[Gift] Corn Maze Menace

A high cackle seemed to echo and reverberate around Patchwork Orchard. Quercus picked up his head, the leaves and pine needles around his neck rustling, and the spines down his back raising in slight alarm. He could feel it in his teeth, drilling down into his skull. It made him ill-at-ease, not in a way that inspired fear, but certainly convinced him he needed to be apprised of the situation.

Quercus crawled out of his most recent, warm hidey-hole: the inside of an unfilled cornucopia, cast aside somewhere near the barn and forgotten by the Erré running the show. That someone had tried to pick it up only to find themselves faced with a hissing dragon was, in Quercus’s opinion, immaterial, and he would tell the patron dragon of the orchard that himself.

A dragon stalked from the pumpkin patch towards the rows of corn, split tongue hanging out of his mouth and mirth shaking through his body with every delighted laugh. He was black splotched from rump round to his belly, and a bright purple splotch, subtly shaded, painted his back and feathered wings, small white dots gleaming like stars within. His base color was a rusty red; his jaw and belly were lighter. Red bars decorated the front of his body while white spots formed almost uniform bands horizontally across his back. His head was distinctly hyena-like, which likely explained the ghastly cackle as he slipped into the corn.

Quercus shook himself and took off after Yeen whose laughter began to subside to quiet giggles and occasional yips. Quercus flew over the corn until he spotted the other dragon, then dipped into the row ahead of him, not quite sure what he was going to do, but far too nosy to just leave things as they were. “Hallo,” he said.

Amber eyes turned slitted in delight. “Hello.” Then, without even attempting to feign innocence, “This the way to the corn maze?”

Quercus’s fluffy antennae perked up. “Right this way. Though you might be more effective at nighttime.”

“I want to scare people now,” Yeen said with a toothy grin. “Yeen.”

“Understandable,” he said. “Quercus.”

Yeen giggled, and for a second the sound seemed to fold in on itself, as if there were multiples of him laughing, and even though Quercus knew they were alone, his velvet scales stood on end.

Quercus led Yeen to a particularly annoying dead end in the maze, and the two of them lay low until a couple of Erré came strolling along, one eating an apple and the other looking as though the dead end existed only to personally offend faer.

As they turned around to trudge back to the last bend, the irate Erré grumbling about walking in a straight shot back to the orchard, Yeen threw his head back, black mane flopping, and howled in sudden bone-chilling laughter.

Both Erré froze for a moment, looking around, bewildered. Quercus thought it was a fine joke as is, but Yeen leaped through the corn into the maze itself, baring his teeth and wings spread as he continued his one-dragon cacophony.

The Erré with the apple threw it at his head, then the two of them bolted before seeing if it hit.

Yeen cackled to himself and picked up the apple in his teeth, crunching through the core of it like it was nothing. He ate almost thoughtfully, wondering aloud, “Will they tell anyone?”

“Probably,” Quercus said, sitting atop an ear of corn as the stalk waved in the wind. “But then you get to play with the people sent to catch you.” He liked being helpful.

Yeen grinned. “Like the sound of that.”