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Undertow	By : pronker Category: +M through R > Penguins of Madagascar Views: 11341 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I make no profit from this fanfiction set in Dreamworks' Penguins of Madagascar franchise. I do not own its characters, basic premise or settings.

Chapter List
- 1-1/?
- 2-2/?
- 3-3/?
- 4-4/?
- 5-5/?
- 6-6/?
- 7-7/?
- 8-8/?
- 9-9/?
- 10-10/?
- 11-11/?
- 12-12/?
- 13-13/?
- 14-14/?
- 15-15/?
- 16-16/?
- 17-17/?
- 18-18/?
- 19-19/?
- 20-20/?
- 21-21/?
- 22-22/?
- 23-23/?
- 24-24/?
- 25-25/?
- 26-26/?
- 27-27/?
- 28-28/?
- 29-29/?
- 30-30/?
- 31-31/?
- 32-32/?
- 33-33/?
- 34-34/?
- 35-35/?
- 36-36/?
- 37-37/?
- 38-38/?
- 39-39/?
- 40-40/?
- 41-41/?
- 42-42/?
- 43-43/?
- 44-44/?
- 45-45/?
- 46-46/?
- 47-47/?
- 48-48/?
- 49-49/?
- 50-50/?
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- 64-64/?
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- 70-70/?
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- 79-79/?
- 80-80/?
- 81-81/?
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- 85-85/?
- 86-86/?
- 87-87/?
- 88-88/?
- 89-89/?
- 90-90/?
- 91-91/?
- 92-92/?
- 93-93/?
- 94-94/?
- 95-95/?
- 96-96/?
- 97-97/?
- 98-97/?
- 99-99/?
- 100-100/?
- 101-101/?
- 102-102/?
- 103-103/?
- 104-104/?
- 105-105/?
- 106-106/?
- 107-107/?
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- 109-109/?
- 110-110/112
- 111-111/112
- 112-112/112
- 34
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- 36
"Moley, you look tired. Sit a while?"
Had he lost his overcoat and goggles somewhere? Frances had never seen him this disheveled or out of his basic outfit that stayed miraculously clean, given his living conditions. The muslin shirt and plain twill trousers shrouded his hunched shape while outlining shoulders the width of a lowland gorilla's. He waved a hand to dismiss her invitation.
"Frawnces waiting for trip, I can be ready --- "
"No, it's all right. I don't want my driver to fall asleep at the tiller. Sit. Have a deep fried morel. Here." She plopped one onto his lips and he munched.
"Mmm. Good cook. More morels?"
Twenty-four morels later, he relaxed enough to sit on her bed because there was no room for a chair. It creaked from his weight but held up. He must own muscles upon muscles, she thought, and then looked away. She played hostess, as Mom had taught. She sat beside him and handed him a drink of plain seltzer water.
"Twussnts? From where?"
"Fourth Street Food Co-op."
He belched from the water's bubbles. "This good, too. Frawnces, when we go?"
Frances made up her mind. "Tomorrow. We rest here tonight. Five hours more in a tunneler can't appeal to you at the moment, right?"
Had none of his harem or his mysterious dolphin friend ever shown consideration to him? His little eyes crinkled in puzzlement. He relaxed further into her memory foam and blinked two minutes straight before replying. "Yes. How you know?"
"I'm your drzhp, silly. You knew I felt bad about maybe leaving Mom's china hutch behind for Jeff to scrap into firewood and I know you're tired tonight. Honestly, Moley, you're something else, you know that?" She patted his knee and he winced.
"Sore knee? Too much pumping the pedals? The clutch in the Mrsdm turning stiff? What's the problem?" She had never driven the vehicle and could only guess at its gear mechanisms, even after all these months. He likely had driven far for a rendezvous with his friend. He looked numb in the brain and in the bottom from too many miles traveled at one time.
His gaze remained hooded as he sidestepped her slur against his vehicle, even though she'd only wanted to know for practical repair purposes. Really, men of any stripe and their love of their personal machines made her roll her eyes. "Flpr turned crazy. Maybe I no visit him anymore." He played with the white hair at her temples contrasting with the sienna strands. She let him tuck the snowy lovelocks behind her ears.
"Oh, too bad. I imagine that kings don't have many friends, at that." She waited to hear the whole story before he passed out. He slumped further into the memory foam until he leaned back on his elbows. The shoes that resembled Red Wing work boots that she used to wear in the dirty Hoboken Zoo habitats showed crusty salt up over the laces. He'd tromped through swampland at some point. The New Jersey Dismal Swamp? That wasn't far, so why had it taken him a week over schedule to return? Not that she'd been keeping track for bookkeeping purposes. Their relationship was more comfortable than that.
