Face of Eternity : The Little Angel

It was still early, but we spent a lot of time trying to get a few more fish for lunch and dinner.

While we were doing that, I spaced out and started thinking about Uncle. He must have really been worried about me, since I just disappeared without warning. I’m sure he’s out there looking for me right now, I just know it!

“Do you think Uncle will find us?” I asked Indena.

“I hope so. I hate the outdoors.”

She said that about a lot of things. Was there anything she didn’t hate?

“You know what’d be great right now?” She snatched up a fish! “A roof over our heads!” She threw the fish to the shore.

I couldn’t argue with that. To be honest, I didn’t like sleeping outside either. We barely had any shelter. I guess we were pretty okay on food, but still…

“If only these Esba Salmon were easier to catch!” I made a snatch at one, but he swam away too quickly, so I just fell face first into the water.

SPLASH!

"Gah!" I slowly recovered.

Indena jutted up before making a grab for another fish. Her entire body stiffened and she turned to look at me with curious eyes.

“What did you say?”

“I said these fish are hard to catch.”

She splashed over to me and shook her head.

“No, no…you said Esma salmon?"

Did I? I checked my dialog history and realized I’d said Esba…SHOOT! I meant Esma!

“Yeah, that’s what I meant. Sorry, I mess up my words sometimes.”

She shook her head and looked up to the cloudy sky, smiling. “Okay, Esma…I know where we are now…Kinda.”

She explained that Esma was known as The Holy Lands by most. She called it the Great White North, and that was because it was actually the North Pole continent of the planet.

You know, I didn’t even think to check my internal compass. She was right. We weren’t exactly close, but on a planetary scale, we were near the North Pole.

Wait…

Oh my gosh…

Being so close to the North Pole only meant one thing…

“Santa!” I cheered! “We have to find Santa. He’ll save us!”

“What the…?” Indena burst out into laughter. “No, you wide eyed clod. Man, I haven’t heard about Santa in forever…” She was laughing so much that she was tearing up. It wasn't that funny!

Her laughter slowly came to a stop, and she said, “No, we need to head south. We'll hit civilization if we do that.”

I thought my idea was much better. Santa would help us get out of this mess pretty quick.

Just heading south didn’t mean we were guaranteed to find people. I didn’t know Esma very well, but it probably wasn’t a small place. And who knows what other continents it connects with?

“We should go to Santa’s workshop. He’ll get us home in no time, maybe even take us to daddy.”

“Would you quit it with the Santa talk?” She put her hands over her hips. “Besides, he’s not even re…” she stopped talking.

“Not even what?”

Oh, I think I understand what was going on. It wasn’t hard to figure out, but her attitude made it pretty clear. She was on the naughty list.

Yep. That had to be it. She swore a lot and was pretty mean. No way she got anything but a lump of coal and underwear for Christmas each year. She probably didn’t trust Santa, and he probably wasn’t going to help her.

I on the other hand was a good girl. Santa would have to help me, and he might help her too if I asked super nicely.

“Forget it. No point in arguing with your imagination.” She stepped out of the water, then picked up the fish and threw them over the makeshift fire pit. “Let’s eat something and prep to travel.”

~☆☆☆~

While we were cooking the fish, I saw a little bunny hopping around near the river. He was trying to sip some water.

“Hey, hungry for rabbit?” Indena chuckled.

“No!”

Fish was already hard enough to handle. Who’d want to eat a cute little thing like that?

I think I spoke too soon, because a big bird was sitting up in a tree, watching the bunny with sharp eyes.

“Oh no, watch out Mr. Bun-Bun!!”

The bunny was alerted by my call, then turned around and saw a falcon swooping down with sharp claws, ready to snatch it up.

The rabbit stood up on its hind legs and stretched out its arms. The fur over its skin stuck out like spikes and its eyes turned blood red.

*SCREEE!*

Mr. Bun-Bun screeched really loudly! The falcon made a squawk and passed by the bunny. He was safe!

“Oh come on, Shrimp!” Indena pouted. “Can’t you just let nature do its thing? Rabbits are vicious little bastards!”

“No!” I shouted. “Mr. Bun-Bun deserved to live!”

The bunny turned back to me, then its fur went back to normal and he hopped away into a bush.

I gotta' say, that rabbit did have a pretty cool defense mechanism. Who would have thought it could scare away a falcon?

~☆☆☆~

After lunch, we both started to gather up twigs and old grass to make crummy baskets. Those just barely managed to carry the fish in them.

Indena broke up some salt rocks to try and preserve the fish too, but I had a feeling we weren't doing it right. Oh well. She cooked them pretty good anyways.

Since I had my compass, I used it to point us south. As we were moving, a little bit of thunder crackled above, but no rain. We didn’t pay it any mind.

To our left on a small pile of rocks, I saw some static crackle around and zip away super fast. More thunder followed.

CRACKLE!

BOOM!

A bolt of lightning struck not too far away. Was this heat lightning? I thought that only happened in summer time.

“Hey, Indena…” I tugged lightly on her jacket, “Does heat lightning happen in late Fall?”

“Heat lightning isn’t real,” she claimed. “I know that because this jerk back home always…”

She stopped mid sentence and her eyes went wide, like an animal on high alert. Then she glared up to a hill.

Her arm raised up and she flung a fireball in that direction!

BOOM!

FWOOSH!

The fire ball exploded and left a fire raging in its wake!

“What’s happening!?” I screamed.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning jumped out of the fire and struck a nearby tree. Sparks blasted across the land as the bark lit up in a fantastic blaze.

“Shrimp, check your map!”

“Oh!”

My map was showing things appearing and disappearing every second. I saw that the monster symbols were jumping in and out all over the place, following the path of the lightning.

Just then wolves started to step out from the grass. Behind us and on the hills around us

-WARNING! Threats sighted!-

-Thunder Wolves tagged ; Foe-

One let out a loud howl and all of them raced at us, barking with thunderous voices.

"Run!" Indena pushed me forward so I could get ahead. She dropped the basket of fish to try and slow down the wolves.

We ran as quickly as we could. Those wolves were just behind us!

As we were running, we found out they had been leading us around like cattle. We were trapped by a big rock face and they were closing in on every direction.

The thunder wolves were prowling around, electricity crackled across their skins. The scent of ozone filled our noses while we waited for anyone to make the first move.

One wolf growled. He had to be the big dog since he had bone spikes sticking out of him in a few places. It almost looked like he had a crown made of rock on his head.

-Alpha Identified-

-Dire class monster-

“Dire monster! What do we do?” I shivered.

Indena gave the dire monster wolf a harsh glare, then closed her fists and caused fire to erupt all over her skin.

"We fight.”