Special Quest: The Matriarch's Pet

╔═════════ Special Quest: The Matriarch's Pet - Chapter ONE ═════════╗

843 Words

“So,” panted Otho as he struggled to keep pace with the two female pullers ahead of him. “What are we looking for again?”

“Nyxthorns.” mumbled Grizz, nose down in the dirt as she trotted down the twisting caverns.

“The Matriarch’s pets.” Added Mari as the trio stopped at a crossroads. Her nostrils twitched as she struggled to catch wind of the scent Grizz had been following, while the vayron in question continued almost to shovel the dirt with her snout.

“And how,” huffed Otho as he finally had a chance to catch his breath, “Is us finding her pets going to help free her from the stone?”

Mari shrugged slightly, “Her Caregivers told us that their return may calm her.” Otho frowned, small furrows marring his usually smooth expression,

“Surely our efforts would be more appreciated in her chambers, excavating the rocks that bind her?”

The three picked up pace again as Grizz chose an offshoot and padded further into the darkness. “Perhaps Pothos, but the Haedians have asked us to do stranger in our travels. If they believe this will help, who are we to refuse to help?” she paused as they finally made it to a small open cavern filled with pointed rocks. “Here.” she stated, “There’s a few of them hiding among these rocks. Mari, did you bring the bait?”

The smooth-furred vayron nodded, nosing around in her packs to produce a tightly wrapped bundle. She placed it on the ground and using one paw to steady it she pulled at the drawstring with her teeth. The cloth fell open revealing several golf ball-sized brown pellets. They had a pungent stench of fermenting fruits and were slightly sticky to the touch.

Grizz nodded enthusiastically, “Right, I’ll flush them out, Otho-” The brown and white vayron’s ears perked up, “Can you make sure they don’t leave this chamber?”

Otho nodded, “How are we going to catch them?” he queried.

“Well,” Grizz mused, “I’m kind of hoping they’ll try the food and calm down a bit. The last thing I want to do is to have to catch them with force as that will probably just make it more difficult for us in the long run.”

Mari nodded, “Grizz is right, we need to approach this carefully. I questioned the Caregivers before we left and they warned me that these little critters can pack quite a punch if they spine us with one of their quills." She studied Otho’s confused expression for a second before adding, “Think porcupines but with sharp crystals instead of normal quills.”

Otho grimaced at the thought. He had had the misfortune of encountering porcupines when he was a pup, a lesson that he didn’t wish to learn twice. “Okay,” he breathed, “Stop them from escaping but don’t get spined.” he bobbed his head with an expression of resignation, “Easier said than done.”

“Okay, Mari, you’re up front with me.” Grizz slowly padded her way further into the cave, her patchwork fur illuminated by the dim glow emanating from the purple crystals embedded into the stone. Her nose twitched, following the unfamiliar scent of the Nyxthorns. Mari fell into step behind her, pellet in her jaws and head held high as she surveyed the craggy rocks above. Otho padded several metres behind them, clinging to the shadows yet close enough for him to hear his partners’ hushed conversations. 

“How many do you think are here?” Mari whispered around the pellet.

“At least two.” mumbled Grizz, “Maybe more, I’m not sure. Their scents muddle with the damp clay. There,” she breathed. The pair in front stopped, breathing as quietly as possible as they listened to the gentle drip of moisture down the stalactites. Grizz turned her snout to point towards one of the shelves just above their heads. “There.”

Mari gently dropped the pellet in front of them and nudged it with her nose, rolling it towards the cave wall. She scanned the walls once again to try and see what Grizz had already spotted. There, a crevice in the stone wall. If she shifted at the right angle, the lights from the crystals glanced off the critter’s crystalline quills.

The pair waited for what felt like an age before a tiny twitching nose peeked out from behind the pointed rocks, followed by two beady eyes. The black eyes flickered between the two vayrons warily.

“We won’t hurt you.” cooed Mari. Whether the Nyxthorn could understand her or not, she continued to speak to it, low and friendly. Very carefully it stepped forward, tiny hands reaching for the pellet in desperation. Eventually, the critter gave in, extricating itself fully from the crevice to grasp the food in both hands.

“One more. Not as convinced.” Grizz muttered. The other puller was right. One more set of eyes peered out from the crevice, a look of apprehension and distrust present in its tiny expression. And despite the first being convinced to leave his burrow, it clutched the pellet with white-knuckled intensity. Quills quivering and ready to fire at the slightest movement.

