Unknown

Steak Factory

Bran

How? Is it really you?

Where are you?

I'm coming, Road Runner. Your Coyote is coming.

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Green

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The world was simultaneously darker and brighter than Green remembered; a word he hadn’t used in a long time floated through his mind — night — it was night.

The lights inside the car illuminated the cab in reds, blues, and oranges. The headlights brought out the browns of the ancient poplar trees that cradled the mangled vehicle. After endless days of gray, the colors were overwhelming.

The near and newly dead surrounded where Green sat on the back seat next to a sobbing child — Asher. Movement caught Green’s attention; a large purple spider sat on the dash — a smile on its face. “You wretched evil hag!” Green shouted at the spider. “I hope Meyonohk peels you like a carrot! Then we’ll see how you like being eaten.”

The shouting caused Asher to jump. “Wha… what? Who?” He was a teen again. Green’s presence and outburst were enough to bring him closer to reality.

Green jerked his head to the right, keeping one eye on the spider and one eye on Asher; there was clarity in Asher's eyes, but then the last breath gurgled out of the girl in the passenger seat and it was gone. “Green? Can you help them? Help them, please?” his voice was building, getting frantic. “Use your magic.”

“I can’t. This isn’t real. And the only one here with magic is you,” he said. “Asher, you’re in the food box. A store. I’m sorry about how I did this, because I made this way harder than it needed to be. It was selfish, but right now you need to leave this behind. We need to get you to safety. Do these happen often? How do you usually break yourself from Lady Wraith’s grasp?”

Asher didn’t seem to hear him, but the dead girl’s arm lifted — pointing to the vehicle’s trunk.

Green did a double take. First, he recognized the two in the front seat, Hyrum, leader of the Color Hunters, and his traitor daughter, Miranda. Second, did the dead traitor raise her arm or did the tree branch in the car just raise it for her — Meyonohk? Lady Wraith and Meyonohk were both here? Wait. Green thought he recognized the kid on the floor behind the driver’s seat… no, was it? Yes, it was — the bear — Warden Becca. What had he gotten himself into? Asher was an Ardern? He was that Asher?

“My sister, father, brother. My mom… what about my mom? They can’t leave us. They can’t leave without us. Green, oh no, I left her too. She’s all alone now.”

A feminine voice whispered through the car from the vents beneath the spider's feet. “There is no escaping. I see you now.” Then the spider skittered into a vent and disappeared.

All of Green’s fur stood up and he shook from nose to tail. Oh, summer’s itchy shed. This was that Asher. Captain Ardern, Triskele’s best friend. The one Meyonohk hid, the one Lady Wraith hunted. Her voice, he had never heard Lady Wraith’s voice and… she knew where he was! Where they were! This was no place for a bunny. If this were real, he might have dropped pellets and ran, but the words of the First Rager played through his mind: ‘Never be ashamed of fear. Instead, listen to what it tells you and use what it gives you. Focus and action will see you through.’ Green took in a breath. “We have to go, Asher.”

“O’Leary?” Asher asked. His head tilted as if listening to something. “No, we can’t. I won’t leave them.”

“Empty hay tray! Asher, they’re still alive. I’ll get you too them, but we have to go, now!”

“What? Really?”

“This was a design, a cycle, nothing more. They’re here, in the Belly. Now, pull that seat down and let’s get out of this car and break the vision.”

“How’d you know it worked that way? I escape through the trunk.”

“Stop talking and go! Or we’ll both be troll food.”

Asher didn’t hesitate again. He pulled down the seat, and in his newly resumed child form, started crawling through the trunk.

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Green gasped for air.

The racks and smooth concrete floor snapped back into focus for Green. “This way. Quick.” He hopped down the aisle towards the outer track of the store; ducking around the corner, he spun and stuck his head around to make sure Asher followed.

Asher slipped as he stood, his legs probably asleep, but he scrambled and made it around the corner as the troll’s foot stomped down in full view of aisle 23; a black maw and two violet eyes in the foot scanned the aisle before the face swirled up towards the troll’s knee — it hadn’t seen them.

A combination of cheers and boos echoed from the nut crunching rafter riders above.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Green felt the rack shift as Asher pressed his back against it, the lightest of clangs reaching his delicate ears. “Careful, sound will give us away easily as sight. Watch the buckles of your satchel.”

The troll paused for a moment. It was a long moment, but then it continued its stomp past; the many sets of eyes and yawning lightless mouths swirled through its form as it moved, letting it see and suck energy from all sides.

Asher relaxed and glanced down. Green could see the color there; he looked better, like he had after he’d eaten the sub in the alley, but Green wasn’t feeling so great. It'd been a long time since he’d felt drained and, while size didn’t seem to matter with life energy, he was down about half a tank.

“Green, you’re fading. Are you okay? I didn’t think it was possible for animals.”

“Part of being a familiar,” he thought. “You and I can transfer energy now. You get drained. I get drained.”

