“Lily! Lily!” Hibre cried, while standing outside of Lily’s doorway.
“What’s wrong, Hibre?” Lily asked, wide-eyed. Something wasn’t right. Hibre never acted this way. He was a brave swordsman.
“It’s Atro! He’s missing! We were playing fetch in Lutie by the Christmas tree. I got hungry and went to get a cookie from Snowysnow. I didn’t realize Atro wasn’t with me and when I went to give him a dog treat he wasn’t there!” Hibre explained choking back tears. “I - looked - all - over - but - I - couldn’t - f-find - hiiiiiim - Bawwww!” He gasped between sobs.
“Oh no! Don’t worry Hibre, we will find Atro. He couldn’t have wandered too far off. Let’s go see if we can find him! But you have to be brave, what would the swordsman guild think?” Lily spoke in a calming voice to help Hibre get control of himself. “As an Acolyte, it is my sacred duty to help those in need! I promise we will find Atro.”
“Ok... lets go!” Hibre replied, putting on a brave face.
Lily took Hibre’s hand. Together, they left the inn where Lily was staying for Winter vacation. They passed the Al de Baran clock tower and crossed a bridge to the east. They walked to the 2:00 direction of town until the reached an old man in a red suit.
“Hello there children! The man bellowed as he kneeled down to their level.
“Hello Sir.” Lily began, “My name is Lily and this is my friend Hibre. We are looking for his dog Atro. Have you seen a lost dog around here anywhere?”
The old man pondered for a moment. “Well, I might have seen a dog like that. Could you describe it?”
“Yes, Sir!” Hibre stepped forward asserting his presence in the conversation. “He is yellowish-brown with dark spots. He looks like a
Roween, actually…”
“Yeah… that’s not the one… thanks anyway…” Lily responded. “That’s ok, lets go Hibre. Thank you for your help sir.”
“No trouble at all. By the way Hibre, is this your Christmas list?” The man inquired passing Hibre a piece of paper.
Dear Santa,
For Christmas I would like:
- Masquera
- Lip Gloss
- Nail Polish
- Foundation
- Lipstick
- Eye Shadow
I feel I have been very good this year. I’m asking for a friend...
Best regards,
Hibre
Hibre’s eyes widened and his face turned bright red. Almost as red as the old man’s suit.
“Nope, nope… wasn’t me!” Hibre nervously shoved the letter back into the old man’s hand. “Um- w-we should get going, Lily! We need to find Atro, it’s going to be a stormy night!” He took Lily’s hand and they set off running to Lutie town.
***
Lily and Hibre arrive at the lutie Christmas Tree
***
“Okay Hibre, you look over by Snowysnow some more, maybe Atro tried to follow you and got lost. I’ll go ask those kids over there if they saw Atro go anywhere.” Lily said gesturing towards two kids talking in eyesight of the Christmas tree.
Hibre nodded. “Atro! Atro!” He called out for his dog as he trudged toward Snowysnow, the snowman.
Lily approached the two kids; a little boy and a little girl. They appeared to be gossiping about someone. When she approached they stopped talking and looked at her.
“Hello there!” Lily greeted the children. “I am looking for my ... friend’s dog. His name is Atro - ”
“I’m confused.” The boy said, “Is your friend’s name Atro or is the dog’s?”
“Um… he is a small light brown dog with dark brown spots, have you seen him?” Lily said giving the boy a puzzled look.
“Don’t listen to him.” The girl interjected. “He is just messing with you. I saw a dog like that heading to the toy factory, over there.” She pointed to the 12:00 part of town.
“Thank you, Miss!” Lily smiled and went to go find Hibre.
“Hibre! They saw Atro!” Lily called. Hibre heard her from across the courtyard and came running.
“Where did he go!?” Hibre asked excitedly.
“They saw him go into the toy factory. He must have smelled something in there and went looking.” Lily deduced.
“We should go right now!” Hibre exclaimed as he took off running toward the factory.
***
Inside the toy factory
***
Inside the factory little workers were bustling about assembling toys and maneuvering carts of toy parts from one conveyor belt to another. They paid little mind to the two adventurers wandering into the factory floor.
“Oh I’ve heard of these things, they are called ‘Cookies’!” Lily commented, “They make toys all the time, and they only take time to sleep for two hours a day!” She recited in a documentary-esk tone.
Hibre marched up to a couple of green Cookies, and asked (a bit over-enthusiastically)“HEY COOKIE GUY!! HAVE YOU SEEN MY DOG ATRO?”
The cookies immediately scattered. They did not have time to deal with an outsider, especially considering many adventurers would visit the factory and kill Cookies… for their cookies. Two slips of paper fell out of their pockets as they ran away. Hibre grabbed them and returned to Lily.
“Huh… I wonder what their deal is?” Hibre asked cluelessly. “I wonder what these are?” He handed the paper to Lily.
Lily inspected the paper; they were both the same. They were green cards with the print: Cookie Card: Increases the damage inflicted with Holy Light by 10%. (What a weird thing to find here - Lily thought)
“Wow! This is actually really good for me!” Lily laughed, “What are the chances?”
“We find great loot when we are looking for my dog… but I just want to find Atro... “ Hibre replied miserably.
