Once having finished his semi-controlled skid down the incline, Thibaud turned to Nova. He flashed a grin that was some odd hybrid of sly and sheepish. "Of course not. Those are perfectly valid points. But, if lost we could always climb up to see where we are in relation to anything important or burn our way out, if'n we should feel so destructive."

He wasn't above burning his way out. That way had the potential to bring chaos, destruction, and death to whatever got in the fire's way, but in the wake of fire was always the potential for rebirth and renewed growth, which appealed to his lineage's neutral standing in such matters.

"Pfft. Well, I could always carry them. I could finagle them through my belt loops so we both would have free hands should a dangerous situation arise. But, I may just be splitting hairs."

He then turned his attention to the river in front of them and crouched low at its banks. A little ways off from them was the tell tale slide of a Cayman leading into the water, a big one too. "Well, well. There be predators afoot."

“What? Predator?” Nova craned her neck and tried to see over Thibaud’s shoulder down to the river without doing a summersault into it. “Where? I wanna see!” The snake informed her that she was bouncing it around to much and she stopped hopping up and down, and then decided to peer under Thibaud’s arm instead. “Oh, MAN, it’s a thing with big teeth!”

She looked at the snake, looked at the man, then slipped past him and slid down into the edge of the river. “Hello, oh large thing that looks like a crocodile! How are you?”

---
OOC: Sorry it's short, my brain is, "ugh..."

[OOC: It's quite alright. It happens.]

Thibaud laughed. "Yeah. Probably the apex predator along this stretch of the river, if the size is any indication." He rose and clapped his hands together with a satisfied smirk, as if it were his whole idea finding the reptilian tracks in the soft mud along the river banks. Angling his head slightly to one side and quirking an intrigued brow, the man chuckled to himself.

"Wow. So, you have an affinity for all things scaly and cold-blooded, or is it just animal magnetism?"

The man straightened his posture and searched the surface of the murky water for signs of life beneath. A short bubbling from a yard or so away from the shore was all he could gather from just glancing around.

The large crocodile surfaced, or at least partly, only choosing to reveal its impressive head and twin trails of ridges down the sides of its back. 'Can't complain. I managed to nab a tapir a little ways down the river. A big one too, so my belly will be filled for a while.' The reptile paused and turned in the water to get a better look at the two people on the bank. 'I don't believe I've ever seen your sort out this far.'

Thibaud glanced between Nova and the two reptiles. He didn't hear a thing from the croc, aside from when it turned in the water. "Translation? No hablo English?" Spanish wasn't his strong suit. French, that was another story. He waved a hand over the arm opposite it to shoo away an overeager mosquito.

“He says that he’s eaten,” Nova said. “I can’t help it. Original sin and all that jazz, you know. Cold-blooded things seem to be attracted to me. And if it was animal magnetism, I would walk outside and squirrels would stick to me, okay?”

“My sort tries not to come anywhere this hot,” she told the crocodile. “It’s too much work with two legs and relatively useless lungs.”

The snake slid around her chest and extended the first foot-and-a-half of its body out towards Thibaud. It tilted its head and examined him with black eyes. He smells interesting, the snake said. Do you think he tastes any good?

“Don’t try to eat him,” Nova said, snickering to herself. “He won’t like it.”

"Ah good. I guess we don't have to worry about being on the menu. Or at least I don't since he's full and you have a rapport with all things scalie. Oh, have you ever tried talking to a Komodo Dragon? Bet that'd be interesting." Thibaud laughed at her squirrel comment. "I guess so."

The crocodile gave a low rumble from his chest. 'I imagine that those are good reasons as any. The waterways are far more kinder than the thick of the green. At least, they have been kind to me. Now, child, why have you and your two companions come to my stretch of river? Searching for something or are you lost?'

Thibaud quirked a brow as the snake extended itself towards him and gave him a good once over. He glanced to Nova, his other brow joining its dark opposite. "No, I wouldn't take kindly to being made a meal of." The man looked back down at the snake. "Don't be getting any ideas in that little skull of yours now."

Overhead a soft twittering grew louder, drawing Thibaud's attention skyward. The little bird from earlier fluttered down from the branches overhead and landed on the male's head. The bird fluffed up its feathers and gave a rough 'schreee' sound. "See, serpent, the bird agrees."

“I know he’s a punk,” Nova said in response to another of the snake’s silent comments. It tasted the air, and recoiled itself around her neck. She leaned down and rolled up the legs of her cargo shorts, snickering at the bird screeching from Thibaud’s head. “I don’t think that little featherbrain is giving you any credibility. Now, I have to set this croc straight. You may want to stay here.”

She waded farther out into the brown river, silently daring anything to try to bite off her toes. The snake pulled itself to the higher ground of her head and shoulders, muttering about stupid two-legged products of frozen evolution, and looked longingly back at the shore.

