Because it is so short, I see no harm in placing the third chapter on the GoF. I cannot do this with every chapter, though.
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Argenta ran through the woods, fast on her feet as always. Even faster than I was. She was excited; for that matter, so was I. In all my life I had never had the chance to frighten some fliers. That was about to change. Better yet, I had the chance to do it with a friend, a female at that.
"Come on, Claw! We're almost there!" Her voice was soft, kind, and utterly disarming. Did all females sound so good and sweet? My mother's voice was soft as well, but it reflected an inner strength and gave me a sense of protection. Argenta was different, like a fragile flower that needed protection from someone stronger than her, and that made her all the more precious. Such thoughts were rather premature for one such as I. I was still very young. The matters of exactly what males and females were supposed to do with each other was still very much beyond my years. Totally. For now, she was my friend and nothing more.
At length, the two of us stopped in the dense undergrowth, way beyond my parent's territory. Had I been thinking more clearly, I wouldn't have been there at all.
"Why are we going through the bushes, Argenta?"
"We need to stay hidden for now, Claw. The flyers will see us coming if we don't hide."
Ugh. Thornbushes. I hated thorns. They always managed to get lodged in the most annoying places. I don't know what it was about them. I always seemed to get them stuck in my feet, my hands, even my tail. Argenta moved right through them, avoiding almost every point and spike on the plants. I could never figure out how she did it. For my part, I followed her as fast as I could, trying not to lose sight of the red-skinned youngling who had befriended me. I took a step through a particularly rough patch of thorns, and found myself pushing against some rather hard plant matter. Argenta had bounded right over this obstacle, but I found it too hard. Heh. I then naively thought that if it was the female way to get around a problem, it was the way of a male to go right through it! Even then I harbored such notions as that; of such arbitrary distinctions between individuals based solely on their reproductive role.
I gave it no thought. Backing up, I aimed my head at the thorn patch and charged! This was a mistake.
"There we are! Those flappy fliers won't know what hit! Isn't that right, Claw? Claw? Where are you?"
"I'm tangled up in here! Can you get me out, please!" Argenta came over to the sound of my voice, only to find a rather foolish yearling male sharptooth hanging upside-down, suspended by thorny vines, with several of the aforementioned thorns embedded in his flesh.
"Oh my goodness! Claw, did you jump into the-"
"It attacked me first! Could you just get me down from here?!"
I don't know if it was shock, awe, or just plain surprise that illuminated her face, but Argenta's eyes were opened wider than I thought possible. After about a moment, she regained her composure and began looking for a way to get me down.
"Why are you looking around for? Can't you see I'm stuck here? There are sharp things poking me all over, I can hardly move, and I can't feel my-"
CHOMP! SNAP!
"Ahhhh!!"
THUD!!
After about a moment it became clear what had just happened. Argenta had found the vine that the others were all tangled up in, and had bitten through it in one swift motion, thus freeing me. I didn't know it at the time, but this would not be the last time I would be saved by a female.
"Claw? Are you alright? Did you hurt yourself?!"
I had fallen on my head when she let me down, but it wasn't very far, and the earth was soft. "I'll be fine, Argenta. Really."
"You didn't hurt yourself, and this little accident didn't make the flyers leave either. Good. Now lie still, Claw."
"What?! Why should I-OW!" No sooner than I had stood up did I realize I was standing on thorns embedded into myself, both underfoot, and in various places that I couldn't even reach.
"That's why. Now are you going to let me help you or not?" I lay down, listening to Argenta, as she quickly used her hands and teeth to pull out every one of over a dozen sharp thorns from me. The whole thing took less than 5 minutes.
"There. I think I got the last of them out. Stand up, Claw. See how that feels." I did so, and tested the ground several times, hoping that as I pushed against the ground, I would not be pushing anything deeper into my skin. Nothing. Argenta had been very through.
"You were amazing, Argenta. Really. How's you know to fix things that fast?"
"My family lives in an area with a lot of thorn bushes. Every day my parents step on something, and they sometimes ask me to get them out. I really don't mind doing it; those thorns are bad."
"I'll say. Very painful." It was all I could say. For once, she and I were in full agreement on this point. Pain was bad. Sure, I still thought of good and bad in terms of being moral and immoral, but in this case, helping one get out of pain was a good thing in both my and Argenta's way of looking at the world.
"Now them, shall we go to those fliers?" She was just as eager now as she had been when she first asked me. Truth was, so was I. That little incident with the bush didn't dampen my spirits. Oh no! This was a good day! I was growing up! I had met a new friend! The world was such a good place, filled with all sorts of adventure and excitement! How could I possibly think that anything could ruin such a wonderful time? No, this day was mine! It was even better because I had someone to share it with.
