Brass foraged around all over the place but he wasn’t able to find much. The fruits and vegetables that Aiko had shown him were nowhere to be seen. He knew that somehow she made her own vegetables grow but he had still hoped to find some vegetables that he could bring back to the cave. With Aiko still asleep she couldn’t grow the vegetables and this was his chance.
Brass really wanted to show that he could be useful so he was persistent in looking farther and farther away from the cave. As he looked about he began noticing that it was getting colder.
Thinking about it Brass looked down at his hands and saw that they were dripping with the rain that was still sprinkling down throughout the forest. He then looked at the unusual sight of his clothing. Also soaking wet. Brass decided that he was going to go back but he still hoped to find something to eat so he took a detour.
Aiko awoke to the sound of the fire still going and thought that perhaps she had only dozed off for a few minutes. When she looked at the entrance to the cave she found out how wrong she was. It was well into the day even if today was a very dark overcast day. She was able to see just fine by the light of the flickering fire that was already getting kind of low.
Apparently Brass had built the fire back up which was something she didn’t even know he could do. That brought her attention to his absence and she began searching around frantically for the boy.
Not finding him Aiko made her way to the entrance of the cave and looked about in the general vicinity. She still couldn’t find him and began to panic a bit. However, a moment later she found one of his footprints in the mossy mud leading away from the cave in one direction.
Aiko immediately jumped into the trees and began searching frantically. She couldn’t help her imagination running back to the site of an ogre picking up a screaming rabbit-person and ripping its throat out.
Brass continued looking around and just as he was getting frustrated he actually managed to find a patch of some big vegetables. He quickly ran over to them and began checking to see how he was going to grab one. He found the spot where the vegetable was attached to a vine that was wrapping around the base of a tree and gnawed it loose.
Finally, he had breakfast secured and began confidently walking back towards the cave. It only took a few minutes of him walking and dragging the large vegetable behind him to begin questioning whether he actually knew that he was headed back to the cave.
Suddenly a thought struck him. What if he never found his way back to the cave and never found his way back to Aiko? The thought disturbed him so much that he couldn’t help himself and sat down in the mud and began crying.
Aiko jumped around from tree to tree, branch to branch searching desperately for the boy somewhere on the ground. She had been searching for several minutes and was beginning to doubt that she was still going in the right direction. What if he turned and headed in a different direction? What if she couldn’t find him?
Aiko could feel her heart racing faster and faster and was starting to have trouble breathing. She stopped on a branch and backed up against a tree to try and catch her breath but it seemed to get harder and harder to breathe.
All at once she felt a calming sensation wash over her and then for no reason that she could think of she turned to her left and began bounding down a different branch.
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Aiko wasn’t sure exactly why she had taken this branch and she certainly didn’t know why she kept going when she reached the end of the branch. She was beginning to question just what she was supposed to do when she caught a subtle sound in the distance.
Barely discernible over the wind and rain she could almost make out what sounded like a voice. Actually what she heard didn’t really sound much like a voice but more like whaling.
She stopped and scanned in various directions until she narrowed down approximately where she thought she was hearing the noise coming from. She began running along the branches in that general direction and was rewarded by the ever-increasing volume of the sobbing voice.
Aiko very quickly found herself looking down at a bawling Brass sitting in the mud at the base of the tree she was in. Next to the boy was a large vegetable that she vaguely recognized.
She immediately understood what had prompted Brass to leave The Cave. The boy was hungry and there was no more food left in the cave. She was impressed that he had found something on his own but she didn’t have the heart to tell him that the vegetable that he was trying to drag back wasn’t edible.
Now she just had to get them both back to the cave but she soon realized that she didn’t know the direction of the cave. That could wait. Aiko had to go down to Brass and calm him down before she could go looking for their temporary cave dwelling.
As Aiko approached Brass looked up in momentary terror before recognition dawned in his eyes. The moment that he realized that it was Aiko Brass jumped towards her and hugged her close and if anything his bawling intensified.
She really couldn’t do anything for him but just patted his back which was easy enough to do since they were roughly the same size for now.
As she patted his back Aiko became acutely aware of how cold and wet they both were. She whispered in his ear that she had to go find the cave real quick and he let her go.
When Aiko made her way to the top of the tree she was relieved to find exactly what she was hoping to see, a line of smoke rising from the forest not very far away. now Aiko had to figure out how to get Brass to leave behind the inedible vegetable.
She thought about it for just a moment before a plan struck her. Aiko rushed down the tree, grabbed Brass by the sleeve, and whispered frantically in his ear. “We have to go! we have to go right now. I spotted something coming towards us. I don’t know what it is and I don’t want to know but I do know where our cave is so let’s go there quick.”
The two of them then began running back towards The Cave until they collapsed behind the dwindling fire in a heaving mound. Aiko lied again and said that she was pretty sure that they had lost whatever it was but that she wanted to get the fire brighter to keep whatever it was away.
It didn’t take very long for the fire to build back up and the two of them had to strip down and wait for their clothing and fur to dry out.
In the meantime, Aiko took out a few of the dried berries and after pulling the seed out of them she began grinding them in her mortar and pestle. She set the ground-down berries aside on a large leaf.
She then took out a packet from her backpack and began unfolding it. Out of that packet, she pulled several dried large leaves and began grinding them in the mortar and pestle.
Aiko then pulled out the clay pot and suspended it above the fire before filling it with water. She put the ground berries and ground leaves into the pot once it was hot. The resulting stew was somewhat sweet and tangy and they both enjoyed the hot meal.
By the time they were done with their meal, it had stopped raining outside. Once they were done packing everything up they set out again.
Although the rain had delayed their advance Aiko felt that things could have gone much worse. She reminded herself that it would have been entirely possible for her to have not found Brass again. If she hadn’t turned around on that tree there was a possibility that she wouldn’t have found him.
The thought scared her. She began chastising Brass for going off without her and said that no matter what they should stick together. She told him that she didn’t want to lose him. He began crying but nodded anyway.
They continued their trek for several more days uneventfully. They got to a part of the forest where it was hard to tell which direction the sun was moving in and it was always dark.
Aiko had to run up the trees a lot more often in this denser part of the forest. At one point Aiko came down to find Brass listening intently. His ears were swiveling in all directions and she began booking around. It didn’t take very long for her to find what he was listening to.