The wooden boat halted. He finally reached the riverbank. Patches of green moss grew on the layers of the smooth pebbles. Onwards was a forest of trees and verdant grasses.

His eyes lit up as he smiled. He tiptoed out of the boat, careful not to touch the water. Finally reaching the ‘borderline’ of grasses and pebbles. “This… ” he caressed a blade of grass. It swayed on his gentle touch.

Then he ran to roll at the fields of grass. He stopped and stared at a random grass.

He chomped its leaves then began to chew. He ate another and another. His voice was muffled while munching on them. He exclaimed, “This is great! This must be heaven. Back at the village, I tasted it only once.” then his face took a solemn turn. “Mother.”

Moments after, he shifted and immersed his mind gobbling up the luscious green grass around. “If there are grasses here, then ‘they’ too grow on soil! Legendary worms! They are good nutrients.” He did not hesitate to dig out the soil and quickly found one. He giggled when he saw the wiggling worm pinched between his fingers. “They are a rare food back in my place.” He wiped it clean from soil and slurped it down.

He shivered. “So good!”

Not long after, several places in the grass clearing was now upturned and flipped clean of worms. He had a handful of them tied with his clothes and hung them beside his pouch of round stone.

Pon couldn’t find one after some time, so he stopped. “They must’ve hidden themselves deeper.” He lay on his back on a patch of grass.

He raised his two arms towards the sky. But then, he frowned. “What could that be?”

Only then did he notice the pillar of earth that rose up to the sky. Its apex obscured by the clouds.

After some thought he became resolute and said. “Spear Mountain, Mom, I will be back!”

He stood up and patted off some grass that stuck on him. He knelt back down to pull out stalks of grasses. He tore the hem of his worn out shirt, then bundled them up.

He walked away from the earth pillar’s direction.

After Pon had gone off some distance, two little birds gilded above him. His eyes sparkled in amusement.

***

A few minutes later, the birds landed atop a thick tree branch. One was a pigeon, it’s eyes shoned and reflected a young woman. It flapped its wings. “Ugh. Why does it have to be me? I hate using this puppet.”

The other bird, a white dove flapped in response. And a young man shun in its small round eyes. “I’m losing essence.” In front of the man-bird, a patch of grass materialized out of thin air.

The man-bird stuffed them in his mouth. “Ahh, refreshing. By the way, I’d like to remind you that we got it better this time. The mission is to only survey, not fight some weird creature.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

While chewing the grass, the man-bird’s eyes glowed. “Wait, who was that?” he pointed to a place where the soils were upturned.

The lady squinted her eyes too. “What the… why is he eating a handful of worms?”

“Huh? Shut. Up.” he uttered in disbelief. “That guy’s cool.”

She looked at her companion’s bird-face still munching on the grass. “Really?”

“What?” he shrugged. “Come on. I think we’ll be best buds. Let’s check him out.”

The birds saw him enter a dark forest.

“Oof, that’s a tough opponent.” the pigeon commented.

“We should help him.”

“Don’t. Let’s first see who he is and what he can do. You’re interested in him, right?”

The white dove nodded.

Under the shade of the canopy of intertwining leaves, Pon peered behind a wall of bushes. His eyes widened in shock.

The figure of a furry man but with a body twice his size filled his sight. Its nutty brown furry back faced him, his attention on a wiggling ball of fur above it buttocks. A crude stone cleaver hang tied on its hip.

What more was that it held a man. The person looked unconscious or could be dead. Pon had in no way to confirm.

It raised the person up and sounds of gurgling, munching, and crunching echoed in the area. Blood spurted everywhere like pulp.

The gory scene made take a step back. “Damn it! Where am I?”

He immediately covered his mouth after realizing his mistake. He broke out with cold sweat. His loud and deep breath muffled inside his sweating palms.

The bunny man slowly turned around. Its mouth dripping with blood and gore. Pieces of meat hung on its thick whiskers. It looked like an actual bunny but the deadly ones.

Pon felt his legs tremble. He dropped his bundled grass he gathered earlier. He sprinted, jumped across logs and sometimes slipped himself on mossy rocks. He ran for his dear life deeper into the forest.

Seeing him escaping, the beast gave out a loud shrill. When it crouched down, thick veins appeared and its leg muscles seemed to contain a compressed force. A kick exploded the ground as it shot out like an arrow flying towards its prey.

It was at that moment he heard a rustle of leaves above. He looked up. “The legendary birds!”

The white dove shot down and flew along his side. “Woah, woah! Stop there.” shouted the bird.

Pon increased his speed when he heard the dove talk. “What the heck is going on here?” he murmured while running.

This time, a crimson streak of light shot in front of his step.

“Stop right there.” the newcomer bird, a pigeon has streaks of red feather. “You are going in the direction of the city. Could you perhaps take a turn and leave the place from harm?”

“I have no time for this. I must be turning crazy.” he walked past the two birds.

“Hey! You’re rude, you know?” the white dove followed Pon. “I mean, we don’t know you. So I have to verify. What’s your name?”

“Pon… “

“Pon-what?”

“Pon Button. What’s up with you two? I’m trying to save my life here.”

“Uhuh. Where are you from? What are you doing here?”

Pon halted on his tracks.

“Hey! What are you two doing?” shouted the red bird as it caught up with them.

“I am interviewing my friend.” replied the dove.

“The heck. There’s a monster from the wildlands approaching our city and all you do is talk to this boy?”

“Now you’re the rude one. Bing, I have said to you many time- woah!”

A furry leg landed on a flat rock and exploded it to bits. There stood the bunny man stretching its muscles. It hissed at them.

“... you are right. Time to clean up. Bing, get ready!”

The dove flew higher as swirls of white light rushed towards the bird into a cocoon. It grew large in just a second. A majestic bird as big as an adult appeared and shrieked at the sky. Its tail has thin tendrils of various color.

The small pigeon too was engulfed in a crimson flame. In a matter of seconds, it became a fiery red bird with a long tail and sword-length pointy beak.

“Right on time.” said the white bird while it flew back down.

“Why?” asked the red bird.

“‘Why’ what?”

“Why do you have to fly everytime you transform your beast puppet?”

“I always longed for a dramatic entrance. Now that we are out of the academy, I can do what I want.”

The red bird sighed. “Whatever.”

While they talked, Pon gave the pouch of round stone hanging on his right hip a gentle tap.