The sakura blossoms that belonged to the guarding trees of the land twirled through the air, a dazzling sight of springtime that would be here and gone before anyone knew it. The brown-barked cherry trees that surrounded the flourishing village gave the scenery that splash of the adored color that only came from these delicate blooms.
An afternoon encompassed by them would have been a pleasant one indeed. But for the village and its inhabitants, both native and foreign, luck was not on their side regardless of what fortune was read to them. The skies had become gray and gloomy instead of being sunny as usual, the thought of stopping to admire the wonder of a cherry blossom's short-lived beauty gone from the mind as citizens fled in terror as quick as their paws or hooves could carry them.
A shriek, louder than any bird could ever create, rung out in the air, similar to the sound the fireworks made as they trailed into the air before igniting with color. Not even a few seconds later did the piercing cry's source emerge in the sky. A dragon with jet black scales scouted the skies from a great height above the shops in the village, flapping its scythe-shaped wings as it surveyed those running from it.
Sending a gust of wind as it soared forward, it traveled over towards the rooftop of a pagoda that served as a place for worship and landed on it, sending little pieces of the bricks it was made of down to the ground.
"Why do you flee from this as if the end is near?" the large dragon snarled with its deep voice, fangs on display as it grinned. "It is far from the end." It lifted one of its arms and placed it upon its scaly and puffed out chest in pride. "It is the beginning of a new dynasty, one ruled over by yours truly."
"Not if I can help it!" a voice called out, one that was bold and without any fear.
The dragon stopped in the middle of its proclamation to look down at who dared to interrupt. Down below was small gray rabbit dressed in a long purple kimono.
"Seems as if you're a dumb bunny at heart," the scaly beast chuckled, leaping off the rooftop and into the air once more before landing directly in front of the rabbit, towering over her in height. "Never would have thought you would just put yourself in front of danger knowing what would come next."
From, seemingly, out of nowhere did a tomato suddenly come hurling through the air, hitting the dragon directly on the top of his head. His eyes widened and turned away from the bunny and started out in the direction the fruit-turned-weapon came from.
A short distance away from where the rabbit stood was a red fox in samurai armor, making himself known from behind an abandoned wooden wagon full of red and ripe tomatoes.
The dragon started to growl under its breath with agitation. "I should've known that came from you, Nicolas. Only you would use produce as a weapon." He shook his head to get the piece of tomato that had splashed upon that side of his face from off of it, his eye starting to twitch and burn. "But of all things," he growled, "you had to throw the only thing I had an allergy to."
"I could change that, if you wish," Nicolas said, withdrawing a pair of long swords that he spun around in his paws before placing them back in the straps of his armor. He sent a glare in the direction of the dragon that threatened harm upon the bunny he loved. "We're here to bring a stop to the deeds you have planned once and for all."
"I'd honestly love to see you try..."
"Very well." With that, the samurai vulpine dashed forward while pulling out the swords once again.
Nicolas prepared to send a strike but found himself being knocked back towards a tree in the distance with the simple swipe of the dragon's arm. The swords once in his paws hit the ground and kicked the dust from the ground below.
The fox recovered from the unexpected setback, picking himself up and readjusting the helmet he was wearing that ended up slightly crooked.
"I'm okay!" he remarked with the wave of a paw, trying to remain in good spirits in the midst of the treacherous situation.
The doe cloaked in purple held out the polearm with the long-tanged blade and took the position she learned to assume through her studies in the art of fighting against enemies. The stern look she gave to what she stood upon against increased in seriousness twofold.
"You want to lay so much as a claw on Nicolas, you'll have to go through me first," Judith proclaimed.
The dragon lifted arm arm up towards its face as if he were shielding himself and pretended to give a look of fear to her. "Oh, I'm shivering so hard," he mocked. "How cute."
"Uh-oh," Nick muttered as he approached Judith's side. "He said it."
All of the rabbit he knew's normal patience had disappeared. No longer was there any sort of smile left with those final two words that emerged. "Don't. Call me. Cute!"
The doe leapt up and readied herself to strike the adversary, only for the behemoth to disappear in a cloud of thick and ashy smoke. She turned herself around after landing through the smoke that had appeared. The dragon was nowhere to be seen, and standing further away from her now was a leopard with black fur wearing a hat made of shaven bamboo.
"Aren't we just quick to sprint into action?" the adversarial canid said, his voice still deep after shifting from the form of the mighty dragon he was before. He reached towards his sides and withdrew a curved sword before grinning back at her and the fox. "Very well. I guess it would be fairer if I fought you both of as a mammal rather than a behemoth, not that it'll help you defeat me any better."