Nova put her hands on her hips. “Now, look here, my scaly, watery laddybuck thing,” she said in her best mothering tone, which wasn’t very good and simply sounded petulant. “Firstly, you may be old, but I’m older, so none of this child nonsense, comprende?”

The crocodile laughed at her and she scowled, but continued.

“Anyway, my friend and I are here to—“

Not looking where she was wading, she put her foot down where the muddy river bottom should have been and hit nothing. Her foot simply kept going and she dropped straight into the water like a stone, the surface closing over her head. Eyes wide, Nova stared around her at nothing but mud for a second, and then pushed her arms violently downwards. She shot back out of the water, spitting and coughing, wiping hair and grime out of her eyes. The snake was cursing at her, its sinuous body cutting into her flesh as it hung on for dear life. Paddling around until she faced the shore, Nova waved.

“I meant to do that!”

The undead bird took to preening its tussled looking feathers. Thibaud glanced upwards in an attempt to see the thing that had perched on the crown of his head. "Well, I don't think it has anything bad to say about me and it doesn't seem to have any dislike towards me." He shifted his gaze back to Nova before leaning against a thick tree trunk, crossing his arms over his chest. "By all means, have at."

He hadn't expected a free bout of crocodile wrestling, if that was in fact where this was going, and in the amazon of all places. A bit of a quirked grin was fighting for a place on his face, but Thibaud was managing quite well to hold it together. Although, he nearly lost it at the laddybuck bit.

Thibaud practically jettisoned himself from the tree and was standing ankle deep in the muck and mire when Nova's head disappeared beneath the surface of the dark water. His tense pose eased when she reemerged and drew closer to the shore. The dredlocked male stood up straight and refolded his arms on his chest, an easy smile on his face. "I can see that. Either of you need a hand?" Thibaud asked of Nova and her serpentine companion.

The croc lazily paddled in an arc through the water. 'As you were saying before you took the plunge?'

The snake was muttering darkly as Nova paddled back to shore and put her feet down into ankle deep mud. She shook her head like a dog as she emerged from the water, sopping wet. “Oh, no we’re all fine here,” she said in a falsely jaunty voice, then turned to the crocodile. “No lip from you, mister, if you please. It’s simply not nice.”

The snake relaxed slightly as its body was moved to a slightly dryer location, although Nova was still waist deep in the water. She’d stopped wading and was listening hard. There was a strange noise in the distance, some kind of yelling that may or may not have been human.

“Do you hear that?” she asked Thibaud, turning to him, brow furrowed.

Thibaud shrugged and backed out of the murk and mire, returning his arms to their crossed position on his chest. "Okay." He wished he understood the exchange instead of just picking up on Nova's half of the conversation.

The croc gave a bit of a chuckle. 'No more from me then. I'll leave you two to do what you do. I have some business to attend to. Don't get lost.' With that the large reptile slipped beneath the dark water and was gone.

The dreadlocked man sniffed as the alpha croc departed. "Well, there goes the largest scalie I've seen to date. I don't know about you, but it might be a good idea to get out of there. What with there being leeches and pirahna and what have you. Unless you can talk to them too." He grinned but his face quickly fell and set at hearing the noise from down the river. He dropped his arms, turning to face the direction of the noise. Thibaud could feel his muscles tense slightly.

"I'd have to be deaf not to. The hell is that?" He shifted his gold eyes towards Nova, his brow knit low on his forehead.

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, I don’t want to find out.” Nova scrambled back to the bank, dripping wet and pushing sopping bangs out of her eyes, straining to see or hear something else. “But bugger what I want, we’ve got to check, right?”

The snake told her that on no account were they obligated to check anything. She ignored it.

“Come on,” she said to Thibaud, her skin and clothing steaming as her increased body temperature dried her off faster than a normal person. She scanned the jungle but could see very little though the thick curtains of hanging vines. Eyes of ever sort flashed in their direction once in a while and the trees were alive with scampering. She shook her head and started walking, with no plan at all, towards the noise, avoiding trees where she could and walking into the ones she couldn’t.

Thibaud nodded at her question. "Practically our duty. We'll just have to be careful. It didn't sound like machinery to me." He waved his hand over his head to encourage the undead bird to go about its business, whatever business a zombie avian would have in the middle of the amazon, he had no clue.

"Sure thing. Get going, bird. My guess is that where we are headed is no place for the likes of you. Go get something to eat or go find a hollow to roost in." With a little more waving, the bird fluttered its wings and took to the sky.

