Name: Orb

Age: 14

Birthday: Capricorn 28th

Hair: White (normal), Red (anger), Green (excitement), Yellow (fear),

Brown (nervousness), Grey(confusion), Cream(hunger),

Lime(lying), Orange(discomfort), Black(worry), Pink(happiness),

Purple(?), Gold(arrogance)

All with strands of sliver.

Eyes: Blue(left), Gold(Right)

Height: 167 cm

Likes: Drawing, Food, Snow Sculptures, Books, Captivant, Wolfie, Draga, Cole, Meat, Villagers.

Dislikes: Being left alone, Physical contact, Cliffs.

Φ In a flash, Willow grabbed my body and jumped forward. I felt a powerful force spend my us into the snow. Feeling pain, I grab a hold of the situation, and see Willow on top of me with blood coursing down his forehead.

“Good to see you’re ok, but right now, I need you to run,” Willow says to me.

After looking past Willow, I see a giant beast coming for us, I quickly get up as fast as I can, but as I am going to begin to run, I see that Willow hasn’t gotten up. “What are you doing? Come on.”

“I am having trouble moving, so go on without me.”

“I can’t do that.”

“MAPLE RUN NOW!”

As I ignore Willow’s words, I pick him up and head off at full speed.

“I am just dead weight. It would help if you used me as bait to get away; at least you will be able to make it out of here.”

Ignoring his words, I keep running.

“Maple, listen to me.”

“SHUT UP. Without you, I won’t be able to get my father to forgive me, so I am saving us both.” I won’t let you die because you came after me.

I run as fast as possible while the king is chasing after me. Each of its stomps makes my whole-body shake. I have never felt anything like this before, but as I run, the king let’s out a roar that sends vibrations through the air and my body, causing me to freeze up.

As the king’s largemouth goes to bite Willow and me, it suddenly pulls back as something is thrown it’s way. After seeing a spear plunged into the snow, I hear, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING START MOVING.”

As I follow the voice’s instructions, I hear Willow say, “This makes two times that he has saved my life.”

“Who?” I say in response.

“My only other friend, Orb.”

Φ As I pick up my spear lodged into the snow, I face a quadrupedal beast, with five horns, covered in feathers, and almost as big as the giant golden trees. This is the king of Fimbulwinter. Its physical abilities alone are enough to herald that title, but worse is that it has high intelligence for a predator: it saw my spear going for its eye and dodged back. I guess that’s how it has managed to stay alive since the formation of this village.

Just from its presence alone, I know there is no way I can beat this thing, but the other warriors should have heard it wherever they are. All I have to do is hold it off until then.

Should I attack first, or should I react to its attacks? Taking a deep breath, I decide to wait. I have still been feeling sharp ever since I fell off the cliff, and every second I can buy is essential, so don’t be in a hurry Orb, you can do this.

But as I take that breath and relax for a second, the king lunges at me and tries to squash me with its right arm.

I barely get out of the way by dodging right, but its tail follows up immediately with a tail swipe; I grab onto its tail, then I manoeuvre my body on top of it, and then jump off. I am currently out of its range while in the air, but it grabs the ground with its right hand and throws the rocks at me. Using the spear to shield myself some rocks hits me and sends me flying.

But I land on my feet and look to see the king’s the following action, but it ran off in the same direction Willow and Maple went in. It’s ignoring me and going after them. He must have realised they’re easier prey.

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I immediately started running after them but felt pain throughout my body. The force of the impact went through my entire body. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had broken a few bones. My injuries should be causing more pain, but they aren’t, and all the pain I am feeling is subsiding rather quickly. I should be able to catch up to them if I continue running like this.

Φ As Maple runs as fast as she can, I hear its giant footsteps coming closer and getting louder. I start to panic, what happened to Orb? How am I going to protect Maple? The marker is still a fair distance away, and Maple has been running slower and slower, I am sure she sustained injuries from the earlier impact. What should I do? This feeling of helplessness is overwhelming.

Maple suddenly says to me, “Hey Willow, if possible, could you stop with all the shaking that plus the king’s footsteps make me feel nervous.”

I am an idiot. Being nervous won’t help the situation. The best I can do is give her some encouragement. “Maple, you are amazing.”

“Huh, what was that about,” she says while blushing.

“I just think you’re the best you can do this.”

“Stop that!”

“Why I am just stating facts, your beauty.”

“Stop this, you idiot!”, she says while blushing.

Maple is beginning to run faster. It seems the compliments are working. “So, you know I think you are the cutest in the world.”

“I said stop!” as she says this, she looks back at my face, and says, “Wait, why are you blushing.”

“Because this is embarrassing for me to, you utter goddess.”

