Quickly shaking off his initial surprise, Rainbow jumped to his feet, fingers at the rea--What
IN- -???
He stumbled, taken aback anew by the intrusion of Ribbon sliding her fuzzy pelt between his legs and lifting him up, over the railing, and bolting down with a gleeful
"AHR-OOF!!!" into the flowery earth and maze-like thicket beyond. "N-NHO--!!!" Without any chance to concentrate, it was all he could do to hold onto the all-too-eager huntress as she tore through a dizzying array of sickly fragrant flowerbushes and unnervingly low, clawing branches. Screeched cries could be made out behind them even with the constant torrent of greenery whipping past all around them - Flower too, had joined the chase.
"Hop on!", Edward yelled in his equine form, hunching enough to give Caleb a leg up. Everything was flying by so quickly now, and if they weren't fast then he was sure they'd end up losing the others - not to mention the pearl! Caleb looked tentatively bewildered for just a moment more, but then, seeing the seriousness in his companion's eyes, he nodded and did as he was told. Barely even grasping the mane firmly enough, a sudden ripple of force flashed through him as the pair volted the railing and galloped away into the blind rush.
"S-STO-P - RIB-BON STO-P ! ! !", Ribbon heard her compatriot scream - even then, against the pounding of her heart in her ears, and the frenetic rustling of bushes below and the canopy above, it registered as little more than a whisper. She was Home, HOME, after so long, and the thrill of the chase was just like she remembered it. The distinct, guiding scents of particular flowers, acting as the city's "roads" for its citizens, wove an articulate path through the thickets for the old mutt, while it could only seem like pure madness to her rider. Even with the strain she was starting to feel from the pursuit, she felt so...Light; like the soft coastal air blowing through the trees, like the fluttering leaves that drifted loose wherever her quarry rustled through the treetops. She just felt so . . . Free!
...
...Rainbow spit the clumped and leaf-scattered dirt out of his mouth, wheezing from his fall. Ribbon echoed up ahead in the distance, but he didn't feel like he had the strength to try calling for her, let alone the confidence that she'd actually heed him after that display. A twinge of regret stung at his heart, and for a moment he thought he'd actually cry at what sure was feeling like a little betrayal for all the effort he'd put into taking care of that beast...his friend, really; but the situation came first, Rainbow, there would be time to worry and fret later...yes, yes now was the time to act, not whimper...
"What're you sniffling about--", came the sound of a voice that would've made a very good candidate for the role of his subconscious, "--Looks like Liz licked ya good, but I'd wager you're far from being in the worst state
she could leave ya in! No skin on the youth these days...I tell ya." At this a sharp prod of a walking-stick reemed Rainbow's ribcage, and he made a half-hearted attempt to swat it away as he rose, staggeringly, to his feet. A snapping retort was just itching to let fly off the tip of his tongue - but he stopped, thinking over those last few words...and instead considered a different plan.
"...So you know Liz, hm - friend of yours?", Rainbow rubbed his bruised side as both a healing agent, and as a subtle means to protect it from any further abuse.
"FRIEND!!?
HAHAAAAA!!!" The short, blind, hunched, raggedly-clad and bandana-plus-walking-stick-sporting gnome made the fuzzy green traveller jolt at the sound - it seemed to ring out through the forest with all the fervor of a town bell! "--FRIEND?!? Lad, you won't go making friends long here if you consider ANYONE a friend of that scaly-toed fiend!"
Rainbow grit his teeth: Patience was the path to Possibility...let's give that one. more. try.
"...But you Do Kn--"
"
--Of Course I Know Her!", the gnome replied sharply, ramming the stick into the squeamish stranger's belly. "Everyone on the North Face knows Liz "
The Leech" Lackadaisical - tsk, and her parents had such high hopes for her. Could've had it all, a life of pure comfort and luxury, nothing to do all day but recline on petal-pillows and dismiss servants; but the A r r o g a n c e of some people!" He shook his head and grimaced, retracting the cane back out of reach before the newcomer could take the chance to relieve him of it.
Rainbow gasped in pain, his teeth clenching so tightly that he could've sworn they were cracking. Yet again, he flared up, and yet once more logic sought to tame him: He was lost, new, unarmed, and at the mercy of this decrepit old fool.
...A fool with some information, no less.
...He sighed angrily...he could already think of worse occasions - now was the time to
think, beating the cripple to death with his cane could come later.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
He could...barely...see! The constant onslaught of passing leaves, flowers, stray branches and overgrown undergrowth spun a disorienting carnival of mental noise around the black-haired boy. In desperation he clung tightly to his friend's mane, hoping each next jolt or swerve or passing claw of a branch wouldn't send him flying off in some unknown direction. He didn't have any idea how Edward was even navigating, much less traversing, this ancient and unrefined mess of a maze.