Ducking down, the two of us moved over to the very edges of the bushes we were hiding in, where we could see a couple dozen fliers gathered in a clearing in the woods. There were several groups of fliers in front of us, some with adult males, some with mothers and kids. I noticed that there didn't seem to be any father fliers present. How odd.
Now, we Sharpteeth were known for their senses of smell and vision more than our hearing, but neither of us had any trouble listening in on their conversations. Turning my head to the right, I saw several fliers, headed by an adult female who was colored a deep blue, and her children, the males being brown, the females being colored in a similar shade of blue as their mother. They looked funny, with their skinny wings. These fliers were not fully grown, yet they were hardly hatchlings. I had caught them at a very awkward age. Teenage fliers.
"Now children, gather round. Momma's gonna get you some fine food. Just wait here. Pterano, since you are the oldest, I'm putting you in charge. Make sure that nothing happens to your siblings. I'm counting on you."
"Yes mother, you can count on me!" The largest juvenile had the strangest accent, like he was not from where the others were. Interesting. He clearly had an inflated sense of self-importance and an ego as big as a longneck. I remember thinking just how much I would enjoy deflating that pompous, puffed up flyer. Oh yes, nothing was as sweet as seeing the mighty fall; it would be even sweeter because I would be the one to knock him down.
"Heheh. See that one, Argenta. The windbag? I'm gonna get him. I'm gonna chase him down and scare him so much he'll never be that boastful again."
"Sometimes, it can be hard to keep flyers scared, Claw. They flap around, they run away, they screech and squawk, and sometimes they don't come out of a tree for a whole day, but after a while, they will usually get back to whatever they were doing as if it never happened. Then, you scare them all over again. That's how I do it, Claw. Claw?" I was no longer next to Argenta, though. By then, I had gone off to put a scare into the silly little flyers, running off like an idiot, roaring my little roar in my yearling's voice.
"Screaarrrraarrr!"
To my ears, I might as well have been my father, but the flyers were not so much frightened as they were perplexed by this odd, silly little sharptooth who took off in pursuit of a flyer to scare. Then they saw my teeth, and the most common expression ever to come from the mouths of the leaf eaters I ever saw was uttered by the panicky flyers.
"SHARPTOOTH!!"
As always, the reaction was instantaneous. Flyers flipping and flapping,, mothers trying to get their children in the air, younglings plying the wind with their frail little wings, and panic about a sharptooth of my kind prevailing all over. Opening my mouth wide, I bit at the air, frightening them further.
CHOMP! CHOMP! CHOMP!
Racing for the loud-mouth, my ears picked up some of the frantic conversations. Several of the younger flyers were begging the one in charge to deliver them from the seemingly unstoppable force that was me.
"Pterano! He's heading right for us! Do something!"
"Brother! I'm scared! He's gonna eat us!"
"Run, my siblings, run! Take to the air and fly! I'll save us!"
The flyer and I couldn't converse, but I could tell what was going on. I had seen similar events with my dad. The leaf-eaters always fled the approach of a sharptooth, save for the brave, the foolish, and the very strong. A fully-grown flyer male might have been a challenge for me, and one nearing adulthood could still be dangerous, but this gawky, gangly, awkward juvenile was not much taller than I was, not as strong, and most importantly, lacked a means of defending himself. No, that last part was not quite true; the claws on his hands and especially his feet were sharp enough to cut me, but my fangs and claws were more than match for his defenses any day.
Argenta was behind me the whole time; I could smell her, running around and snapping her jaws, having a good time, and keeping the flyers in the air. Even without turning my head, I could hear the sound of wings beating against the yielding air, of Argenta's footfalls as they fell onto the soft earth, and of her own little roar, which was even softer and more pathetic than mine, but her voice sounded sweet and melodic, even when she was using it to scare the crap out of the fliers. At least, it sounded sweet to me.
I decided to take matters into my own hands. The situation was already a scene of havoc; flyers scrambling to the air, two young sharpteeth running around taking bites at them, and now, I went to take it a step further. Running at the flyer who wouldn't shut up, I leapt into the air, hoping to take a bite out of him…
But then…
ROOOOOAAARRR!!!!
An even louder roar shook the earth, causing the remaining flyers to scatter completely, and even cause Argenta and I to lose our balance. I fell onto my stomach as the footfalls of a large predator drew near. A sharptooth. A very big male. For a moment, I thought it was my dad, but looking up, my eyes widened as I realized that this gray-colored beast was no one I had ever seen before. Argenta looked at him too, and what she said next was unexpected at the time, but I should have know. I had been a fool.
