Walking (new): chapter 1

”Are you sure this is a good idea?”

The little deer said, stepping over a huge branch.

“If we are back in time for dinner, it is” Army, the purple Grifx was positive he knew what he was saying.

Almost positive. He kept walking forward, sure of what he might find. He saw it yesterday, so why would it be gone today? He shook his head.

stop thinking like that. It’s there!

He was so sure that it was there. It had to be, or…

They kept walking. They got deeper into the Forest. The Forest that was forbidden. The deeper they went, the more his friend was fidgeting.

“It’s there, I promise you” Army said as he looked at his anxious friend.

“And what if it’s not? I swear Army if your fu-“ she stopped mid sentence and turned around.

CRACK

“What was that?” She whispered.

He stopped and looked around.

CREAK

there it was again but coming from a different way. As he was turning to the sound, It flew past his head. He ducked. And ran forward. He ran but only heard his paws and hooves hit the forest floor. He looked behind himself. She wasn’t following. He looked around and saw the massive thing hit her, making her pass out.

He stopped.

NO

No she can’t be.

No!

He turned around, making his paws hit the ground. Dirtying them up. He didn’t mind the dirt, at least not right now. Not when he saw his friend’s body on the ground. The thing that attacked them was hovering over her. The only thing he could see of his best friend was twisted legs. He winced as he saw it.

“Arch!” He yelled. He regretted it as soon as his mouth opened. The black thing wiped around. It moved too fast for him to see what it was. It came at him too fast. He had time to move out of the way but the thing still nicked him. He yelped, felt a gash open up at his right side. He turned around and faced the thing. He gasped. He couldn’t believe his eyes. It swiped at him again and he was so shocked that he just let it hit him.

He let it hit him. He fell to the ground but before he passed out the thing said something.

“You should have stayed home, Army.”

He woke up in a haze. His head hurt and he tried to look around but it just made it worse. He tried again but to no avail.

“Oh, so you’re up?” It crunched and turned off wood.

What voice sounds like wood???

His vision got better and he looked around. He was in a cave with a fire light. And no exit he could find. He looked where he heard the voice, he wished his vision was still bad.

He yelled and jumped back when he realized he was chained to the ground.

“HAHAHAHA! Oh hoo! You should look at your face! Ha!”

The Timberwolf laughed and laughed like it was a joke.

Yeah, my friend’s death is a joke!?

The beast stopped laughing and got close real to fast

“I don’t kill, boy.”

His breath smelled of moss and...

Life?

“I save”

The Timberwolf stepped back to the rock shaped table over by the source of light. A Timberwolf saving? Ha! This Timberwolf was on something.

Army couldn’t help but chuckle. The beast ignored the insult. He was rummaging through the stuff on the rock. Army tried to look over the wolf to see what was on the table but he was too big, covering up the whole table. He stopped when he found what he was looking for. He turned around. Army didn’t quite see what he had in his mouth and when the beast stepped forward, Army scored back.

“Stay back!” He yelled moving back as he stepped closer. But he couldn’t move much as he was chained to the ground by his front hooves and pain shot up his leg but ignored it.

I don’t want to die

not like this

Army closed its eyes and waited for the pain. The pain came all right.

“Hold still, kid” the wolf growled as he held the boy done with his front paws and used his back legs to do something to his legs. Then he heard a crack. He screamed. Army opened his eyes when the weight of the beast was off. He looked down to leg. The wooden wolf had aligned his leg back in place.

Army stared in shock at his leg as the Timberwolf put a stick and wrapped a cloth to hold the stick in place. Army blinked.

His eyes were filled with tears and his vision blacked out and in. The wolf was telling him to get up?

I am chained to the ground, beast.

Army thought. He saw the wolf put something into his leg as he fell from his sitting position into deep sleep from pain.

______________________

She sat up. Her head was killing her. She tried putting her hooves underneath her. No use. She looked down and saw chains hooked to her rather clean black hooves. She looked where they led and rolled her eyes. She was chained to a black hoop in the ground, not even four feet away from her. She looked around again and saw that the walls were red clay colored rock. It has a low ceiling that curves into a dome. The floor was smooth, the only magic capable of doing that is high level Grifix magic. It was hard to tell how big the room was since the rest was engulfed in darkness. The light provided was a candle that flickers ever so slightly near her.

