Treehouse

“Oww... my head...” I grumbled. “Glaze? Tank?”

I looked around at the wooden treehouse I’d landed in.

The treehouse was large, though not as large as the one I grew up in Fantasy World, and old, its boards a withered brown and plant growth all over the interior.

A footfall and a low growl from behind me made me quickly turn around.

And with that I came face to face with a great lioness lunging from the balcony straight for me.

I leapt to my feet and raised the Chainsaword into my sparring position.

And with that, both me and the lioness lunged. The lioness swung one powerful paw at me. She pinned the arm I was holding my Chainsaword with to the ground. I slashed her across the eye with the claw on my other hand, leaving a scar on her face. It lunged again, claws and teeth flaring. I immediately rolled out of the way. Gathering my courage, I ran straight for the lioness. Accepting the challenge, the lioness ran at me. But it was too fast and had me pinned down.

Before the lioness could sink its teeth into me, a figure burst in through the rafters and interfered with the lioness’ chomp with the help of a spear. The figure was, in fact, an actual woman. She landed in front of me just in time and successfully blocked the lioness' teeth using a long wooden spear. She then used the spear to push the lioness, forcefully backwards.

The lioness was knocked back several feet. As the animal rose to its feet and looked at us, the woman roared and hissed at it, sounding exactly like another lioness.

The lioness gave a fitful growl at the woman, who only stared back with her spear at the ready. I looked back and forth between them.

But what happened next wasn’t a fight like I had expected. The lioness instead chose to turn and fled, throwing itself out of the closest window and into the blinding brightness of the day where it quickly disappeared from view in the canopy of trees down below the treehouse I had landed in.

After a moment of silence, the woman turned around to face me. I stared at the woman in awe.

The woman looked at me, her face stern and serious.

“Sabor, danger,” the woman warned in halted syllables, as I slowly turned away from the window where I had watched the leopard escape.

She was tall, athletic and tanned with gray eyes. I saw how her gaze darted around the treehouse, like he was continuously searching for more predators like the leopard that could be about.

I got the sense, looking at her, that this girl must be either Sheena, Marvel's Shanna the She Devil, Cheela from that really old movie. Or wait... Is this Tarzan? I mean if Herakles and Hades are both female... She had shoulder length black hair, and she was completely naked.

I recognised ‘sabor’ as a term used for lioness' in the ape language in the Tarzan books. And I knew ‘danger’ well enough.

I rose to my feet.

“Um…thank you,” I murmured.

“’Thank you’,” The woman imitated me, less in a mocking way but more in that same broken way that made me think she was trying to figure out what I said.

“Huh? Uh..." I just stared back, unsure of what to say, "Er, um, what is this place?” I tried asking.

“This place, this place,” she repeated.

This was getting weirder by the minute.

“Oka-a-y, where did the others go?” I clarified, upon seeing her give me that same blank look, “I mean, I got separated from my friends. Have you seen them?”

The woman just continued to stare.

I tried again, speaking even more slowly so that she could understand. This woman obviously didn't know much English.

“Fri-end-s,” I enunciated slowly.

This time, the woman straightened somewhat in recognition of the word.

“Fri-end-s!” She echoed excitedly.

“Right, my friends!” I asserted. “There’s two of ‘em. The loud one is Gla-"

Wait. Why was I looking fir Glaze and Tank?

Duncan and Dawn were my friends! Glaze and Tank didn't even want to look for them at all! Glaze and Tank only wanted to bring me to Queen Ortensia, and I need to find Duncan and Dawn! And if they weren't gonna help... I wasn't looking for Glaze and Tank, no, I was looking for my real friends.

"You know what? Never mind,” I sighed.

Glaze’s probably busy right now being a grump, I should just focus on finding what I came here for in the first place.

The woman tilted her head to one side, making a confused grunting noise. I decided to try again.

I started over, “I’m looking for my friends, Duncan and Dawn.”

The woman grunted, “Look for Dun-can, friends?”

“Right!” I verified.

“Da-wn, friends?”

"Uhh... right..." I said.

Her pronunciation was weird, but it seemed she had an idea of what she was talking about this time. Maybe this could bode well.

“Friends here.”

“Really?!”

"Friends here," the woman nodded excitedly and tried to communicate something else with a tumble of syllables I didn’t recognise.

“Huh?”

She repeated himself, but I still wasn’t sure what she was trying to say. Had she seen Dawn and Duncan?

“Not sure I understand, but… show me!” I was **** for a clue to my friends’ whereabouts, “Take me to Duncan and Dawn!”

This time, it was the woman’s turn to enunciate slowly.

“Tarzan,” She said, gesturing to herself. It seemed she was introducing herself finally, “Tarzan go.”

I blinked.

“And I’m Felix,” I pointed a thumb at myself, “Tarzan go, Felix go go!”

I tried to imitate her body language in hopes of some sort of understanding.

It seemed to work. She nodded and began to shuffle towards the doors of the treehouse, and I noticed she walked with a sort of stagger not unlike a gorilla.

Tarzan walked out on the balcony and vaulted over the railing, landing on one of the tree branches that surrounded the treehouse. And with one unexpectedly graceful movement he slid down the branch and landed on another branch that leaned over far below.

And with that, I excitedly followed. My landing on the tree trunk wasn’t as practiced as Tarzan’s, and I nearly slipped on the slippery moss that coated the bark and made it perfect for sliding in the first place, but I managed.

The first thing I noticed about this tree trunk they slid down on was enormous. It was long enough to wind and twist its way through nearly the entire forest. And me and Tarzan were practically grinding down it like railings on a skateboard. We leapt and ducked around branches that grew over the trunk, and I could see Tarzan several paces ahead going around the obstacles first.

If I did manage to reunite with Duncan and Dawn here, I could only guess at their reactions to what I’d seen. About going to Wonderland, fighting Ancient Greek monsters and now the jungles of Tarzan.