He twisted his generous lips. "Frawnces not understand."
Oh, really? "Hold on, Moley, I'm human, t--- er, I've been there and done that. I've cut ties with friends deliberately and not so deliberately."
"Why?" He seemed wide awake when she'd thought him nearly down for the count.
She sighed. "There never seems to be a good enough reason when it's all over and done with, you know? I realized from the get-go that college friendships fall by the wayside after a few years, but when I lost my job as zookeeper, I lost networking friends and those who seemed friends even outside of work. When I moved from my apartment into the boarding house, that cinched it." It was silly to her at the time that she missed potlucks, dressy benefits, and schmoozing with Tri-State bureaucrats, but there it was. Santeria took the place of all such socializing.
"Life hard."
"You got that right."
He rubbed her palm. "No one stayed?"
"Not one. Then my mom passed, but, well, it's all right now that I met Godmother Felicity and my Godfamily so don't feel sorry for me --- "
"And Warriors." He clacked her nine copper bracelets before tracing their etched exteriors.
This was tricky to explain. "I need the Warriors and Oyá in my life, but yeah, there's no substitute for a hug from Felicity and her family, who are now my family."
"Flpr no hug me when we meet last week. He is ... different. I think he outgrowed me."
Delicately, Frances asked, "Does that hurt?" Likely he'd tough it out like the impassive royalty she'd seen on TV, but he surprised her.
"It hurt. Whash can I say?"
He was back to diddling her lovelock, his broad hand brushing her ear. He hummed a tune she would never be able to, because his subsonic rumble rattled her chest, rose in pitch to tickle her ears and then shrieked into the range she couldn't hear. She could tell he was still vocalizing by the way his Adam's apple bobbed. Her scientific curiosity rose along with his Adam's apple and it seemed this was a good time to ask a question when he neared vulnerability in sleepiness.
"Did you travel to the ocean to visit your friend?"
"No, to round lake. Flpr swim upriver."
Round lake? She let this drop because she really wanted to know how rather than where. "Moley, how did you talk with a dolphin?"
The apple bobbed again and then she knew how in an epiphany before he spoke. "Like thish." Squeaks descended tonally and then rose to fade away, again and again. If she'd been back at Hoboken, the zoo contained spectrum analyzers to measure high frequencies and maybe she'd measure his to write a paper on it to get international recognition. Her voice turned excited.
"Sonar, dolphins use sonar and bats use radar, of course the communications are similar and you can speak to animals that way, you can, against all odds ... " She trailed off in deep thought. Did a small 14.7 percentage of bat exist in his genome? Now that is whackadoo science, Frances, she chided herself, but she couldn't stop speculating. Did he acquire the vocalizations when he ate bats? Stop! That's Lamarckian! Get hold of yourself, Frances! Besides, you don't know he eats bats.
A brain fart exploded from deep in her cerebral cortex and rose into her corpus callosum. Frances, what if he eats cave bugs for protein, like worms and scorpions and, I mean, morels taste divine yet one's body needs protein ---
His eyes widened. "Never thought of that." He shrugged when she disengaged his hand from her hair to place it on the coverlet between them. "Frawnces smart."
She glanced towards her airlock front door, where the orichas lived. If she resumed a completely scientific mindset, she would change back into what got her into trouble: purity. No, she'd not exchange her friendship with him, her friendship with Felicity or the Santeria pipeline into the spiritual side of life for cold science. "Smart enough not to upset the applecart, my drzhp."
His head dropped back as he lay flat, his arms to his sides and feet still on the floor. "Okay, you rest here and I'll stretch out in the Mrsdm." He didn't reply as she unlaced his boots, their laces stiff with salty mud. "Ooof, cooperate here, Moley. Point your toes."
"Mmmm, whash?" A firm tug and the boots came off to reveal dingy socks.
"Ugh, you can rinse these out to dry overnight." He snorted into a snore as he snuggled into her pillow. She grimaced. "Or I can do it for you. No, no, don't thank me. Big push, get these legs onto the bed, one two three lift, there you go."
Frances flung a corner of her coverlet atop Moley's bare feet. She held the socks in two pinching fingers as she marched eight steps to the sink in the tiny bathroom to soap the offending hosiery. A squeezing rinse in clear water and they were done. In the absence of a washer/dryer combo, this laundering method served well enough for dainties and there was always the 85th Laundromat Inc. five blocks away for her muumuus, caftans and such. She strung the sox over the mirror.
The Mrsdm showed signs of clinging mud and tupelo leaves stuck in the door hatch. Oh, so not the Dismal Swamp of New Jersey but the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia and North Carolina. Inside the swamp, Lake Drummond was naturally round and nobody knew why. It fit that a mysterious natural feature was venue to such an unusual meetup of alphas. She gripped the removable seat cushions and yanked. The two unfolded into a serviceable narrow bed when placed together and she lay down.