“What? That’s not good.” Asher shook his head while looking down at the bunny. “Green, why’d you do that? Animals don’t cycle, you could have…”

“Died. Yeah, I know. It’s a scary thing, but…”

“Focus and action,” finished Asher.

“Yeah.”

“Thank you. How do you know O’Leary? I could hear his voice, but I think it was through you.”

“I don’t. Let’s get you and me some food. Then we can sort all this out.”

“I know you’re lying, and I think I have the hang of this.”

He didn’t know O’Leary, but he knew Triskele. It was a minor difference, but one that mattered. “I’ll explain later. Really? You have the hang of it? Did you know you weren’t talking out loud?”

Asher stopped. His eyes going wide. “Whoa. Crazy. It’s weird. Like it’s almost easier not to speak.”

“Yeah,” said Green. “It’s the magic that lets you talk to animals, but better. Now, follow me. Keep low through the produce section, we’re going to move quick. Grab fruit if you can, but other than a treat for me, don’t worry about veggies.”

They moved through the produce section and Asher was able to grab a colorful head of lettuce for Green and a few apples. All the while, Green worked on putting up partitions in his mind so Asher couldn’t wander where he shouldn’t. It took training to access below surface level thoughts, or block certain things, so for now, Green had some access to get an understanding of Asher and could help whenever his binder's anxiety spiked; but doing things like sending pulses of calming thought were short-term solutions. They would still need to work through stuff, but for now, this was the best Green could do.

“I got this,” Asher thought. He kept low and moved for the first table of baked goods. He crouched down next to a display of cinnamon sugar donuts.

Green kept his eyes on the trolls. The one on the move was still ahead of them, but more than a few sets of eyes perched on its back. It turned and stomped down an aisle that held pastas and sauces while the other guarded the front entrance — they were clear. “You’re good. Keep going.”

None of the baked good seemed to be colored, so Asher kept moving. He crawled on his stomach past a series of holiday chocolate displays and rolled to get to the first aisle of butchered meats. One troll was still out of sight and the storefront troll gave no sign it had spotted them.

“Style points,” said Green. A pulse of embarrassment, with a hint of pride, reached him through the bond.

“Yeah, suck it, trolls.” Asher dusted off his hands and together they kept moving, pacing behind the one troll patrolling from aisle to aisle. Next, they moved through refrigerated foods. They peered into full-sized glass doors looking for colors and then waited patiently for a shade to open the door for them. It took a few minutes, but Asher reached in and grabbed three small blocks of orange cheddar. “I feel like we’re in a heist movie,” said Asher. “Gold bricks.” He held the blocks up with a giggle before sliding them into his satchel.

“Glad you’re feeling better. Just, hurry, we got the mob watching us,” said Green, pointing his nose towards the rafters — he knew what they expected. It was hard for squirrels to gain access to the coolers. But where’s the fun in just giving them what they wanted?

“There’s got to be 20 of them up there all sitting and watching us,” said Asher.

“We’re on their turf.”

“Do we have to pay a tribute or something?”

“Only if you want to give up some of the loot,” Green said. That’s exactly what the squirrels wanted, but he wondered what Asher would do. He felt him thinking, flying through different pros, cons, and strategies. The kid knew how to think things through, but then Green noticed he ran the same scenarios a second time, then a third. “Hey, we have to move. We've lost sight of the troll.” Asher had decided what he wanted to do the first time through, but he didn’t trust himself; that was going to be a problem.

Asher nodded and took out a block of cheddar, held it up towards the squirrels, and set it on the ground. “Thank you for letting us be here,” he whispered. “Better we have more allies than enemies,” he thought to Green.

“I wouldn’t call them allies; more like self-serving rodents, but that should be enough to stop them from giving us away.”

There didn’t seem to be anything else colored in this aisle, so they moved to the outer track and chomped through an apple together. “Save the seeds for an emergency,” thought Green.

“Aren’t apple seeds, like, poisonous?”

“You can’t die here, remember? Sure, the small amount of cyanide might drain you a little, but the energy stored in those seeds is much greater. Seeds are the exception to more calories equal more energy.”

Asher nodded as they got moving again; they hunted for food, but avoided anything that couldn’t be eaten cold, like the occasional colorful cut of meat, because it was tough to find a source of heat that crossed over to the Belly. You could make a fire, but you needed colorful wood to burn, and unless you were a Warden harvesting twigs, colorful wood was rarer than sunflower seeds and pixie sticks.

They turned into the next section and came face-to-face, three in fact, swirling in the patrolling troll’s chest. Together the mouths opened, inhaled, then released a blast of air and sound in one long “Kahhhhhhhh.” The attack passed over Green but struck Asher with its full force; he covered his ears, bent his knees, and leaned into the blast like a heavy wind. The sound struck first, creating a pattern of cracks, like shattered glass, across his body. The force of the blast hit next, sliding him back a foot and blowing shards of color free, but his stance held, and he kept his feet; then the mouths reversed suction, devouring the shards of energy.

The troll stomped hungrily forward, raising its massive club-like-fists, as two more shade faces flowed over its shoulders — opening wide.