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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/?
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- 50
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- 52
"So this is Congress. Color me unimpressed."
"Aw, Private, don't go all Brit on me. This represents where democracy happens, becomes real." The two penguins spoke in subdued voices. "Kowalski said he had to pry it out of Phil via Mason that how Howe named the rooms is for Americana."
Private sniffed. "Oh? Like Lake of Venus, Tower of Babble and Haunted Castle? A castle isn't very American to my way of thinkin'." He drifted airily along the nice, flat gravel walkway by the corroded human-sized handrail. Without the stream burbling nearby, the caverns seemed odd. Skipper trailed behind, unwilling to gloss over Operation: Spelunker Bunker by hurrying through it. Too bad that on a lovers' vacation, he couldn't order Private to stop and smell the history. He'd do his best to make the bird remember why they had come.
"It's Tower of Babel and there are so castles in America." Skipper surveyed Congress Hall, one of the largest rooms typically coated in glittering jewels of calcite and shards of faceted stalactites. The flowstone was particularly impressive, ribbons swirling on walls, red, yellow, green. Green represented copper traces, Skipper remembered. There was no purple to indicate rubidium. "Florida has Coral Castle near the old Homestead Air Force Base and there's Sing Sing Prison that we passed, what some call Castle on the Hudson."
Private stopped mid-waddle. "A jail? Not a castle, to my way of thinkin'." Something was up. If Private kept refusing to relax enough into enjoyment of non-sexual things, they may just as well head for home. Skipper was nothing if not determined, however.
"Before you say I can tell this is Congress Hall by all the hot air, let's look around." Startled by Private's attack of the giggles at the lame joke, Skipper smiled uncertainly, and he hated being uncertain. "Oh come on, drink in the atmosphere."
"H-Hot air atmosphere, Skippa?" Now the giggles didn't sound as pleasant as they generally did and Skipper frowned at the touch of hysteria.
"It's Americana."
"Nothin' bad about that, I-I s'pose." Private appeared to get himself in hand. "Okay, I'll sightsee, don't pout."
"Not." He hadn't expected to flare in anger with his love. "Shut up."
"Sir, yes, sir, shuttin' up now, sir." Another hour passed as they strolled along. Soon they waddled easily through openings that humans would need to crawl through. An enormous stalagmite sprouted towards the ceiling to miss joining with it by two feet. If the rock with signatures resembled Burt The Elephant And Friend, this glittery tower resembled Melman The Giraffe, tall and regal and the slightest bit goofy looking.
The mood changed between them as each contemplated the passage of time evidenced by the slow, steady growth of the stalagmite. Drips and drops deposited clear footprints of minerals to gild the top and sides of the structure. The drips of fluid infiltrating from the topside rainy world lost their shape by the time they reached the foot of the growth. Purling sounds more subliminal than not contrasted with the burbling stream they'd grown accustomed to as the smaller waters before them made their way downward to unseen caverns beneath. Skipper wondered where the flow stopped. He made the signal for -
"Bats!"
Skipper looked where Private pointed. Not live bats on the ceiling, but bones of bats festooned the walls of a chamber that matched Phil's grandiose description of the Haunted Castle. Every possible nook and cranny not draped with smooth flowstone held tiny bat bones. The skulls were the worst.
"Yeah, it's creepy - "
"Eeek! Oooh! It's disgusting!"
What the braaping hell? Private trembled as he hugged himself tightly. He switched to covering his eyes after a moment, peeking, shivering, and covering them again. Where was the brave penguin who dove to the bottom of the Hudson River at its deepest?
Skipper felt his expression twist into disbelief after he rolled his eyes. Really, Private? "That's a given." As commander, he strove to move past the stumbling block of horror. "Kowalski said to expect bat guano in Howe, but how could he predict a Haunted Bat Graveyard? Do you think we've stumbled upon a trove of aged bat guano, which would be worth thousands in the open phosphates market? Think of the fertilizer giving life to peanuts that the Winkie Factory makes into Peanut Butter Winkies, eh?" Private made his trademarked sound of reluctant agreement. "Come on now, get over it. Sheesh."
"I want to go home!" To his credit, Private clapped his flippers over his beak and appeared abashed at his words.
Time to be firm. "Well, we're not until Monday, so march along and don't look anymore if you feel that way about bones. It's nothing worse than other scenes we've come across. Remember how we assumed Manfredi and Johnson's remains were the ones attracting vultures in the Mojave Desert when actually it was that bubbling cauldron of maggots that was all that was left of - "
"Do not complete that sentence, Skippa, please. I've a sensitive stomach."
"And a sensitive everything else, but I love you anyway."
"We've established that."
"And I intend to reestablish it again, and again, and again tonight - "
"Don't make promises you can't keep."
Skipper brushed off the sting. "I never do, babe. Let's set up camp in the midst of death to prove life exists down here."
Private looked about. "Not here, not with death all around. Sorry, I'm not that brave or that dramatic."
Okay, he could give way now and again. Serendipity was worth a bend or two. "Your choice where, then." He straightened the Hello Kitty backpack with its extra blankets tied in horseshoe shape at its top that they'd foraged from Frances Alberta and her BFF, or whatever he was. BFF which meant Buffalo Fire Fighter, Baby Fat Flinger, Bowed Fiendish Fellow, meh. Kowalski could devise a better name for the strange person, if he were a person. He wondered what Rico and Kowalski had done today. Had they patroled as ordered? He snorted. Of course they had; neither Kowalski nor Rico were good liars and they'd crumble at his inquiry like a floppy - urk. He stopped the thought before placing himself into his own simile.
Private, in the meantime, did that adorable thing with his head, tilting it this way and that as he sensed their location. "The room needs brown walls."
"What the deuce?"
Private nodded firmly, waving them onwards in the direction of the area humans toured most. "It's that way and it has brown walls. I want it."
He'd rediscovered his boldness if he'd consider traveling towards human habitation, even though humans were long gone at this time of night. "You lead, babe, I'll follow."
Half an hour later, a cozy grotto unfolded in the gleam of the Maglites. Skipper compared it to the Blue Grotto of Capri: the Blue Grotto outshone in brash daylight hues, while this Bronze Room's earthy tones appeared more welcoming, somehow. He glanced at his smiling companion. The room was more Private-like. Skipper snugged his hip next to Private's before slipping off his backback. The backpack intruded bulk when he wanted feather-to-feather contact. After the jarring encounter with Cray Cray Lady and Friend, the night shaped up nicely.
Private nudged his temple against Skipper's. "Glad we're penguins, Skippa?"
"Always, Private, always."
"Me, too."
Skipper opened his eyes from blissful closure. "Wait, what's that on the far wall?"
At human height, black smut besmirched blotches atop the brown flowstone. The blobs betrayed human use of oil lamplight long ago, before Maglites. Skipper fought back a flare of disappointment that this wasn't a virgin cavern because if it weren't for humans, they never would have known about Howe Caverns and undertaken this restorative trip.
Private's beak drooped. "My sensin' recorded only that this room was brown and cozy and homey. It called to me like a magnet. Now the humans dirtied it. Pooh." His head sank on his snowy breast.
"I like this room. I think, Private, that we owe the humans a chance to enjoy it, too, how old Howe did way back when. Mama Nature made it so that birds aren't the only creatures on the planet."
Private's head shot up. "Strange to hear you talkin' about mammals, I mean non-crabby-like."
"Eh, I have my tolerant moments. Come on, let's set up camp and see where the night takes us."
"Yes! Oh, yes!"
IOIOIOIOIO
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Undertow