Horns ✖

Dis-Evocation

I jolted suddenly, the last of the dream fading away.

And awoke into the darkness of an empty land.

As I laid there, splayed out across the scorched soil below, my nostrils were slowly assaulted by the strongest scents imaginable: Blood, Mud, and myself.

I figured nothing had changed, nothing at all since awakening in this blood-thirsty world. Nature had truly left me to die, I suppose. But as my watery eyes began to adjust, and the feeling in my body began to surge to life, I noticed something different.

Those dominant smells began to recede, before being engulfed by the strangest plant aroma known to my kind. Some had a spicy tang against my throat, while others were foul and sickly to me. The pain on my body wasn't as massive as before, allowing me to breathe, move, and relax. I shifted my tail slightly, ensuring that all limbs were alive, then lifted my head, returning the slanted horizon into its original form. I took that moment to gaze at my flesh, now glimmering in a swirl of different colors, most dominant by a warm hunter green. Others were brown, courtesy of the muddy soil below, but every patch seemed put there by purpose. By reason...

"What happened to me..."

"You're alive," A voice from the darkness gasped in excitement, "Thank the stars. I figured you'd make it eventually. Otherwise I would've wasted my best herbs on your hide."

I squinted my eyes, struggling to seek out the creature who had spoken, but could only catch an outline of his body. He stumbled up to his four feet, lumbering forward toward a strange glowing crack on the ground, then sat again, his appearance more apparent, and his voice much more defined than before.

"It took ages to cover every scratch and bite mark. And some were infected. But you look well three-horn. You look well..."

I said nothing, but nevertheless continued to stare blankly at the newcomer. The creature was peculiar indeed, but very recognizable. His back was armored and spikey, black thorns of plenty drawn all over his rigged spine to the edges of his shoulder blades. His swollen face was perhaps the strangest sight: circular, yes, but with a smooth beak crushed inward and two looser thorns across the top of his skull. My eyes curiously wandered across his body until it eyed his tail, a huge limb with a boulder-sized bump at the end of it.

His body smelled of a swampy bog and freshened by the odd taste of freshwater against his hide. Though he wasn't soaked, his underside was cracked by dried mud, indeed a sign that he was, at one point, swimming in the murky depths of the wetlands. The thunderstorm heeding my battle may have influenced that.

"I watched you fend off those raptors by yourself," He grunted next, snagging a strand of greens into his maw as I continued to examine him from afar, "You're quite the natural fighter. Though you did almost die, so I could be mistaken."

"You...you're a club-tail."

"That stands true, yes," The young spiked herbivore swallowed with amusement, shifting his huge tail before us both to prove it, "I'm glad you can recognize what I am. It's much harder to determine for some of the others I've come across while migrating. And you, my friend, are a three-horn."

"Aye," I nodded weakly in reply, my head lowering down to the crack of lava before us, "At least...I think so."

"Think?" The club-tail tilted his head, his golden eyes narrowing with confusion, "Why do you think about who you are?"

"I'm sorry I..." I groaned softly, shaking my head as I pressed one paw up to the underside of a horn, "I'm just at a loss."

"Loss?"