From:CyraLin@aol.com
Date:Thu, 6 Jan 2000 18:27:10 EST
Subject:kitchen?

Teri screamed as Clip reared again, "LET ME DOWN!" she blubbered, beginning
to feel quite sick. She had long since stopped looking down at the floor that
seeming to surge up towards her like a wave, and now squeezed her eyes shut
in much the same vice-grip that she was squeezing Stana in.

Stana was finding it hard to breathe. She had lost her dagger, flinging it
towards the face of a soldier as he rounded the corner into the hallway.
Clip's hooves had cleared a momentary path through the doorway, and he now
reared threateningly in the wider space of the hallway. From what Stana could
see, there were at least two other soldiers who had cleared the stairwell,
and two bodies lying prone on the floor. At least for now. Her dagger had
miraculously found its mark (she pushed the thought from her mind).

Clip's golden hooves found purchase again as he leapt out from the slash of a
sword. The bright tip of his alicorn was ruddy with blood, and the soldier's
right arm hung uselessly from its socket.

"Clip-" Stana whispered, trying to keep as low as she could now that her
weapon was gone, "We should get off-"  She thought she was doing a decent job
of moving with the Unicorn's movements, but Teri was sitting like a dead
weight on the equine rump, exhibiting her wonderful skills as a rider.

As Teri opened her mouth to demand once more to be let down, Stana pushed
backwards with the cold strength of action, landing in a crouch over Teri,
who scrambled hastily to her feet. To her credit, the hung-over girl didn't
protest, but began booking down the corridor with Stana at her heels.

Teri had more than enough faith in the Unicorn's ability, for the moment. She
wanted to find a way out of the hallway, and quickly. Her head was still
swimming as she re-shouldered her pack and pounded down the corridor.

"There's got to be another set of stairs," Teri called over her shoulder.

"We hope so! This isn't the 90's- firehazards aren't illegal here," Stana
said as she looked into an open room.  The window faced the street- no
getting out there.  "Check all the doors! One might be a servant's stairway
or something."

She spared a glance down the darkened hallway, at the golden sparks of horn
meeting steel.

Teri felt the air humm with the pure-light energy she had come to associate
with Clip. The painful sweetness of it was almost more than she could bear.

"Fuck my head!" She screamed, frustrated, as she raced to another doorway.
The adrenaline was building, but the endorphines were slow to perform. Where
was that rush of euphoria they were talking about in her philosophy class?
Something about near-death experiences being painless and fun? Someone should
have clued her head in on it beforehand, for it wasn't following the rules of
the game.

"I've got it!" Stana called and Teri stopped trying to open her door and ran
to where the older girl pushed her stonily down the stairs. AFter catching
her step, she ran down as quickly as the tiny, cramped space would allow.

And almost knocked herself out on a beam hung low in the stairwell. Biting
back a cry, she folded down in on herself for a few seconds while Stana urged
her forward. Teri almost rounded on the girl, her jaw clenched against the
additional pain.

"Watch your head, it's a bit low here," she snarled, finally getting up and
moving down the rest of the way. At her own pace. If stana wanted to hurl at
light-speed in the dark, she could go first, for all Teri cared.

She paused at the door at the bottom of the stairs, pushing the door open a
crack. The light of the kitchen sliced against Teri's eye as she peered out-
for what she could see, the kitchen was empty.

"I don't think there's anyone there," she whispered doubtfully to Stana, who
was grabbing a broom lying against the wall of the stairwell.

"Then let's go," the girl responded, hefting the broom. "Clip will be down
here soon enough," she finished.