Edward ducked another low-hanging branch at full speed, his timing impeccable for his first time in a long time moving about on dry land, much less under...ah, what was the word again?
"--What Do You Call These Things Again??", Edward yelled over his shoulder amidst the constant hurricane of leaves and shrubs. He could hear the sound of more birds than just Flower screeching and squawking at what must've sounded to them like an audible stampede. "WHAT??", Caleb screamed back, head tucked down and ears barely registering the question. "WHAT DO YOU CALL THESE THINGS AGAIN??"
...
...Caleb had to think hard about that one...
"...TREES, LEAVES??"
"THANK YOU!", the boy heard the hippocampus respond, leaving him in complete confusion.
--...much less under trees, leaves-cover. It was certainly easier - everything up here felt so...Free! He could swear he'd had that feeling at least once before. But anyway, it was SO much easier to move up here than it was back home - there wasn't nearly the same resistance, except for maybe when you were trying to swim upward on land...then it was about the same, really.
Caleb, meanwhile, couldn't take much more of this - or maybe he would've been able to if he could actually *understand* what was going on around him, but this was...he couldn't even...finish a..-- THOUGHT!
"CAN YOU SEE WHERE WE'RE GOING??"
"HUH?", Edward replied dumbfoundedly. Truth be told, he'd only been paying attention to where Flower was going - he trusted the bird's judgement, and certainly its sight, but...
"...WELL...UH...NO?"
". . ."
"...YOU ALRIGHT BACK THERE?"
" . . . N O !!!"
That last response hadn't sounded good at all - Caleb had felt genuinely pained to the hippocampus. Immediately, his mind raced for ideas to calm his friend - not exactly an easy task when every other second whipped a bit of brush in your face. Still...still...yeah, Yeah that might work!
Hopping over another crestfallen husk of a "tree, leaves", the equine child planted all four hooves in front of himself and slid, rather gracefully too, to a full stop in the middle of a small clearing...or at least as much of one as this forest could offer. Caleb was Not okay, that much he could tell just by listening to the sound of his heavy breathing; and having a quick look behind him lay on an even more pitiable sight: the boy's hair was matted with sweat, his face and clothes scratched and torn, his exposed ear being especially badly carved up.
...He was only Human, after all...and Edward immediately felt guilty about not having paid closer attention to him.
Flower circled around, perching on a nearby branch and entering a raving squawking fit, presumably in response to the ever-growing distance between the party. But Edward just stood and shook his head: "Not now, Flower, Caleb can't go right now." The bird may not have understood the words, but either due to weariness itself, or a general sense of empathy for intonation, it did at least quiet down a little.
...This place stunk, now that boy-hippocampus thought about it; not just in the way that the rest of the forest seemed to reek of a suffocating odor both airily sweet and intensely earthen, but...genuinely, foul. Wherever they'd ended up, it smelled like something had died right around here.
"...Where even is
Here...", he wondered aloud in a bewildered amazement at the colorful blossoms surrounding them.
"Nowhere Good.", came the sound of a deep, powerful voice from just off to his side. His lateral vision immediately tracked it to a particularly large clump of bushes spreading themselves apart. Then suddenly, a large, elongated snout with two incredible lengths of snapping teeth emerged from within - leading along a yellow-eyed, green-skinned,
scaled and incredibly powerful figure. The beast then emerged completely, revealing his full height - he was almost as tall as one of these smaller trees, leaves...and a lonnnnng, powerful tail swayed along the ground behind him like a serpent. The alligatorman re-adjusted his...were those...eel-skin pants? He shifted them up a bit further for the sake of modesty, perhaps a little unexpecting of anyone passing through the area of his respite, and the look on his face suddenly made Edward wonder where that smell had been coming from.
"I am Byures, but most of my friends know me by "Hunter" - and I think you'd be wise to want to be considered among that grouping right now."
Edward turned himself toward the beast of a man fully, shielding his ragged friend from what had sounded an awful lot like a serious threat. "...And that'd be because...?"
"Simple.", the alligatorman replied, stretching his muscles and taking a few imposing steps forward before stopping again. "I'm the Yeoman of The Guard, and you're walking along Smuggler territory."
Edward had no idea what he was talking about, but it sounded serious. "...Oh.", he replied dumbly, not sure what to say next.
"...Well, could I be your friend?"
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