Ahornbaumädchen looks shocked at this. She remains shocked as Larrikan doesn’t move. The burst of pain she feels when she tries to get up is so unexpected she is quietly stunned for a moment.
Realizing she is in real trouble, she takes a deep breath and screams for help. A dryad’s scream is unusual, and carries far. Only magical creatures, including other dryads, will hear it. Ahornbaumädchen covers Larrikan with his cloak and tries to keep him warm.
Help does not arrive first. A hungry bogle shambles out of a bush. He grins, toothily, and says, “A dryad, stuck here! Looks delicious! And that mangy singing fox for desert!” He laughs delightedly.
Ahornbaumädchen watches helplessly as the gangly, hairy-limbed unseelie fey reaches for her with calloused hands, and an eager, hungry leer on his face.
A shrill voice shouts, “No! Don’t eat fox!” and several specks of bright light swoop out of the brightness of the snowy background. The bogle looks up and says, “What? You!” and swats at the darting points of light.
A cloud of winged lights surrounds the bogle, harrying him from all sides. The bogle swings wildly with his hands out flat to swat at the lights. When he connects with one, there is a bright blue flash of light, and a high-pitched scream, followed by a pixie crashing to the ground.
One of the fallen pixies lands near the dryad, who curls around Larrikan protectively as the diminutive humanoid crawls out of a snowy crater. Shaking the snow off, the pixie flits to Larrikan, looking horrified. Rounding on the immobile dryad, the pixie demands, “Dryad! You save our friend!”
Ahornbaumädchen nods and says, “He is my friend too.”
“Promise!” demands the pixie, “Save friend fox!”
Knowing words like this have meaning, Ahornbaumädchen says, “I promise I will do my best to save our friend Larrikan.”
Satisfied, the pixie darts off to the others. A moment later, the bogle roars in frustration.
That is when five of the pixies make their move. Four of them land on the bogle’s open mouth and dig feet-claws into his jaws’ gums. The fifth dives past them into the bogle’s open mouth, where pixie teeth and claws tear at the back of his throat.
Every time the enraged bogle tries to get his hands up to his face to get the pixies out of his mouth, pixies or pairs of pixies dive bomb his hands. They push them back, mostly with more of the blue flashes.
The air begins to smell of blood, mixing with the ozone scent of the pixie attacks. The bogle screams, cut short by a gurgling cough. He bends over, trying to cough blood out of his throat. Sickeningly, his tongue slithers between his teeth and flops onto the snow, cut by angry pixie.
It isn’t long after that before the bogle falls to his knees, then face down, dead.