Forgotten Fey Foraging For Food

Untitled Part 1

The three siblings, all insignificant citizens of the sewers, peeked out from beneath the manhole cover, their stomachs grumbling in need of food. With their beady eyes they scanned the city street, empty save for a flea ridden dog resting at the entrance of a closed bakery and a napkin tossed away by its owner after having been wiped with snot. With surprising strength the stoutest of the three lifted the drain while the others dashed out, the much-too-large claws on their hands and feet scraping at the asphalt street as they scampered towards the shadows. A cool wind blew through the city that night, chilling their hairless, wrinkly, grey skin. With clang the first dropped the sewer cover and joined his brother and sister.

 

The dog; who up until now had been having a wonderful dreams of his youth, back when he had a home to call his own and a sweet young girl, whose shining gold hair had matched his, who had called him Fufu; stirred from his slumber. His ears perked up as he lazily glanced over the empty asphalt roads, the concrete sidewalk, and the monuments of steel and glass that stretched high overhead. He saw nothing. A half hearted bark rumbled from his chest. He scratched himself once, a good once, laid down, and went back to dreams of green pastures which always be green, a food bowl that would always have food, and a loving girl that would always love him.

 

“Stupid Flagon,” Yelled the tallest creature, with a voice that sounded like rusty nails scratching against one another, to the fattest one, “Youse coulda gotten us bitten and killed!”

 

“Shh,” Whispered the last of the three.

 

The dog shook. The three creatures froze. The dog opened it’s eyes halfway. The three creatures stopped breathing. The dog let his heavy eyelids fall and he slept once more. The three creatures sighed.

 

After the moment of relief passed, the stout creature, Flagon, slapped the taller one with a clawed hand and, with a voice like that of a deaf opera singer who recently drank acid, yelled, “Stupid Keg, youse coulda waken the doogs

 

The last of three merely sighed and stepped back deeper into the shroud of the shadow they hid in.

 

The dog stirred awake for the third time this night. Flagon and Keg froze, but they weren’t as fortunate as the last time. The dog took a long lazy breath and after a moments thought, stood up on all fours and sniffed the air. From the nearby alley he smelt the urine of a man without home whose luck had been forsaken by the gods, from the bakery behind him he smelt not-so-fresh bread, and from the opposite side of him, hidden in the shadows, he smelt fear from two, only two, little, insignificant, wrinkly, clawed things which the world and the gods had forgotten long ago. The dog stood up and shook the sleepiness out of its bones, the grime from its fur, and he began to trot straight towards Flagon and Keg .

 

The two of them covered their eyes with their small palms and ridiculously long clawed fingers and froze, remembering an old wives tale their grandmother had told them about how if you were perfectly still and pretended you couldn’t see it, then a dog, bound by laws that only dogs are bound to, would not be able to see you. Unfortunately for Flagon and Keg, this was not true, and was not even an old wives tale, but merely a lie their grandmother had told them for her own amusement, and the now awake dog was approaching them at an alarming pace, able to now clearly make out the two brothers cowering against the grime covered brick wall, however the brothers were the only thing the dog could see. The third and eldest of this band of siblings, Casket, had been clever enough to hide by digging her claws into the wall and scaling it until she was high above her less than bright brothers.

 

The dog readied itself, his teeth bared and growl boiling in his throat, he charged towards the two brothers, from the shadows Casket pounced becoming a grey blur flying through the air. With a thud, she struck the dog in the neck, he yelped and stumbled. She was a small thing compared to the beast, standing no more than a foot tall, yet even so she clung to the dogs fur tightly as it pawed at her, spun, and struggled to rid himself of the tiny grey annoyance. Casket pressed her tight skinned lips to the dog’s ear and whispered ancient words she had heard her grandmother whisper to her brothers many times.

 

“Go sleep now you little pest,

Fuck off and get some rest,

For if you stay awake and fret.

A brutal beating you will get.”

 

The dog slowed. His bones became heavy, sloth coursed through his veins, again he saw the smiling face of his beloved young lass. A breath later and the dog collapsed, his dreams claiming him as their victim once more.

 

Casket shot daggers towards her two brothers who had uncovered their eyes and were staring blank faced at the sleeping beast.

 

“Both of youse shut up before you gets us all killed!” She whispered at them, her needle sharp teeth gritting together.

 

“What?” Flagon shrugged.

 

“We wasn’t doing nothing wrongsss.” Hissed out Keg.

 

“Yeahs, its the doogs fault for waking up!” Flagon crossed his arms and puffed up his chest.

 

Casket scowled at them both and her fingers twitched with anger. She remembered how good her claws had looked after painting them with their blood last christmas after a squabble and a twisted smile carved itself onto her cold grey face. “Does Flagons and Kegs need a lesson to remembers whose is the oldest.”

 

Flagon and Keg clamped their mouths shut, they too hadn’t forgotten that christmas, and they felt their old wounds flare up from the last time they were forced to sit through one of their older sister’s classes.

 

“Good, nows I’m hungry. Letsss find food fast so we cans get home faster.” Casket stood tall and lifted her squashed gouge of a nose into the air. “This way.”

So they fought on, starving creatures against the city, scampering unseen through the forest of steel.