Fluffballs ate grass.

Peach Fluffballs meanwhile, only ate flowers.

And there were no flowers here. Just fields of grass and grass, dazzling with the morning sun and the early dew.

“She’ll die at this rate…” Jane said, holding it like a baby.

The man chuckled. “Nothing we can do, I guess. We’ll just have to hope there’s a patch of flowers somewhere along the way.” He of course didn’t stop and just kept on moving ahead. “Actually, we could come across some after crossing the borders.”

Jane followed.

The Peachfluff wasn’t necessarily heavy. Maybe a kilo at best. And since it was mostly just fluff and quite large, it didn’t feel like a kilogram worth of heaviness either.

And it didn’t mind being carried. Actually, it didn’t mind anything. For the most part, the fluff slept and sometimes oddly purred like a cat. Even when she stuffed the thing in her bag

“Stop-” The man signaled. “There’s something amiss,” he said. His usual carefree smile, gone.

Jane looked around but saw nothing. Just grass and fields and more grass. The grass wasn’t really that tall. Barely reaching up to her ankles. So what?

Sunrays were getting slightly hotter and just standing didn’t feel very comfortable. Yet, the man didn’t even budge. He just stood there, eyes closed.

It took him a few minutes. “Something large is in the east,” he said. “Really large; and quite a few.”

“Isn’t that where we’re headed?” Jane wondered, staring at the east. But no, she didn’t see or hear anything.

“Yes. We’ll have to take a minor detour. Unless you want to fight them. I actually would recommend fighting since you should be able to use magic on them, given how slow they are.”

“They?”

“Yes. Elephantoms.”

“Those large corpse things?” Jane muttered, eyes twitching.

“Yes. Either we go through them and their stench or waste half a week going around.”

“We go around-”

“In that case, the little critter would just die since the detour route has no real potential flowering places.”

They were at the very edge of the city borders. And according to the man, there were potential flower patches on the other side.

A breath out. Jane stared at the thing in her arms. The small fluffy ball. “Alright. Corpses it is.”

The man smiled. “Heh…”

***

Elephantoms.

Moving elephant corpses. Depending on who you were, they were either easily killable or downright immortal.

But killing wasn’t Jane’s main worry. No, it was something much more sinister. Namely… “It stinks…” The rancid smell of fat and flesh tingled her nose, and slowly made her want to throw up. Maybe it would have been better if she hadn’t eaten anything this morning.

They stood atop the hill, watching over a horde of elephantoms directly blocking their way east. It was a small crossing, before a stone bridge that led to the other side of the city borders. Yes, they were at the very edge of the city borders.

The things were big, they were many and they were deadly stinky. The midday heat had actually made it even worse. So much so that they were letting out mists of the rancid stench.

“Alright miss. Can you burn those three over there?” the man pointed at three standing Elephantoms.

Although corpses, quite a few of the elephantoms moved about. But some of them did nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Large corpses, some had skins, some did not. Some had guts spilling around, others didn’t. Some even had bones sticking out. The thought of something like those existing, was so ridiculous, Jane for the most of her life, thought people were just messing with her. Besides, how could something dead be moving around and acting like it was still alive?

But she’d learn three years ago that these things did exist. She learnt it first hand when someone dead came visiting her; the walking corpse of her… grandmother.

“I can try,” she said, holding her staff firm, “Come flames of hell, burn anew a brighter day, sing the glories of ancient abyss, and light the corpses aflame.” An arrow, an arrow of fire formed; followed by five more. “Flame Blisters!~” And just like she’d envisioned, blitzed past the crossing, sticking straight into one of the three. Its oil caught on fire. The other two also caught the same fire and just stood there, unmoving; flesh burning.

Meanwhile, the other ones, the ones that were moving, moved even further. However, the ones that weren’t moving, didn’t move one bit.

“Quickly now,” the man ran down the edge.

“Wait, we’re not going to wait for the fire to die down!?” She put the fluffball in her bag.

“If you want to get trampled, sure!” He yelled back.

Fuck… She went over the edge, slid down the very next second.

