"Oh hello Mr. Dirt, you are very dirtful today. In fact some may say that the dirtness of your dirt is the dirtiest dirt that they've ever had the pleasure of having stuffed into their mouth. Well only if it was helping rid them of the foul taste of blood and vomit from their tongue. In which case you're doing a fine fuckin job here!" Ash shouted as ge washed the combination of aforementioned filth from his mouth with a bottle of water. This was obviously not the first thing that he had said when he woke up as that was more of a bundle of painful moans, sickly groans, and none too few curses.

"Okay, so aside from waking up with dirt, blood, vomit, and what I think was an acorn in my mouth I'm also in the middle of nowhere with no idea where the nearest town is or why a bunch of my junk, self included, got dumped out here."

Painbow

"Fuck, yeah and can't forget what has to be close to my record of head pain. Glad you remembered to remind me!" The pained human ranted as he glared at a nearby rock, mostly because he didn't know what had caused said pain, but stones had done likewise often enough in the past.

"Why the hell is this happening to me... Ugh, head's too fuzzy right now for thinking about the past, just need to calm down and focus on the now. So... what is the now?"

All around him there were scattered items that he was fairly certain belonged to him ranging in value and current usefulness, though all were arrayed in a way that made them seem as if it were all dropped from the sky itself. Then he spotted it, the glorious treasure he longed for, the combo of a bottle of jack sitting next to some aspirin (*Don't do this, whole do as I say not as I do thing.*) After downing a little of both Ash woozily stood fully upright for the first time in hours and gods did he feel it at first.

"Okay, immediate needs? Thirst is handled, I think those are some nature bars over there to munch on, Compass is fucked but I have the sun, if I have to stay out here there's some tarp for a lean-to and a sleeping bag..."

A howl pierces the air in the distance.

"And if I can't avoid those pupperoni pizzas I have my tourney sword... Not the best of situations, but I can make do. Then once I find who put me here I can skin them with a butter knife."

With a resolute nod Ash gathered up what he needed to take with him and proceeded to put it all inside his old Alice pack so that he could find the nearest town or road, before leaving though he did grab all the non-essential items and with some tarp was able to hopefully store it all safely in the hollow trunk of a dead tree that he marked with some red string and a carved mark that he made with a pocket knife.

"Height, height, somewhere tall with possible sight lines... Aha!"

With a quick readjustment of his pack Ash started hiking towards a hillock upon which he had spotted a great tree that should let him see far above the tops of the surrounding woods, only stopping once every few hundred meters to apply a smaller mark allowing him to know the direction of his stash. Upon reaching the bottom edge of the lonesome hill which was a great deal larger and further than it originally seemed Ash found a huge entrance to a cave which seemed like a fun place to explore, but first he had to get his bearings and get back to civilization.

"Spelunking into badass looking cave later, finding and skinning assholes with blunt object comes now." Ash huffed out as he started the climb to the tree sitting at the peak very glad that he had decided against wearing his tourney armor on this little jaunt. After an uneventful climb up he set his pack down next to the trunk of the unfamiliar tree, it almost looked like pine but not quite, and with a good few feet of rope started the climb up. As he climbed he kept an eye out for any sign of a town or road, but it seemed fruitless until he saw the hint of an orchard a bit back in the direction of his stash.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Hmm?" Ash looked down from his position about halfway up the tree and froze, eyes nearly bugging out of his skull.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Lazily making its way up the hill towards the tree that Ash way now hiding in was house-sized monster of a bear that wore the constellation of Ursa Minor upon it's pelt. He held his breath as this behemoth stomped closer and closer until it began rising up on it hind legs. Ash nearly shouted then, but realized what the creature was doing just a second too late as it brought it back onto the trunk of the old tree and knocked him from his perch and unto the great bear's shoulder as it began to use the pine as a backscratching post.

Oof.

Ash hesitantly looked up after regaining his breath and saw that the ursa had spotted him and ceased it's scratching, looking at him with what he hoped was curiosity and not hunger. Ash knew that there was only one option that he had, one chance to subdue this mighty beast... Thus he inched his hand into position and...

"Scratchy scratchy scratchy?" Ash hopefully said while his hands were busy scratching for all they were worth on that one sweet spot that Koda, a bear that he had worked with at some point, had absolutely loved being scratched on. After a pregnant pause with nothing but the sound of scratchies being given the great bear gave a light huff and resumed nearly breaking a tree that was probably twice Ash's age in half.

