After having a mild identity crisis, I walked back out of the castle to check up on my traps. All of them were empty except for one, which had caught a small, orange, four-legged flightless chicken sort of thing. I wasn’t really sure what it was, but the closest word I had for it would be a pegasus—but with all the fantastical creatures I had seen over the past god-knows-how-long, I just shrugged and accepted it for the meat it was. It was a good size as well, about one and a half feet tall and about two feet long: certainly large enough to make up for my other traps being empty. It was on the ground unconscious, presumably from the five head-sized rocks that dropped on it as it set off the tripwire. Well, trip-grass-rope; you gotta make do around these here parts. I took advantage of the situation and bashed its head a few times with the business end of my Stub. It gave out a few loud cries at the first few hits, but they were quickly silenced when I panicked, fumbled with my newfound dagger for a bit, and tried to slit its throat so it wouldn’t attract any of those timberwolves prowling on the lookout for leftovers. Naturally, I missed and blood began splurting everywhere, so I did the smart thing and panicked harder, stabbing the knife deep into its neck over and over until it was a bloody mess.

Shit.

If the sound of the chicken-horse wasn’t enough to attract the wolves, then the scent of fresh blood splattered all over the trees certainly would. I’d been hunting there long enough for them to recognize it as a place to score freebies as long as they did it before the monkey with the wind-pain and hurty-tree showed up.

A wise man once said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” One less so once said, "Ask not what we have to fear, but carry a big stick of...eh...charity for all," but that’s a different story altogether.

I took a few gulps of the blood that was still dribbling out—waste not, want not—slung the carcass over my shoulder, and ran as quickly as I could back to the cave. It was getting dark and I could already hear the ghastly creaking of timberwolf howls, so I didn’t bother trying to hide my presence. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if they did follow me; I’d been meaning to test my new fire wall, and I had an itch to practice my Gandalf impersonation. (Un)luckily, I managed to get to the safety of my humble abode without any bloodthirsty monsters on my ass. After tossing a few logs on the embers of my fire, I set about testing the sharpness of my new toy. A few quick flicks of the wrist and orange hair was flying right off like a dandelion in a tornado. Actually, looking at it more, I noticed for the first time that it was a chicken horse with orange fur and a purple mane. If I didn’t want to die from cancer, I was going to have to get out of here pronto.

I quickly skinned it the best I could and cleaned out the viscera with a record amount of gagging. I turned around to toss a couple more logs on the fire to create a bonfire, then set about flaying as much flesh as I could off the bones. There wasn’t much there, which was disappointing, but I managed to scrape together enough edible meat and entrails for tonight’s meal and some extra to smoke. I skewered the meat onto my spit roast/smoking rack combo (which I’m totally going to sell on an infomercial if I ever get back home), kicked back, and thought about what to do with what was left. The bigger bones of the creature would certainly be helpful in making larger tools, maybe a club and a spear tip on my Stub. The skull should be able to function as a cup? I frowned. Cleaning out the brain sounded like a pain, but if it came down to it I would have to do it. Putting the idea on the backburner, I moved onto what to do with the skin. It would obviously be used as leather; how, I didn’t know, since I was lacking any sort of tanning chemicals or whatever magical mumbo-jumbo they used to make good leather. I would make it into an article of clothing, but I was dressed for winter weather already, and to be honest the piece of skin I had was pretty small and ugly. It could be used as reinforcement for a rudimentary shield, but the problem with that was I didn’t have a death wish. After giving it some more thought, I settled on scraping the skin clean and leaving it out to dry for a while, in the meanwhile boiling the fat to kill any pathogens in it; then I would soak the skin in it, wiping off the excess and sewing it into a water pouch. That’s how that works, right? Unless Hollywood lied to me, but why would they…

Oh right.

Shit.

I shrugged and decided to give it a go anyways. I got out the flint knife I was using before and began scraping away at the residue on the inside of the to-be leather, careful not to damage it. After sticking it all into the ball of fat I rolled earlier, I checked up on how my dinner was doing. The outside had burned to a crisp, but when I sliced off a piece the inside was well-cooked and leaking juices. I took the kabob off the roast, brushed off the charcoal-black shell, and almost began shoving it down my throat before my eyes glanced past my shrine to the meat gods. Not making that mistake again.

After finishing my meal, I gave a contented sigh before peeling off my clothing and jumping into the lake. After swimming around for a while and washing off all the red stains on me, I began the long task of trying to wash the dried blood from my clothes. An hour later, my clothes looked better than before—if your idea of better was bright pink instead of dark crimson. I might as well just stain them with blood at my next kill again and pretend they were always red. I threw myself onto my makeshift bed of leaves and woven grass sheets; before long my eyes began fluttering shut, and I let sleep overtake me.

[/hr]

My eyes flew open as I heard a monstrous roar and thundering footsteps outside my cave. My hands immediately flew to the Stub at my side, and I rolled up into a standing position and rushed outside to see what was going on. A rabid grizzly bear was stampeding its way through the forest. Glad as I was to see some normal animals, my mind still ran through the standard procedure of determining whether it was a threat or not, where it came from, where it was going, and what it was doing. With a start, I realized that it was heading straight for the cottage I found while scouting a few days ago. The gears in my brain whirred loudly as they quickly manufactured a plan: follow the bear, kill the bear, save the cottage person, gain credit, be accepted into civilization. EZPZ lemon squeezy. I grabbed my shaved (and no longer orange) water pouch, shoved a few extra bone arrows and javelins into my quiver to be safe, and slung my bow over my shoulder before running after the bear.

