The Shady Adventures of Fabian

Chapter 71

They had been flying along at a good clip for quite awhile now and Fabian was pretty sure they'd make it back to Wooglebury in a few hours at the rate they were going. Then all of a sudden the carpet made a little sputtering sound and came to a dead halt in mid-air. Then it began to fall out of the sky.

Brandon finally managed to free himself from the princess's lips just long enough to ask what happened.

"Uh, we might have pushed it a little too hard. I think this thing might have run out of juice. Damn it, Scrote, you shouldn't have been showboating so much back at the battle. You drained this thing of all its magic. Well, better brace yourselves for a crash landing."

They came down hard in the middle of a rocky outcropping near a deep ravine. Fabian went tumbling towards the edge of the ravine but managed to come to a stop before he toppled over. Brandon and Princess Wartha landed a few feet away from him.

"Oh man, that's going to leave a mark tomorrow," Fabian moaned as he slowly lifted himself to his feet. "How's everyone else doing."

"I'm fine," Brandon said before noticing that his pinky finger was bending off at an unnatural angle. "Oh wait. I think I might have messed up my finger."

"What that?" Fabian said. "That's nothing. I can take care of that. Come here." He grabbed Brandon's finger and wrenched it back into place.

Brandon let out a scream that reverberated off the walls of the nearby ravine.

"Don't worry, you'll feel much better in the morning. Princess, how are we doing?"

"Actually that was really fun," Princess Wartha said. "Can we do it again?"

"Well we could if Scrote here hadn't used up all the magic in that thing. Now it's just a worthless ordinary carpet. It won't be taking us anywhere anytime soon. As it is it's starting to get dark out and I don't know about you, but I'm a little bit chilly. I say we use that thing to start a campfire and rest here for the night. Come morning we'll try to figure out where the hell we are."

"That sounds good," Brandon said as he held his bad hand gingerly. "I'm getting pretty tired. It's been a long and exhausting day."

"All right, you can take second watch then. Princess, you get first watch."

"What's a watch? Oooh, is that one of those fancy things that tells time? My father has a collection of those. I've never really seen the need for one, but if you want to give me one I always like presents."

"No, you idiot. You're going to stay up and make sure no monsters eat us while Scrote and I sleep. We all have to pitch in and do our part around here. Even princesses. After a few hours, Scrote will relieve you and you can sleep for a few hours. The two of you should be able to cover all night between you. See y'all in the morning." He managed to light the carpet on fire by pounding a couple of rocks together. Then he found the most comfortable spot he could near the campfire and fell asleep almost instantly.

He was awakened by the feeling of something heavy on his chest. He opened his eyes and saw a large buzzard sitting right on top of him. It let out a raspy squawk and then proceeded to peck at Fabian's forehead.

"What the-?" Fabian sputtered as he managed to shoo the buzzard off of him. It hopped onto a nearby rock and stared at him ominously. He blinked his eyes. It was broad daylight and the height of the sun in the sky indicated it had been up for quite some time. The campfire had burned itself out and all that remained were a few charred bits of carpet. Brandon and Princess Wartha were sound asleep curled up against each other.

"Hey, wake up, morons," Fabian said as he gave them a few not so gentle kicks.

"Huh, what's going on?" Brandon said as he awoke with a start. "Ow! Why does my finger hurt so bad? And why has it swollen up to the size of a cucumber?"