Mochi wakes up once more to an empty yet comfortable bed. The faint rumbling of rain disappoints her, as she wanted to go to the river today. Reluctantly, she stretches and stands up, looking around to see if Nikola is here or not.
A sour crunch towards the entrance causes her to flinch. Worrying that something might've broke, she goes to the entrance room and sees Nikola chewing on a surprisingly large mana stone. He notices her, and drags a large chunk of meat out of his shadow and silently offers it for breakfast.
"Thanks, but you didn't need to. I'm fine with getting wet!" Mochi says while taking a bite out of the meat. It tasted oddly sweat and salty, causing her to wonder what kind of meat it is. Though, based on the size of the mana stone, it must've been quite big and strong.
What Mochi failed to consider was that Nikola did this so that Mochi didn't need to leave without his supervision. Rain dulled the senses too much to risk being separated. Though maybe Nikola was being over-protective of the one person he trusts.
As the two eat together, Mochi starts thinking of her plans for winter. Neither wolves nor foxes hibernate, and the lack of edible vegetation will mean most of their food will have to be through hunting. She doubts Nikola will have any problems, but she still needs to work on her hunting skills. Especially sneaking.
Finishing up the meat, Mochi next begins inspecting her home for any potential damage. Normally she would've done this before any rain, but this storm came quite suddenly. At least mud will be easy to obtain for any repairs.
As Mochi inspects along, she notices an odd bump in the storage room. It looks like a dirt coin? She walks up to it and taps it, and an annoyed spider jumps out. The small, slightly fuzzy spider waves two arms around angrily, before crawling back into its hole and closing the trapdoor.
Mochi finds it incredibly adorable. Unfortunately, she isn't quite sure what kind of spider it is, but it doesn't matter too much. She whispers a small apology, and promises not to bother the spider too much.
Finishing up her inspection, Mochi gives a satisfactory nod at her current home's state. No visible cracks, holes, or pests (thanks spider).
...Now what? The rain is still pouring, so going outside is slightly unappealing. It wouldn't even be good hunting practice. Having nothing else she needs to do, normally Mochi would've gone back to sleep. However, with Nikola here, Mochi wonders if maybe they can try and play a simple game. Surely it won't be too hard to teach a wolf?
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"That's all they had on Belmthene. It's quite in-depth but... are you sure you don't need help?"
Dorlin flips through the book, giving a firm nod. "If there's any problems, I'll ask for help. Don't worry."
It's been a long while since he picked up Pom in the forest. He's been working hard trying to take care of her, but his lack of knowledge on Belmthene was bothering him. There was always the fear of causing unintentional harm to her. As such, the village pooled together enough to buy a book to help.
Dorlin returns home, with no hug from Pom as she continues to nap. Though, her antenna does twitch with recognition, calming down as he sits next to her and pets her. And as he comforts the child, Dorlin begins to read about the Belmthene.
The book starts with how the Belmthene came about; A queen bee achieving a heritable evolution, which was retained by its offspring. For most other new species, there would be difficulty reproducing, but for the newly evolved queen bee, it alone was enough to produce a stable community.
Dorlin skips past most of the early history, looking for any vulnerabilities he has to watch out for, as well as normal behavior. That's when he notices an important detail. Belmthene normally live in large hive-communities, and only adults are allowed to exit the safe structure. Pom is a child. Why was she out in the forest?
He flips over to the culture section of the book. The Belmthene do not discriminate against disabilities, and deafness is the least impactful disability for them thanks to their antennae. They have no proper concept of exile or banishment, and they certainly wouldn't abandon a child.
Dorlin calms himself down. He can worry about why Pom was alone later. Flipping over to the dietary section, Dorlin feels relieved at seeing the omnivore symbol of a boar. Interestingly, the book also claims that there's no known example of a Belmthene having any allergies, though that may just be a lack of data. In any case, Dorlin's worries of improper diets was dispelled.
As Dorlin continues to read on the common foods Belmthene eat (which of course includes honey), he feels a set of arms grab onto his shoulders and try and pull him down into a hug. Pom has awoken, and unleashes her sneaky back hugs!
Letting out a laugh, Dorlin puts down the book and rolls over, flipping Pom into a reverse-hug. The two go back and forth, as the rainy sun sets.
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Mochi shouts out in frustration as Nikola beats her in yet another game of Fieldom. It took a while for her to explain the rules (through lots of gestures, barking and yipping, and example games) but once Nikola got it, he's been winning constantly. The current score was 1: 32, Mochi only winning once to Nikola's 32.
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Nikola, on the other hand was enjoying this immensely. Initially he didn't quite understand the appeal of such a simple puzzle. But with each win, Mochi seemed to make it harder and harder, encouraging Nikola to focus even more. And the satisfying feeling of winning despite the growing difficulty was addictive.
Of course, the games can't keep going forever. Eventually, Mochi is hungry again, and so she has to politely ask for a break to get dinner. And when Nikola tries to start another round, she politely pokes him until the two go out into the rain to obtain some food.
Sticking close together, Mochi checks a few different berry bushes while Nikola keeps watch. Unfortunately, many of the berry bushes no longer have any fruits or flowers, and so Mochi has to resort to picking bloody peppers, which are quite messy to eat. Nikola was also very vocal about the painful smell of the peppers, despite the rain masking most of it.
