As the Ravens and Silus continued to explore the forest, the sailors would spend their days repairing the ship. Unfortunately, only Sirus was skilled enough to repair the multiple runes on the ship, so he was often forced to abandon his exploration plans in favor of staying back and fixing said runes.
Meanwhile, a certain catkin was busy rolling around in her bed, completely in despair.
"What do I do?? What do I do!!" She cried, mostly to herself. The System was eerily silent as she tried to come up with ideas, but didn't know if it would work.
Her previous idea of "Fuck it, let's steamroll!" hadn't quite worked out. Her curiosity had turned into an overwhelming desire to talk to those people, find out where they came from, and if they could take her away from this boring island.
Days passed. The Ravens were still on extreme alert and Sirus couldn't take the risk of abandoning the ship, as if more damage occurred, their only chance to return would be gone.
It was a normal morning when the catkin, finally powering through her strange anxiety, decided to try and approach the strange creatures.
She was particularly fascinated by the one that always stayed in the ship, as she had finally learned from their talks. Although she didn't really understand much of their language, she had learned a couple words.
She fidgeted anxiously as she moved her foot forward, then moved it back. Finally, she took a step, then another, and another.
As she left the cover of the foliage, she observed the strange creatures. Her muscles were tense and her claws ready, if they did try to attack her, she would immediately fight back. She wasn't so much scared about their power, but something about how... alike, she and those creatures were, gave her a strange feeling that she couldn't quite describe.
Although they didn't notice her, she quickly approached the creatures and hid behind a bush, less than a couple of meters away from the 5 more powerful creatures.
Slowly inching closer, she could see everything about the creatures. Although she could do so from even her home, watching them from such a close distance was still so much different, and much more personal.
They still hadn't noticed her. She had long since understood how to completely evade the strange creature with a strange sense that could somewhat find her, so her ability was out of the picture.
She listened to the creatures speak to each other for around an hour when suddenly, one of the creatures started making weird, repetitive noises, and then it threw itself back, landing right in front of a wide-eyed catkin.
The two stared at each other for a good half dozen seconds, completely silent. As the other creatures started getting confused at what was happening, both the creature and catkin screamed like little girls.
Strangely, the catkin didn't find the urge to tear apart the creature that spooked it. Instead, she felt somewhat amused. After a couple seconds of both of them screaming, she stopped and looked at the creature in the eyes. The creature immediately stopped screaming and gulped down a mouthful of saliva.
The other creatures were now up and armed, staring at the catkin who was currently on her butt, having fallen from her crouching position. She stared back at them, and the two groups eyed each other down.
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As the strange creatures got into a formation, with the spook-creature fleeing all the way at the back of their line along with the sense-creature. The other 3 were at the front, their bodies perfectly still and strange water running down their bodies.
She looked at each one of them curiously before trying to say something. However, her voice refused to come out, so she instead just looked like she was opening her mouth, closing it, and reopening it.
After a bit, she finally managed to squeak out one of their words. "Ship! Ship!"
The creatures looked at each other silently, communicating with their eyes. Something that the catkin had seen them do, but had absolutely no idea how they managed it. No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn't understand just how they did it.
Finally, one of the creatures at the front spoke up, looking at the catkin. "??? ??? ???"
Having absolutely no idea what the creature meant, the catkin could only tilt her head at the sides as question marks appeared above her head. They didn't actually appear, but it would have been pretty funny.
The creatures kept on trying to talk to her, but she couldn't understand anything they were saying. After half an hour of this, the creatures had all already dropped their guard and were standing in front of the catkin, who had gotten up and was trying her best to understand them.
"???? ??? ????" One of them asked. The catkin looked at him and tried to parrot him, only to fail miserably.
As one talked and the other parroted, one of the creatures suddenly shot up, somehow took off her own skin and threw it at the catkin.
Spooked, she instantly vanished from her spot and reappeared a good couple dozen meters back. The creatures were stunned at her speed otherwise but didn't act out. However, their hands had all moved back on their weapons by reflex.
The catkin slowly inched forward, more careful than ever. She poked the strange skin, feeling its softness. She could smell the creature's odor on it, but otherwise, it didn't really smell like anything.
She looked at the creature that threw it, then back at the skin. The creature put its hand on its face for some reason. Strangely, the creature's face was a lot redder than usual, which confused the catkin.
Still, she was extremely excited inside. She hadn't interacted with other creatures for 5 years, and even before that, the interactions were limited to trying to kill each other. This was extremely new to her, and she loved it.
The creature, after a lot of hesitation, walked up to the catkin and grabbed her skin before helping her wrap it around herself. Truthfully, the skin was far too big for the catkin's pathetically small body, so it ended up looking quite weird.
She had no idea what the creature was trying to do. It was the sense-creature, and she was currently trying to push away the other 4 creatures. The catkin could only look on as the 5 loudly argued, somewhat ignoring her.
Suddenly, another creature arrived. She had naturally heard it coming long ago, but the creatures hadn't.
As she looked directly at the creatures, she was actually quite stunned. Well-defined muscles and a perfectly chiseled face, she certainly had to admit that it looked quite good. Even more beautiful than the strange 'dryad' that she had fought a long time ago, and back then she thought the dryad was the pinnacle of beauty.
Granted, being pleasing to the eye didn't spare the dryad from the cruel fate of being ripped apart by ferocious claws...
As she stared at the pretty creature, it too looked over at her. It froze for a second under her gaze, and it only recovered when one of the other creatures shook him a bit.
The pretty creature then started asking questions, occasionally pointing at her and then doing weird gestures with its hands. Curious, the catkin imitated him, however, nothing came out of it except all of the creatures looking at her with weird faces.
Noticing the setting sun and feeling a little overwhelmed at their stares, she tried to smile at them, however, she gave up almost immediately, feeling immensely embarrassed for some reason.
Giving up, she turned around and vanished. The eyes of those creatures couldn't even see her the blur she left behind, proof of the fact she could easily kill them if she wanted to. But she didn't, because she actually quite liked those creatures. They were strange, but at the same time very interesting.
Arriving back at her home, she felt particularly tired. It had been a lot of stress and excitement, so she decided to simply go to sleep. She was fully planning on going back to talk with the creatures tomorrow, and perhaps they could communicate without both parties ready to kill each other at a moment's notice.