On the Fence

760 words (excluding headlines)

Pushing right pass that edge

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"Everybody's gonna be like 'HUZZAAAAAH!!' Gonna be LOADED with root beer, this boy right here!!" a booming voice shouted that caused all the wildlife in the snowy forest to flee. Walking down a lightly snow-dusted road, a dancing big blue pouflon was cheering about his promotion. The knight academy had decided this pouflon was more advanced than his mentors could train him, and this cheerful boy continued telling his unfortunate comrade trailing behind him that over and over.

The bearded pouflon couldn't stop shouting about his future knight endeavors, nevermind Nathaniel telling him to quiet down twenty minutes ago. I've got too much of a headache today for this... Nathaniel had an ugly scene of fiery regrets playing in his head all that morning, and to wake up to this news? A terrible morning it was!

"Ark ark ark!! WOOOOwwwaow!!" Random sounds started blasting out this celebratory pouf, and at this rate, he should have just zoomed to the stars wherever they were with all that excitement. Instead, he could only leap over Nathaniel like new fencing put down on a farm. Those hooves almost kicked Nathaniel in the face after the last leap, but Nathaniel was thankfully missed.

This horrible headache fumbling around before me like an absolute clown! Nathaniel was tempted to transform this clown into a vespire he hated just so Nathaniel could have his hooves tell this rowdy pouflon how they felt. Alas, Nathaniel was much too aware of the amount of responsibility on his shoulders, and surely he wouldn't be able to get away with clobbering this pestilence. "Did I not tell you to keep it down a while ago? It is early in the morning and there are people resting. Your voice is so jarring, brick walls would stand no chance against it."

Nevermind the barrier

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The bearded pouflon started walking down the path again after his outburst and went on to say, "Hey Nate."

Nathaniel made a scream in his mind that no one should have heard, but all he could show on the outside was a frowned brow. "Nathaniel," he huffed and followed reluctantly.

"Nate, Nate, Nate, Nate... Want to know what I heard from the fourth squad sent out today?"

"No I do not."

"The guards that watch over the back alleyways said there's some kid fighting vespires with his bare hooves."

"Utter nonsense. Gossip. Don't go around shouting it to the summits of the mountains, you fool."

"Nate!!" the pouflon barked and spun round to Nathaniel with an aggressive expression on his face.

Dead silent Nathaniel dropped. Did this pouflon actually catch onto Nathaniel's words today? Nathaniel could and did say absolutely anything to the rookie, sometimes not sparing rather... shall we say unpleasant words against the blue pouflon's person?

"I'm starving! This stomach be making some bad racket today, have you ever met anything so annoying?!"

It was like talking to a fence post, this pouflon. Putting away his brief fright to the false alarm, Nathaniel reached into his stash and threw out a loaf of bread onto the dirt road. "Have this."

'Bout to reach them limits

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"Nate, you know how to make a pouf soar right pass those clouds." The hungry pouflon gobbled that bread up without bothering to take it off the path. "Tell you what though, if there is some bloom like that out there, they sure are showing up about half our squad, am I right? I chased the new guy around with a drawing, drawing of all things, of some vespire that's not even real! Best game of tag I played all week."

Sniffing around on the ground for any crumbs left in the dirt, when he found none, the bearded pouf wandered to a snowy part of a fence he had passed and started eating snow off it. Licking his teeth, he stared at the fence, and could it be guessed he was wondering if he could eat the fence? After determining not to try this time, he acknowledged Nathaniel again and asked, "Nate! You know what we should do?"

Nathaniel sighed, "No, I do not want to play hide-and-seek right now."

"Huh? Who said anything about hide-and-seek?" This hungry pouflon gave quite the pause to Nathaniel, and Nathaniel realized the mention of tag didn't trigger a game of hide-and-seek like it usually did from him. "Anyway, we should check out that cave over there, something's real peculiar and all that about it."

Nathaniel bothered to look just in time to see an alarming shadow. Quite taken back by the suspicious sight, Nathaniel agreed, "Hmm. I suppose we shall. Okay then."