Shaking with relief Ash began trying to inch his way back to the tree so he might make his way down before the bear returned its' attention to him now that his ministrations had ceased. Unfortunately that is just what happened as the big blue bear brought it's paw over towards him to try and make him resume. Too busy to pay full attention to where it's paw was going, the bear ended up jabbing its' own paw with one of the more resilient tree limbs and let out a yelp of pain. Of course to Ash this sounded more like a roar of hunger so he got the hell off of it as soon as he could. After quickly descending to his pack Ash was ready to bolt it down the hill and into the woods where he might lose the bear, but something about the noise it was making cause him to pause and look back.

"No. Nope, I am not helping that hulking behemoth of a bear! No matter how much it looks like Koda, it is still some freaky monster or hallucination that I should just leave here unless I could find house-sized bear tranqs."

*Sad bear noises.*

"Not gonna do it."

*More sad bear noises.*

"Ain't gonna do nothing but go my own way."

*Even sadder bear noises.*

Ash looked behind him one last time before descending the hill and returning to the woods and... The damn thing was looking at him with actual puppy dog eyes. Big ol' honking puppy dog eyes full of tears.

...

"Fuck." Thus with his single solitary fuck to give for the day Ash began approaching the sobbing bear.

"Now you better appreciate this and not squish me okay? I'm just gonna get that thorn out of your hide right buddy?" Ash continued to try and placate the beast as he approached it with open palms and soothing words. Surprisingly the bear actually seemed to understand that he was there to help and lowered its' paw down for him to inspect.

"Huh got quite the booboo huh Boo Boo?" Ash joked, trying to lighten things mostly for his own nerves as he slowly approached the offending tree limb. More of a branch really, especially compared to this huge bear that could probably turn him into jam if it felt like having some toast the size of a billboard. His worries turned out to be relatively unfounded Ash found out as aside from another light yelp of pain when it was removed, the now calm usra let him clean the small wound on it's paw without much fuss.

"There you go big fella, all nice and clean. Now if you'll excuse me I really should be, nononono!" Ash started backpedaling as the usra moved its' great maw closer to him in what he thought was an attempt to consume him.

*Wild Big Ol' Bear used Lick! It's super effective.*

"Blegh, aww why'd you have to go and give me a slobber shower? Well thanks for not eating me bud, you got a name?"

*Non-affirmative bear noises*

"Alright then, how about I call you Lil' Dipper huh?" Ash jokingly asked while whipping some of the bear slobber off of himself.

*Happy bear noises.*

"Lil Dipper it is then, well Dipper I best be heading back to uhhh. Well I had best be going to where I'm trying to go, where ever that actually is. Then hopefully find that I accidentally took the wrong pill earlier and I'm really just sitting naked in a dog park next to a friendly pug or something." Ash gave his new, likely hallucinatory, friend a pat on the snout before heading back downhill. It was not long before he realized that he was not actually moving and that Dipper had picked him up by his pack.

"Heh we might be friends now, but I still have to get going bud. Look I promise that if it turns out I'm not tripping balls right now I'll come back later with an oil drum of honey or something similar okay?" Seemingly content with his promise Dipper carried Ash down the hill and set him down next to the entrance of the cave he had seen earlier. With another near drowning in bear slobber out of the way Dipper made his way back inside what was in fact it's home. With the ambient light that seemed to follow the bear everywhere Ash was finally able to see what lied at the back end of the cave and if his recent diet hadn't mostly consisted of a dirt pallet cleanser he might have dropped a brick right there.

*Very Large Bear Noises.*

"Well, I guess that explains where the big Dipper is huh?" Ash chuckled like a completely sane human who did not just see a bear that could probably eat a blue whale and still be hungry. Thankfully Big Dipper seemed content to go back to sleep after Lil' Dipper cuddled up to them and Ash made his way back into the woods where he may or may not have had a slight nervous breakdown before heading back towards where he saw that orchard.

"Gods I hope that Dipper is the weirdest thing that I have to deal with today." Unfortunately for Ash, it wasn't.

Author's Note

Hey, did you know different soil types taste different? Well after many years of being thrown face first into various biomes soil in my life and nearly being buried alive at least once I can tell you that dirt always sucks ass. Anyway I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it was one of the few that I didn't write while drinking... mostly.