"We'll see about that," Nick said before the battle between good and evil ensued.
"And that is the tale behind this rock" the tan-furred bunny said, pointing to the the trinket that sat idly on the coffee table, a smooth stone with an etching engraved onto it placed on top of a little holder.
After visiting her family back in the heart of Bunnyburrow, Judy decided to bring some of her younger siblings a little souvenir from one of the trips she had made with Nick some time before. The little ones always enjoyed hearing about some of the places they went as well as when she brought them things like this, even if it was something small.
It was when she set that little trinket down for them to see that the little buck with the wild imagination, eight-year-old Alex, sprouted the little tale about warriors from another country and dragons and the like. Being a bunny with a love for learning about the history of places around the world, he decided to weave his own story of what he thought the tale was behind the figurine when his brothers and sisters asked where it came from.
As Judy was about to tell them where it really came from, the little ones ended up making a game out of it and seeing who could come up with the better story.
"I don't think so," remarked Amanda, the buck's sister of the same age and a little bit of a know-it-all at times. "Everyone knows that creatures that big didn't exist."
Alex scoffed and crossed his arms, returning a stern look to his sister. "Oh yeah? How do you know?"
"Wouldn't we have found fossils of them like the dinosaurs?" replied Amanda with a smirk.
Alex stood corrected for a moment but didn't want to admit that she was right. "Well... You think you can come up with a better story about that thing Judy brought for us?"
"Sure can," Amanda remarked. "If you ask me, the best stories come from the sea."
"Oh dear..." Alex shook his head, knowing what might have been the story she was going to tell. His sister had an infatuation with the ocean and the like.
The boat bobbed up and down against the gulf's tide as the fox in charge of ensuring its smooth sailing sat and waited patiently for his friend to emerge from the water. The flock of seagulls that had been pestering him for awhile now, screeching to one another as they circled the boat, showed no signs of flying away soon, most likely because they refused to leave in hopes that the fox was fishing and that maybe they would end up getting what he caught.
Nick checked the time on his watch, getting the feeling that his companion he explored the seas alongside would reappear any second now. His hunch was correct when he heard the sounds of something emerging from the water with a decent splash.
The gray rabbit in her black wetsuit and scuba gear swam her way up towards the boat and got herself back up to shore, something held up against her that she had cradled in her paw.
"How's the waters, Carrots?" asked Nick upon her walking up towards him.
"As beautiful as always," Judy replied.
"But I bet they're not as beautiful as a certain bunny that came into my life," the fox waxed in his typical albeit corny manner.
The doe smiled back at him before holding a paw out towards the fox and showing him what she had found on her diving excursion. "You got to check this out, Slick. I always heard of mammals going diving and finding some rare things in the water, and I think this might be one of those things."
Nick got a closer look at what she had been carrying. It was some sort of rock that looked aged and had some peculiar-looking etchings on it. "What do we have here?" he said to himself.
"Not sure, but I think it might be something valuable. You know for awhile now that I've always wanted to try to travel to the other ocean and see if I could find any of that ambergris stuff to see I've done it."
"Amber what?" Nick inquired.
"Ambergris. It's supposed to be this substance produced by whales that they expel through regurgitating."
"And something that sounds that gross is prized?" Nick shook his head in disbelief. "Wow, just when I thought I knew it all."
"Anyway," Judy continued, returning to the subject, "I got a feeling this rock isn't just some ordinary thing that was laying in the sea. Who knows?"
"You really think so, Carrots?"
Judy shrugged her shoulders and answered, "You never know. I'll have to see if somebody will check it out and tell us what it is."
"Well, at first glance, you would presume this thing to be one of those rare things you hear mammals find when they go diving," the old otter said from behind the counter as he got a look at the discovery Judy had made.
"Ooh, this is exciting," Judy said as she turned around and gave the fox behind her a smile of anticipation.
The otter looked back at her, setting the rock on the counter, and continued, "You know, this really reminds me of a rock sculpting made by an artist of the time that was known quite well. Not much is known about it except for the fact that he disliked how his work was looking so much that he ended up scattering the pieces in several places in hopes that no one would find it, including the ocean. There's an old of mine from college that's out hunting for the treasure of Collie Baba right now with some explorers, and before that he dedicated some time to search for-"
"That's really interesting, sir," Nick said. "but what do you think this thing Judy found is possibly worth? Is it it something along the lines of what you just said?" He was hoping the guy, who turned out to be a bit more of chatterbox than anticipated when they walked in and started conversation, would simply get to the point.
