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Movement caught on the edge of her vision. Her chanting stopped and head swiveled. There. They were there, and she had found them. She would make it stop. She would make them pay so dearly. She surged forward. Her anger and the building energy as she swayed and focused on those few words were in control now.

She got just shy of the group before logic and survival instincts kicked in. There was no possible way she, alone, could kill all of them. In her current state she wouldn't even be able to scratch some of them. Nevermind the killing part. She stopped. Breathed. Assessed the situation.

Before she could take another step something straight out the darkest depths of insanity loomed before her. It's teeth gnashed and it's eyes seemed to burn straight into her heart. Smiles turned and ran. Everything inside of her needed to flee from what was surely going to be her death.

She moved blindly, and found herself on her front knees. They were torn and bloody. All she wanted to do was cry. This was, hooves down, the worst night of life and she wasn't even sure she was going to survive it.

Glad to be away from Ghost Thistle's territory, Smiles stumbled out of the last of the cypress line. Unaware that it could have been a trap.

Many pairs of eyes looked up at her all at once. Malicious grins landed on their faces. These weren't the zealots she'd thought at all. They were Ghost Thistle's followers. It made sense, as she looked around at the group. They were circling closer and closer.

It was kill or be killed. Drawing from the same, but quickly dwindling, pool of courage from her last two kills Smiles lashed out at the first cultist to get too close. Her teeth caught throat and she twisted, but it had left her own neck open and her opponent attacked the same way.

Smiles did the only thing she could think of in that moment. The Cultist smiled around her flesh in his mouth, but she knew what she had to do. Yanking herself out from between his teeth hurt, a lot, as he took a chunk of her flesh with him but it was worth it when she kicked him square in the chest. A crazed smile of her own spread across her face.

Battered, bloody, and exultant; Smiles stood over the dead Cultist. She breathed heavily and dared the others to get closer.

In a panic they fled. As their backsides faded into the distance every little thing she'd seen that night came flooding back to her.

---

Light flooded her eyes as they opened to the sun that flooded the hidey-hole Smiles liked to sleep in every night. She nosed Hidden, her real familiar, out of the way and stepped into the warmth to think about everything she'd just lived through inside of her mind.

There was no Great Reptile. The scales she'd found had been common caiman scales. The hide and footsteps she'd found had been planted, and probably belonged to the unsuspecting companion to said caiman. It had all been a plot to draw attention away from Ghost Thistle and her followers by creating a bigger and scarier "threat". She and her poor sister had just been easy targets for their grand scheme.

Shaking her head, the doe did all she could to force that horrendous nightmare from her mind. Never did she want to think about it, or what she'd done inside of that world, ever again.

She was, however, going to find the biggest sampling of her sister's favorite foods to take to her. It was the least she could do for dreaming she'd been killed brutally, of course.

((Because I messed up so spectacularly last time, I'm going to go ahead and start a new try. <3 ))

Pale eyes opened on a clearing covered in moonlight. The spot where she lay felt foreign and familiar all at the same time, but by the time she was done thinking about that the feeling was gone. This was the place she always slept. Always, with her youngest daughter next to her. A calm smile spread on her face and she turned her head to look down at the child.

The spot next to her was empty. Panic welled in her chest and immediately she was on her feet and searching. The grass in the place her daughter slept was still matted down, but she couldn't tell how long ago it had been like that because of a warm body. Calling out in desperation got her no answer and there were no other kin about to help her look.

Picking her familiar up by the scruff of it's weird little neck, she placed it delicately on her back. Didn't want him getting lost! Once she was certain that he was secure and safe, she turned her attentions back to the vines.

Where she was grateful that digging at the roots had presented her a valuable piece of information and relief, it had gotten her nowhere. Reaching into the bits of plant with her muzzle, she attempted to pull them away with her teeth.

"Ouch!"

They had thorns. Nasty, terrible, thorns that bit into the flesh around her lips and nose. She pulled away from the biting vines and shook her head to dislodge as many thorns as she could.

It was time to try a different tactic- Smiles reared up, and threw her front hooves at the vines in her way. She knew the cost of the thorns, so she wasn't surprised by the pain in her legs, but she was pleased to watch a bit of the awful plants come tumbling forward with her efforts. It wasn't enough to get through, but it was something.

As she pushed the fallen vines out of her way to try again something caught her eye. A tuft of hair, just barely a lighter color than the dark ground, was caught amongst the stinging vines. Could it belong to her daughter's captor?

She had no way of knowing, but felt it best to hold onto it. So she passed it back to her furby for safekeeping.