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Chapter 2 : "Sir Soot"

As early morning raze lighten the dark and moody forest the residents would wake, and carry merrily on with their day oblivious to the previous nights conundrum. Birds chirped and sung songs that blessed each ear it came across. All but one.

With the continuous noise and light berating her senses she soon too awoke, grunting and moaning she slowly became conscious of reality. Deciding to lay there she reviewed last night. The chase, the forest, monsters, and now where she lay.

The campsite.

Over encumbered legs began to stabilize her until its wounded support gave under her weight. Cursing under her breath for forgetting her injury she stood on all three usable legs and assessed her wound. The sudden amount of pressure upon it caused it to once again weep, staining the already rouge bandages.

Wincing she removed the dressing and glanced at the damage, the glass remained mocking her with its presence. Its insulting denial of complete healing caused her to feel queasy. Deciding the less time she dwelt on it and the more time she spent on finding a doctor she opted to replace the bandage upon her forearm, but in a sick display of humor she watched as the bandage slowly slid its way down her leg. Lubricated by recent blood.

She needed more bandages.

Turning to the tent opening where the majority of light cascaded though the thin piece of tent. She hobbled over to its zipper. Opening the tent the campsites changes was immediately noticeable.

The fire had been obliterated, ashes and wood scattered throughout the camp and beyond. The same was applicable to the bottles, as they too were scattered, but something else was wrong, something that both confused her and frightened her.

The second tent was missing.

Most of it anyway, the rest remained in shreds upon the camp-site floor. The bedding, pieces of equipment and what her most recent trauma called for, the remaining bandages and medical equipment. With wide eyes she stared at the remains of her salvation.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" With all the wrongs that lined up throughout her journey, things just kept getting better. She internally screamed in frustration and looked about for something to vent her anger to. Residing neatly in a pile was a small group of ash and soot. Walking over to the small pile of innocent looking ash, she glared at its whiteness, its pure perfect little pile it found itself into. It had no idea of the wrath that would soon be upon it.

Bending as low and as close as she could on one forearm, she began to whisper in a sinister tone.

"You think you so special, huh? Minding your own business,  sitting there, not a care in the world. Impossible to become aware of your troubles. I'll. Show. You!"

With this statement, she lifted herself upon her hind legs, and with all her pent up anger she came barreling down upon her victim. Time slowed for the ash, it felt its time was near, something was about to wash it away, into the cosmos. With a last tear, and a last goodbye to its world that housed it. It was consumed by darkness.

Rearing up in accomplishment, she declared victory against the ash, she had conquered its domain, and now future generations will sing songs of her victory. Feeling the early sun upon her coat, she became lost in her wonder land of destroying evil, single handedly and saving the world from certain doom.

"Wait, what's this!?" she recoiled in shock, the evil Sir Soot had a back-up plan, with its last moment it directed its dying trajectory at her. Sir Soot's corpse flew straight at her, opening her mouth to scream, Sir Soot flew into her face. He was attempting to suffocate her!

With wide eyes, she pound her stomach as ash flew into her lungs, she coughed and hacked up black and white soot from deep inside her.

"Damn-it!" she sputtered while attempting to relieve her lungs of its intruder. Removing the remains of Sir Soot, she wondered back over to her tent.

"Water, water, gotta be water in here." Scavenging the tent, revealed a half empty bottle of whiskey, namely the same kind that was scattered around the tent. Sparing time to read the name of the fluid she was about to consume, she proceeded to gulp it down, it seemed to be flat. In times like this, you just have to make it work.

John Adams.

That was the name of the type of soft whiskey she had just consumed. She liked it, she mentally stated she should remember that name.

Deciding that something was better then nothing she left the tent and scavenged the wreckage, with one usable forearm maneuvering was slow and painful. Turning over shreds of bedding, feathers, wool, plastic and rubber she reclaimed most of what remained of the medical equipment.

Gathering the shreds of bandage she attempted to tie them together, with little luck.

"I'm so stupid, why did I have to leave all this stuff in the other tent?" badgering her self she had come to the point where  more tinkering would do more bad than good. Carefully picking up the patchwork bandage she placed it upon her wound, wincing when it came in contact. Wrapping it tightly she was now free to asses her other problems, like breakfast.

Re-entering the tent and opening the ice cooler she viewed its contents.

"no, no, no." Mumbling this as the moved produce like beef jerky, ham sandwiches and chicken. She came across a bag, an almost transparent bag containing small dark brown clumps. Catching her interest she dove into the bag and placed them before her, inhaling their scent she quickly removed her head from their presence.

