Diaz Plan Chapter 16

The next morning, when Marco awoke and climbed a tree to get a sense of where they were, he spotted columns of smoke rising in the distance, which, after some observation, he figured were from chimneys, though he couldn't see any houses for the trees, yet.

Janna was awake already, having been the last to take watch last night. She whistled appreciatively as Marco climbed down the tree. She seemed to have recovered from what had happened last night, regained her confidence. "Smooth, Diaz," she called, as he tripped over himself on the landing. Marco pinned her with what he hoped was a smoldering look, and she blushed and glanced away. He kind of liked that.

"It looks like there's a village somewhere up ahead," he said, as he began to remove the pegs to his tent. Ferguson's tent was already down, and his chubby friend was nowhere in sight. That worried him. "I think we should head towards it. Maybe they'll be able to tell us something about where Star and my parents are? I imagine an interdimensional warlock would be big news."

"Didn't you say Mewni is sort of a...medieval world? Would we really fit in with the peasants and everything in our clothes?"

Marco shrugged. "I've been here before with my parents and we didn't get THAT much attention. Maybe they're just really used to interdimensional travelers."

"Hey...while he's not here...Marco, maybe we should talk about Ferguson? When I came out for watch last night, just went back to his tent and packed it up, then went out into the woods. The NOISES I heard..."

Just then, Ferguson popped through the bushes behind Janna. "My ears are burning!" he said cheerfully, and Janna shuddered. "There's a path up ahead," he continued, "With a sign on it pointing to some place called 'Bandit's Point'."

"Bandit's Point?" said Janna, skeptically. "Sounds great."

"I also have some stuff that may help us blend in," said Ferguson, unloading a heavy sack from his back. Within were some rough tunics, weird caps, the sort of thing that peasants in Mewni might wear. And three rusted, worn swords.

"Uh, Ferguson? W-where did you get these?" Marco lifted up one of the tunics.

"Let's just say I 'found' them," said Ferguson with a ghoulish grin.

"Is....is this blood on this one?" said Janna, lifting up a tunic.

Ferguson's grin grew considerably more ghoulish.

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It took them most of the day to reach Bandit's Point. The path, originally little more than a dirt trail, eventually grew larger, paved, leading them out of swamps and ruins and into a more pristine area of forest. It was dusk by the time they reached the village.

True to its name, Bandit's Point was a dim, nasty looking place, a small collection of ramshackle buildings that seemed to have been hacked together out of rotten, splintered wood, with filthy, crowded streets, and small, rat-faced inhabitants. As soon as they entered, Marco couldn't help but feel like they were being watched.

Marco wanted a place where they could maybe talk to some of the locals and ask them a few questions, but there didn't seem to be much in the way of public space in this town. Finally, Janna pointed out one run-down little building with a sign on it that seemed to indicate it was an inn. Kind of. There was no writing on the sign, just a beer mug, with a knife stabbed through it. But enough noise and light seemed to be coming from the place to indicate a common room.

They came in through the door, attracting nothing but a few incurious dances. The patrons seemed to be too busy crudely cheering on as a toothless old man played the piano, and a fat, ugly old woman did a 'dance' on one of the tables that exposed way too much of her pallid flesh.

Marco cleared his throat, then tapped one of the cheering patrons on the shoulder. The man turned around and gave him the most hostile glare imaginable. "What is it, you shitty little runt?"

"Um, excuse me, sir," said Marco, "But-"

"WHAT IS IT?!" roared the man. "I'M TRYING TO WATCH TITTIES HERE!"

"I-I-uh," stammered Marco, taken aback by the man's hostility.

The man spat at his feet and then turned his back on him.

Marco steeled himself, and then, prepared for almost any level of hostility, tapped another man on the shoulder.

The man turned around and without any hesitation whatsoever punched Marco in the face. "TITTIES!" he cried, spittle flying from his mouth. Then he went back to ignoring Marco.

They walked up to the counter of the bar, behind which a prodigously fat man was wiping dark grease into the counter with a filthy rag. "Are you the owner here?" asked Marco. The man grunted what Marco assumed was an affirmative. "Do you know anything about Princess Star Butterfly? Like where she might be?"

The man pinned Marco with a one-eyed glare. "I don't concern myself with what royals do."

"How about...um, a warlock? Have you heard anything about that?"

"No," the owner spat. "What do you want, boy? You want drinks? Rooms?"

Marco considered this. Night was falling, and it would be nice to sleep somewhere other than the tents. "Rooms would be nice," he said.

The Barkeep grunted, then said, "It's five copper a night. Or if you let her dance, it's free," he said, pointing at Janna.

"Me? Dance?" Janna said.

"Sure, girl. Old Rhonda's titties are plain awful to look at. Girl young as you, I bet your tits're nice and perky. Get totally naked, I'll even pay you for the business. Anything more than that, you'll just have to work out with each individual patron."

"I-I am not a whore," stuttered Janna, completely taken aback for once.

The Barkeep shrugged. "Could've fooled me."

Marco held back a furious Janna as Ferguson smiled his sickening smile and produced a purse full of coins that he had apparently obtained along with their clothes and swords.

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Marco lay on his bed, which was rough, threadbare and stuffed with straw, barely better than sleeping on the ground. There was still a dull roar from the common room downstairs, where Rhonda had apparently upped the ante of her performance. Marco planned to go back down there when things had died down a bit and ask around when people weren't distracted by sagging, veiny breasts. He shuddered at the memory.