With food taken care of, Mochi also takes an opportunity to clean herself off. The gentle rain washed her outer fur, but it takes a great amount of effort to wash deeper. Luckily, a rough rock was surprisingly effective for that, though Nikola was very concerned the entire time.
Once she is done, Mochi heads back home, where she spends a minute drying in the entrance room before going any deeper. Nikola, on the other hand, emerges out of his shadow completely dry, with only mild jealousy from Mochi.
And of course, Nikola immediately sits by the makeshift Fieldom square Mochi dug out, requesting another game. Reluctantly, Mochi accepts, though she tries to convey that she'll only play once before going to sleep. After all, she's just a small fox, with equally small stamina.
At least, that was the initial plan. But of course, she lost the first round. And the next. And a few more after that. Until her turns take minutes and she periodically dozes off, and Nikola has to carry her to bed. And as the rain fades away, the prime wolf keeps playing by himself.
Until a tiny spider crawls over, plays a single round, and wins. Of course, the prime wolf whisper-demands a rematch, but the spider ignores him and crawls into their own hole. And so for the rest of the night, Nikola practices by himself.
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The sun rises, a bunny wakes up. It hops out of its den, as do many other bunnies. This bunny hops to the edge of the briar patch, where the deadly fox likes to hide. This bunny is not afraid.
All the other bunnies watch this one for a moment. Eventually though, they follow. After all, nothing attacked this bunny yet, so surely it's safe.
This bunny hops along until they reach a field of flowers. Tasty, tasty flowers. And as the first bunny here, it gets to have first pick on the best, sweetest flowers!
"...it's too quiet."
The brave bunny looks around, between the trees. They check for anything abnormal, a potential danger. It looks up into the leaves, where birds watch silently. Or rather, the birds are watching something behind the bunny.
They turn around too late, as sharp jaws snatch them by the neck. The bunny lets out a shrill cry, alerting the others of danger. All the other bunnies run away, but it's meaningless for the coyote. It already caught one, and that is all it needs for now.
However, the coyote misunderstood something. Of course, it lacks the language of the forest, and so it can't understand what the caught bunny shouted out. The danger wasn't the coyote, but the bunny.
"Grass-plosion"
A surge of mana ripples through the ground, spreading out to surround the coyote. The grass's mana ignites. The area explodes.
As the smoke fades away, a single bunny sits, unharmed, among the blasted remains of the coyote. It growls, annoyed at the loss of grass in the surroundings. And the flowers were so good too~. But luckily, there is some nice meat to replace the lost food.
As the boom bunny finishes eating the remains, other bunnies peak their heads out of tree roots. Given the all clear, they approach and feast on the remaining flowers. Boom bunny, on the other hand, wanders back home. Explosions take up lots of energy, so they'll go rest now.
A spectating crow is disheartened by the lack of scavenge-able corpse. He really wishes it was his turn to watch the fox now.
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As autumn continues, the forest reddens. Leaves begin to fall down, covering the ground in a thick layer. Days are slightly shorter, slightly colder, and slightly dryer. And for Mochi, she has more ways to play around.
While a lack of hands makes scooping up leaves difficult, pushing together piles of leaves is still easy enough. And with far less time spent on locating food, Mochi is able to collect ginormous piles of leaves, several times her height! (Which as a small fox, isn't much.)
And what does one do with giant piles of leaves? Jump in them, of course! Whether it's from the ground, from a tree branch, from a boulder, or from the back of a large black wolf. Let the leaves break the fall, and swim around in soft clutter.
Mochi also has a secondary reason for doing this. It's practice for when she has to jump into snow to hunt during winter. Yep, she's totally practicing. This is definitely a transferable skill. And she will most likely also be diving into the side of piles of snow for essential stuff.
Of course, Mochi still needs to improve her normal chasing and hunting skills while it's still autumn, when prey is abundant. But there's plenty of time before winter...
"Mr. Narrator, I can feel the sarcasm even if I can't understand you!"
Mochi shouts, muffled beneath lots of leaves.
Nikola, as concerned as ever, keeps watch while Mochi plays. However, the fallen leaves are already almost as deep as she is high, and the piles she gathered certainly don't help. So recently, Nikola and Mochi made a basic form of emergency communication.
Inspired by that time Mochi got kidnapped and responded to his Mooncalls with her own howl, Nikola tried to convey the idea of Mochi using howling as an emergency signal. And with great effort, Mochi got the basic idea to howl if she's in trouble.
Of course, there was one detail that Nikola couldn't leave alone. Mochi's howling sounded terrible. Unlike his harmonious howls that can echo across the entire forest, Mochi's howls sound like rusted copper wheels against ceramic.
And so, each night, while watching the night sky, Nikola trains Mochi's howling. And gradually, it becomes less and less painful to listen to. It still doesn't compare to his own howling, but it would probably take years to reach that level of harmony and grace.
By the third week, Mochi's howls were now passable, and could even be called slightly cute. However, should anyone ever encounter her and hear that howl, they'd feel immense dread. After all, rumors are powerful, and the title of "Caller of the wolf" apparently belongs to a particularly small fox.