It was a beautiful day. The sun was out in full force, enveloping the forest with a bright glow. Birds were chirping, the air was crisp and clear, we even saw a wild fox!
We shot it down for later. Food.
All in all it was a pretty good day. I didn't think anything could make me feel otherwise.
"Uuuuuuugh, we've been walking forever! Have we even gotten anywhere close to... Wherever we're going?!"
"Stormfly, we haven't even been hiking for that long, it's, like, ten AM." I turned around, walking backwards with my arms behind my head.
"We're making good time, too." Toothless commented from up front as he poured over the map clenched in his paws. "Look ahead." He pointed through the trees, a small clearing with a stream running through it, rich with lichen staining the water green.
"Ooh! Pretty." B.B. commented, holding the dead fox under his arm like a football.
"I didn't think we'd make it this far until the afternoon." Toothless continued on, trudging through the water without even looking up.
"Think we'll make it to the next cat-infested dungeon today?" I hopped over the stream, watching as everyone else had to muck through. Perks of being a nimble little puppy.
"Could we please not? I don't think i've emotionally recovered from the last one." Meatlug groaned.
"Forget emotionally recovering! I'm gonna need a whole month just to feel my legs again." Stormfly whimpered, throwing her hands against her face.
"Oh come on, It's not that bad." Snotlout supplied.
"It's that bad." Hookfang grumbled, letting a branch he was holding smack his rider in the face.
"Well, if we stop now you'll be too sore to keep going, since your legs aren't used to walking this much." Toothless offhandedly remarked, comparing our surroundings to the map as he spoke. "We need to get as close to the next location as possible, so you'll recover in time before we begin our attack." I sniffed at that, uneasy at the thought of fighting again so soon.
"Should we be making battle plans before we even know where we're gonna be stormin' through? I think there's a saying about counting chickens that fits here." My ears twitched. Toothless snorted as I pulled up beside him to peer over his arms at the map.
"It's always good to have a plan, even if it has to be adjusted." He pushed me out of his personal space with his wing. I huffed, falling back into line towards the middle with B.B.
"Don't worry about that too much." He shuffled the fox in his arms as he walked. "Usually whenever there's a plan-"
"Someone always winds up deviating until it's rendered obselete." Meatlug cut him off, talking through a yawn.
"Well maybe if you all didn't 'deviate' so much-!" Toothless shouted from up ahead, unable to continue over the sounds of everyone behind him falling into laughing fits. He groaned loudly. "Fine, just- Come on, we're almost halfway there."
"Only halfway?!" Stormfly squawked, dropping to her knees. "That's it... I'll never make it... Tell Astrid i'm sorry... And to remember me... Auf wiedersehen... Bleh." She fell to the side dramatically, hands clutched to her chest.
"Oh no. Stormfly. She was so young. So beautiful." Hookfang deadpanned, simply stepping over her.
"Fine! We can take a break!" Toothless shouted, flaring his wings.
"Yes!" Stormfly hopped back up onto her feet.
"After we reach the next clearing." He elaborated. Stormfly clamped her mouth shut to muffle the following screech.
"No! We just passed one!" She groaned. I prodded her in the shoulderblade to keep her from stopping again.
"Maybe you should've whined more earlier." Snotlout scoffed, ducking the branch Hookfang set loose this time. He yelped and almost fell backwards when the nadder flung a trio of spines into the ground beside him, giving his dragon ample opportunity for more tree-based assault. I did my best to restrain my amusement at the poor guys misfortune. My best was never really all that good, though, so maybe a few laughs slipped. Sue me.
"Alright, alright," I coughed, attempting to regain something that resembled composure. "I still got energy. How about I run ahead and just tell you where the next clearing is?" I offered.
"Well..." Toothless thought it over, removing his paw from the map to scratch at his neck.
"Let her do it!" Stormfly looked like she was five seconds away from throttling our de facto leader. "She offered!"
"Yeah, what's the worst that could happen?" I shrugged.
"You could get lost in the woods." B.B. spoke up.
"Or fall in a hole." Meatlug followed up.
"Or get attacked by something."
"Or someone."