"When you compare it something like this," the otter trailed on, reaching for something he had protected in a glass case and unveiling it with careful paws, "which is a craving of rock from roughly a couple of decades ago, you can see that-"
"That's nice and all, but what about-"
"Or you might just be able to find something like this other neat-"
"What is the price of this thing right now?" Nick interrupted once again before placing a paw against the side of his face. He was normally not one to lose patience and do something of this sort rather often, but this was one of those rare occasions.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," the otter apologized. "I do tend to go into spits and spurts on these collectible things that I have knowledge of."
"No kidding..." the vulpine mumbled under his breath.
"Anyway, we aren't gonna know whether this is just some ordinary rock formation or something unique until I get a closer examination of it."
With that, the otter stepped away and retrieved a microscope that was similar to the kind used to inspect jewels for authenticity, and he placed the rock onto the device before shining a light upon it. He started to whistle a bit loudly while he twiddled with the small knobs on the side of the microscope, an eye carefully gazing into the lens as he got an analysis of it that was better than what his eyes would see.
"What's the verdict?" Judy chimed as she watched him look through the microscope.
"You know that number that comes right before the number one?" asked the mustelid in reply.
"Zero?" responded Nick.
"Well," the otter sighed, "I hate to break it to ya but that's the value of this rock."
Judy's ears drooped down upon hearing that unfortunate news. "So it's not something unusual at all? Not something valuable that somehow ended up in the ocean?"
"Afraid not." The mammal behind the counter shook his head, regretting to inform her of this. "Just an ordinary rock that happens to have some lines etched into it, probably forming themselves over the years."
Nick turned to look over at Judy, who was a tad disappointed upon hearing that her little find wasn't exactly something that had a supreme amount of value to it. "Well, that's a bummer, Fluff."
"Not quite, Nick," Judy returned. She was the kind of mammal that always saw a light at the end of a tunnel, and she had an idea hatch into her mind on just what she could do with it. "You know how I've always liked how those mammals take stuff they found on the beach and turn them into cute crafts? Maybe I can turn this into something like that, and if find enough shells and other stuff that washes up on the beach and make stuff with them, we could get a tent at the arts and crafts show that's gonna be happening on the pier next week."
"You know what, Carrots?" Nick said. "I think that's a good idea. Take something that's ordinary and turn it into something that mammals could take home to remember their time by the ocean. Let's do it."
"And so they went on to make crafts from the sea and become the best of all the other craft makers," Amanda concluded.
From the other room emerged another buck that was a year older than her and Alex. "Yeah, that's cute and all, but what if the story was spookier?" he said.
Amanda rolled her eyes and shook her head as she looked over at him. "I thought you were practicing for your whack-bat game, Lucas" she returned with somewhat of an attitude. She wasn't quite a fan of how he had a tendency to just walk in and join a conversation even though he only heard a fraction of it, but siblings were like that sometimes.
"I was," replied Lucas, "but when I came into the kitchen I heard the two of you telling stories about that rock Judy brought with her. Thought I would pitch in."
"Because that's what I was hoping for," his younger brother Alex mumbled under his breath.
"That rock is actually the only thing that stood between mammals and a creature that was unlike any other..."
"Nobody knows exactly where they came from, but I know for sure that they aren't friendly," the bear said as he walked alongside the fox and rabbit.
Judy nodded her head before looking up at the tall ursid carrying a flashlight and illuminating the path for her and Nick. "And this wolf you know," she said. "He knows a way to get them to avoid us."
"His name is Winston," the bear replied informatively. "He may be old but he knows a lot of these things, has been preparing for times like this for as long as I've known him. Not sure what sort of help he can provide us, but I know for sure that shiny rock you've been carrying seems to upset those creatures."
Judy looked back down at the rock she had covered in her closed paw. It was the very thing her brother had given her just before one of the peculiar creatures of these woods managed to find him. When one had appeared some time ago and she had no way to defend herself, all she did was hold it out and it ran off.
She had no idea whether it was something the rock consisted of or not, but she was going to worry about those specifics later. Right now her and her friends were worried about nothing else except survival. It was fight or flight at any given moment for them.
"His cabin should be just up ahead on this trail," the bear continued on. "With as long as he taught me to survive the elements and I've known him, I know the route to it like the back of my paw.
"I-I don't think we've made it in time, guys," Nick trembled to the right of the other two, pointing a shaking paw out in front him.
Just as the bear had told them, the cabin was a short walking distance from where they had found themselves stopping in that moment. The door to the construction hung wide open, with no lights being seen on from the inside. A trail had been made in the dirt surrounding where the cabin stood, and there were some unusual prints made in the ground that didn't look like ordinary paw prints.
