(The Entire story is saved to the .rtf file.)

Chapter 14

The ominous hall seems to breathe, as Pintear enters the tree through the gap, followed by Falcon. Their steps repeat themselves back to them in cacophonous resonation. Standing at the peak of the stair, Pintear looks down into the abyss of right angled slats, fearing if he can make it down before he depletes his reservoir of energy.
A warm paw rests on Pintear's shoulder, while another situates the brim of his hat.
“I'm sorry to say, even with the tea enhancement, you are still human. You will not make this last part alone in time,” says Falcon, before his puts his arm underneath Pintear's arm and grabs his legs to pick him up. Without warning, as usual, Falcon leans forward and drops in a fall of faith as if someone is there to catch him.
Pintear's head jerks back into Falcon's chest when Falcon leaps down at least forty of the stairs. Falcon lands on the step, no abrupt jar is felt from the stride, then flies down another two scores or so of stairs. Cradled by Falcon, Pintear is astonished at the abilities Falcon has and hopes that when this ritual is complete he will be just as good as him. Another jerk removes thoughts from his head, as Falcon takes the descending leaps up another notch, now leaping nearly eighty steps down at a time.
The lanterns lining the walls eventually merge into a solid, yet translucent stream of yellow embers. Pintear becomes entranced by the subtle light show, hypnotizing him. All the lights and weightless sensations of falling relax and comfort him from all his worries and fear. Weariness gently touches him like a mother stroking her babe to sleep. Pintear snuggles up as far as he can in Falcon's arms and tries to fall asleep.
“You need to stay awake for now. I need your help setting up camp. I will go faster if we need be,” says Falcon, then bursts his speed even faster, Pintear now losing count at how many steps they are going downstairs at a time. “To keep your mind active, I will tell you a little bit of history. These stairs were made to deter humans from coming to our world. Humans do not tend to understand anything beyond their own fantasy world, so to them, we would be considered a true threat. We are usually peaceful creatures, but if we are cornered, well, you have seen what I am capable of doing. I'm not even the strongest of my race-- middle to low high range.”
Staving off his drowsiness, Pintear innocently says, “Really? I didn't know anyone could be stronger.”
Falcon bounds another plethora of steps. “No, not the strongest. When your eyes set on the city you will know everything as if it had been read to you all your life as a child.”
“I really hope so. The way you speak of Freydur it seems like it's a gloriously horrible place,” says Pintear, holding tight to Falcon as he takes another leap.
A searing light, unlike the rest of the dim lantern lights, creeps around the slanted horizon, growing brighter and larger with each intense descent. About a hundred steps are left when Falcon says, “I see the exit. We are about there.” A final push from the wooden slats and Falcon, still holding Pintear tightly in his arms, glides through the air to land with a soft touch to the ground, never once jarring Pintear. Pintear releases Falcon and slides out of his arms to stand with jellylike legs in the ominous light. Falcon flails his numbed arms to get his blood flowing again.
Walking out of the archway the searing light burns Pintear's eyes that grew accustom to the slightly lit corridor. Once his vision clears, green is the first color that comes into view. Hills of tall, flowing grass lines the horizon, where tall trees sparingly grow like broccoli in a salad. A glint off to the distance dances in the waning light of day. Buildings, a city, shines a bright and fascinating light, but is muffled by the plants that grow between them.
Falcon points to the lights, “There lies Freydur. But we will not go any farther.”
“Why not? I feel as if I could get there in less than an hour or so,” asks Pintear, upset with the delay.
Placing a paw upon Pintear's shoulder, Falcon gently explains, “If we continue any farther at the pace we have kept, we would surely die. We are not invulnerable to fatigue, only masked from it. We need to rest to regain our strength.” Falcon drops his backpack to the ground. “We may camp here. No one comes to these parts anyway.”
Pintear scouts the area and notices the grass has only been bent by his and Falcon's steps. No trails exist nor signs of any passing fauna pathways. Sure as Falcon said, no one has been down to this area in a very long while.
A breeze brushes from the far hills, bending and swaying the stalks of tall, unkempt grass and painting a green swelling sea for his eyes to lose themselves in the mesmerizing swirls. The breeze finds Pintear's face and caresses away the beads of sweat that had gone unnoticed until now as they began to cool his entire body. Carried by the wind, a sweet smell close to the scent of honeysuckle wafts into his nose and reminds him of blissful days of youth. Even though that was not that long ago.
Falcon gently shakes his shoulder, “It will be dark very soon, so we must setup camp for tonight.”
