After a while, Small One gave up on scanning the scrublands below and focused on the horizon, sharp eyes searching for something which could make a home. A hazy, indistinct mountain range loomed in the distance. Squinting at it, Small One decided it was at least a few day's flight away, even if they didn't stop to sleep, drink, and hunt. Clever One chirped, and Small One drew her gaze away from the mountain and looked down. To her surprise, a small woodland had managed to avoid being razed during Twisted One's rampage. As soon as she saw it, she dipped her wings and dove down towards the trees, skidding to a halt in the damp leaf litter.
She breathed in the cool, moist air, relishing in the smell of a living woodland. The desert didn't smell like much more than sand and heat. It was a rather small forest, but sniffing at the air, Small One picked up an odd scent. It was ever so slightly familiar, a musky scent that somehow managed to smell intimidating. She took deeper and deeper breaths, racking her mind to try and remember where she had picked up that scent before. It was a long time ago, she knew that much, but it was hard to forget a smell, and she knew this one was familiar. Shaking her head and giving up, Small One padded along the forest floor, watching in the canopy for anything big enough to be worth catching.
Behind her, she could hear Clever One's tongue lashing out and ensnaring countless bugs. His delighted chirps put a slight grin on Small One's face. She supposed it had been a very long time since he last got to enjoy his favourite food. Bold One had her muzzle screwed up in concentration, taking deep breaths. Small One chittered to her, wondering if she had managed to identify the curious scent. Unfortunately, Bold One seemed just as unable to figure it out. Small One sighed, resolving to ignore it. She'd remember when she saw it. Hopefully it was edible. The dried meat they'd taken from the death-prey was nowhere near as filling as a fresh kill, and splitting it three ways hadn't helped.
The woodland's inhabitants were screeching and hooting and barking as the three dragons wove their ways through the trees. Suddenly, Bold One stopped, her blue mane bristling. Small One turned her head, chirping at her quizzically. Bold One gave a low growl, sweeping her gaze through the trees. Looking a little closer, Small One noticed that her mane and tail tuft were both standing slightly on end. Focusing on the air, Small One felt it. A very slight, almost imperceptible sense that the air was charged. It reminded her of how the air felt whenever dragons summoned lightning. Clever One's eyes were darting every which way, the very tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth.
A loud neigh echoed through the trees. Small One snapped her head towards the sound, just as a high pitched roar and the sound of splintering wood rang out. Small One took a quick glance at her companions before charging off through the trees, following the sounds. Mystical one-horns were knowledgeable and easy to talk to. It would be the one to ask about Furious One and the rest of the world. As she ran towards the neigh, the sound of pounding hooves grew louder, as did the crashing and enraged growls. Leaping over fallen logs and dodging through trees, Small One barely noticed herself accidentally losing Bold One and Clever One.
She paused for a moment to catch her breath, only to suddenly draw her head back to avoid having her eye stabbed out when the one-horn leapt from between the trees and ran past her. She roared after it, but it just kept up its panicked flight, becoming little more than a faintly-glowing spot in the trees. Snarling, Small One turned back to where it had fled from, just as an angry-looking ape with long horns and a golden mane punched its way through a tree and paused in front of her. The beast was much bigger and more muscular than she was, and as soon as she saw it, Small One remembered where she had picked up the curious scent before. It had been during the march on the stronghold, when they picked up a few of these horned apes. Come to think of it, she remembered the one-horns being quite displeased by their presence. Perhaps this was why.
The ape looked ready to resume chasing the one-horn, but Small One firmly planted herself in front of it, wings spread and head held high to try and look as big and intimidating as possible despite her smaller size. The ape wasn't buying it. It narrowed its eyes and reared up, a powerful roar shaking the trees. Small One fought to keep herself from trembling. She was not going to let this lesser beast eat her source of information, no matter how big it was. The contest of wills continued for another moment, before the ape suddenly growled and lifted an arm. Small One dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding a punch that would have no doubt broken her skull.
Screeching her own roar, Small One lashed out with her jaws, catching the ape on the upper arm. Despite its bulging muscles and fierce temper, the beast's soft fur and thin hide were absolutely no use against Small One's fangs, and its warm, metallic blood filled her mouth. She quickly let go and beat her wings to get clear as the ape swung its other arm at her, hand balled up in a fist. Unfortunately, that backed her up against a tree and left her little room to move. The ape suddenly hopped back, rearing up with a roar before slamming down hard, a bright yellow beam of pure energy erupting from its mouth. Dodging at the last second, Small One wasn't quite able to stop the tip of her tail from being caught in the blast. She yelped, tucking her tail closer to herself. The tree where she had been standing had been blasted almost in two, teetering dangerously.
Small One charged forward with horns lowered, intending to rake the ape across the face with the sharp points, but her enemy nimbly hopped back, seeming unfazed by the blood leaking from its shoulder. It grabbed a nearby log and hefted up the massive thing like it was nothing, tossing it straight at Small One. A quick beat of her wings helped her clear it, but also caused her to smack her back on a low-hanging branch. The beast took advantage of the momentary weakness, leaping up and punching her in the belly. The air was knocked clear from Small One's lungs, sending her plummeting to the ground.
She just barely managed to stand up and get out of the way before the ape slammed both of its fists down where she used to be, shaking the ground. For a moment, its fists seemed to be stuck in the damp soil, so Small One ignored the pain in her gut and leapt for the beast's face, slashing at the soft skin with her razor sharp talons. The ape screamed, raising its hands to its face to try and block Small One's swipes. Small One responded by using all the strength in her arms to pull its hands apart ever so slightly, then headbutted it, her left horn digging into its face and her right horn clashing noisily against the beast's own horn. The ape yelped, roughly shoving Small One away with its palms and pushing the air from her lungs once more.
