Julie and the Cursed Ruins, chapter 10

The Teo and the Pele were victorious. But it was not a glorious victory.

Scores of warriors lay on the field, either dead or wounded, joined by scores of fallen Exiles, whose only crimes—aside from the actual criminals—were following a madman who wanted power.

They would sing of this victory, but only how they stopped the madman from escaping the island and doing possible irreversible damage to the outside world. They would mourn their dead and the dead of the Exiles. They did not deserve this treatment, after all the suffering they had to go through. Perhaps the Gods would show them the kindness they didn’t get in life and let them live out eternity in the upper afterlife.

The battlefield was littered with bodies and the stench of death had already begun to settle in. Scavengers were drawn to this soon-to-be sacred location to pick on flesh of the dead, or at least the ones who were not picked up by Teo and Pele tribesmen immediately following the battle. The ones the scavengers did get to had to be reclaimed from the hungry scavengers so as they could receive the proper funerals and not suffer further humiliation as to being picked apart by these scavengers.

The exception, of course, being the poacher Phillip, whom everyone rightfully believed, even just looking at him, that he was a complete and utter bastard. He’d encroached and poached on nature, and so he must return to nature in the most humiliating way his dead body and soul could receive. No one bothered to chase away the buzzards that were already picking at him.

The clean-up took several hands of time to complete. The wounded were carried away first to be treated, both by the medicine men, and the palemen doctors, who came with the researchers. Some of them moaned in their death throes, others moaned because they were in pain. But they did let the medicine men and doctors tend to them, even though there were far more wounded than doctors.

The dead were simply picked up and placed on carts to be taken away for cremation or burying. They would get first-class funerals celebrating their lives.

Julie hadn’t seen such a sad aftermath of a victory in her entire life. Most of the time, victories were celebratory occasions, with a lot of partying, cheering and taunting the opponent. Then again, most of the victories she had been a part of were sports victories. This wasn’t sport, this is war. And NOBODY wins in a war, especially when nobody should have fought that war in the first place.

But she did also remember the term “pyrrhic victory”, and it was pretty much agreeable that this may have been the case right here.

And Gina seemed to concur, what with the way she looked around at the remains of the carnage, shaking her head and watching one of the doctors tend to a wound Julie received without knowing it, and ignored because of the flowing adrenaline. “Wow,” she said. “This is…”

“Hard,” Julie replied.

The both of them had to acknowledge their middle-class Western privilege, in this sort of event. The closest people from say, Auckland or Palo Alto can get to this kind of brutal warfare is watching Gladiator or Black Hawk Down.

Or maybe they could just do what one of Julie’s professors did and take them to the streets of certain Oakland neighborhoods where this kind of violence happens way too fucking often, only with guns and gang wars, not because of the spirit of some sorta-fascist-ish evil sorcerer manipulating the wretched of the island into following him.

She winced when the doctor sewed her up. “Take it easy, Julie!” said Gina.

“Sorry,” Julie replied.

“I’m just glad things worked out,” said Gina. A glance over to Manti, Kawa, Kame and Karza kinda made that a little moot, and just looking at them she could tell they were pretty unhappy about what just happened.

She wanted to know what they were talking about, and theoretically she could, since there’s no misogynistic bro-code or something that would make them want to kick her out. No, she could listen in on their conversation any time she wanted, and she’d done it long before. Like when she told Karza she wanted to stay on the island with him, and he had a long discussion about it with the two men Julie quipped were like his gay dads.

No, it looked like they just needed to be alone for a few minutes.

“Why do you keep causing trouble?” Gina asked. “Actually, I think trouble tends to find you.”

“I wish I could say,” Julie replied. The Jungle Girl flopped backwards onto the dirt, splaying out her arms and legs in a bunch of directions that, don’t worry, were still the correct ways arms and legs can go. “What’s next? Some Indiana Jones cult pops up on this island? Or I have to deal with dumb militia bastards who idolize me as some white goddess teaching the savages how to live, even though it’s the other way around and I’m not a fucking goddess? Or maybe I just have to deal with some ecological satire shit and bash some corrupt CEO’s brains in. Or better yet, fucking neo-Romans!”

“Do you wanna go back to Palo Alto?”

“Fuck no.”

“Right… Neo-Romans?”

“What? We have witches on this island, don’t be surprised!”

“Julie!”

Karza walked up to them, sat down and examined Julie’s stitches. “Manti and Kame want to destroy the ruins.”

“After all that?” Julie groaned.

“Yeah,” said Karza. “Manti felt it was more trouble that it was worth to keep them standing, since he’s afraid RF could come back.”

“But that freak’s a lizard now,” she said. “And besides, those things need to be studied. Just imagine what we could learn from it! Like how all these animals got here, or why the civilization died out!”

“But Julie—”

“No ‘buts’, sweetie,” she interrupted. “RF’s a lizard now, what power does he have?”

“Julie…” Karza sighed. “You are so stubborn.”

“I know, and I’m sorry,” she said.

But it was obvious to anyone watching, Gina especially, that this conversation was going nowhere. This was probably one of those times where their respective headstrong personalities clashed, which would only lead to a lot of trouble. It was probably for the best when Gina said, “Let us study the ruins, and then you can destroy it.”

The Jungle Couple looked at each other and Julie nodded. “Fine,” said Karza.

“We will be taking things, though,” said Gina. “And I can’t guarantee we’ll be done in a week. In fact, we’ll have to bring in some archaeologists.”

A sigh escaped Karza’s lips as he ran his hand through his unkempt hair. “I’ll run it by Manti and Kame,” he said, getting up to walk over to Manti and Kame.