╔═════════ Special Quest: The Matriarch's Pet - Chapter Two ═════════╗

963 Words

“Okay.” breathed Mari, glancing back to ensure their third companion was still within sight, “If we can manage to herd them back to Otho and the rest of the food, perhaps they’ll come with us quietly?”

Grizz smiled wryly, “It’s a far better idea than I had.” She took a cautious step towards the Nyxthorn, and was immediately met with a high-pitched growl. At a glance, the little creatures didn’t look all too threatening. They had soft downy fur on their body, with four black scaly feet supporting their weighty crystal quills. Its little scowl was framed by two rather intimidating fangs that hung down past its lips.

Mari nodded to Otho behind them, signalling to him that it was safe to approach. He took a few steps closer so his whispers could be hurt, still wary of their quarry. “So uh, what’s the plan?”

“To try and catch them,” grumbled Grizz, “I get the feeling it won’t be as straightforward as asking them to come home.” 

Mari nodded solemnly, “Otho, it may be worth backtracking a bit and seeing if you can set a trap.”

Otho nodded hastily, “Gotcha,” he whispered, “Try not to get hurt.” he added as he set off back to the mouth of the cave.

“Easier said than done,” Grizz mumbled as the critter in front of them continued to scowl at their assailants, “They don’t seem to be our biggest fans.” she bared her teeth in an awkward smile as she carefully circled the Nyxthorn, as she got closer to the cavern wall the second critter shot past her, punctuated by an unholy cacophony of screeches and hisses as its tiny claws struggled to find purchase on the smooth floor.

The long-furred puller lunged towards the spiked critter, immediately regretting her decisions as she recoiled with a mouthful of quills. The Nyxthorn continued its panicked escape between her legs as Mari hurriedly tried to calm the first critter, hoping to at least keep one of the creatures contained. Grizz batted at the quills protruding from her snout in fervour, hastily trying to pry the painful spines from her aching muzzle.

“Little-!!” she bit her tongue and Mari yanked a quill from her face, the jagged edges of the crystal spine stinging even more on its exit.

“We’ve still got one here,” she hissed, “Don’t scare it.”

Grizz nursed her muzzle and her pride with a curled paw, planting her bottom firmly back on the ground as she avoided eye contact with the remaining Nyxthorn. This particular critter seemed to have almost calmed down as it mirrored Grizz’s position, gnawing happily on its pellet as it watched the puller in amusement.

“Stay here with this one, I’ll go after the other.”

Mari set off back to the mouth of the cave, sparing Grizz one last sympathetic glance as the Nyxthorn by her side twittered away happily to itself.

The journey back to the cave entrance seemed to take far longer than it had originally, though Mari wasn’t sure if that was in part due to her not being led by Grizz’s keen sense of smell. She wound around stalagmites, paws slipping in the soft clay causing her to cautiously slow her step. She slowed her breathing, concentrating this time on what she could hear, not the mixed scents that filled her nostrils. A soft hushed voice, masculine in origin.

She sped up again to a slow trot, following the one-sided conversation back to the cave mouth. She let out a breath she didn’t realise she was holding as she saw Otho lay down chattering away to himself. His ears perked up as he saw his partner, “Mari! I caught the one you sent my way.” he beamed.

Mari’s gaze was drawn towards the pointed rocks, where a wriggling net hung between them. “You didn’t give me a huge amount of time to prep, but I think it did the job” he admitted proudly, “I’d nabbed some fishing nets from the Depthstriders when we passed by earlier, I was intending to take them back topside to use for y’know, fishing.” he cocked his head at the squirming Nyxthorn, it had already spent some of its quills, which lay scattered at Otho’s feet. “I guess in a roundabout way this is sort of fishing in its own right.”

The short-furred vayron couldn’t help but be impressed. Otho was not the sharpest of the three by any means, but that was not to say he was stupid, not by a long shot. He was young, and this expedition into the beneath was his first true adventure, one where he kept proving himself time and time again.

Mari returned his beaming smile in kind, “Once again your quick thinking has saved the day!”

The original Nyxthorn was easier to convince, with Mari returning to Grizz to lay a trail of pellet bites for their new friend to follow. Grizz followed the critter, head hung low and tail between her legs, though despite her shame she too couldn’t hide her pride at Otho’s masterfully sprung trap.

Mari dropped her head to the level of the Nyxthorn, “Could you please convince your friend to come with us? We’re only here to return you both home. Your Matriarch hurts without your presence.” she wasn’t sure whether the critter understood her, but its ear flicked and its head tilted as it considered her words. 

