Chapter 156

Ravenous Satiation

Thrush

With but a thought, I opened an ethereal vista in the atmosphere. A slice of the air opened like a gash and offered a magnified view of the wilderness. The gash continued to grow, all around me, until it was an orb that covered me as though I were in the depths of a belly. I shoved my arms through the vista of the orb’s walls. I made swimming movements to magnify the distance between me and the world. I felt like a floating eyeball.

I saw a gang of turkeys 100 miles east of Hawkin’s clearing. I reduced the distance by nearly a hundred miles until I was offered a vista of the Mist Hidden barrier. I changed the distance as I scoured the coast until I found the woman sprinting through the wilderness. Because of her speed, I needed to keep magnifying the vista distance to keep up with her.

But I magnified the vista to several dozen meters ahead of her, and then I stepped through the orb to that location. I arrived just as she did amidst the rhododendron. She skidded to a halt.

She panted wide eyed. She stank of malice. And her life was in my hands.

She brought a bottle of beer to her lips and drank a single sip.

The wind died. Leaves no longer rustled. The pervasive roar of the sea was swallowed away. In the sky, birds were frozen mid-flight. The foam that spilled from the bottle neck hovered in the air.

The woman took up a casual pace as if I weren’t there. When I blinked she froze. Her face wrinkled. She took a few steps back and withdrew two bottles of beer from her private inventory. We stared at each other. Her eyes darted all over me.

I smelled confusion. I smelled rushing blood. I smelled Boggo on her boots.

She drank from two different bottles, but nothing happened. She just stood there.

My Satiation fell to 35%. My jaw dropped and the Ravenous notification blinked. I worry then that if my Satiation fell to 30%, I would reach Starvation, lose focus, and eat whatever I could get my hands on. In that state, I might eat the earth beneath me before I gave chase until my Satiation rose again. She might evade me then, so I had to eat her while I was still in control.

I rushed her as fast as rays of dawn that speared into the shadows of trees. I shredded the woman with a swipe of my claws, but she turned out to be made of nothing but wisps of colored smoke. The smoke dissipated.

I took a giant whiff and opened the ethereal orb. I swam through the magnifications of distance around the area but I could not find her. I poked my head through the orb, and took big whiffs. I smelled her! The scents were clear as streaks of pollen in the wind, and I had been studying that smell for weeks! I followed that scent through the wilderness until it was so strong that the scent of her put an image in my mind, like I was a bat with better nostrils than ears.

I stepped through the vista of the orb and smacked the air like a cat knocking an object. The woman materialized from a breeze—a current of aromas—horizontal like she had been flying. My paw hit her back and slammed her to the ground. She blew a hefty grunt before swiftly leaping back to her feet. She snapped her fingers and I heard a disembodied sound of a bottle breaking.

She was suddenly inches from me. A leg was extended in a high kick. Her boot smashed into my shoulder with an impact that made my entire being wiggle like congealed elodon fat. Forest debris blasted in a rising wave around our epicenter. The bones in my shoulder broke. But I stood. I purred and the bones began to mend.

The woman, on the ground, looked up at me. She panted hard. Her hands shook. She peered up at me from between tresses.

I advanced on her with just one step. She scrambled back.

I had her focus. She saw me clearly. Her heart beat like a rabbit’s.

Then she was up on her feet with her hands spread out. Barley grew from the earth around her. Hop vines grew and whipped about in the blink of an eye. Yeast was collected from the atmosphere in a volley of dust. Water was wrestled from the air. She snapped her fingers and I heard a disembodied sound of a bottle being corked.

Brewer’s Portal.

I leapt toward her and she took off at the exact same moment. Fingers snapped. A bottle broke. She burst ahead at twice my speed. I opened the ethereal orb and stepped through a magnified distance to cut her off. She skidded to a halt and changed directions. Fingers snapped. A bottle broke. She put on a burst of speed toward the south. I cut her off again and she evaded me once more.

This went on until I heard the sound of a disembodied bottle breaking again and she disappeared. I cut through the world back to the location where she’d brewed the Brewer’s Portal but she wasn’t there. I cut through to where Hawkin lay napping on the sand by the dock. She was not there. I cut through to the ketch and startled Barnacle-eyes and Remember-not. She was not there. I cut back to the woods where I’d chased her.

I opened the ethereal orb once more and looked into more magnified distances. I poked my head through the orb’s walls into a thoroughfare of Omes Arbor. People screamed. I took big whiffs but did not catch the woman’s scent. I poked my head into the biggest mansion in Omes Arbor. Several dozen people were feasting at a banquet. They shrieked as I took big whiffs. I poked my head into the foyer of Hiccup’s mansion. A butler fainted. Another one sucked teeth. Though the woman’s scent was there, it was weak. Then I poked my head into the streets of Lavenfauvish. No scent there either.

I closed the orb and looked around. Then I caught her scent. She was still in the woods. Cutting through the world and following her scent, I found her once more and clawed her out of the air. I shredded her garb and drew red stripes over her ribs. She scampered away from me and put a hand to her bleeding side. With a snap of her fingers and the sound of a bottle breaking, her side began to heal.

I rushed towards her but she was once more sprinting with a burst of magic speed.

I chased Margaux into the wilderness as my Satiation dropped to 33%.