Pintear agrees and begins to unload his backpack's contents onto the ground, carefully sorting the unknown contents of the bag, while Falcon unrolls the tent and begins the process of pitching it-- setting a tarpaulin on the ground, staking, fitting the rods, covering the top. Looking up from his mundane task, Pintear scans the campsite and notices that it is lacking something. He ponders for a second or two until it hits him like a flying red herring.
“A campfire!” he exclaims. Falcon fumbles with the rod he was placing, taken aback from the unusual outburst, but continues his task, brushing off the minor shock. Pintear darts into the nearby wooded area, grabbing every twig, branch, limb, or small log he can fit into his arms, until his arms are stacked high with them. Pintear then returns to the camp where he drops his load right next to Falcon, who has completely setup the tent by now and sitting in front of the door flap.
Still hyperactive, Pintear begins layering the wood into a tiered teepee fashion with the smallest of the kindling at the bottom to the arm width logs at the top, setting aside the extra pieces, all while whistling a sweet tune. He grabs a tuft of dead, dry grass and carefully positions it near the center of the teepee of twigs. Reaching into his pocket, Pintear grabs his lighter and lights the grass with a single flick of his thumb. The fire begins to flare up quite nicely.
“We won't have time to tend to that much wood, Pintear,” says Falcon, dryly with a hint of exhaustion.
Ignoring the monotone statement, Pintear replies, “But it will be so much fun to sit by the fire all night!”
“I do greatly appreciate the kind gesture, love, but trust me. You need sleep,” says Falcon, annunciating emphatically on the need. “You can set the excess aside for when we return. We will have plenty of time then.”
Pintear detects a nuance in Falcon's speech-- a twist of unsettling nervousness, hidden deep within. “You seem to be in a rush to get to Freydur. Why?”
“I do not care for delays while traveling,” hastily replies Falcon, with the same nuance in his voice.
“Is there something wrong with going to Freydur?”
Pintear seems to have hit a soft spot or plucked the wrong string on Falcon, because Falcon's neutral expression became melancholic, instantaneously. The fire pops sending a few sparks between the two and into the chilling air, now growing ever darker by the minute.
Falcon finally speaks, lowering his ears, “That city and I have history. I do not wish to talk about it now.”
Seeing Falcon so down so suddenly, makes Pintear slowly move closer, sit down next to him and embrace him. Falcon nestles into Pintear's arms and neck, where he drops his tense posture and relaxes. They lay still, there in the grass, and watch the sun dip past the emerald hills in the distance, letting the night lay her hand calmly over the land. A glorious sight. Chilling breezes soon follow her touch.
Lifting his head from the arms of his lover, Falcon gazes into the darkening abyss of sky, as if contemplating something. A short silence takes the ear, until...
“Night-- serene, quiet, calm.
A crisp cool smell stagnates.
Feelings of rebirth and life rise and fall, like the sun at dusk and dawn.
Silhouettes, cast by the unknown, form indecipherable patterns.
Sounds of distant entities loft in the air-- creating a lullaby.
No dread, no sorrow,” quotes Falcon.

“Dawn-- rejuvenating, awakening, boisterous.
An acute taste of life lingers.
The flow of warmth reaches all that fall under its light.
Creatures, alerted to the new day, stir with vigor like a faun-- new to the world.
Delight, a grand feeling, that only comes for a few moments as the day begins anew.
All revived, all animated,” rebuttals Pintear.

Turning to see if Pintear had been replaced with a double, when he went into the woods, Falcon tries to rationalize what just came out of Pintear's mouth. “Aren't we poetic tonight?”
“I'm a writer too, you know?” replies Pintear, matter-of-factually.
“I did not know this. It was kind of a surprise.”
“There are a few things I just haven't bother to say. I didn't find them to be all that important. I'm also an artist,” says Pintear, shyly.
“Really? We should collaborate sometime and make something grand.”
“That would be nice,” says Pintear.
A rather heavy feeling falls upon Pintear's entire body. A feeling as if all the energy in him is being sucked out of him. He tries to lift his arm, but can barely move. With what little vigor he feels is left within him, he says, “Why is this happening?”
Falcon rights himself and sees Pintear's eyes dropping like lead weights. “We need to get to bed and now. If you fight the tea any longer you will not wake up for days!” Falcon lifts Pintear's drooping body up and places him in the tent. Pintear barely notices he is being taken off the ground, his mind now heavy as well. He does, however, feel the “nest” made from many swirled blankets, that was meticulously made by the usual house ferret.
