Sempiternal

The next day I returned to the base where my journey began and commandeered a net and several ropes to set up a snare on the trail. It would have been much easier to shoot the prey and drag it back but I didn't want to telegraph my presence to everything within a few miles. And took the much quieter route with trapping instead.

I set the trap early the next morning on the dirt trail by a small sapling that could handle the tension and sprung it up carefully before covering the net in dead leaves.

I then took cover in the nearby bushes and waited patiently for hours on my quarry. I didn't move a muscle the whole time laying there and like a fool let my head fall into forearms as I fell asleep. I am awoke a few hours later by the snap and pop of the snare that caused me too shoot up from my hiding place and to see something quite strange tangled up in the net.
It was smaller than the creature I saw yesterday and circled it many times to observe it closely as it dangled helplessly in the net at eye level. It was the strangest I had ever seen. It was definitely a Equine mammal with butter Yellow fur and a long and wavy light pink mane. It had bags strapped to its sides suggesting to me it was a pack animal that belonged to someone and had gotten lost.

It starts to struggle and whimper in a low soft tone and pulling out my knife I cut the rope holding the net up and let the prey fall into my arms. I then rushed back to camp carrying this tiny colorful creature on my back with it still in the net. When I got back to my cave I tied all four of its legs together and strung it up a few feet off the ground and sat perplexed at the strange creature.

When I removed the bag off its side I saw it had small wing like structures and upon closer observation saw that it was in fact a female. But the vivid colors suggested that it had to have belonged to someone and I was going to kill someones pet so I could eat. I just wanted to get it over with and pulled out my knife as she whimpered and struggled furiously even more. Before my blade came within inches from her neck I felt a sharp and debilitating sting on my ankle.

I drop the knife and turn my body towards the pain and saw a tiny White and fuzzy rabbit with his teeth latched on to my bare Achilles tendon. I immediately grab it by the buckskin and lifted it up to eye level with me as it flailed furiously with rage seething through its black beady eyes. I figured I had an easy meal when I heard something that made my jaw drop.

I heard a sharp squeal and in perfect English I heard my captive beg me to spare his life as she began to sob and cry as she said. "Please please don't hurt my Angel bunny. You can have me but please let him go. He means the world to me I beg of you to please let him go!"

I was wondering if I was hallucinating from the old stale berries I was eating and thinking it was just another one of my bad dreams. When I walked up to the fire and grabbed an ash and held it in my hand the pain I acknowledged was real. I then walk up to her and asked with apprehension. " Did you just say something?"

I was hoping for silence but after a few seconds she replied back with tears streaming out of her bright and enormous Teal eyes. " Yes please don't hurt my Angel bunny take me instead." I was absolutely dumbstruck and dropped the bunny and picked my knife up.

I walk up to her and cut the bindings holding her four legs and caught her before I gently set her on the ground before me. She wouldn't stand up and curled up on the cave floor with her gleaming eyes staring at me begging for mercy. I couldn't go through with it and told her to take her friend and leave.

She must have thought it was some cruel trick but eventually she worked up the courage to stand up and I noticed how long her hair really was. She meekly walks past me and nudged her friend and exits the cave very slowly. Right before she made it outside she looks back at me and said in a shy soft tone. "Thank you so much for not eating us. If your still hungry you can have the food in my bags."

As soon as she left I tore the bag open to find it full of wonderful apple pies and pastries. I devoured every last crumb and wondered what the Hell just happened. What ever that creature was it I definitely never seen anything like it.