“One more, and I am dropping you,” Maple says as her speed increases, and we can, if only slightly, outpace the king.

While Maple runs, I hear the king’s footsteps come to a halt. I look back and see that it has crunched a considerable amount of the ground in its palm, and is about to throw it.

“Maple, you need to move out of the way,” I say to her quickly, so she moves as the barrage of stones comes flying at us, but she isn’t able to fully move in time, and the rocks cause her to drop me.

Φ After I rise from the ground, I feel pain in my legs and look to see my right leg is missing a chunk. The pain is unbearable and causes me to scream. I dropped willow, and I don’t know where he is, and the king is approaching.

It opens it’s mouth and is about to eat me, but instead, it swipes its tail backwards, and I hear, “It sensed me”, the voice belonged to Orb.

Φ This is just getting unfair. It has ridiculous power and brains to match, and a reaction speed almost as good as mine. There is no advantage here for me to use against this thing. The best thing I can hope for is to hit one of its eyes in time.

I must be proactive this time to draw its attention, because Maple isn’t going anywhere, and I don’t know where Willow is. I can only pray that he is ok since the injuries he had before were already bad.

I run toward the king. It tries to squash me with its left hand, but I dodge, and stab my spear into its arm and use that spear to vault up, pulling the spear out the kings right hand comes to swat me, I stab into him and use my spear to get on top of his right hand, which do to him trying to hit his right shoulder is close to his face.

I jump with all my might from its right arm, and I then have a clear shot at his eye, which I try to stab into, but he can turn his head, making me stab into its right cheek.

I am just a little off, but I am close enough to its eye, so if I pull my spear out, I should be able to throw it into its look, but as I try to remove it, it doesn’t budge.

It seems his muscle has locked my spear in place, so I try harder to get it out, but it won’t even wiggle, while doing this his right arm tries to smash me: so I move on top of the pole and jump, grabbing one of the king’s horns.

The king then lets out a scream. It seems he ended up plunging the spear deeper into his cheek. His cry almost makes my eardrums burst. It’s intense, but while I am distracted by that, it quickly plunges its head into the ground. I jump off before impact, but I see its tail coming for me as I land. It hits me in my left arm breaking it, and knocking me into a tree.

Φ The king sent Orb flying and is facing me again. Its feather starts to rise and point at me, and they shoot off it as projectiles aimed at me. As they approach, I close my eyes and say, “Sorry Orb, Sorry mom, sorry Willow, sorry dad”, but I feel no impact.

I open my eyes and see Willow in front of me.

“I got my legs working at just the right time,” he says as he falls.

“Why did you do that? You’re already injured.”

“When I say what was about to happen, my body moved reflexively.”

As Willow lays there, I try to remove the feather on his back, but they seem to have fused into him, and then Willow starts screaming hysterically in pain. This must be the way it keeps its prey from moving anymore. That means me and Willow are stuck here. What the hell am I supposed to do? Is this situation hopeless?

Φ I see the king ready another volley of feathers at Willow and Maple. I start moving toward them, but I know I won’t make it in time, especially with how fatigued they are. I can’t let them die; I can’t. I need to reach them. What good are legs if I can’t run with them, I don’t want to lose anyone else, Capti was enough, so even if my legs feel like they’re about to break, please move; I have to. I suddenly feel something on my right leg.

Φ I can see the second volley of feathers about to be fired at us. I whole Willow close, using my body to shield, but I feel a sudden force and look to see it was Orb. I look to my right and see many feathers plunged into the snow, I realise that’s where Willow and I were before. Looking at Orb I see his right leg has changed shape and is dark blue.

“Orb, how did you do that, and what’s wrong with your leg.”

“I have no idea it just turned out like this, but I don’t know why but I feel a sudden surge of strength. I think I can do this now,” Orb says as he walks off.

I don’t know if this was just the blood loss, but his gold eye was shining, and the silver in his hair was glowing.

Φ My leg looks biomechanical and also sort of beastlike. It’s relatively cool, but I don’t have time to freak out about it now; I have to act as the next set of feathers are shot at me. At full strength I lunge forward and cover an incredible distance. I would say, I am faster than Buloke like this.

The king tries to use its tail to hit me, but it looks like it is moving in slow motion, so I jump onto it and run across it, climbing onto the king’s back. I then lunge forward again until I reach its face.

I then grab onto its horn, and using my leg; I slice its right eye, then I kick off its face and land in front of Willow and Maple. As I prepare to go for the second eye, my leg reverts to normal.

Φ Orb’s legs have gone back to normal this isn’t good. The king is even angrier than before. What are we going to do mainly with Willow in his current state?

“Maple, don’t worry, I can hear them.”

“Hear what?”

“These guys”, as Orb says these words, warriors from the village, including my dad, all arrive.