Feather screeched in surprise and dodged to one side as the rabbit THREW the axe at him. It nearly took off some of his feathers! Now THAT pissed Feather off. Not only was the prey fighting back, but it could fight back *effectively*!

Feather thought to himself, "Okay you little rat of a rabbit, I'm going to eat you, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it!" and lunged, taking the rabbit by surprise. He used his beak and quickly cut off the rabbit's legs and head, then swallowed the rest of it whole. He was really really hungry. Flying for days took alot of energy!

Finally a little satiated, Feather rested in the sun for a bit, digesting his meal. Feather thought he could finally rest a little, when several little axes zipped past his face. Not MORE of those annoying little pests! Feather was getting very very angry. Now the prey was attacking *him*! HIM! He attacked THEM, not the other way around!

Feather leapt to his feet, letting loose a furious battle cry and attacked viciously, snipping off legs and heads right and left, venting his anger. These little rabbits were pissing him off! Finally, all that was left was a panting Feather and bits and pieces of rabbit strewn all over the area. Rather messy, actually.

Feather feasted for a while on the choice morsels he had killed, and decided these rabbits didn't taste half bad. Aggravating, but rather tasty, really. Feather idly wondered where they got their axes. Did they have little rabbit blacksmiths? Nah. It couldn't be......could it?

He grinned. Why not find out? He could probably track the little rats back to their nest, or whatever it was that they lived in. He could even eat along the way. His grin turned nasty. Now he could give those little rats a taste of terror!

Feather got up and looked around for the trail. Next to a bush, he found it, heading deep into the woods. Feather thought he could handle that, so he followed the trail that had been left by his little attackers deep into the woods. It was really dark, and even rather creepy in here, he thought to himself. Maybe he could use that to his advantage.

He stalked farther and deeper into the forest, staying absolutely silent. He was grinning the whole time. This was going to be fun....and tasty too! Meanwhile the forest got thicker, darker, and more creepy. Feather didn't notice, as he was concentrating on his two favorite things to do - play pranks and eat. This is perfect, he thought to himself, I get to combine both those things!

Finally, after a few hours, Feather reached what he thought might be the rabbits' home. It was a large mound, covered in entrances that had to go deep into the ground. Apparently the rabbits lived in burrows. This was so perfect, Feather had a hard time beleiving his luck. All he had to do was collapse the entrance and then ambush the little rabbits as they dug their way out!

Feather jumped up into the air and belly-flopped onto the entrance, whomping it flat with his body. He tramped the dirt down some, and then withdrew a few feet to wait. This was going to be great! Feather snickered to himself, too involved in his own thoughts to realize a few important facts. One, there was no noise coming from the collapsed mound. No screams of terror, not even any digging sounds. Two, the surrounding wildlife had gone totally quiet. And finally, a squad of huge axe-wielding bunnies was behind him.

Feather was shocked, then, when one of those bunnies buried an axe in a tree trunk right next to Feather's head. Feather spun around, thinking "What the hell is going on....ohhhhhh shit......." The rabbits had to be a quarter of his own size. That was really really bad. This was going to suck a lot.

Feather leaped at them immediately, hoping to catch the psycho rabbits off-guard. They must have been rather battle-hardened bunnies, as they simply waited for Feather to get close enough, then sent axes zipping by Feather's head. All right...that's it, Feather thought to himself. These bunnies DIE NOW!! With as loud a battle scream as he could muster, Feather leaped into the fray, dodging to one side and trying to rake the rabbits with his powerful hind claws, biting, twisting, leaping and using every tactic, move and trick that he knew to keep himself alive.

It was really difficult. Finally, the last bunny went down after Feather ripped off it's axe-throwing leg with a slash of his front claws. Feather, for the second time that day, stood panting amidst ripped up bunny bodies. He selected a few bits of raw rabbit meat and ate them, but his heart wasn't really in it.

The rabbits had nearly killed him, and Feather really didn't want to stick around until they attacked again. But he was in the forest and flying in a forest is a fast way to get a broken body from running into trees and things. So Feather did the only thing that came to mind. He climbed the nearest tree to it's top and took off from there, resuming his journey.

Feather thought as he flew. How had the rabbits ambushed him? More importantly, how would he find out where Greenhill was? He'd just have to find a sign or something. Asking someone would be ridiculous, as they couldn't understand him without one of those listening crystals. And since he hadn't run into them before, Feather bet that they were rather rare.

