A fiery moment
Chapter 2: monsters; the small and the slimy
Fidget woke up with a start, what she thought was a snapping stick was actually a crackle from the dying fire. It was still dark outside and quite.
Dust rolled in his sleep and grumbled a bit, Fidget quietly made her way over to a pile of tinder and twigs, within a few paws worth of the tinder the fire was revitalized. Fidget sat on a small rock next to it huddled up to herself, watching the flames dance and the smoke rise into the star filled sky
Fidget groaned quietly as the tingling between her thighs sparked up again and quickly died down. She grabbed a small berry and bit into it, instead of biting through her fang met the berries shell with a tap. She pulled the berry away for the berry to uncurl into a small mimic beetle. Fidget covered her mouth as she gagged, dropping the mischievous bug in the process.
"Oh gross… ugh… why you little." Fidget kicked the beetle in annoyance sending the bug flying over the bushes. "Blech…That tasted worse than a deadly delight… and that was horrid stuff…" Fidget mumbled as she spat out bits of the beetle's carapace she bit off.
Fidget began to dig in their food bag for something to wash the taste of beetle away, "no… no… no… ahh here we go." Fidget pulled out a louta nut, unfortunately the shell was more closed than she wanted but she wasn't willing to waste time to find a looser one. She bit into the seam of the sell and pulled hard, she grunted as she pulled and pried the shell open.
With a snap the edible part of the nut flew out of the shell like an arrow, it bounced off a tree trunk and unfortunately for Fidget, hit Dust in the forehead.
"WHAT THE!" Dust said as he grabbed Ahrah and swung in front of him, he swiftly turned his head looking for any attackers, the only thing he was a relit fire and Fidget. "Fidget… what happened?"
"I was trying to pry open a louta nut, it didn't work out so well." Fidget said with an innocent face, Dust merely sighed and set Ahrah down; he sat on his bedroll and noticed the bright green edible bit of Fidget's louta nut. It was roughly the size of marble.
Fidget dove to it and stuffed the nut into her mouth, chewing it as fast a possible to get rid of the bad flavor of that bug. Dust just watched as Fidget devoured the nut, thinking how unlucky that nut was, his thoughts were interrupted when his nose got a whiff of a sweet, yet foreign scent.
Dust checked his bag seeing if a fruit had popped or something that made that smell… nothing. He scratched his head and looked over to Fidget, who was now asleep on her own bed roll.
He sniffed the air again before shrugging it off and lied back down on his bed roll. Constantly asking where and what that smell was?
Fidget sighed as the tingling died down, finally allowing her to sleep
That morning after breakfast
Dust and Fidget were at full speed trying to make it to the next camp before nightfall… unfortunately the beasts of the forest wouldn't have any of that as they were swarming them in waves. Dust had just managed to fell another giant before a swarm of Avees came up them.
"Why are all these monsters attacking? I thought killing fuse would scatter them." Dust said after performing a mortal draw on the Avee, cutting a few in half.
"Or just heavily tick them off… ON YOUR LEFT!" Fidget shot her fireballs at a group of beasts that came out of the bushes with their clubs up high. Dust spun Ahrah sending the beasts sky high in the columns of fire that the new combo had created.
Eventually the trio had made it up to the top of large cliff as Slimes came out of the cracks in the ground, the jiggled in rage at them before lunging and sending their spines at Dust readied to block them but the impact never came, he then heard fidget crying for him.
"DUST ONE OF THEM IS PULLING ME IN!"Fidget screamed as she got pulled towards the slime with one of its 'jaws' wide open, she tried flying away. Dust was about to attack as a pinkish blur came by swiping away Fidget and cutting the slime tendril.
"Fidget!" both he and Ahrah said as they looked towards a larger avee holding her by her arm. The creature laughed in a mocking tone at him before flying off east. "Dammit… and these slimes won't help." Dust turned to the slimes and sent them all flying, he then preceded to aerial dust storm them, and finally he grabbed all of them with the hook like shape of Ahrah and slammed them into the ground.