Turns out fish bones make great needles, and sinew great thread. Bone splinters were a great substitute for flint, good enough that I hollowed out half a femur and hammered it onto the walking end of my Stub to make a makeshift spear. The leather turned out to not be too great with water, so last week I ended up salvaging the bladder and stomach (ewgrossandweirdgrossandweird) and used those instead. That freed up the leather to be stitched into a small holder for my arrows and javelins that doubled as a pouch for other small bits of food and tools, as well as various straps for the many things I had made over the past…month? Fuck, it’s been a while…

Anyways, it turns out that there’s a reason they tell you not try and outrun a bear. Even though I was pumping my legs as hard as they would go, the bear was still growing more and more distant. Just as I was about to lose sight of it, we burst into a clearing, and I saw the quaint medieval town stretched out in front of me. I had lost track of how far we were running; but if there was ever a time to play the hero, it would be now. Putting on a burst of speed, I dropped down to the ground, sliding on my knees, and unslung the bow on my back. I quickly nocked and arrow and let it fly; I thought I had aimed too high in my haste, but forgot to account for the bear running away, so it miraculously managed to bury itself into the side of the bear’s neck. It let loose a roar and whipped around to face me, eyes a rabid yellow and teeth foaming with rage. I gave a quick glance around for any people watching, but the streets were deserted and all the windows in the houses were closed shut. Maybe there was a war going on and all the able men were away, leaving behind only the women and children to cower in fear?

A searing pain in my side interrupted my thoughts. While I was kneeling there like an idiot, the bear had charged me and swung its paw at me. My trusty Stub had thankfully been in the way and absorbed most of the damaged, but the claws had still managed to gouge three deep wounds through my jacket and into my flesh. My chest cavity was still unbreached, but only just; I was pretty sure it may have chipped one of my ribs, though. I convulsed on the ground in pain like I just had a Mega Tree seed dissolve in my ass, before the adrenaline kicked in and I shot to my feet, just in time to dodge another angry swipe from the beast. I grabbed my Stub and swung it as hard as I could at the bear while I sidestepped its charge, the stone head connecting with its skull with a loud crack; using the momentum from the swing, I shifted my grip to the other end of the Stub and speared the bear in the throat while it stumbled around, stunned. It let loose a wet gurgle and snapped at my arm, sinking its teeth into my forearm. I screamed with pain and let go of my weapon, but my arm was still trapped; panicking, I fumbled for my knife and started stabbing at any part I could reach, which only made the bear shake its head and tear at my muscles even more. Close to blacking out from the pain, I made one last desperate swing and managed to bury it hilt-deep into the bear’s eye. It reared back with a cry of pain, knocking me to the ground, and I took advantage of the opportunity to sink the blade into its jugular and slit its throat. It wobbled on its hind legs for a few seconds, looking oddly drained and scrawnier than before, then toppled to the ground in slow motion with a tremendous rumble.

Panting, with pain slowly returning to my consciousness in throbbing waves, I glanced at the dagger that saved my life and noticed that it was as clean as the day I found it. I had noticed that when I first started using it to clean, but I just assumed it was made out of Orgreenic or something; but this was on a live target, and there was no blood, no vitreous, nothing. I sheathed it and crawled over to my Stub, leaning on it as support to slowly get up and hobble over to the nearest hut. I collapsed against the wall and weakly pounded on it. “Please, help me,” I croaked, forgetting that the people here didn’t know English. Damn it, why did I think I could take on a bear? Why did I ever think this was a good idea? To be honest, it was a miracle that I even managed to get away alive, let alone kill it.

The door flew open with a sudden bang and a group of...neon-dyed ponies started stampeding out? Every other door in the village followed suite, and a horde of techno-colored miniature horses blew past me. I mean, jesus, I’ve heard all the jokes about the Scottish and New Zealanders, but was everyone here a literal horse-fucker? No bucket needed, just the right height? Je-sus fucking Christ. I could just imagine some fat, sweaty neckbeards just fapping to some Friendshi—My Little P—ML—FI—cartoon ponies.

A splitting migraine began pounding at my skull, drowning out the pain in my chest and arm. The rumbling from that fucking pony stampede wasn’t helping, either. I cracked open an eye to glare at them, but there was nothing there. I then realized that there was a certain cadence to the pounding in my head: almost like footsteps. I shifted my gaze over and saw a giant, translucent, starry Care Bear rushing towards the town.

WHAT THE HOLY FUCKING SHIT

Author's Note

So, hopefully my writing quality has improved these past two years. Summer's pretty much the only time I can crank out chapters, so the plot is going to be speeding up a bit. I'll have to split my time between this and my TCB side story, and abandon the TCB project I had lined up.

And what little time I do have left over after all I have to do this summer gets eaten up by my newfound osu! addition, so don't expect frequent updates.