"Marco," he heard Janna calling from her room. Hers was right next to his, and the walls were ridiculously thin here. "C'mere, check this out."

"What is it?"

"A surprise," and he could hear the smug coyness in her voice. He had been expecting this. After the previous night, she would be trying to get the upper hand on him somehow.

He sighed, got up and walked to her room. He didn't bother knocking, just entered and closed the door behind him. Her room was completely dark, except for the moonlight slicing through the window, illuminating a large tub in the center of the room, filled with steaming water, which Janna was lounging in. "Check it out, Diaz, I got them to bring me up a tub."

"Did you have to show the owner your tits for that?" he teased.

Janna splashed at him. "No! Fuck you. You're just jealous that I get a bath." She winked at him. "You can take one too, but you'd have to squeeze in here with me. It's a tight fit."

"You're right, maybe I should just leave." Marco turned around. There was a splash as Janna lurched out of the tub and tackled him to the floor.

"You are such a jerk, Diaz," she panted, the moonlight shining off the water dripping from her body as she looked down at him with lidded eyes. Marco could see nothing of her body, only the silhouette of her curves in the darkness. "Take off your clothes and get in the tub with me."

"And what will you do if I say no?"

Janna gave him an inscrutable look, then kissed him, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. "Ow!" he cried, but she was unbuckling his cloak, lifting his tunic above his head, kissing his chest, biting his shoulders. Her breathing was heavy, frantic almost. He pushed himself up on his shoulders as she slid his pants off, and then paused when his erection sprang into view. "Let's just get in the bath, Janna," he said, suddenly nervous.

Her eyes gleamed, predatory, as if she could hear the nerves he felt. "Maybe I want to get a little dirty before I get in the bath again," she said, and he felt her hand slowly creep along his thigh. "I owe you one, Diaz."

He laughed, trying to gain control of the situation, and stood up, kicking off his pants. "You don't owe me anything," he said, but before he got any further Janna shoved him, and he stumbled back onto the bed. "Hey, wait-" he began, but Janna was on him, pushing apart his knees, and her head was between his legs and then her mouth was on him, hot and wet. He collapsed back on the bed, his mind in a fog, watching her head bob up and down from his peripheral vision, feeling her gasp and moan even as she sucked him. When his hips began to buck she removed her mouth and moved up his body so she was nuzzling his neck while her hand stroked him, gasping into his ear with each twitch of his hips, until she moaned his name in his ear as he came.

Afterward, while he was still in a daze, she led him to the tub, guiding him in first and then getting in with him, sitting between his legs, resting her head against his chest. Marco could still taste the salty blood in his mouth from when she had bit him earlier.

"Janna," he began, but didn't get any further. She looked up at him, then awkwardly dragged his face down to hers to kiss him again.

"Be quiet," she said, almost whispering. She nuzzled against his chest again. "This is nice."

So they sat there in the tub, skin on skin, silently. Slowly, the din from the common room downstairs died down. Marco wrapped his arms around Janna, holding her to him. He could feel her trembling again. He closed his eyes and just listened to her breathing, enjoyed the feeling of her naked body against his, listening to the inn die down. He could hear people talking downstairs, though the noise had died down enough so that he could hear individual conversations.

Suddenly, he heard the word "princess." He perked up, startling Janna.

"What is it?" she asked, and he shushed her, straining his ears to listen. As the conversation went on, first he, and then Janna got out of the tub to get dressed.

"...She's at the old Poyle Farm, y'know, her and some older lady. Maybe the other one the boss is looking for." came a rough, wet-sounding voice from downstairs, the sentence punctuated by a hacking cough.

"How do you know that?" A smoother, hissing voice, harder to hear. "They're Queen's men."

"The Barretts saw 'em. We should go get her, yeah? The Queen would give in to all sorts of demands if we had her daughter hostage."

"We should just grab her and rip her pretty little head off," said a third, snarling voice. "Teach the Queen a lesson."

"Didn't the Boss say that he had a plan for her? Isn't he the reason she's out of the castle in the first place?" said the cougher.

"Yeah, but a new message came in today," said a fourth voice that Marco recognized as the Barkeep. "He says take her alive or dead."

There were a few moments of silence regarding this.

"I don't get it, why let her go if he just wants her dead now?" said the hissing voice. "Didn't the Boss want her to make it to the warlock a few days ago?"

"Oh, nuts to the Boss," said the snarler. "None of us even know who the hell he is."

"Yeah, because if the Boss let everyone know who he is, he'd be handed over to the Queen and have his head chopped off," said the cougher. "It's treason to do what he's planning."

"Oy, speaking of all this," said the Barkeep, "There were three kids in here earlier, askin' around about the Princess and the warlock."

Marco and Janna, now fully dressed, glanced at each other nervously.

"Yeah? And where are they now?" asked the cougher.

"Oh, I put 'em in the rooms upstairs."

There was a small pause.

"Roy, you fuckin' idiot. You can hear EVERYTHING from up there."

There was a clatter of chairs being pushed back, the sounds of three heavy men jumping to their feet. Marco swore, then grabbed Janna and his sword. "We have to get out of here, quick, quick, get Ferguson-"

The door creaked open, and Marco yelped. But it was just Ferguson, slipping into the room. "I heard everything," he said. "I've got all my stuff. We're getting out of here, right?"

"Yeah, we need some kind of distraction though-"

"Oh, I've got that covered," said Ferguson.

"OH GOD, WHERE DID ALL THIS FIRE COME FROM?!" roared the Barkeep from the bottom of the stairs.