E/O Challenge: Midnight
A three hundred word triabble from Dizzo, Edina Clouds and Amberdreams not necessarily in that order.
xoooox
On the trail of the Lonesome Pine-Cone
They came out in their thousands to feed at midnight; tiny feet shuffling through the deadfall that littered the forest floor, tiny snuffling noses seeking out their prey.
Their natural camouflage made them look like nothing more threatening than giant pine cones, and it had always served them well in the past.
That was until the night the Winchesters walked through the forest and Dean was in 'one of those moods'. In his wisdom he decided it would be funny to kick a pine cone at the back of Sam's head.
That was the night the Winchesters met the hedgeadillos ...
xoooox
Okay, in retrospect, not his finest moment; but how was Dean supposed to know he'd blundered into a hedgeadillo nursery? Until the midnight hour when hundreds of pine cones suddenly came to life and launched themselves screaming in little pine-coney voices at his little brother's long legs, nobody had even known there was such a creature as a hedgeadillo.
So sue him if he was a little slow to react with the seriousness that the situation demanded, and instead roared with laughter as Sam shrieked like a little girl when the animated cones fired their little darts into his shins.
xoooox
"Hedgea-what?"
"Hedgeadillos," Bobby repeated, continuing to smother Sam's super-inflamed legs in FroYo.
"Right ... that's what I thought you said," Dean grinned as he dropped onto the bed next to his sweet smelling brother. "Didn't they have pistachio at the store? ... friggin' hate raspberry?"
"I'll remember that next time you piss off supernatural pine-cones," Bobby smiled, as a large black cat began rubbing itself against his legs.
"Thanks for chasing those things off," Sam said.
"Thank Midnight here," Bobby replied, stroking the purring cat. "Best four legged hunter I know ... and he loves the taste of hedgedillo."
xoooox
I really feel I should tell you all where this idea came from. Whilst Amb, Dizzo & myself were in Rome (straight after JIB) we went on a trip to Ostia, a fantastic Roman town. The whole area was surrounded by fabulous umbrella pines that dropped huge melon sized cones that looked like hedgehogs. The thing about these cones is that they seemed to group together in large colonies – and in areas far, far away from the nearest pine tree.
We soon came up with the theory that they must come to life when nobody is looking and thus the name Hedgeadillo was born. And where there's a Supernatural creature there must be Winchesters.