“You didn’t have to do that,” said Julie.

“The both of you are headstrong and stubborn,” said Gina. “And until you both work it out, I had to do something.”

“Fine,” said Julie.

Just moments later, Karza returned. “They agree,” he said. “But your archaeologists have a month.”

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

The new archaeologists came in the next day and immediately got to work on the two sites. To ensure their safety, Kame kept a charm on the jar that contained RF’s new lizard body to keep him from escaping and tormenting the island again. It apparently worked because RF’s lizard body watched angrily while the archaeologists worked on the ruins.

Most of the work was surveying the site, mapping it and getting rid of any of the moss that had grown over the centuries. Removing artifacts from the site would come later, although with the quick schedule, they had to take care of that as soon as possible. The Teo ordering that the ruins be destroyed kinda put things in the fast lane, which didn’t help the archaeologists one bit.

Still, it was probably better than watching them go up in flames. But just in case, the researchers did offer their demolitions explosives for the cause, which would be a lot better than letting the Teo burn the place and start an all-consuming wildfire, or at least that’s the fear. The Teo aren’t a bunch of cavemen who have no idea how to use fire. Quite the opposite in fact, and one of their most popular gods to worship is their Fire Goddess, who was similar to, but nothing exactly like the Hawaiian goddess Pele (she didn’t even have the same name as the Hawaiian goddess).

But unfortunately, no one was satisfied, and it felt like a cop-out instead of some decent ending to a bad pulp novel. At least, that’s how Julie felt, since she wanted Karza to learn his lesson about curses—they only work if you believe them, and it turned out that some sorcerer’s spirit was inhabiting the ruins. That’s not a curse, that’s a haunting.

“Karza,” she said.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I still think you need to rethink curses,” she said.

Since it came right the fuck outta nowhere, the Jungle Dude was confused, to say the least. He didn’t say much as he turned his head towards her, but she kept the stern expression that told him she wasn’t backing down from this.

“After everything that happened?” he asked.

“That’s not a curse,” she said. “That’s a haunting.”

“But still—”

“Karza,” she interrupted, gently and lovingly stroking his cheek. “You faced your fear of the ruins. You should be proud of yourself.”

He could see that pride in her wide eyes. Those eyes were not Michele Bachmann wide, but wide enough that they looked constantly happy instead of weird like Bachmann’s. It was also balanced out by a subtle chestnut shape, probably the only indication of the little bit of Native American heritage that she had, too, coming from the last bits of heritage from the last remnants of the tribes native to the Bay Area. Sadly, there aren’t very many.

“Thanks,” he said as he kissed her forehead, not needed to bend down much. “Still think we should give you a new name.”

She laughed, but not derisively. “Why don’t we hold off on that for now?” she asked. “Although, I don’t like Juju, that just doesn’t sound right. ‘Juju the Jungle Girl’? Come on.”

Karza didn’t have an answer for that, so he scoffed like he was unimpressed, fully aware that Julie wasn’t going to fall for it one bit.

“By the way, what about the survivors of RF’s army?” Julie asked.

“That was part of the discussion a couple days ago,” said Karza. “Manti and Kawa want to reintegrate the non-criminals back into their respective societies. Some of the villagers did not join RF, and have refused to return, so the ones who want to will be given help.”

“You know what?” Julie asked. “That’s… actually good to hear.”

“Yeah, Manti said he felt guilty about how the Exiled blamed him and Kawa for their problems,” said Karza. “He’ll have to tell them it’s not their fault they joined RF, but that they shouldn’t have a scapegoat.”

Sometimes it’s a confluence of reasons as to why people fail, Julie remembered her professor talking about. Sometimes it’s because of reasons outside their control, and sometimes it’s because they made all the wrong decisions in life. She never really questioned the whole turning-into-a-jungle-girl thing because she didn’t regret it one bit. What’s there to question when you don’t have any regrets about your chosen path in life?

But following some dictator because he makes false promises is just asking for trouble. At some point, you’ve gotta take responsibility for yourself, and that’s both a conservative and liberal belief, although it’s also a good idea to help those who need it,

“By the way, what about Tim?” she asked. “I think the researchers were—‘

“I’m sorry I’m late!” the man in question called when he ran up to the Jungle Couple, dressed in Teo clothing and sporting a temporary tat with the same design as the one Karza had on his right arm, and by extension, many Teo tribesmen wore.

“Tim, what—what’s going on?” Julie asked.

“Sorry!” Tim said, doubled over but smiling and saluting. “The craziest thing happened; when I woke up, I found out I could speak the Teo language!”

The Jungle Couple exchanged confused and curious glances, but Julie’s was worse. “Um, what?” she asked.

“Yeah, I know, crazy, right?” Tim replied. “I guess I should’ve told you earlier, right?”

“But, how can—”

“Julie!” Karza laughed. “We just saw the spirt of an evil sorcerer possess two people and a whole lot of other shit, and the thing you can’t believe is that Tim can speak a new language!?”

“But, but—oh, forget it! So what now, Tim?”

“Well, I want to join the Teo!” Tim replied happily.

“… Excuse me?”

“I talked to Manti and Gina. They like the idea and want me to be a translator-slash-ambassador-slash liaison between the researches and the tribe, so I’ll be kind of a technical tribesman, and they haven’t officially accepted me yet, but I can’t wait to start!”

“I need a fuckin’ drink,” Julie muttered.

“Oh, and the researchers are helping the Teo build a new village,” said Tim.

“ARE helping?” Julie asked.

“They already started,” said Tim.

“I need to sit down,” said Julie.

“Let’s just go back to the treehouse,” said Karza.

And so they departed for the treehouse.