As Pintear's head touches the pillow within the nest, his last meshing thought of “Falcon is so sweet for making this bed for me” rushes through his head and slams into the back of his mind, throwing him in a deep sleep.
******************************************
The sounds of a small sawmill wakes Pintear from his dead-like slumber. He tries to move, but his body is sore from the massive expenditure of the previous day. All he can muster is to crane his neck to find the source of the log splitting sound. It is Falcon making the racket. Drool is running down the side of his mouth-- out cold. Pintear just smiles and shakes his head.
After a short while of watching Falcon mutter and snore in his sleep, he can feel his strength slowly crawling back to him and the stiffness alleviating. Feeling a bit peppier, Pintear rolls over to better face Falcon, where he playfully shoves his fingers into Falcon's nostrils, plugging them. Falcon responds with snorts and mild thrashing, choking himself awake. He turns to Pintear, as if in slow motion, and cracks a tired smile upon his tuckered face.
“Good morning!” chimes Pintear, “I do believe this is the first time I have been awake before you. I thought you might have been dead.”
“Sorry, I did say that we would be tired.”
“I slept great,” says Pintear.
Falcon goes rigid as a plank, ears twitching all around like a bad radar. He gently places his paw against Pintear's lips and a finger to his own, signifying silence. After a few seconds of Falcon sonically scanning the area, he relaxes a bit. “I will go check outside.” Carefully, Falcon removes himself from the sleeping bag wrapped about him body and almost slithers to doorway to unzip it. The instant he pokes his head from the door flap, he jerks back faster than lightning and a whistle and a sharp thud sounds on the ground a few feet from the left side of the doorway. Pintear leaps out of the sleeping bag to see the commotion. Looking for what caused the sound, he spies a solitary arrow planted halfway into the earth.
“Hunters!” yells Falcon, “We need to get out of here, now!”
A sudden burst of bravery, or sheer insanity, courses through Pintear like a pack of rabid wolves. “I'll distract them,” announces Pintear, as he dashes through the doorway. Falcon reacts instinctively by grabbing Pintear by the collar of his uniform and pulls him as fast as he can back inside the tent. Five arrows now occupy the area where Pintear just stood.
“No. I'll distract them. These are not your ordinary archers back home,” says Falcon, “They are as fast and strong as me, so I shall run towards them to draw their fire and you run to the tree line and hide.”
“But-”
“No buts. We didn't come all this way for you to just get killed. As soon as I exit the tent, run as fast as you can,” interrupts Falcon. Tenseness is tangible, as Falcon lowers his ears and vibrates every muscle in his entire body in preparation. He turns to Pintear and winks then bursts out of the door and into the open air. Whistles and hollow thumps litter the airspace behind him.
Concurrently, Pintear jettisons his entirety through the plastic polymer portal into the zone of vulnerability. Still not fully adjusted to the sudden need of urgency, Pintear is blinded by the morning sun poking through the light clouds, which makes him stagger and fall to the ground, getting a mouth full of grass and ashes from the fire the night before. This is probably a good thing, because an arrow, meant for Falcon, might have invaded his ear canal had he not stumbled, but, instead, just barely grazed a few fibers off the top of his hat.
On the ground, for a brief moment, Pintear watches Falcon darting side to side while chattering madly; his fur standing on end. He hopes that Falcon is trying to find the point, or points, of origin from where the barraging volley of arrows are flying and just lost his mind in the heat of thing. His hope is confirmed when another plethora of sharp sticks try to fly into his vital organs and he dodges them, then runs to the source. Realizing that he is still lying down in a hot zone, Pintear scrounges to his feet and resumes his sprint to the forest ahead. Pintear wishes he had more of that tea to let him glide through the air like the last time.
No more projectiles fly in his direction, as he enters the sanctuary of the wooded area; the haven of greenery has proven its worth. He dives farther into the maze of brushes and brambles until he finds a clearing that he deems safe enough, so he waits for Falcon. Still racked from all this excitement, Pintear tries his best to clear his head. Standing there in the middle of the clearing, Pintear gazes up at the canopy and tries to understand why they are being hunted by Falcon's own kind, but his thoughts soon turn to just Falcon.
A twig snaps a foot behind him. “Falcon!” calls Pintear, as he turn to greet his love. But, it isn't Falcon. Instead, a tall grizzled wolf stands just a foot in front of him. It's face distorted with displeasure. The wolf, with lithe and fast motions, much like Falcon's, grabs Pintear's shoulders and spins him around, keeping a tight grip. With Pintear's back now to the assailant, he does his best to struggle away, but trying to slide out of the vice like grip just plays into the wolf's favor. The wolf slides the grip down to Pintear's hands and places both of his thumbs into its single padded paw, then gives a slight twist of the wrist to send a small twinge of pain up Pintear's arm to let him know not to struggle further. Pintear reluctantly obeys the subtly painful suggestion.