His dark brows quirked at the steaming of Nova's clothes and skin as he marched on after her. "Neat trick. Handy for the rainy season I suppose. Hot stuff." He gave a half chuckle as he swept some thick hanging vines away from his face so he could keep up with Nova and her serpentine companion. The jungle sounded alive with all of the scritching, chattering, and rustling of the animals and birds reacting to the unfamiliar presence of people. His hair wasn't always his friend in environments such as this. Quite regularly did he have to pick leaves or twigs from his hair, and once, even a rather large spider. Thibaud knew their destination, sort of. Just head in the direction of the noise. When they reached the source, who knows. All he had to do was make sure that he didn't step on anything unsavory. It'd be just his sort of luck to be in the middle of nowhere and find the only large pile of shit to step in.

"I wonder if swinging would be faster. Gods know, that there are enough vines out here. I know, you could be my Jane." His grin could be heard in his voice.

Nova threw him a little grin over her shoulder. "I have a strict 'No Apes' policy, so hold up there, Tarzan." She brushed a curtain of leafy vines out of her face and wove around a giant tree that would have filled a large auditorium. "Besides, this is me, klutz of the year. Can you really see me trying to swing on a vine?" She shuddered. "To me, that spells disaster." Actually, she mused, it wasn't really that she was a klutz. She just sort of forgot to look at things around her and they jumped out to hit her. That was fun.

The snake wrapped itself more tightly around her neck and shoulders. This is rather stupid, it told her. You hear a noise and you go towards it? Nova detected some slight snake disgust. Legs, it said. They make you types so moronic.

"How do you know a word like moronic?" Nova asked. The snake simply looked at her with its black eyes and she glanced skywards. "Forget I asked."

Another curtain of vines was pushed out of the way and Nova stepped out into a clearing, just behind a line of twisted trees. She peered nervously through the branches. "There's something there," she whispered to Thibaud. "Can't see what though.."

He couldn't help but chuckle. "No harm in a little monkeying around, now is there, Jane? Besides, I can do all the swingin' and you can hold tight. No disasters there." Nothing quite like a little humor to ease the tension of going towards a foreboding, mysterious sound in the middle of the amazon rain forest.

Thibaud gave an aggravated growl when a particularly thick vine swung back and nearly caused him to topple over, but he grabbed hold of it and pulled himself up. He looked up at the immense tree that it hung from and blinked up at his little undead avian follower. He angled his head, staring intently up at it. "What the devil...I told you to go on about your business. Ah, whatever. Come along then."

He looked to Nova and the serpent, easing his grip on the vine as he continued to follow after her. The dreadlocked fellow looked around when they stepped into the clearing. He narrowed honey gold eyes to try to see through the branches. "I can't either. Well, we can either try to get closer, or use the resources we have at hand. Certain little critters who can get closer without being too suspect." The bird 'shree'd overhead. "Worth a shot, but I think there's some bad juju going on around here. I didn't exactly bring the heavy artillery with me. I can change things though... Branch into a machete perhaps. Of course, upon retrospect, that probably would have been useful about ten to twenty minutes ago. Hm."

She pointedly ignored the Jane comment and stopped. "Stay here, okay?" she said before grabbing the nearest vine and scrambling up into a tree. The thick bows, big enough to be a whole tree on their own, where rough and covered in slippery moss and other plants, growing on them like some bizarre window box. She kept her balance with difficulty and walked out towards the clearing, peering between two branches into the depression itself. Her eyes went wide.

In the clearing sat three women who oozed confidence. None wore clothing, but they all had a mass of scar tissue where their right breast should have been. The one who was facing Nova's tree was holding a bow languidly in one hand and they spoke quietly to one another in a language she couldn't make out. Whistling softly, she trotted back towards the trunk. "Thibaud, you gotta check this out," she hissed, hunkering down on the branch. "There are Amazons in the Amazon."

The snake slid his head under her hair and stayed there.

---
OOC: They're called Iamuricuma women. Figured we needed something new.

OOC: New is good. ^^
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Thibaud nodded with a half salute as he watched Nova scramble up a vine into the tree. He tried his best to peer through the thick undergrowth, but for little to no avail. He remained crouched amongst the leaf litter, masses of vines, and thick trunks. His head snapped up to where Nova hissed down to him. "What? Serious?" He muttered back to her. "I'm coming. I wanna get a gander of this."

He carefully tugged on a vine and climbed up into the tree, nearly slipping as soon as he put any weight on his feet due to the slick moss covered bows. Silently breathing out a long exhale, the lanky fellow cautiously maneuvered next to where Nova was. Looking from her to the clearing, his gold eyes widened, blinking his apparent surprise. "Damn, you weren't kidding," he whispered softly. His undead bird settled again on top of his head, preening itself. Thibaud ignored its presence for the time being. "They look nice. Friendly faces. What exactly would happen if they spotted us?" He cast a glance to Nova, while assuring himself that his crouched position was steady enough to withstand breezes and the slickness of the moss.