Chapter 5

Around Lavenfauvish

Thrush

I chased Margaux as she scrambled down the crystal hall as cracks spread throughout the mansion.

Satiation: 42%

My belly was for the meantime preoccupied with disassembling new contents. It rumbled like simmering water on Hawkin’s wood oven stove. It gurgled with a sound like bubbles popping out of thick soup. My intestines writhed like a ball of twine in a goblin’s wrestle.

As I digested, I felt new colors spread throughout my body. New fur bloomed from my skin. My eyes shrunk and my legs grew thick with more bone. The more that my Composition fed from the contents of my belly, the more my belly shrunk from its bloat. Though it still rumbled, it was at least under my control again, tamed by a meal of sheep and cow and earth.

Of the flocks on the farm where I had caught her, my belly had snatched up two cows and one sheep. My jaw had ladled a heap of earth to the back of my throat. My paws had done what they could to help shove things into my mouth, even going so far as to help plunge massive chunks of dying cow down my throat. My paws, my jaw, my belly—they had been under the control of vicious hunger—but my mind had shut off. I had been present like a transparent eyeball that waited until the controlling hunger subsided, and the Ravenous notification replaced the Starvation notification.

Like a spark to a wick dipped in tepid cow fat, my consciousness had returned. My thoughts had returned like a wick taking flame. A purpose had burned in my heart. Rage had replaced a frenzy. After completely coming to, I witnessed the fleeing flocks. The object of my hunt had also flown.

I had sniffed and snorted. My breath had plumed from my blunt cow shaped nose. Although Margaux had flown, her scent lingered from a cluster of nearby baby bull thistles. I had inhaled until my lungs expanded and pressed against my ribs. Apart from the smell of farmland, I had smelled Margaux’s breath. And on that breath was the smell of beer. Not like Hawkin’s beer which carried ethereal aromas and northern wilderness aromas. This beer smelled like Lavenfauvish and amethyst crystals.

So I had cut through the world and stepped onto the streets of Lavenfauvish. Humans had shrieked. Doors had slammed. A dog’s barks had risen to squeals. I had put my nose to the air and inhaled again. The smell of beer and amethyst was like a long unspooled ribbon that led me straight into the 2nd floor hall of a crystal mansion.

As soon as I had arrived, my prey began fleeing once again. She was in much better shape than she had been. Nevertheless, her recovery would be no match for my endurance. I would drain her of breath, of supply, and of energy.

My Satiation fell by 1%.

Butlers charged at me. They came at me with fists and feet. They chopped at my arms and my sides. They poked my eyes. They threw their heels into my belly. Their blows were delivered with heavy power. Every time my bones broke, I purred and they healed.

No matter how many butlers I knocked back or flung across the hall, more jumped in. Margaux barked orders beyond the throng. A caught a whiff of beer and lost sight of her.

Sharp blades entered my belly and my shoulder. Half a dozen hands clutched the hilts of weapons embedded in me.

I stopped fighting off the butlers. I walked through them as they battled my body. I let them slash my body and let them land kicks on my giant eyes. Every now and then I bit off a hand or a foot. I arrived at Margaux’s last location, marked by a residual scent of beer.

As I inhaled deeply, humans battered my back and my face. Tailor’s tape lassoed my neck. However much they tried to choke me, I could still take in the smells of the beer Margaux had sipped—undoubtedly a Brewer’s Portal attribute.

The smell was all too familiar to me, yet I couldn’t place it. As though I could taste the beer beyond the hops and malt to the faint taste of terrain, I found hints of flowers. Did they belong to those that Abigail planted by Hawkin’s cabin? Were they wildflowers along the road to Greditch City? A road that I hadn’t traveled in nearly a year? No—there were also smells of Lavenfauvish!

I encased myself in the ethereal orb and peered through magnifications of distance. When a vista magnified to reveal the Lavenfauvish pier, I poked my head through the orb so that I appeared at that location. I inhaled deeply and found that I was closer to the origin of the smell of Margaux’s last Brewer’s Portal beer.

I continued like that, appearing like a floating head in different parts of the city. I sniffed like a lost dog searching for home.

Meanwhile, butlers jabbed weapons into my body. Blood ran down my fur. I purred.

When I next poked my head through the orb, my head appeared in Hiccup’s gardens behind his mansion. Margaux’s scent was strong enough that I cut through the orb and stepped into the gardens. I followed my nose down the rows of flowers until I was sprinting through the garden. The smell grew so strong that I batted the air before me. Magaux appeared out of thin air. She tumbled through a hedge and rolled down a slope into a small pond full of fish, leaving a streak of blood behind. She rose from the water with a gasp.

I heard the sound of a bottle breaking. The smell of beer filled me. Margaux vanished once more.

Just as I began the hunt again, My Satiation fell by another 1%.

Satiation: 40%

The Ravenous notification blinked. My belly rumbled and a burp escaped me.