"Or maybe-" I cut B.B. off by yanking on his arm by the wrist, bringing one of his heads down to my level.
"Not. Helping." I ground out. He got a shiteating grin on his faces. I released him with a huff. "Lets vote on it then. All in favor of me running off into the woods like a maniac, raise your hand." I turned to face the whole group, walking backwards again. Hookfang and Snotlout both had an arm raised. Stormfly had two. It made her wings stretch between them and her torso strangely, but she did it despite the weird silhouette it gave her.
"Ha! Four against three!" Snotlout laughed, raising a fist to Hookfang, who reluctantly but fondly met him with an eyeroll and a fistbump.
"Nice." I tossed the crystal shard between my hands, snatching it out of the air and jogging to catch up with Toothless. "Lemme see where I'm goin' first..." I hopped up onto a fallen log to peek at the map again.
"If we've been heading the right direction, the nearest clearing should be just up ahead, maybe a bit to the north." Toothless explained, pointing to the paper in his clutches. I blinked, understanding none of it. He sighed, grabbing me by the shoulders and physically turning me so that I was facing a bit more to the right than I was earlier. "Just run that way."
"You got it." I bounced down, stretching carefully. I hadn't had a good, solid run in a while. And especially not in a body like this. like, no pressure! I shook out my doubts, no time to waste on silly things like self-preservation. "I dunno how long i'm gonna be, but if y'all don't find my body? Mee gets my stuff." I joked as I crouched.
"Sweet." Meatlug pumped a fist.
"You don't have stuff." Hookfang snorted.
"Well that sucks, 'cause i'm coming back anyway!" I pushed off of the ground, waving as I moved from a jog to a run. "Byeeeee!"
"Be safe please!" B.B. shouted after me. I picked up the pace, barreling through undergrowth and over roots and rocks.
It was just like home. I fell into the wild rhythm like a stone in water. It was easy, I had done it so many times back in the forest on Berk. Dodge that bush, leap over that log, don't run face first into that tree in the way and just run run run. I don't know when my tongue escaped my mouth, I don't even know when my mouth decided to open, but I was panting, I was running, I was free.
I needed to go faster. My legs pumped harder, my arms pushing in front as if they could outpace the rest of me.
As if. I ran even harder, throwing myself forward with each step until-
I skid to a halt, tearing up grass in a tiny clearing. The one on Toothless' map no doubt. The trees around it were stunted, new and green. They didn't provide much cover, or shade. I was left squinting in the natural spotlight, sun catching the crystal shard as I raised the paw holding it to shield my eyes.
"Yah, ow!" I blinked it off. Luckily nobody was around to watch me bean myself in the eye with that-
Snap!
I flinched, dropping into a low stance. What the fuck was that?!
"Who's there?!" I shouted into the trees. "I'm armed and I know how to use this!" I continued, brandishing the shard and only kinda fibbing. More snapping, rustling coming from too many places- "Too-Toothless?! B.B.?! Guys, this isn't funny!"
"Mrrrrrrrrg..." Something growled from the dark. That spotlight comparison was too damn accurate, I couldn't see anything past the blinding curtain of sun. My ears twisted, finding and latching onto the source of the sounds. To the left. Just a little behind me. It must've heardme running and followed. The growling picked up before dropping entirely, along with the rusting of the undergrowth it was trudging through.
"Whatever you are," I swallowed my spit, desperately trying to steel my voice. "Don't you fucking try anything! I swear to god, don't attack me, don't attack me, fucking christ-"
"MrrrrrrrNGYAH!"
It attacked me. Shaped like a giant cat, with overgrown claws and teeth so oversized it drooled. It was huge, probaby the size of a drafthorse, made of smoky black wisps and familiar ichor.
Fucking Whittney.
It lunged for me from the treeline, trampling the saplings in its way. I sprinted to the side, panicking only a lot.
Monster cat. No dragons. No help. All alone in an area where hiding is most definately off the table. Shit.
The thing roared as it missed me, nails sunk deep into the earth where I was standing. I screamed, whipping the crystal in front of me, trying to get it to just blast the damn thing already! Light sparked and faded as a small little golfball of light crystal bounced off of the monsters nose. It snorted.
