[Chr24] A Royal Mission [Challenge Prompt]

It had been quite a long journey for the four bucks.  Klasp took a quick look around.  Something didn't feel right.  The trees were still, the air was quiet and still.  She'd been to the Spirit Tree before, and it had never been so quiet.  "Klasp?" A voice pulled her from her thoughts.  She looked over to see Yvena.  The buck tilted her head and looked around, wondering if Klasp had seen something that made her uncomfortable.  Klasp looked forward to see where Maki and Maisiel were, there was quite some space between them.  She looked at the trees.  Reaching toward the night sky, they stood as tall as they had ever been before.  "Do you feel that?" Klasp's voice was soft, quiet enough for Yvena to hear, but nobody else.  "Feel what?" Yvena turned around to look.  Klasp waited for a moment, hoping Yvena would understand since she struggled to find the words to explain the feeling.  There was something in the air.  It was.. cold.  But this wasn't coming from the weather.  A strong gust of wind blew, something odd considering how still it had been.  It was strong enough that the two struggled to stand against it.  They managed to keep themselves up.  "We need to catch back up to Maki and Maisiel." Yvena urged.  "You don't have to tell me twice," Klasp shook off the snow that had caught in her fur before the two of them began to follow the others' paw prints in the snow.  They had finally caught up to the others, who looked back.  "Are you two okay?" Yvena asked, approaching them closer to check on them.  "We're fine."  Maki looked over Klasp, worried.  "Let's just keep going."  Maisiel said and Klasp looked around once more.  Nothing was different than before, but something felt like it was bearing into the back of her head.  She quickly looked towards where she felt it coming from.  Nothing.

 

The four of them eventually arrived at the spirit tree.  There was nobody else around.  Even more unusual, especially for this time of year.  "There it is!" Maki started jogging towards it.  Just as he was about to get to the spring, something jumped out.  He quickly moved back and the four of them froze, unable to look away from the creature standing in front of them.  It remained still at first, too.  It seemed to be just as curious about them as they had been about it.  Maisiel took a quick glance around.  The snow was relatively unbothered other than their new fresh prints.  Nobody else was here.  The clearing had been undisturbed, it was likely the creature's doing.  She looked to the spirit tree, it stood as it always seemed to have.  The faint glow was just producing enough light to take in what little she could see.  She wanted to find something, some way out quickly.  Some way past this creature.

 

"Maki-" Maisiel's voice was as soft as she could manage.  She took a look towards the Dire, holding the jug that had been meant to fill with water, marked by the royal crest.  She lifted her paw to step towards Maki before the creature turned it's attention to her.   Maki took notice of this, and with it, the water behind the creature.  It wouldn't be easy to get past it, but he was asked to do this by the Royal Family.  He knew he couldn't return without it.  A sound began to rumble from the creature's throat, likely aimed at Maisiel's attempt at moving towards Maki.  Maki ignored this and went to run past the creature while it was somewhat distracted.  Before either Maisiel or Klasp knew, the two of them had lunged forward as well to make sure Maki's back was covered.  Maki was able to fill the jug with the spirit water before the four of them began to run in all different directions.  They hadn't meant to, but they just caused themselves to be split up.  Maybe the creature was following one of them.  Hopefully it simply remained on guard in front of the spirit tree.

 

Each of them kept running until they could no longer do so.