A Cut Below the Rest [Private]

[Baxter]

Baxter wearily opened his eyes, greeted awake by the same sound to have accompanied him for the last month: that blasted organ tune. Repeating. Over. And Over. And Over. The wolf dug his head into the snow, as if by some miracle that would shut the instrument up, or at least dampen it. But the music wasn't coming through his ears. It was playing in his mind. He was the only who could hear it. Except for that stupid pony he'd met in the Griffon Kingdom, but what did that matter right now?

His insides felt like ice water. He wanted to lay in the cramped snow-hovel he had dug out and be miserable. Misery seemed to be his inescapable partner after all. He had to be the most unfortunate individual on the planet. Or maybe he was cursed. Perhaps the organ music had something to do with it.

Frozen ferals, a pack of them, had spotted him during his trek through the Frozen Wastes. Without a weapon and any ideal way of defending himself from multiple aggressors, the winter wolf found himself helpless against a multi-pronged attack from the wild beasts. They left him injured and covered in bite-marks until finally he stopped moving, at which point the ferals left him for dead. That or something spooked them.

Baxter had gotten near-identical treatment from bears and mountain lions in the Griffon Kingdom, Diamond Dogs in Equestria, and Ponies and Hippocampi in Trottingham. Why should the fauna of his homeland prove an exception?

The winter wolf pulled himself to his knees, his bones sending out signals of pain while his insides churned in nauseating resistance. He crawled out of his snow-hovel and looked at his surroundings, using the sun to relocate the direction he needed to be heading. "Find someone from the pack," Baxter recited, "Get a contract, ...seek medical attention." The last one was a new addition.

He couldn't be very far from the pony entrenchment now. He had been traveling for so long, it had to be close. He'd reach it today surely.