//------------------------------// // Night 20: As rocs grow // Story: A mare and her dog // by cammera //------------------------------// The Troika brothers had always been one of those cases of loving hate-- they would've died for each other, but that included killing themselves if the only one to interact had been each other. So, when there was a clicking of paws that they both knew indicated a jump, their ghastly selves watched with the interest of the utterly bored from minotaur heaven. Heaven, they had found, was quite boring. "I tell ya the horse dies" said Dandruff. "Thats a bag of bullocks it is," said Endriff "Betcha twenty bucks she kills the hagen" Applejack crouched and, immediately after feeling a paw hitting her hat, headbutted the flower wolf in the stomach. "See? Crafty one" Applejack wouldn't have cared even if she had known about them, having much more important things to do such as grabbing her bags and running as fast as her legs could carry her. She needed more space for this. Winona followed, barely noticing than the flower wolf had reappeared for a brief moment due to the flash of pain, and Applejack ran outside. She saw the beach, and an idea sparkled in her mind. She felt hot breath behind her, and didn't even consider the stairs. She jumped to the water, trying to ignore something biting at her tail. She hanged painfully from it for a moment, the bags' straps in her muzzle, but what little hair it had gotten a hold off wasn't nearly enough to support her weight. She fell to the water, leaving the curses about wet bags for later, and while the water softened the fall, ten meters were still ten meters, and her knees warned her of such treatment. The flower wolf barked and jumped after her, his form flashing into a perceptible state due to the pain, but Applejack was already running out of the glass platform, noticing the splashes of the wolf with a flicker of hope. It wasn't so clever, after all. The bags forgotten in the glass, she reached free waters and submerged, Winona not knowing how to do it herself. She hated having to use Winona as unknowing bait, but it'd have to do. Three... Winona watched her in confusion, and her air supply dwindled. Something fell in the water near her, flailing, but was ignored in favor of the splashes of the approaching wolf. Two..., the wolf was over her now, and Winona paddled away from it. One, she jumped into action and charged upwards, taking the invisible shape in a hug, and squeezed. There was a sickening crack as a rib broke under her strength, and the wolf yelped... ...and was hit in the head by a mole. Applejack recognized the shape and, in her surprise, let go. Another mole fell, and another, and another... They all looked at the sky, where blurry shapes flew under the full moon. It took her a moment to recognize them despite their size-- rocs, no more than ten years old each, flew with moles in their claws and dropped them to the ground. A mole fell on her head, and she swam to Winona. Young rocs flew to the pained wolf and tried to grab it, but it swam away before their swoops had reached the water. Applejack barely had time to grab Winona and submerge before another grabbed her, and she looked around in desperation as Winona yelped underwater, losing her air quickly. A few of the bubbles were broken, and she quickly found one that had broken in the lower parts and had some air left in it. She pulled Winona to it and put her inside, then rushed to the surface for a short breath. Her muzzle was scratched by an opportunistic roc, but she had taken enough air to stay down for a while. -ยบ- Hours later, her skin feeling tender due to far too much humidity, she reached the glass beach again. Winona, whose bubbles had become unbreathable long ago, was behind her, having had to learn how to dive by force. Applejack picked her bag, thanking any gods there were for having abandoned paper long ago. Cloth and water-resistant inks was the way to go as far as she was concerned, and she had quickly gained a good understanding of Granny's liking for them. The wolf was nowhere to be seen, so she walked to the coast, picked up some half rotten wood from crumbled homes, and lit a fire with it.