She tired the chain again.

“No use, sugar cube” she jumped and turned towards the voice. It was raspy and grated like cheese. She couldn’t see who the voice belonged to. Her heart began to race. A million thoughts raced through her brain.

“Army?” She yelled into the darkness. Hoping it would be her only friend. No response.

“Army, I swear if that’s you!” She gasped as she heard thuds of what seemed like paws hit the stone floor. Her pulse quickened and she started to sweat. The thuds got louder and as they louder,she tried to pull back. Her chains didn’t let her move much. Her eyes darted back further in the darkness. The little light flickered, for a moment she thought it would go out. But before she could throw up or cry or both from the panic, the thing came into the tiny light. A Timberwolf. A Timberwolf with the eyes of a pony. Not the usual green, mince kind. But dark, starry blue eyes. He was also a lot smaller than what she imagined or how they were drawn in the history books. But that made her scared even more. She tried to back again but she was already at the edge of the chain. She winced as it cut into her hoof. The Timberwolf looked down at the now bleeding hoof and bent down. She panicked once more and sliced it again. Tears of pain and fear fell down her face. She whimpered as it got even closer to her.

“No! Don’t touch me, you filthy beast!” She yelled in his face. He winced but kept trying to reach for her. She used her free hoof to kick him in the face.she kicked hard enough to send him back.

Something metal hit the floor. She looked towards the sound and her heart leapt. Hr dropped the keys! But they were closer to the wolf than she wanted. She looked back at the wolf, who was rubbing his face. Then she looked back at the keys. She went for them. She was halfway there when a white paw stopped in her tracks. She looked up and saw her best friend. Her only friend. Only that this wasn’t her friend. It was a different version of him. More muscle. More dirty. And decently more handsome. He looked back at the wolf who now had a smudge look on his face.

“Jake, you ight?”

“Yeah, she kicked pretty hard.”

“I told she was strong.”

They kept talking like she wasn’t even in the room. But she noticed that his voice changed. It wasn’t that high pitch, whiny voice. But it was more masculine, more sing song voice. She almost swooned, then she moved a little bit and yelped. She looked back at her leg, which was now bleeding even more. There was a decent sized poodle of blood now. She looked back at Army who winced.

“Damn, now why do you go and hurt yourself?” He asked as he bent down and grabbed the keys. He gave them to her and went back into the darkness. The Timberwolf followed suit. She unchained herself and by the time they came back, she moved away from the blood and was putting pressure on it.

“Here,” the Timberwolf handed her a towel sind bent down to help banged her up “And let me help with this”

She scooted away from him like he was a disease.

“He isn’t gonna hurt you, Arch.” Army said from the pool of blood that he was cleaning up. He did his magic to mop it with a makeshift mop of…seaweed?

“It’s actually very helpful to mop things up,” the Timberwolf said as he looked at her confused face. She glared at him. Ashe was done patching her up, she had Few questions.

“Army….where are we?”

“In a cave.” He said as he put the seaweed mop away and lit more candles. The whole room lit up and she could see more. She squinted her eyes as she adjusted to it. But it looked as he said. A cave. A rather empty and rather old cave. She started to shiver.

“Are you cold?” Army asked. She nodded her head. He left and returned with a brown fleece blanket and draped it over her. She smiled but he didn’t return it. He looked at Jake who was coming back from putting the supplies back, but what was now in his hand was food. Her stomach rumbled as she smelled fresh bread. The Timberwolf, whose name she guessed was Jake, placed the food down in front of her. The plate held many things. Fresh baked bread, pickle grapes and berries. She looked at him and whispered a thank you before she chowed down. She coughed as some food went down the wrong pipe and Jake came with water. She drank it and then nodded to him. He nodded back and went to sit beside Army who was watching her, she swallowed some more food before asking more questions.

“So…um…” Army cocked his head as she was trying to find what she was going to ask.

“How long was I out…?” She said as a lump formed in her throat. She didn’t want the answer as she knew it was something that was mind blowing. But she had to confirm it. As Army gave the answer, she almost passed out from the shock.

“Almost a year, Arch.”