“Well, let’s look around! He can’t be far! Keep your spirits up! It’s what a swordsman would do.” Lily said, playing cheerleader.
The two wandered around the factory floor. They saw sentient packages hopping around all over the place. They even saw some awkward looking porings here and there. It felt like they were walking in circles, the factory looked so similar. Eventually they came upon a large pile of wrapped presents.
“Atro must be over there! He would love playing with those boxes.” Hibre said trying to convince himself and stay positive.
He and Lily rummaged through boxes, seeing no sign of Atro.
“Hey Hibre… Do you smell that?” Lily sniffed the air detecting a delightful fragrance.
“Yeah, now that you mention it, I do! It smells like cookies!” Hibre jumped out of the pile of boxes and began following the smell.
Lily followed Hibre, equally curious as to where the cookie smell was coming from.
They entered what appeared to be a break room. On the center of the table was a plate of cookies. When Hibre saw the treats he charged toward them. “I’m SO hungry!!!”
“Wait for me, Hibre!” Lily called as she chased after him.
The two approached the plate of cookies and Hibre took one. Immediately a cage-like box dropped from the ceiling and captured the duo. It retracted back up to the ceiling and suspended them in the air.
“AH! What the heck!” Hibre exclaimed with astonishment.
*BARK BARK*
Hanging in a box-cage next to them, was none other than Atro.
“What? Atro! Buddy, what are you doing here!?” Hibre yelled with a mixture of excitement and frustration. “Also, why didn’t you say something SOONER!?”
“Hahahahaha, what do we have here?” A cute feminine voice giggled from the floor below. “Aww, two little love-birds and their pupper.”
“Hey we aren’t love birds!” Lily said defensively, “We’re friends and adventurers!”
“Yeah and you stole my dog!” Hibre accused.
“Ooh so you are adventurers. How perfect, you practically trapped yourselves. You know what we do to adventurers around these parts? I’ll tell you - we turn them into living dolls!” The voice mused.
“We’ll see about that! Watch out Lily!” Hibre gritted his teeth angrily. “MAGNUM BREAK!”
With a flaming slash, Hibre smashed through the cardboard prison and he and Lily fell to the ground. Hibre hit the ground first, and softened Lily’s fall.
“Umpf!”
They sprung to their feet and looked upon their captor. She was certainly a humanoid creature of some kind. She had blonde hair and a red dress, she seemed to have some kind of impish minion wielding a giant matchstick.
“HOLY LIGHT!” Lily shouted, channeling divine energy from her hands. The creature stumbled and fell back.
“You’ll pay for that you brat!” The creature hissed. The imp pointed its match at Lily and a pillar of fire erupted around her.
She managed to jump out of the way, but was badly injured.
“Lily!” Hibre shouted and ran to her aid. “You’ll be okay, I’ll take it from here… just rest.”
Hibre lunged forward toward the monster. “Nobody hurts Lily! Nobody! AAAAAAH!”
*BOOM*
An explosion sent Hibre flying across the room. The monster detonated a bomb at Hibre’s feet which sent him tumbling like a ragdoll into a corner.
“Aww… poor little love-birds. Didn’t stand a chance.” Chepet taunted as she drew closer to Hibre. “What a sad little swordsman. Kimi will be so pleased to hear how I captured you and turned you into toys.”
*BARK BARK*
A brown furball flew through the air mauled the minion in the face, dazing her momentarily. Atro had chewed through the cardboard box trap and escaped to save his owner. *GRRRR*
“HEAL!!” Lily called out, sending healing energy to Hibre, revitalizing him.
“You’re going down lady! There’s no way you can take all of us!” Hibre provoked. “BASH!!”
Chepet’s body crushed like a bag of chips under a shoe - and disintegrated.
Hibre immediately rushed over to Lily to tend to her. She was kneeling in the same spot she had landed from the fire pillar blast. “Lily! Are you okay?”
“I think I’ll be fine…” She winced. “I’m just glad we found Atro.” A smile crept across her face.
Atro stood next to his owner and wagged his tail excitedly.
“Oh Atro, you must have smelled cookies and went to find them for me. Thanks, buddy!” Hibre patted Atro on the head. “But don’t run off like that ok? Look at what happened to Lily, we all could have been hurt. We need to stick together and be a team, got it?”
Atro nuzzled against Hibre’s leg in agreement.
Lily was impressed with how Hibre had learned such a swordsman-like lesson from all this. Maybe getting in trouble was worth it after all.
“Hey Hibre… did you just learn something? I’m surprised, considering there is still a big plate of well baked cookies on the table over there to distract you.” Lily teased and winked.
“Shush, Lily! Oh - my - god! I forgot about the cookies!” Hibre bolted for the plate. *Om nom nom*
Lily wrapped some cookies up in cloth from her robe to-go. “Hey Hibre…”
“Yeah, Lily?” He replied.
“Thank you for saving me. I’m proud of you.” Lily said shyly and blushed. She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Let’s go home.”
“...” Hibre smiled. “...” He kept smiling, “... Right - let’s go! Come on Atro! Race you to the exit! Last one there is a rotten egg!”
“No fair, Hibre! You had a head start, forget about rotten eggs, you are just a big old CHICKEN!!” Lily chased after him shouting the whole time.
~The End
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