The Golden Arrow

A little Christmas story by Claw Machine: Contact her here

lel not like you'd want to

We take from the rich

And give to the poor.

-

That night the forest was relatively silent. The only movement was the snow falling gently, adding to the six-inch blanket on the ground.

Except for a few leaves on the birch-bark trees that were rustling, all was peaceful.

A flash of orange indicated that Ember had arrived. Elm the rhino poked his head out of the winterberry bush.

Elm descended on him at once.

"Slasher told me you were gonna be doin' the Harding House tonight. You know that en't safe, Ember. You know he gon' get you--"

"But you're coming with me," the nimble fox replied cheerily, taking a beautiful arrow of alder from his quiver and twirling it in his left paw, the one he called his "winner paw."

Elm spluttered. "Wh-Who's gonna guard the Birch-bark House?"

"Slasher'll come through," Ember waved the thought off dismissively.

Elm grunted. Ember had been a remarkably poor judge of what Slasher would and would not do in the past.

"What if they catch you..?" Elm muttered.

"Don' worry. I plan to get 'em like this, from far away, and if they get past that you can pound them to ashes with that horn of yours."

Ember loosely grabbed an arrow by the shaft from his quiver and tossed it into the air, and then caught it mid-twirl and threw it into a birch-bark tree some meters away. A subtle thunk resounded throughout the area.