Feet struggling to keep balance, as the dusty earth pulled her along, threatening to throw her like a ragdoll on more than one occasions.

Pant~!

Just below, Jane caught her breath. But that proved to be difficult because she had to hold her nose. Not only was this stench unbearable, it was getting worse. She was both closer now and also tasting the very rot in the air along with the burning rot. Not fun.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Why aren’t these things moving?” Jane said, jogging behind the man.

“They’re about to pass on for good,” the man said. “Didn’t you study about undead in school?”

“I didn’t go to school…” she said. She was too busy staying at home trying to learn manners and etiquette and a whole bunch of other things. “Besides, men are more likely investments when it comes to schooling.” And she’d learnt it the hard way.

The Elephantoms were big, quite big and they could easily trample her. Yet, they maintained their distance. And wait, why were they just there? Why were they doing nothing? What made them walking corpses?

“I see,” the man didn’t look back. He was worried in a sense but the fire was going strong and the things were staying away.

But there was a problem.

Namely-

One of them weren’t staying away. It wasn’t moving till now but… now it was moving.

“Keep running, don’t stop. No need for spells either,” the man yelled, directly running towards the large incoming corpse.

“What about you?”

“Just GO!”

Jane had a Deja vu moment but she did trust the man when it came to facing danger, and this wasn’t the first time. But she also didn’t want to experience what she saw yesterday either. Yet, she kept going, not stopping once. she passed by the three flaming corpses and somehow made it to the other end, just by the bridge.

But what about the man?

Where even was he?

She didn’t see him nor the charging elephant. She could of course leave but she was going to die without him and she know it all too well.

Shit~!

Why couldn’t she study all this crap? She always wanted to run away and have a good life and yet, she never actively tried to study what she’d need to know when setting out for a journey. Had she actually accepted to be caged?

Cursing again, she was about to go straight back in.

However- she saw the man. He was fine. “Didn’t I tell you to run?” he snickered.

“You did.”

“Good, now keep running.”

“Wha?”

But that’s when Jane came to her second realization. It wasn’t just one. They were all, even the flaming ones were slowly creeping up at the man. It was almost as though- they hated the man…. The way those things groaned and grunted and headed for him despite being literally burned alive.

Fumbling a little, Jane got on the bridge. A stone bridge, very wide, very nicely built, but hardly ever used?

This is why they told me to not take this path… She remembered that one guy at the inn who advised her it was a suicide mission to take the sunflower route. Jane at first thought it was just the goblins. But no, it wasn’t just the goblins. This really was, a suicide route.

Quickly snapping back to reality, Jane ran for the other side; not a large bridge but the fall was quite steep; at least a hundred meters. Once on the other side, she stopped, caught her breath and looked back.

Nothing.

Not the phantoms nor the man. Absolutely nothing. At least for the next thirty seconds.

Afterwards… a stampede.

A stampede of the corpses.

“You got to be fucking kidding me…” She mumbled slowly taking steps back. There wasn’t much behind her, just more open fields.

Meanwhile the Elephantoms chased the man and eventually got on the stone bridge.

Rumbling, lots of rumblings, lots of pebbles falling… cracks… and then- CRACK! A Elephantom lost its footing and impaled the bridge with its shinbone.

But the stampede didn’t stop.

Tens, no hundreds trampled the poor thing and kept coming. Rotten blood and guts spilled; stanching up the whole way.

“Start chanting a stone spell and destroy the bridge!” He said, halfway through.

“I can’t!”

“What? Destroy the bridge!” Three quarters in-

“I can’t!” She screamed again.

“Oh for fucks sake,” Just a step away, he stopped, raised a foot over his head, and slammed it back down on the bridge.

Wham!

Instantly cracking the whole bridge, and sending shockwaves that broke the thing into pieces.

At the other end, the Elephantoms started falling into the gorge and soon the man fell with them. Or he would have fallen if he wasn’t holding down to his deer life on Jane’s staff.

But now they were both falling.

“Let go!” The man yelled.

“No!” Feet dragging straight down, Jane was falling.

“No, no, I got this, let go,” the man said calmly.