Lying on the floor of the Mrsdm, Frances let her mind play free as she settled in for sleep. Moley could be part bat, or he could be more than the not quite human that she'd concluded in the beginning of their relationship because a lot more than not quite human would explain some things, like his startling night vision, for instance. Hmmmm, could this development change their friendship? She wanted him in her life as before. No, she'd not allow their mutual trust to degrade.
She dreamed of Batman when she slept, a true Batman with leaf-shaped ears, a piercing cry and tiny eyes. Dream Batman was tall and slender like Val Kilmer and when he produced a blob of pollucite from his utility belt to throw at the Riddler, Frances jolted awake.
Thursday dawned as they departed for Howe Caverns and made good time getting there.
IOIOIOIOIO
Seventy-seven minutes after the Tappan Zee bridge, Skipper called for a break. He allowed the Hudson to float them south for five minutes. Private plunged his head into the chill waters in a bracing dip. "Um, Skippa, we're losin' ground, I mean water. It doesn't seem like your usual gungho-ness."
Skipper ignored the sally. "Follow me." His speed undiminished by the backpack's drag on his hydrodynamic shape, he swam into and out of sight underwater as Private took up caboose position. The two penguins hauled butt and when Skipper sounded, Private followed unhesitatingly.
Down, down to the bottom of the Hudson they sped, feeling the difference between their saltwater pond in Central Park Zoo and the mighty river. Cloying fresh water plastered their feathers to their bodies, side currents tugged them this way and that and they touched bottom. Even their penguin vision strained to make out each other in the inky depths two hundred feet down to a gravelly bottom. Skipper put his flippers out and they hugged before swimming leisurely to the surface.
Once they breathed evenly again, Skipper asked a question. "Private, how did the dive go for you?"
"Swimmin'ly."
Skipper smacked his cheek. "You little pipsqueak, I mean are you noticing the difference between our habitat's pond, the Atlantic that you and Hunter messed around in all the way to Antarctica, and your Saturday night bath with your rubber duckies? Did you at least feel the tidal pull?"
Private turned over to look up at the stars. "Give me the backpack now, Skippa."
"Then will you answer?"
"I'll think about it."
"No insubordination, soldier, I don't care what we are to each other. We've arrived at our nation's military academy. This is important because the river is deepest here at West Point. By Putnam's periwig, let's show some military discipline." Skipper opted to switch out carrying the backpack after fifty-nine miles. He attuned the straps to Private's more compact form and yanked one hard enough to spin him. "Report."
The look Private gave in return was a measured and mature regard. He ticked off his impressions on his flipper, but since he only had one thing to tick, he had to go back to it with his other flipper again and again. "One, righto as you said, I feel fresh water draggin' me down. Two, the Atlantic makes me feel right at home since I was a baby in it, so to speak, and this river is new territory, sort of challengin', if you take my meanin'. Three, I saw a sturgeon off to our right. She looked old and tired and long as a Yugo."
Skipper blinked. "You did?"
"So you didn't?"
"No. Congratulations, Private, you glimpsed the biggest fish in the Hudson. No wonder you caught your trophy fish when you were just a tween."
Private harrumphed. "That was an accident and you know it."
"Well, duh, the catching was since we all helped you to land it, but you spotted it first. Never downgrade yourself, babe. The world might, but you don't have to."
Seeing that Private needed time to chew on the words, Skipper porpoised as he made up the five minutes' drift while he headed north again. He didn't look back. Private would follow eventually, as he grew used to the weight on his back. For the moment, it was enough to shed the burden of both the backpack and his beloved companion for a little me-time. With one third of the voyage completed, life was good and the March constellations agreed.
Ahah, there was the Lynx! Kowalski had spouted one of his tall tales about how the constellation was named for Lynceus, who sailed with Jason and the Argonuts, a batty group of Greeks. Lynceus had keen eyes and could even see things underground. No wonder Jason wanted him along on the mission to recover the Golden Fleet. Some imagination, that Kowalski. What were he and Rico doing now?
Private was only a little winded to show how he had raced to meet his love. "Say puffpuff Skippa, K'walski didn't mention any sharks in gasp the Hudson, did he?"
"Crap, no! Did you spot one?" Automatically, Skipper formed a perimeter as he protected Private's blind side. He craned his head this way and that.
"Mmmm, I was just wonderin'." The commander discarded his impression of Private as ninety-five percent mature and reduced it to seventy-three percent.
"Penguins never make it to the Endless Iceberg if they tell lies, Private." Skipper took off north again before Private could giggle.
IOIOIOIOIO
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Undertow