"Dad? You're here earlier than I thought." Argenta spoke to him in our tongue, in a tone that was harsher and tougher than she had used around me; it was as if she was a different Sharptooth.
"Rrrr. I came as soon as I heard the flyers. You did a good job bringing him here!" He spoke to Argenta in the same way my dad roared at our prey. There was no sign of caring or parental love… but my mind wasn't focused on that. Argenta had led me here on his orders. She had betrayed me!
He looked over at his daughter, then at me. At first, I was afraid he would eat me; I'm sure he would have liked to, but no. I was the only child of his rival, the only other large male sharptooth in the region, my father. He had use for me as a hostage. I wasn't going to stick around to find out what he wanted. Turning running towards my family's territory as fast as I could, Argenta's dad didn't even to give chase. I should have been more careful. I ran into what felt like a warm rock, and not for the first time today, I fell to the ground. I didn't have time to look up as I was grabbed by a pair of fangs, and held in an enormous mouth, hanging roughly by my loose skin. Argenta and her dad quickly caught up with me as I realized that this was her mom.
"Well, my mate, we seem to have done it. I told you Argenta could sneak in there. I didn't think she would lure him out after just one try, but it seems that my rival doesn't take care to educate his son about the real world." The gigantic female couldn't respond as she held me in her mouth, pressing down just hard enough to draw a tickle of blood. Deciding to fix this, she dropped me to the ground, and before I could recover, her massive left foot pressed down on me, just hard enough to hold me without breaking my bones. Had she shifted her weight, I would have been crushed in an instant. Regardless, she was now free to speak, and did so.
"What do you want to do with this one? You told me that we had to hold him hostage, but I don't see what difference it will make." Her voice was especially disturbing to me. She had a feminine tone, but it was tinged with a certain ruthlessness that I never could have imagined coming from my own mom.
"I told you the plan. First, we go to the edge of his territory with the boy, then we call him out. Bladefang will come over to meet us, and probably bring his mate in tow. Either way, we make him and Auria a deal. His son is to be exchanged for her. She goes into my territory as a "hostage", we kill her together, then when we are ready, we kill Bladefang together. If it works, both of them will be dead in under a week, and we can have this whole area to ourselves."
I squirmed under the female Sharptooth. There was no way I could get up. "Auria! Help! Do something!" To my surprise, Auria didn't just say something, she came over to me. Looking up at her mom and dad first, she then turned to me, looking like her mother in expression, sounding like her father in tone.
"Sorry, Claw. You were really nice and all, and there was a time when I would've been like you. Dad beat it out me, though. In this world, only the strong survive. It was fun to chase those flyers, and fun to talk to someone my age, but fun won't keep my belly full, it won't keep me safe, and it won't keep me on dad's good side."
Trying to get out from under the claws which held me down, I struggled against Argenta's mom, only to find her pressing harder, squeezing the air out of my lungs. Luckily, she let up a bit after a moment, when it seemed the fight had gone out of me. Argenta continued her little speech, as if trying to justify her actions to me.
"You know how it works, Claw. I am a small animal, only kept fed and safe by my parents. They tell me that I will be expected to pay them back and help them out when I am old enough to hunt, and when I am fully grown, I am to leave them and not come back to their hunting grounds, or else. Until I am old enough to defend myself, I have to do as my father tells me. Mom says she wanted me because… never mind. You'll be dead soon enough."
That was it. I had been lured out of the safety of my territory by a young female sharptooth who had lied to me about being a friend. Words would not form in my mouth. Thoughts would not form in my head. All I could do was roar in anger.
"roooaaarr! reeeaaarrr! screeeaah!"
Neither Argenta nor her parents laughed at me. They didn't comment on my roaring, nor did they laugh at how pathetic it sounded. I was beneath their notice. I was a non-entity to them, save for my status as the offspring of the other adult male and female sharptooth couple that lived in this valley. Even their daughter didn't care. Luckily, someone cared.
"Reeeaaarr! raar! ROOOOAAARRRR!!!!" That last one was not my voice, but it was familiar to me…
That last roar got their attention as my parents burst through the trees! They had followed by scent and now were here to rescue me. My father saw what was happening and stopped short of attacking my captors, but my mother would not stop until her child was safe. Running faster than I had ever seen her run, she rammed into Argenta's mom with her head and knocked her down, grabbed me, and ran back behind my father before Argenta's dad could react. She set me down, but said nothing. Both of my parents had turned to face their rivals. This conflict was not supposed to happen, but what they did to me had crossed a line.
I will never forget what happened next… before they day was out, there would be blood on my hands. Sharptooth blood. My dad was going to kill Argenta's dad, and my mom was going to kill Argenta's mom… and I was going to kill the one who betrayed me…
