does that mean they can suffocate?

She ran from person to person, tapping them with the horn.Most of them were more reminiscent of Pompea than classical Greco-Roman poses. She hesitated just a moment in front of the form of Phyllis.

[Any art museum would be glad to have that one.It would be called something like 'very pissed off dragon with a lot of teeth.' I must remember not to annoy her any more than is absolutely necessary.]

She tapped Phyllis's snout and then went back to the beginning. Reg was sitting on the ground with his head between his knees. ”Fuck me,” he muttered.

Back the way they had come from, the trees shuddered.Nelda spun in that direction, raising the alicorn like a sword.

Tyrone burst through, batting branches away from his face.”Hey, guys.What did I miss?”

#

It took the rest of the guys a while to get in a calm and conversational state.And any attempted 'help' from Nleda or HoneyBeard was distinctly unappreciated.

So they sat on one of the old logs with Tyrone propping his em=lbows on it between them.His snakey form was looped around the large exposed roots of the fallen giant.In the bright sun, the tessellated pattern of his scales was clear to see.Kind of like a cloud leopards spots but accepted with erratic spots of lime green and gold.

”It's all too easy,” Nelda said.

HoneyBeard gave her that look.The one he reserved for new achievements in idiocy.