Then how could he find Greenhill? Feather put most of his attention on that problem, putting his flight into a sort of automatic mode. Useful, for those long and boring flights. He started at the beginning.

First off, he thought, only a human with a large amount of empathy with animals would have made those listening crystals. That meant he would probably live in a forest or at least near one. Secondly, the humans that had helped him seemed to have a good deal of empathy for animals as well, which supported the first conclusion.

Now, Greenhill was probably exactly that, given the human's tendency to name things literally. Feather knew from overhearing humans as a little cub that the village in the forest he lived near was named Forest Village, and his parents had mentioned it once or twice too, now that Feather thought about it. So Greenhill was either a big green hill, or a village on or near a green hill. The hill itself would be either wooded over or near a wooded area, if this Badeaux was there.

He would also probably be around the edge of the forest, if it was a thick one. Humans tended to stay away from deep forest, unless they were some sort of hermit. But Feather was certain Badeaux was no hermit. The man who had spoke of him hadn't given any indication that he was.

Feather was interrupted in his thinking by an urgency in his belly. The effects of all that rich food was getting to him, so Feather descended to a small thicket to do his business. Upon finishing, Feather got back into the air.

Feather flew for the rest of the day, and only landed as it got near dark. He nested himself in a clearing in a small thicket of trees, and quickly fell asleep.

He woke the next morning to the loud chittering of a squirrel nearby in the trees. Feather decided he could use some breakfast, so he stalked the noise. Finally he spotted the squirrel, running around the tree at top speed like all idiot squirrels do. Feather got a surprise, though, when the squirrel FLEW down to the ground, and of all things, landed in front of him and chittered what had to be a challenge at the startled griffin.

This was unheard of! The squirrel didn't have any wings, but it could still fly?!?! Feather was startled and shocked, then decided with a mental shrug that breakfast was breakfast, and made a fast lunge for the morsel, his beak wide open and ready to snip the squirrel into pieces.

Doubtless, the squirrel *would* have been destroyed on the spot, except that it was very very fast - much faster than Feather was. Feather's beak closed on nothing but air with a loud snap, and the squirrel taunted him from a different spot.

Not one to give up so easily, Feather obliged his breakfast by swatting at the area he was in with his wing, trying to flatten the insolent meal. But, again, the squirrel wasn't there when the blow landed. Now he was perched on Feather's own beak! This was too much to put up with. Feather screeched furiously and struck, struck, and struck again, trying in vain to squash the little squirrel, except the squirrel was just too fast for Feather to catch!

This went on for some time, as Feather really didn't appreciate insolence from his meals, and the squirrel just kept on baiting him. Finally, however, Feather noticed a pattern to the squirrel's movements, and was ready for him the next time. As Feather hit at where the squirrel was, he snapped his beak at where he figured the squirrel would be.

It was a good strike, well thought out, and well aimed. But it was just too late. The squirrel evaded the blow and taunted him again, nearly driving Feather berserk. Feather screamed in his mind, "INSOLENT BREAKFAST! I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL RIP YOUR EYES OUT OF YOUR HEAD! I'M GOING TO EAT YOU, YOU FLYING RAT!" But Feather just couldn't seem to nail the little squirrel.

This was really pissing Feather off. So he went a step farther. He attacked three places at once: First, with a wing, he tried to squash where the squirrel was. Second, with a foreleg, he tried to slice where the squirrel would be. Then, with his beak, he tried to bite where he figured the squirrel would dodge to. It happened so fast, Feather nearly missed it. The squirrel evaded his first blow, then his second, and got his head bitten clean off by the third.

Feather munched his well-earned breakfast, finally finishing off the last scrap of the insolent, but actually rather good tasting, squirrel. That'll teach him to mess with me, Feather thought to himself irrationally.

As the battle with the squirrel had taken so much time, Feather got himself into the air again, wasting no time. He flew all day that day, and finally, just as the sun was going down, he spotted a large grassy hill, with a town nearby, and a forest on the other side of the hill. This could be it! Feather excitedly circled downwards, heading towards the top of the hill. He wondered what was waiting for him there.

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"Feather" and "Suikoden 2" are (C) Konami. This chapter was posted on December 31, 2000 Feather's author is no longer active