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// Le Jardin Caché 
// Story: Quete 
// by Comrade Bagel Muffin 
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Escutcheon rode on Turkeylegs as the two of them followed the little light blue wool blanket that floated just a meter ahead of them, so long as the blanket remained in front of them he knew that they’d eventually find the plum farmers’ daughter. The land was flat just like the plains that he had crossed before he was taken to the griffon city. He lay lazily on the birds back, as they traversed the flat grassy field the went on as far as he could see. The soft gentle breezes flowing gently through his fur and the bird’s feathers.
His eyes occasionally scanned the horizon for anything that could hold the missing children. The horizon however offered no such place. "Where could they be? I mean seriously there's nothing out here." He sighed and pulled his twig out of his bag and began combing the tangles out of his mane, and then his tail. "You hungry, Turkeylegs?" His bird companion responded with a soft chirp. "Yeah me too." He slid off of the bird into the tall grass that was nearly as tall as he was, he could barely see over the top. "Go ahead and go hunting just don't eat anybody's pet okay. I'll be grazing around here." Turkeylegs gave him another soft chirp and ran off looking for something fleshy to eat.
Escutcheon sighed, and took a bite out of the grass. "Uhg." He spit it out. "It's disgusting." He pulled out his canteen and started gulping down his water trying to get the bitter taste out of his mouth. "Nasty, nasty, nasty. He started rubbing his tongue in an attempt to get the taste out of his mouth.
"You will come to me." A voice was carried on the breeze.
"What the?" Escutcheon's ears perked up, as he looked about for the source of the voice. No such thing was forth coming.  "Who's there." He slowly stood on his hind legs his eyes managing to now see over the blades of grass. Still though there was nobody there he looked up causing him to lose balance and fall back to his hooves. 
"Come to me pet. I will break you with pleasures, and put a collar of passions around your neck." The strange voice echoed on the breeze. "Come to me little colt. Come to me and I will make you my willing slave. Ever. Eager. To obey." Escutcheon gulped looking around as the wind continued to move the large bitter dry grass in unending waves.
"You're the one that abducted the other foals aren't you?" Escutcheon looked around. "You're using magic I can tell. Where are you?"
"I took colts and fillies and made them my pets. They could leave if they desire, but they choose to stay with me. They choose to be my pets as you will as well. You will come to me in quick time. By tomorrow you will be my new slave." The voice flowed like honey in Escutcheon's mind as images flashed in his mind, causing a strange shiver to run down his spine. A soft whine slipped through his lips. "You'll be my new favorite colt toy."
"Get out of my mind. I know what you are."
"Oh do you?" The voice asked playfully.
"You're a changeling." Escutcheon's horn stared glowing again as he tried to get the voice out of his head.
"Not even close." The voice teased, dying away as he broke the spell. Escutcheon looked around.
"This isn't good." Escutcheon sat down trying to figure what he was going to do. "If it's a changeling then there would be a hive, but they would have replaced the foals they took. If its not though." The images flashed back to his mind. He blushed as he let his mind get distracted. "No focus, focus, focus." He picked some of the grass the disgustingly dry and bitter taste taking his mind off of the sensual images that were projected into his mind. He focused on the dry disgusting taste of the grass. "If this is something else." He remembered the voice from his last vision it was the same sultry voice. He gulped, if it was one of those then He'd need his magic especially if this time they were able to get into his head.
He waited in the grass for another hour when Turkeylegs came back, its beak lightly stained red with the blood of what ever it had eaten. "I hope your food tasted better than mine." It tilted its head. "Let's go Turkeylegs we've got a whole lot of foals that need saving." The large bird got down and let the colt climb up on it's back, the two of them headed off to the horizon the little wool blanket floating in front of them.
After several hours of following the blanket the two of them came to a stop in front of a large hole in the ground the blanket floated downward. Wherever the foals were it involved them to go down into the ground a fact that Turkeylegs refused to entertain. "Come on Turkeylegs. They're down there." The bird vigorously shook its head.
"Fine I'll go alone." Escutcheon sighed after thirty minutes of trying to convince the bird to go underground. The bird softly chirped and nuzzled him. "Yeah I know the last time you were underground it wasn't good. Just stay here and be good." Escutcheon petted the birds head.  "I'll be back in about a day or two. Okay." He turned around and headed into the depths of the cave. The sapphire softly glowed lighting the cave softly. Though even without the soft faint blue light the cave never fell into complete darkness like it should have. Soon the light of the sapphire started to dull by comparison to the rest of the cave as it opened up on a cleft looking down on a large forest. The sight took Escutcheon's breath away.