The net was lowered and the feisty creature within was released, hackles raised and quills ready to loose. The bigger, calmer of the pair gently bopped the smaller on the snout, plying its paws with a juicy pellet. With no words exchanged it was hard to tell what had just been exchanged, but the smaller Nyxthorn seemed to begrudgingly accept its fate.

╔═════════ Special Quest: The Matriarch's Pet - Chapter Three ═════════╗

802 Words

The smaller Nyxthorn traipsed after its bigger brother, clutching its own pellet tightly in its black scaled paws. It kept its head down but its eyes tracked Grizz’s every step, forever wary of this snappy, wingless creature.

Grizz on the other hand, refused to make eye contact with either of the Nyxthorns, taking the lead at the forefront of the group to put as much space between her and the spiny creatures as she possibly could. Otho was at the back of the marching order, with Mari walking alongside the critters.

These winding corridors were a lot more well travelled than the offshoots they’d found the Nyxthorn’s in. Where the ground in the antechambers was soft and malleable, these caverns were far less treacherous. 

It was, however, not a short journey back to the Matriarch’s antechamber. It had taken the trio several days of searching the Beneath’s spiralling caverns before they’d even caught the slightest scent of Nyxthorn. The trail had sent them through Order’s battlegrounds to the Keepers' libraries, and then even further past. Thankfully they hadn’t travelled far enough to reach the Depthstrider’s territory, those waters were difficult enough to traverse as a vayron, never mind with two temperamental Nyxthorn in tow.

Grizz breathed a sigh of relief as the group made it through the Order’s battlegrounds unscathed. Although since their initial meeting with the Matriarch, the Order had been quietly complacent to their vayron companions, Grizz could not forgive the cold-blooded duel they had challenged them to.

She grimaced, a forced toothy smile to an Order guard who didn’t even spare them more than a glance. Not much longer to the Matriarch’s antechamber. She thought to herself.

Soon they found themself in the vast cavern the Matriarch called home, the light bouncing off the crystalline formations that enveloped her ailing form. A familiar Haedian bounded towards them, his exuberant energy leeching the tiredness from their bones.

Mari smiled up at their companion, “Cailu, we have found two of the Matriarch’s herd.” she gestured towards the two Nyxthorns, the larger of the two still happily munching away at its pellet. The smaller pushed past them, however, scrambling up the rocks to park itself in front of the Matriarch’s open maw. A cacophony of indignant squeaks echoed through the chamber as it regaled its queen with a presumably embellished tail of kidnapping.

A few of the Handmaidens whispered amongst themselves as they made sure to give the tiny creature a wide berth. The bigger one they did not afford as much caution as it trundled past, but still they took a cautious step back to avoid being caught by a stray quill.

“Ah,” Cailu said in a bemused tone, “You found Poki. He ah, he’s not the most well-liked of the Matriarch’s herd. Grizz rubbed her muzzle.

“I can see why.” she grumbled. Otho smiled sheepishly up to the Haedian.

“We did have to catch Poki in a trap,” he chuckled nervously, “I hope the Matriarch won’t be too upset, but it was either that or we lost him.” his smile faded as he quickly scanned the room for dissent. He was however relieved to see that all conversation amongst the Handmaidens was aimed towards the angry little critter, and not the trio of vayrons.

“It’s no worries Otho,” smiled Cailu, “We would have been very impressed if you managed to catch Poki barehanded. He is wary of us, and even more wary of strangers. To be honest I think a lot of the Handmaidens had hoped him lost to the Order.” Cailu held up a hand, gesturing to the crystalline maw of the Matriarch, “Can you feel that?”

The trio of vayrons stood quietly, silently questioning what Cailu was trying to point out. Just as Otho was about to speak, Mari placed a paw on his. The cavern felt warmer, not uncomfortably so, and there was a gentle thrum in the air. A heavy note that clung to their chests, almost like a single low bass note, yet with no sound to accompany it.

The Handmaidens worked with far more pep in their step, humming away to themselves as they helped various groups of vayrons and tyrians to excavate their Queen. Where removing rubble had previously caused the cavern to tremble, instead it held fast, only the slightest pang of discomfort emanating across the chamber. 

It was a small difference but a clear one, and even as Poki continued his angry tirade, the feeling of hope spread throughout the cavern like wildfire.

“The Matriarch cannot yet speak,” Cailu whispered, “But I can tell she’s happy.”

The three vayrons smiled, shoulders drooping in relief as they watched everyone pick up pace. “I’m glad,” said Mari, “Hopefully this means we are one step closer to freeing her. I cannot imagine her pain.”