"What in the world?" The simple act of smelling them caused her head to spin slightly, quizzically staring them down she closed the distance between her and the mounds to slightly inhale their aroma. Once again she felt light headed, stronger this time as a piece had broken and the stench of the brown clumps very center entered her nose. She sat down, she groaned as her head swam, closing her eyes her mind blanked, she forgot about reality for a few slight seconds.

Regaining her mind she eyed up the mounds. Picking herself up she glanced at the ice cooler, now able to see what was underneath the bag she continued her search for food. Nothing special, just brown parchment and a pack of matches, the matches may come in handy she thought, but the lack of vegetarian food disappointed her. The only remaining edible food was a few strawberries and those weird brown things.

She wasn't sure if she wanted to eat them.

Thinking it was smarter to not eat them, but still keep them on her person incase she got desperate. Before leaving a final time she took one last look around the tent for something she may have missed. There was the jacket that was left here, other then a few stains seemed quite contact. Trying it on she found it to be a little big, but this feature is what made it usable to her. Its manufacturing my have targeted bipedal creatures, like diamond dogs and minotaur's but a griffin may also be up for debate.

Existing her nights sanctuary, she realized something she should have long ago. She still had no idea where she was.

Choosing was out of the question since she had no clear imagery of this part of the forest and any direction could be the death of her. Steeling her herself, she consulted her most adequate way of navigation, a thing so brilliant it was sure to succeed. Something that was impossible to fail.

Closing her eyes, breathing deeply she concentrated. Harder until she knew the time was right, then, she would utter the ancient  ritual.

As she began to utter the words the trees rustled, the wind picked up and the atmosphere became sinister.

"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a rabbit by its toe, if he hollers, let him go, eeny meeny, miny,moe." With the ancient  ritual complete, accompanied by a 30 degree turn at each comma, she opened her eyes and glared at where she was pointed.

The tent.

Rolling her eyes she moving to the side, to see what was behind the tent. Once she saw it she resisted the urge to face palm, is was a tree, what else?. Walking around the tent she slowly limped in a fashion she hoped stayed linear, because she feared she would be walking for a while.

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In a dark, moist cave something picked at its teeth. Feathers seemed to be annoying when needed to be dealt with, they got just about everywhere.

It lay next to its recently defeated and mostly consumed victim, blood and gore painted the rocks and walls of this particular cave, not only belonging to the unfortunate victim, but past bodies aswell. This caused the cave to smell quite putrid and anything near its entrance soon departed from stench alone. That was just how it liked it. It reminded it of home, forced out by a dragon terrorizing the land, although long gone, he became content with living here. Not to mention the loggers that had started working near his old nest resulted in poor sleep patterns.

Reminiscing on its latest victim, it chuckled slightly. After deciding to wonder to the stream it came across various animals that it loathed. Birds especially, always chirping and singing it put off its concentration and disturbed its napping sessions. Sneaking up on one particular bird that sat pecking at the ground, it pounced and caught its prey.

Planning to sadistically torture the frail creature it produced this loud and completely unnecessary sound. An enormous screech that blasted the sadistic predators ears causing it to let go and cover its ears. Watching the bird fly to safety made its blood boil.

Just about to give chase it heard rustling from afar, followed by the sound of galloping. Finding a potentially larger meal it smiled to itself it gave chase, though trees and bushes it began to close the distance between it and the foolish pony.

The chase abruptly ended when the predator was tackled by something fluffy, trying to get the upper hand it clawed its way free from its attacker that seemed to hang on for dear life.

Facing it stood an adolescent griffin, to a lesser being this may have become frightening. To it, this was the equivalent to a hamster fighting with pencil led. Grinning it slowly approached the foolish griffin. All too late the griffin realized what situation it was in and attempted to flee.

Catching the griffin it began to sink its teeth into its side. The griffin screeched in agony as pearly white teeth tore though flew and muscle. Calling out for help the griffin tried desperately to fight the predator off by kicking and thrashed around, all the while crying out it pain. No amount of noise or movement would shift the body that towered above it.

Feathers and blood coloured the grass as the griffin felt its body go numb, and as fast as this whole ordeal began, it was over. Letting its new meal down it smiled in satisfaction. Never having tried griffin meat it looked forward to devouring him.

Hearing a gasp of shock and horror the being turned its back to see a young Pegasus. Not just any Pegasus, but the one it previously chased. Her face filled with horror and tears painting her face she began to run though the clearing on shaky legs.

Deciding to watch the Pegasus fumble with her stepping she seemed to momentarily forget she could fly. Remembering her wings, she took flight and dissolved into the distance. Satisfied with its new meal, it haled the bloodied corpse back to its cave.

Always wanted to taste griffin, the being thought.