I think I made it mad. I could feel the color bleed from my face as it snarled, stalking forward faster than I could back away. I tripped over a large fallen branch that had been behind me, landing on my ass as it swiped at me, miraculously missing me by a hair. I squeaked, grabbing the branch and swinging wildly as I crawled around in the dirt. I wound up at the beasts underbelly, stabbing it repeatedly in the ribs with the pointy end of the branch as the wisps dissipated and the ichor dripped down onto me. It stung like hell, pricking me like knives through my fur. I rolled out from under it, dropping the branch to clutch my now burning arm.
I heard the sound of snapping undergrowth and stampeding feet. Great, it had reinforcements. Still holding my arm, I raised it, shard clenched in paw. From the deepest dregs of my energy I pulled, pulled for something, anything to go through. The crystal shimmered meekly, before escalating to a pulse, a pulse I felt match my own. The sound of incoming somethings drew nearer and nearer. The monster was closer, drooling more ichor into the grass. The sound of its gross panting and growling was almost enough to drown out everything else.
But mostly it just left me even more panicked. I felt my grip on the energy loosen, it was bubbling inside the crystal now. My physical grip on the shard however was tight enough for the sharp edges to pierce my paw pads, the blood not even visible beneath the blistering light. My legs were quaking, the pain, the shock, the exhaustion, the weight of so much energy being built up and the pressure of it all about to snap like a dry rubber band.
And then it did. My arm, still burning and barely being held up, was just about pulled out of its socket as a focused jet of light shot out, plunging right into the mass of wisps and goo and tore off its front leg. It screeched in agony as the limb fell to the ground with a positively nauseating wet sound. The monster stumbled about, crashing into trees as it went, screaming horribly until it too fell to the ground with a drowning gurgle as it choked on its own gooey spit and ceased moving. The sound of running finally stopped. My whole body was shaking. My arm was stabbing just as horribly and now there was the added strain of whiplash from that blast I loosed. It hurt to turn my head, there was a ringing in my ears, but I could finally see who had been pursuing me.
There stood the dragons, wide eyed and shocked. Who'd have blamed them? There was a huge cat monster slowly evaporating with its leg about five feet away after it had been shot off by a little dog that probably looks like shit.
"Hh... Hey guys. Don't touch the black stuff." I breathed heavily.
"Jetstreams, Pepper, what did you do?!" Toothless ran over, grabbing me by the shoulders but immediately slackening his grip when I writhed at his touch. The slime on my arm was dissolving into smoke that he waved away quickly, checking my embarassingly extensive wounds from the substance. A droplet of blood snaked its way over the shard and down my hand. More joined it as my nose began bleeding, startling Toothless as I just caught the drops in my hand.
"Hey Toothless?" I caught his attention without looking up, just staring into my hand.
"Yes?" He answered, trying to get me to look up by tilting my head.
"Catch." I fell forward, legs collapsing from under me after all the abuse. I was out cold.
Again.
Author's note:
Guess which bitch got vaccinated~?
Or well round one at least. Turns out i'm the part of the population that doesn't get nauseous or a migraine after getting it. I did have to wait a while to get one that wasn't JJ because remember that little hospital scare I had? Yeah turns out that blood clots tend to be a recurring thing if you've had them before and douvly so if you've got a genetic history of people having clots in your family. Woo. But hey, next time you hear from me i'll be immune and unstoppable.
Not that i'll use it for anything i'm gonna be using a mask forever now that it's normalised, and I already didn't go places, so like. Shut ins thrive year.
Anyways it's me. I'm bitch.
Pepper! Welcome to the reason why this is the monster arc and not like, I dunno, the waltz through easy mode Zelda puzzles arc. It's also time to explore what her fancy rock's really capable of. She's gonna come out of all this with an even bigger chip off of her still tiny shoulder. The things I do for my art, huh? Anyways i've noticed an influx of new reviewers, don't think I don't see and appreciate you, you wonderful things you. If you're reading this you should join them. Leave a review. You know you want to.
Do it! Do it do it do it! -Carly