"Oh no..." the ursid muttered.
Judy heard something then and turned around to see what was coming from her left, and out there in the open was what was one of the unknown things that skulked these woods. Coming into view was a lanky figure holding a flashlight, casting its glow on the forest floor in between the trees it watched them from.
"As long as we stay perfectly still," Judy informed in a whisper, "it'll probably just go-"
A loud grunt arose from the tree a few paces away, causing everyone to break their silence and let out a shout. From behind that tree's thick trunk, the four started to see a pale paw without any fur on it emerge behind. It was another one of whatever was out in front of them.
"Run!" the bear of the group compelled, and everybody followed his lead as he darted across another spot in the woods. "And whatever you do, don't look back!"
The odd creature from behind started to stumble dumbly around, giving the three enough time to evade them by making a cut through the steeper terrain.
"Wait a minute," Alex interrupted before his brother could continue with his story. "Isn't that just that movie... Uh, what's it called?"
"The Furless," Lucas replied.
The mother of the little ones, Bonnie Hopps, came strolling by just as she was coming back to the room with a glass of lemonade. "Now that movie's not for kits. When did you see that, young mammal?"
"I didn't see it all," Lucas confessed. "Thomas showed me some of it when he was watching it. It wasn't that scary.
Bonnie turned her head towards her teenage son, who was in his chair with his head slouched into the screen of his phone. "Well, I'll have to have a talk with him about that later."
"Actually," Judy chimed in after hearing the imaginary tales her siblings conjured up, "the story of how we got that rock for you guys wasn't as wild as those ones were..."
"Are you sure you know where we're going, Fin?" Nick said from the back seat as he looked out the window. "It feels like we're in the middle of nowhere."
"I told you I was certain the last hundred times ya asked me that," Finnick called back with his eyes still locked firmly on the road, even though there was literally nothing to look out for being on an unoccupied road like the one he was on.
"We've never driven to this part of the country," Nick replied. "I feel like we should've at least taken one of those maps from the rest stop."
"Yeah, Fin, they had a ton of different maps there," Judy added from the other seat.
"We don't need a dang map," Finnick assured. "The van's got that brand new GPS. Never gonna need a map again."
The journey being taken by the three friends carried on until the GPS system pinged and said that where they were heading to was only several hundred yards away and on the right. Finnick started to slow the van down and put his blinker on before making a turn into what was probably the bumpiest land the vehicle had driven against.
Several cars from decades ago were parked in a neat line in patches of grass, and up ahead was a shack that looked like it was in dire need of some renovation. Several old signposts read slogans that were worn out from the elements, making what was painted on them harder to read but still discernible.
Outside the building stood a coyote in a black suit and maroon fez, an eyepatch over his right eye. "Step right up to the Conundrum Cabin, folks!" he proclaimed in a dry voice. "Don't be shy!"
"Here we are," Finnick said before exiting the van and getting out to stretch his legs after a long day of driving.
"This was on your itinerary, Fin?" Nick asked as he stepped out into the fresh air and looked around. "Some rundown tourist trap?"
"It ain't a tourist trap, Wilde," responded the fennec fox defensively. "It's supposed to be a museum of sorts that houses a lot of unexplained mysteries."
Nick could only snicker at his explanation. "Yeah, and that's exactly what a tourist trap would market something like this as. I'm getting flashbacks from Lester's Possum Park all over again."
"Hey, how was I supposed to know that place went downhill that bad? That place used to be awesome."
"Well," Judy said to the them, "guess it don't hurt to have a look inside since we're already here..."
"I know it's nothing big, but I just decided to grab one while we were there as a little souvenirs for you guys," Judy explained.
Even if it was just a stone somebody carved into and not something with some sort of story behind it, the little ones, she saw, really enjoyed the little trinkets and whatnot that she brought for them when she visited the farm.
If she were being honest in that moment, however, she enjoyed the tales they had fun making about them even more than the real ones behind them.
Author's Note: I have returned! I know that I have been away from writing for a little bit now when I was hoping to come up with even more stories, but life got in the way and I felt the need to take a break from it for just a little bit.
I had a couple of different ideas that came on a whim but not enough time to flesh them out entirely into stories of their own, so I decided to try to write something where I could put all of them together and it somehow work. And I also included a couple references in there as well for good measure. :)
The endgame of that is this weird little story. I'll admit that my writing went a little bit rusty since I last tried to come up with something, but I hope y'all still enjoyed it.
As always, your thoughts on this story of mine, good and bad, are always appreciated.
'Til next time, everybody! :)