Trinket (Reverse Harem)

In Which We Get Completely Screwed

They could fly.

"They're behind us!" I screamed to Itek over the sound of wind and ocean.

He dipped, spun around in the air and I held on for dear life as he pivoted to get a look, then spun back around and bellowed a warning to the dragons. Korr's breast was red with blood, and so were his wings, and Ethat's wings were stained and turning the color of parchment. Asund, in human-form, was on Korr's back.

And we were flying out across the bay in the middle of the night, with the only light the increasing storms piled high in front of us, periodically illuminated with green-purple lightening.

While being chased by flying devil-bugs.

The three shifters strained into the wind, flying harder, the hot air and gusts buoying and buffetting their efforts.

The bugs didn't appear to be gaining on us—they seemed able to fly, but not quickly compared to dragons and gryphons.

But they weren't injured, and Ethat's wings looked like they were withering. Every glint of lightening that illuminated them showed more tattered and withered membranes and he struggled to stay aloft, and Korr was still bleeding.

Korr roared something, and they adjusted course, and headed right for the belly of the storm.

The wind and rain hit us, large, driving droplets that soaked Itek's wings and made him almost impossible to hold onto and he had to work harder to stay aloft and keep up with the dragons as the wind tossed us around and the storm intensified.

I held on with every ounce of strength I had as the storm punished us, and Itek fought against the currents trying to drive him from the sky.

Something bumped into Itek, and his haunch shifted, and he banked away. I twisted around, and a flash of lightening illuminated two bugs right (literally) on his ass.

"How the fuck!" I screamed. How had they caught up with us? They were fucking bugs! They couldn't fly in rain and storms! Even Devil Bugs.

It opened its mouth again and lightening flickered, and that damn gaping chasm of its mouth-trap went on forever, and while it didn't have any teeth along its jaws, it did have a circular cluster of teeth at the back of what I guess what it's throat. Like a tooth-layered butthole.

Itek flapped his wings once, twice, and his body tucked and tightened, and we shot through the storm at a speed that almost sent me off him, but did leave the bug behind.

Korr roared something even I understood. GO!

"Korr!" I screamed, but no one heard me.

The driving, hot air suddenly got cold. I risked looking around again, the wind tearing at my wet hair and trying to yank my grip off Itek's feathers. Korr glowed ice-blue, with a shining halo around himself like the moon on a cold winter night. The rain around him flashed clear-blue and reflective as all the rain that his halo touched turned to ice shards, and he streaked through the sky like a freezing comet.

The darker shapes of the bugs swerved and some screeched as the ice stabbed through them and knocked them out of the sky into the ocean.

Itek flapped his wings, driving us through the winds, and then a current caught us, shooting us forward into the dark, driving rain, where there was only thunder and rain above us, and the churn of the ocean below us. It took everything I had left to hold onto him as he held his wings outstretched, straining to ride the violent current of air that was taking us... somewhere.

It was still raining when he started to descend. There was something darker than the ocean ahead of us. I risked a peek behind.

No Korr or Ethat.

I wanted to scream but didn't have the strength.

Itek's wings trembled against my legs from exhaustion as he—unsteady—rode the current and moved down, gliding onto the dark, wave-battered beach. He stumbled as he landed, and I fell off, tumbling into the wet sand.

I dragged myself to my knees and crawled over to where he lay crumbled, panting and exhausted. I'd never heard a gryphon gasping for breath before. Can't say it was a good sound.

His body trembled from exhaustion.

"Are you hurt?" I asked, running my hands over him, but I couldn't see anything except his outline, and the rain was still pouring on us. Not hard enough I had to shout, but a steady, soaking rain that made my skin itch.

He moved his head which I took to mean no, and he was just exhausted.

I rested my hands on him and looked towards the sky, turning my face into the rain. No Korr, no Ethat, no Asund.

Where the hell were we, where the hell were they, what the hell had chased us, and how would any of us find each other again? 

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Peeeeeeppppsssssssss

I was going to make challah and cinnamon buns today, but we have no eggs. ;_; So I guess... more biscuits and some pretzels? (Gonna have to skip that egg wash) 

I don't know about you guys, but I've really had to go pantry diving the past month to make the most of everything I have. I feel like I'm playing Kitchen Kludge 2020. Like I won't normally cook with leg quarters but my choices were 99¢/lb leg quarters or $6.99/lb organic chicken breasts. Leg quarters it is! (And I can make stock from the bones, because stock/boullion/broth is in short supply around here... and then I make rice pilaf with some mushrooms and sad, wilted celery and tasteless short grain white rice.... it's Kitchen Kludge 2020!!!!) 

But we have a real crisis brewing: we are down to our last frozen pizza. 0_o Back in March we were able to buy like 6 of this really great brand of frozen pizza for $3 so we stocked the freezer. But now we're down to the last one, and there are no more to be had! The frozen pizza situation at all the groceries is DESPERATE. 

~ Merry
(PIZZA HORDING PANTSTER) 

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