Over to the larger avee, who was flying as fast as he could to his cliff top den, still struggling I it's grasp, as the avee landed in the small cave it tossed a small satchel to the ground and looked at Fidget closely. Its rancid breathe nearly made Fidget pass out. It sniffed her Fidget was too scared to realize her heat spiked up again, causing her to create that alluring scent.
The avee's pupils dilated as it picked up the scent; Fidget realized what happened and began struggling more. The avee held her arm tighter in response, he growled at her before tossing her against the wall and onto a pile of straw. Fidget looked behind her and saw the beast grab and lift her tail up. She turned away tears welling up in her eyes. She clenched her eyes shut as she felt something prod at her.
Fidget grit her teeth as she felt pressure at her hidden entrance. She opened her eyes and kicked at the avee which recovered quickly, it was about to charge at her, until it was consumed by large wall of fire that launched it out of its den like a cannon ball.
Down on the forest floor Dust saw the sideways column of fire with the large avee at the tip of it. he smiled and went to the cliff face that the column came from. He looked up at the charred hole where the avee's den was. Fidget wobbled her way out of the den, slightly dazed from using all that energy to blast away that avee. She didn't even notice the drop and fell, too exhausted to even realize she was falling.
"Fidget!" Dust yelled as he sheathed Ahrah and ran towards where she would fall. He didn't make it as she fell into a river that was at the base of the cliff. He could see her limp body floating with the current towards a water fall.
"Dust hurry!" Ahrah said with urgency as Dust jumped into the cold water, swimming his way towards Fidget, he picked up his pace as he neared her. He looked over to see more beasts coming out of the forest. In his current position, Dust had no chance against that many beasts plus he had Fidget to carry, and on top of that he'd be weighed down by all the water his clothes had soaked up.
The first group of monsters jumped at Dust just as he grabbed Fidget and pulled her to him. The creatures landed in the water and swam their way to him. Dust looked behind him to see the waterfall getting evermore closer.
Dust weighed his options as the hungry monsters swam even closer. He mentally cursed as he pulled out Ahrah and began to spin the blade to create a dust-storm, instead of using it as an attack though; he was going to use it to move towards the falls.
"Dust what are you doing?" The blade questioned, its voice distorted by the spinning.
"Something really Stupid…" Ahrah picked up speed in his rotations, Dust noticed immediately that they were moving faster, the beasts were getting farther from them as the falls drew even closer. The beasts began to swim in the opposite direction as the current began to pick up.
Dust looked towards the falls and readied to use his aerial dust storm to glide his way down.
Time seemed to slowdown as he passed the edge of the cliff face and began to corkscrew in the air, time sped up as they neared the ground but Dust already felt like he was going to lose it. The blunt side of Ahrah hit his chest sending him flying back and towards the ground.
Everything went black as Dust hit the ground followed by Fidget landing on his stomach
Sometime later
"Wake up… Wake up, friend…" a familiar voice said, everything was still black but Dust could hear fire crackling.
Dust opened his tired eyes to see the late afternoon sky, he looked left to see Ahrah sitting on the ground, on his right was Fidget sitting on his folded cape. He sat up and looked around seeing the lone figure sitting across from them, his white eyes glowing in the shadow of his cloak.
"You… how'd you find us?" Dust questioned the shadowy merchant who was spinning some fish on a spit.
"I was fishing when you went over the edge of the falls. You and your little orange friend have had quite a day I presume?" he asked while hand Dust a fish.
"Thank you… what happened after Fidget and I landed?"
"Oh I heard screams and howls as the beasts chasing you went over the edge as well… it was pretty funny as they seemed to be flapping their arms." The merchant chuckled a little before he bit into his fish. "But I believe you know why they were attacking you."
"No… not really, we just thought this place was more infested than others."
