section7mfu | Short Affair 10th February

Title: A Strange Trip
Prompt words: herd, black
Wordcount: 706

Story on AO3 or under the cut

The bunker was in the middle of nowhere, as such things generally were. Or, to be rather more pedantic about it, when the bunker had been built and had been an ongoing and nefarious concern it had been in the middle of nowhere. Now it was in the middle of a lush green pasture, its thick metal doors left invitingly open, and as such it had been invaded. By goats.

“You know,” Napoleon said conversationally to the one that had taken up a defiant position on top of a conference table and was morosely chewing through a pile of maps. “It’s a bright sunny day out there, and there’s plenty of grass to eat. One of us should get to enjoy it at least.”

The goat resolutely ignored him.
He sighed and tried making shooing motions with his hands. He wasn’t going to try and actually push it off unless he absolutely had to – he’d already made that mistake once.

Illya, the victim of said mistake, glanced over at him balefully. “You are not being very convincing.”

“The goats don’t actually speak English, pal,” he pointed out, inching his way around the table, the goat following his every move.

A filing cabinet slammed shut and several goats screamed. “Then try Italian,” Illya snapped over the noise.

Ignoring his unreasonable partner for the moment, Napoleon lunged forwards and snatched a pile of folders from off the conference table, just before the goat made a grab for them. “Ah!" A quick glance revealed that they weren’t the personnel files they were looking for. “Ah.”

“We are being out-manoeuvred by a horde of goats.”

He glanced over; Illya was attempting to reach the door in the far side of the room. Unfortunately that was where the goats lay thickest, and they’d knocked over a pile of boxes and cabinets to block their way. “You mean herd,” he pointed out. “It’s a herd of goats.”

Illya shot him a black look. “I meant what I said. Will you give me a hand here?”

“Certainly,” he answered affably. “I’ll move the furniture if you distract the goats.”

By the expression on Illya’s face that wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind. Still, it was too late now and Napoleon smiled to himself as he started hauling boxes aside while Illya took up goat-wrangling…at least he smiled to himself right up until he found the unmistakable evidence of where the goats had been.

“Be careful where you put your hand,” Illya said, sounding the most cheerful he had since they’d arrived.

“Thanks,” he said dryly, looking round for something to wipe it off on. The best he could find was some of the papers they’d already checked. “Are you going to do something useful like get this door open?”

He was already picking it. “Doesn’t the word ‘herd’ imply that the goats are being kept as livestock? I am uncertain whether it applies to wild goats.”

He looked over at the nearest goat, methodically eating a sofa. “How do you know that these are wild goats? And what’s the word for a group of wild goats anyway?”

“I would presume if they were domesticated there would be a goatherd in evidence.” The door swung open and Illya automatically stuck out his arm to prevent one of the goats from barging past him and walking straight into the tripwire on the other side. “And ‘trip’, I think. Speaking of which, Napoleon, would you mind holding this trip of goats back while I defuse this? I’m not sure what would happen to a goat that ate plastic explosives, but I would rather not find out.”

“Sure thing, partner.” The fact that this area of the bunker was trapped suggested that they must be getting close to something important. Also unless goats could pick locks it was likely to be much easier to search. He grabbed a hatstand and used it to try and block the goats off from the doorway. It mostly worked. If nothing else he was teaching them how to jump higher.

Fortunately the goats found their own distractions. He smiled and waited until Illya had finished disarming the explosives. “Ah, Illya? There’s a goat eating your shoelaces.”