Crimson sally's Arc

Chapter 2 of 8

The pizza-box scrap stayed clenched in Sally's teeth. It named a bad human and a street. But Sally did not know streets. Sally knew only the bloody rainbows, the paths that dripped red wherever prey waited. The unicorn stepped onto the nearest rainbow and searched for a scent. None came. A name on paper meant nothing to a nose. Sally could follow these red paths for days and never cross the boss's door. Sally trotted to where three rainbows split apart. Each one bled the same red. Each one led somewhere. Sally sniffed the left path, then the middle, then the right. Beer. Rain. Cold pavement. No fear, no cruelty. The paper grew soggy in Sally's mouth. Panic pricked under the horn. A hunter with no trail is just a lost animal. Then something spoke. "You look confused, sharp-head." Sally spun. On a low wall sat a plump purple thing, round as an egg, with a green crown of leaves. It gripped a half-peeled banana in both stubby hands and grinned around a mouthful. It bit again, loud and wet, and kept talking while it chewed. "Everybody comes to this crossing lost," it said. "The rainbows don't run on maps. They run on wanting. You want somebody bad enough, the red bends toward him." Sally lowered the horn. "You know the paths?" "I sit on them all day." It swallowed. "Show me what you carry." Sally opened their teeth and let the soggy scrap fall on the wall. The purple thing leaned over the name. It stopped chewing. Its grin dropped. "Him," it said. "He fired my whole street. Locked the gates with our pay inside." It jabbed the banana at the right-hand rainbow. "You don't need a map. You need his name in your gut. Say it. Want him. The red will pull." Sally stared down the right path. They pictured the boss counting stolen wages. They pictured the bearded man's shaking hand. Hunger rose, sharper than any dinner. The right rainbow trembled. Its red ran faster, thicker, tugging like a current toward one far point. "There," the purple thing said. "Now go eat him for both of us." Sally set one hoof on the pulling path. The red gripped their leg and dragged them forward, sure as a leash. No more guessing. No more three roads. The rainbow itself hunted now, and Sally rode it. "Wait," the purple thing called. It scrambled off the wall and waddled after, banana still in hand. "He keeps men at his door. Big ones. You'll want somebody who knows the way in." Sally slowed. The right rainbow held them steady, aimed true. But the warning landed. A door with guards was not a room of drunks in underwear. Sally had a trail at last. Now they had a new problem waiting at its end. "Climb on," Sally said. "Show me the door."