"Oh no, did you not smell it? Your winged friend is the reason." The merchant pointed at Fidget with his gloved hand, receiving a look of confusion from Dust. "She's in heat my friend… she releases a pheromone that attracts the attention of all male creatures nearby… the only reason I'm not affected is because I've trained myself to ignore the pheromones effects. Also I'm surprised you didn't smell it. "
Fidget mumbled in her sleep and rolled on her side. The scent of her heat becoming more obvious to Dust, his nose twitched at the smell.
"This is only the first stage of it, I recall from a book I read, over the course of the week she'll become more desperate to mate… also her body will alter slightly, expecting for her to be impregnated. After the week is over she'll go back to normal."
"Ok… well Fidget and I still need to get back to Aurora."
"well in that case I recommend you have her bathe regularly, move during the night when most beasts are asleep, and the most critical… never feed her past midnight." The merchant said while pointing at him with his half eaten fish.
"What?"
"I'm just kidding with that last one friend, what I can't have a sense of humor?" The merchant chuckled as he ate more of his fish. "Matter of fact I believe you two should get moving soon… oh and here… you might need these, free of charge." He pulled out of his large pack a jar, a small bottle, and a small satchel.
"What are these?"
"The jar contains a form of plant paste that increase ones overall physical size, but doesn't make them any stronger, the bottle is full of perfume to drown out the smell she creates, and the bag has some tea leaves you can use to give you some energy."
"Thanks… I'll get you some new merchandise before we next meet." Dust picked up Fidget and set her on his shoulder as he threw his cape over his shoulders, he grabbed Ahrah and pocketed the new items before turning and running into the woods.
"Safe travels my friend…" The merchant spoke silently before grabbing another fish to eat.
Few hours later
It was the dead of night, most creatures were sound asleep as well as most of the monsters in the forest even the blombs in the area floated asleep, each member of a group huddled into one big balloon of death.
Fidget was still out cold, the smell of her heat still filling Dust's nose, it was hard to concentrate but he had to keep moving. "Dust, are you alright? Your mind is foggy." Ahrah's voice questioned as Dust looked down at his sheathed blade.
"The smell that Fidget's making… it's hard to concentrate." Dust replied as he picked up his pace. Ahrah sighed before responding.
"I cannot help you in the department Dust; I've never had to deal with it… let nature run its course for now, if it seems like it will be a hindrance, we'll try to find a way to fix it." Dust nodded as he jumped over a small stream.
"wha… what happened? How long was I out?" Fidget questioned as the landing shook her awake.
"You used your fire column to well cook an Avee alpha, you then fell in a river, I saved you, and then you were asleep until now." Dust replied as he turned his head to see her tiredly rubbing her eyes. "You were out for about six hours."
"WHAT! I missed lunch and dinner" she said worried as she dove into Dust's backpack, searching for something to eat. Dust simply chuckled at her gluttonous actions; he turned forward and kept walking.
"Oh… I don't remember Dust getting herbal plant paste, I remember my mom making this stuff for me when I was sick… didn't help like the medicine she gave me with it, but the taste was so good, especially since she added night root… maybe he won't mind if I have a quick taste."
Fidget opened the jar and scooped out a handful of the green paste and licked it off her paw. "Mmm… this is delicious…" Fidget had at least another five handfuls before patting her stomach and closing the jar. "Dust do you mind if I continue to sleep, just wake me when we come across any baddies."
"Go ahead Fidget. Just make sure you don't fall off." Fidget heeded his advice and semi stuffed herself in his bag, her upper body still poking out, she leaned against his back and shut her eyes.
Little did she know that the paste was not food, but a concoction of growth hormones, and that they were already beginning to work their magic.
Sorry if this chapter is different that any others I've typed in the past, but I felt rushed… it's not that I didn't want to type it, but I have family issues going on, school, work, ect… so please be sympathetic here… either way enjoy and Ciao!