Small One stood, glaring warily at the ape as it stood there with blood streaming down its face. She sucked in a few breaths and straightened herself out, wings splayed out. It was times like these that she really wished her horns worked. She wa sure that fire or ice would have been enough to frighten off even the strong, muscular beast. The ape looked around, the hair of its golden mane shivering in rage. It seemed to realise that its prey was long gone. It glared at Small One and snarled, lifting an arm and coiling its skinny legs to jump. Small One tensed to be ready to dodge, but a glob of poison spit splattered onto the ape's face, eliciting a shriek. Small One swung her head around just as Clever One materialised, another poison ball already building in his mouth. Clawing at its eyes, the ape turned around to stalk back into the woods where it had come from, evidently deciding that it wasn't worth it.
Small One breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to Clever One and chattered a thanks. He stuck his tongue out and jerked his head in the direction the fleeing one-horn had went. After a few attempts, he managed to explain to Small One that he and Bold One had found the one-horn, and Bold One was currently guarding it. As they walked, Small One's tail and belly started to ache rather fiercely as the adrenaline wore off. She supposed she should count herself lucky that she hadn't gotten hit by anything more serious than the edge of an energy blast and a weaker punch. There was no doubt in her mind that the horned ape could have snapped her spine in two if she'd let it.
After a while of walking, Small One and Clever One came to the small clearing where Bold One currently sat next to a pacing one-horn. It was a male, as far as Small One could tell, with a lustrous mane and an ethereal glow. He whinnied a thanks to Small One as soon as he saw her, clearly grateful that she had stood up to his predator for him. Small One decided to get right to the point. Growling and chirping, she asked the one-horn if he knew which parts of the world were still intact. The picture painted by the one-horn was a rather grim one. He seemed to believe that nowhere was truly unscathed, not even the deepest parts of the ocean or the most isolated of mountain peaks. The death-prey had sunk their claws deep into the world and Twisted One had not been gentle in ripping them out.
Mulling that rather grim image over, Small One changed approach, next asking the one-horn which parts of the world were recovering the best. His response wasn't what Small One had been hoping for. He spun tales of a verdant land beyond the sea, where the death-prey's presence hadn't been so strongly rooted, and Twisted One hadn't had to try very hard to get rid of them. Small One huffed. That was all well and good, but she didn't think she or the other two had the stamina to fly across the sea. She similarly shot down the one-horn's suggestions of the frozen north, where precious few death-prey had bothered to set up nests. Small One didn't even have to look at Bold One and Clever One to know they were glaring at the one-horn for even suggesting it.
The one-horn's final suggestion was for the trio to choose a volcanic area and stay there. Even Twisted One didn't have the power to damage a volcano so badly that it no longer served its function, and the death-prey hadn't worked too hard to establish themselves near any for fear of eruptions. Though Bold One immediately perked up at the idea, and Small One wasn't too adverse to it so long as the sun wouldn't be beating down on her, she could practically feel Clever One's heart sinking. Unfortunately, that was the last real suggestion the one-horn had to offer. No amount of pressing him could get him to offer up more than a few apologies and explanations that the world hadn't healed yet and needed more time.
Small One took a deep breath. She had one last question to ask the one-horn before it was time to move on. Speaking in low tones, she asked him if he had seen or heard anything of an adult male glitterscale with a big messy scar on his chest. The one-horn closed his eyes in thought for a few moments, before finally admitting that he hadn't seen any glitterscales since the war ended, aside from Small One herself. That was rather disappointing, but Small One tried not to let it show. As she turned to leave, the one-horn suddenly nickered, catching her attention again. His last bit of advice before he trotted back into the trees was to search in places where glitterscales liked to live. Small One was about to ask him where glitterscales usually lived, but stopped short. She was a glitterscale, shouldn't she know that? She squeezed a clump of leaf litter in her talon as she suddenly realised that there was quite a lot she didn't know about her own kind. She snorted bitterly. Just another thing that neither absent Mother, hollow Broken One, nor warlord Furious One had bothered to teach her.
By the time she was done feeling sorry for herself, the one-horn was long gone, leaving her without even the option of asking him. Bold One and Clever One were already making their way through the trees, eyes open for anything edible. Small One followed behind them, idly musing on all the other things she didn't know or understand about her own place in the world.
Does Small One drive off the Rajang? (Strength = 9)
Small One rolls an 18 (required 11). Success.
In order to make up for Distracted Shiny's poor multitasking abilities yesterday, have a double length chapter, which includes both what was intended to be the second half of yesterday's chapter and what was intended to be today's chapter. I wasn't playing GU while writing this one so it's probably not as badly-written and disconnected as last night's was. Hopefully, anyway.
To the reviewer who seemed surprised by me playing GU, I've actually played quite a few MH games. I've played 4U, Gen, FU, Stories, 3U, and GU, in that order (haven't played World, though, aside from what I played at a friend's house). What can I say? I wouldn't be writing fanfics about MH if I didn't spend way too much time playing it. Oh, also, it isn't too hard to unlock Bloodbath with a good team. All you need to do to is complete the G1 quests for the other five G-exclusive Deviants (Elderfrost, Soulseer, Boltreaver, Rustrazor, Nightcloak). An hour's work at most.