While placing the other paw upon Pintear's shoulder for reinforcement of the the suggestion, the wolf lets go a low growl that leads into a quiet howl. Soon, the brush on the edge of the clearing rustle gently as if the wind is blowing just those few bushes. They stop moving. Pintear can now see several sets of eyes begin to peer through the dark cover of the space between the leaves. Too nervous to see clear detail, Pintear only views bodies of varying stature and covered in fur of different patterns slowly emerging from the depth and safety of the small copse of foliage. They gather silently in a semicircle behind Pintear and the wolf, like choreographed dancers, and stand without sound.
Deeper in the woods an approaching, inconsistent strut echos off the trunks. The brushing of leaves grows closer until Falcon bursts through the green entanglement of flora and, with a face full of plants, blindly says “I followed your scent. I think we lost-.” Falcon stops dead in his tracks, still like a statue. Looking at Pintear he says, “Just stay calm. I'll try to talk to them.” He then looks just beyond Pintear, but not moving his head in a way that is honorable, yet intimating. Falcon begins to talk, but words do not pass his lips, but a sound more like an angry squirrel chattering at an intruder.
In response the wolf growls and makes short barks and yips angrily, tightening its grip on Pintear's shoulder. Falcon continues to chatter and make “dook” sounds while the wolf's tone escalates. The “negotiations” seem to go sour when the wolf shakes Pintear, while loudly barking at Falcon, and the distinct sound of yew and strings tightening behind him. Pintear thinks fast. Flipping out the hidden custom knife and preparing to ignore the eminent pain in his hands, Pintear jerks forward, pulling the wolf off balance, then twists his head around and jabs the blade of the knife into the hand of his captor, then retracts the blade. A howl that grits teeth ravages Pintear's ears while he is fearfully hurling his body as fast as he can towards Falcon.
Pintear can almost feel the arrows piercing his flesh when the twang of strings snap. At that precise moment, Falcon, infused with rage, begins a stride and disappears into the void of air. Pintear, no longer having a goal to rebound upon begins to fall to the ground. Before he hits the ground, a clawed foot appears by his side. Pintear's nose nearly touches the ground before he rapidly rises into the air where he is placed back on his feet. Pintear twists his body around to gaze upon a livid ferret with a paw clutching several arrows, now cracking from his grip. Glowing as though touched by red flames, Falcon's paw clutching the arrows clenches, breaking them all into fragments.
Turning his gaze to the attackers, Pintear sees the archers' eyes glow a myriad of colors while they nock their arrows and take aim on Falcon. Tired of the meaningless conflict, Pintear lunges in front of Falcon and spreads himself out to protect Falcon from the fire.
“Cease this bollucks! If you are going to shoot, take me,” yells Pintear.
The wolf, still holding its wounded paw, releases its paw, holds it up in a cease fire position, as if moved by the gesture, and walks over to Pintear. Pintear stands his ground. The wolf is toe to toe with Pintear before it speaks its usual growls and howls. Noticing that Pintear is not responding to its speech, the wolf shakes its head and turns to Falcon and repeats the same noises.
Tapping on Pintear's back, Falcon says, “She says, 'I do not understand what you said, but we cannot harm anyone like this. What are you doing? Are you surrendering?”
Pintear, taken aback, asks, “That's a she?” Pintear takes a closer look at this anthropomorphic creature that stands close enough to tell what she had for breakfast. Her coat is thick and gray, her eyes a deep green like the forest itself, she is wearing a dark tan jerkin, that hides any possibility of a bosom, accompanied by blue slacks. Pintear can feel her powerful stare burning into him and her leading aura just waft into him; she truly is an Alpha.
“Well? Should I say yes?” asks Falcon, breaking Pintear's examination.
“Um, yes. Maybe we can talk to them on the way back to the camp or something. But, what am I surrendering to?”
“Okay, I'll tell her. She and her pack think we are stealing her kill around the parts. She wouldn't listen to me, but I think she likes your spirit,” says Falcon, then makes the indecipherable sounds to the wolf.
She looks down at Pintear once Falcon has stopped talking with her and motions for them to move back to the campsite. Pintear nods and bows, hoping that it is customary to do so. Luckily for him, it is the correct manner and she curtsies in response. Falcon and Pintear follow her into the forest and are followed by the others, in a convoy. Their hands still on bows.