Chapter 148: Friends, Allies

As Daisy looked on mildly, Arthur knelt down by Rumble, careful to avoid any of the scattered scales and fish guts on the ground. Reaching around Rumble’s thick, furry neck, he looped the twine under and over before knotting it in place. The Prata immediately noticed the difference in feel, shaking his head side to side slightly before sitting up and mewling.

“Uh-oh. Arthur, I don’t think he likes that,” Lily observed.

“Give it a second. Maybe he will get used to it,” Arthur said hopefully.

Rumble went from mewling to thrashing his head back and forth to rubbing his neck on the ground, trying anything he could think of to get the unfamiliar piece of adornment off of him. It was only when he started rolling back and forth across the small clearing that Daisy took matters into her own hands. She walked up to Rumble, pinned him down with one big paw, and bit through the string with a single chomp of her razor-sharp front teeth.

“Well, I guess that’s a no-go, then.” Arthur had other things in his bag to try, up to and including a small saddle. Considering Rumble’s absolute distaste for the string-around-the-neck method and the fishy look he had gotten from Daisy after she snipped the string, he gave up on those plans immediately.

“Maybe he could hold them in his mouth,” Lily offered.

Arthur considered it. He really did. Finally, he shook his head in the negative.

“No, it won’t work. He wouldn’t understand. Even if we could get him to carry them and he didn’t swallow them, they’d have Prata spit all over them. His mouth isn’t exactly dry,” Arthur said.

“Good point. So what now?” Lily asked.

Arthur reached for his pack.

“We feed them the rest of the fish and play with Rumble for a while. We still have some time, and they’ve earned it.”

Arthur threw a few more fish towards the Prata, who went to work on them immediately. Like demons, they seemed to have a pretty high general need for calories, at least high enough to tolerate near endless amounts of fish. Arthur only had a few more, but it wasn’t like he had any plans for them beyond bribing the Pratas to help him with his plan.

“What will you do?” Lily sat near Rumble, petting him as he ate his fish. “With the rings, I mean.”

“I don’t know. Probably just have Milo carry both or maybe you can. It’s not the biggest deal in the world, especially since nobody cares but me,” Arthur said.

“Oh, everyone cares,” Lily said. “If nothing else than wanting to see what you get up to. But I understand. Should we still bring Daisy and Rumble? To the wedding?”

“What do you think, Daisy? You want to go into the town?” The Prata looked up at the mention of her name, then went immediately back to her fish. “I don’t think so. They like the woods. They can stay here.”

Arthur gave the Prata the last two fish, then rolled up the fish bag and shifting it to the bottom of his pack. It was a habit he had picked up while traveling in his Earth life. You always kept the stuff you were more likely to use at the top of the pack, whether you thought you needed to or not. It made life easier. As he lifted the rest of his items out of the way, he was especially careful with a small, wooden box, setting it fully to the side as he sorted out the rest of his gear.

“What’s this?” Lily picked up the box and bounced it experimentally in her hand. “Tea?”

“Close. It’s a flower.” Arthur took the box and slid the lid open, revealing a white blossom. “The moms like these a lot. They gave it to me so I could keep an eye out for whole plants. Apparently if I find enough of them, they can turbocharge the growing process a bit and get more.”

“Have you seen any?” Lily asked.

“No. Corbin found exactly one of these, and he doesn’t remember where. It’s a shame. I really like them too. They remind me of you,” Arthur said.

“They do?”

“Yup. On my planet, we called flowers like these lilies.”

Finishing with her fish, Daisy stood and stretched, then started sniffing the air curiously. Homing in on the flower, she walked close and buried her snout in the petals, instantly ruining the flower in the process.

“No! Daisy!” Arthur scolded at the animal, despite his awareness she could basically have snapped him in half if she wanted to. “I needed that.”

Daisy looked at the flower, then up to Arthur’s face, then back at the flower. Deep in the glacially slow mental processes that seemed to drive the beast, something appeared to click. She stood, growled to get Rumble’s attention, then sprang into the bushes.

“Where’s she going?” Arthur asked.

“I don’t know, Arthur. Probably bored.” As Rumble pulled away and shot through the bushes himself, Lily stood. “It’s probably time to get going anyway.”

A crackling of breaking branches re-announced Daisy as she poked her head back through the forest plants, looked at Arthur, growled, and then retreated again.

“I… hmm.” Arthur shouldered his pack. “That’s asking us to follow, right?”

“Maybe.”

Arthur sighed.

“Might as well check it out, then.”

Once they got through the bushes, they found Daisy and Rumble waiting for them. Daisy immediately took off, slowing her pace just enough so that the two could keep up with her. The idea that she wanted them to follow was mostly confirmed when she looked behind every few moments to make sure they were there, only to keep forging through the forest.

“I’m getting all scratched up.” Lily glanced at her hands in dismay. “I don’t think she understands we don’t have fur.”

“She doesn’t. But we have to keep up anyway. Whatever this is, she thinks it’s important,” Arthur said.

It took about ten minutes to get where Daisy was leading. It ended up being almost nowhere, in the sense that there wasn’t much difference between it and the surrounding forest. There were the same trees, the same brush, and the same dirt. But where it was different, it was different in a big way.

“The flowers!” Lily rushed towards the two or three intact plants the bear-things had led them to. “Daisy! Good Prana! Arthur, look!”

“Wow, yeah. Good job, Daisy.” Arthur gave praise to the bear, who promptly rolled on to her side and ignored him completely. “These are great, Lily. We just need to dig them up.”

“Not pick them?”

“Nope. The moms want to do farming-class stuff at them, remember?”

Arthur didn’t have a spade, but had enough digging capability in the form of Milo-made self-defense daggers to get the plants out of the ground in a mostly intact form. A few minutes later, he had the flowers safely stored in the fish bag, ready for the trip home.

“Ready?” Arthur dusted off his hands and looked at Lily. “I think we can go back now.”

“Yup. Bye, Daisy! Bye, Rumble!” Lily waved and turned to go, with Arthur following close behind. Near the edge of the clearing and just before he lost sight of them, he turned for one last look, letting his eyes linger on the two animals a bit longer.

“What’s up?” Lily asked. “They don’t understand goodbye. I’ve checked. It’s okay to just leave.”

“It’s not that. I’m just wondering how much they understand, really. They know you’re with me, more or less, and that they shouldn’t bother people in the city. You wouldn’t imagine she could do it, but somehow Daisy knew I wanted this flower,” Arthur said.

“I mean, they aren’t exactly stupid. They only care about Prata things, but they know more than they let on.”

“Yeah. Maybe wanting a flower is close enough to wanting food that she gets it,” Arthur said.

Lily took a close look at the Pratas, then Arthur. “Are you thinking about using them for work? Finding forest things, or whatever?”

“No.” Arthur had thought about it for just a moment before deciding against it with a force that surprised even him. “We don’t do much for them, Lily. They get everything they need in this forest. And they’ve already done a lot. That’s twice that Daisy and Rumble have saved you and three times she’s saved me, just for letting her out of a hole one time.”

“You probably saved her life,” Lily said.

“Sure. But these aren’t Hings. They don’t want to be in pens. I don’t think it would be fair to treat them like the kind of animals you use to pull wagons. Especially since we are kind of… I don’t know. Friends, in a way. Allies,” Arthur said as he realized that his plan for ring bears could have used a bit more foresight.

Lily nodded. “That seems right.”

“Good. The Pratas stay free, then.” Arthur watched as Rumble finally ran out of energy and nearly face-planted into his nap-time, then turned to go. “Let’s go. We still have wedding work to do.”

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