Jane blinked a couple of times and realized the man actually had some footing. And he was strong enough to pull himself up.

So why the hell was she sliding?

“You fucking pulled on the staff…” She mumbled.

He grinned ear from ear. “No, no you misun- Ow…” And now had a bump on his head from a wooden staff. His grin didn’t die out though. In fact, he just laughed and pulled himself out. “But what sort of magician can’t use a stone bullet?”

She grumbled. “Well… I can’t.”

***

Although the man had implied there were flowers on this side, in reality, there weren’t.

It was just more grass and a whole bunch of nothing.

The Fluffball was actually getting weaker and weaker. “Maybe we shouldn’t have taken it,” Jane said.

There was a literal sunflower field just half a day away from them when they found the fluff. But they didn’t go back. It was too risky.

“Nonsense,” the man said. “There should be some patches ahead. If not, we’ll just eat it.”

Jane didn’t say anything. She knew there was no way she could say she wanted to save this and get away with it. Besides, she was sort of a parasite on the man as well. If he got mad at her and decided to ditch her, then what?

She was conflicted, quite rightfully so. She still couldn’t grasp the full extent to the man’s character. He wasn’t a bad man at least, she thought. But she wasn’t sure how much of a good guy he was either. He didn’t make a move on her, but he did watch her. Quite intently at that. He didn’t try to hurt her but he often put her life in danger. And although he didn’t berate her for exposing her will, he did make it clear if she had to survive, she had to follow his orders to a t. But of course, he did everything subtly and Jane figured out the rest herself. At least she thought so.

She also tried to argue that all of this was probably just in her head and she was just overthinking but yes, she was quite conflicted. The man was helping her and risking his life too. So surely, she had to deal with these mixed feelings, right?

“You coming?” He yelled. He was quite far away.

“Yes, yes,” Jane rolled her eyes, and followed him, pretending like she wasn’t worried about anything at all.

They had to climb another hill.

Clothes drenched, utterly tired, she couldn’t really move much; and it was only midday. She was certainly not in the mood to climb the damn hill either. She hadn’t even realized how tired she was until the adrenaline ran out.

“Can we like stop for a moment?” She huffed.

The sun was wrong but there was no real shade here.

“Two minutes,” the man said, throwing a water bag.

“I have water…” Jane mumbled but accepted the bag and drank some; flavored water. A hint of orange and lime, slightly salted. She gave it right back. “Thanks.” Refreshed.

“No problem.”

The hill wasn’t really all that tall. The climb wasn’t very stiff either. Still, Jane found it a little hard. Perhaps because she was drenched or maybe her body odor was rubbing against her?

Still, she had hope. Maybe there was a river or a pond just beyond the hills. And a flower garden at that too!

Actually, with new hope, she also found new strength. Prompting her to step up and run up the hill!

“You’ll tire yourself,” the man yelled back from behind.

But Jane didn’t care. She probably couldn’t afford a shower. But she could at the very least find a way to wipe herself with some extra water… she just needed a source.

Huff-

Puff-

Almost at the top.

The small thing jumped off from her bag and started chomping on a daisy. There was only one. It finished and jumped straight on top of Jane’s shoulder purring. Cute but Jane forced herself to take more steps.

Three- two, one- she was at the top!

And there a mighty river below! Amazing!

Except, there wasn’t. “Areghh…” she groaned, sitting firmly on her behind. The sun was close to the west horizon, would be afternoon soon.

As far as her eyes could go, there was nothing but grass. And no, not a single tree, let alone ponds or rivers. At least some grass flowers….

“Even marshes would have been better…” she sighed.

“Told you, you’ll only tire yourself out,” the man said, casually climbing the rest and settling down next to her. “Why were you in such a hurry anyway? Needed to take a piss?”

Jane stared, no, more like glared at her. “At least try to be a little less offending please.”

He chuckled. “Sorry, sorry, didn’t think it’d come out that insensitive. Wasn’t my intention.”

“Right…”

But now that the man said it… she did feel a slight need. But she sure hell wasn’t going to even mention it right now. Too embarrassing.