Slightly pushing the doorcloth out just enough to peek around it, Addie stared out of the ruined building to watch the oncoming procession of fuzzy men.
She really needed to come up with a better name for them. Furmen? No definitely not. Fuzzers? Floofers? Poofy guys? No, that last one was worse than fuzzy men. Fluffykins?
“How about furhumes? Like a furry human?” Squishy suggested since he could hear Addie’s thoughts.
“No that won’t work,” Addie whispered back. “They don’t look human, their feet look like hands and their head shape is all wrong.”
“Huh. They look the same to me.”
“That’s because you’re a silly cat. Now shush.” Addie put her finger up to her mouth and shushed him.
She could see the old leader fuzzy person with the mushroom hat greeting the returning warriors.
The biggest warrior fuzzy person, easily a head taller than the rest of them, stepped forward to meet the old fuzzy mushroom man.
“Furrians. I’m gonna call them Furrians.” Addie declared.
The Mushroom hat Furrian met up with the chief Warrior Furrian. The Warrior looked kind of scary. He had huge bulging muscles, which made his arms almost look thicker than his head.
They took turns whooping at each other, and then after a moment of silence, they hugged. They separated quickly, and the large Warrior Furrian gave out a loud whooping bark to the rest of the warriors.
They all dispersed and separated out to return to their own homes. The big Warrior Furrian spent another few moments talking to the Mushroom Furrian, and then together they started making their way over toward Addie.
A spike of nervousness shot through her, and she quickly let go of the doorcloth and let it come back down over the entryway completely. She wasn’t completely sure if she had been caught snooping out, but the idea that she had worried her.
Addie padded back over to Nettal to see if she was awake yet, but she still looked fast asleep. Gently, Addie patted Nettal’s cheek, while being careful not to spill the soup still sitting next to her.
“Wake up!” Addie whispered harshly. “Nettal wake up! Someone’s coming!”
Nettal groaned and turned over onto her side. “Five more minutes.” She sleepily grumbled out.
“Nettal!” Addie sighed in exasperation, “Wake up! A scary Furrian is coming!”
Scrunching her face, Nettal turned over to look at Addie’s face. “What?”
“There’s a warrior Furrian coming!”
“You mean those fuzzy monkeys?”
“What’s a monkey?” Addie asked. “It doesn’t matter," she shook her head. "They’re coming!”
Nettal sat up a bit, noticed the soup next to her pile of furs, and picked it up. She had just started sipping at it when the Warrior Furrian pushed aside the doorcloth and walked into the small ruined building.
“Woo, woo!” He chirped, a little louder than talking volume.
Then, he quickly closed the doorcloth, leaving Addie and Nettal alone again.
“Weird,” Addie said.
“Yeah.”
But after just a few moments, he returned, this time holding a deeper and overall smaller mushroom bowl. He pushed aside the doorcloth and walked all the way inside, revealing he also held another two deeper bowls in his other hand, for a total of three in all.
He walked up close to Addie and Nettal and then sat down on the floor right next to them. For a moment, he just sat there, waiting or expecting something from the girls.
After nobody moved, he put all the deep bowls, which actually looked more like cups now that Addie could see some kind of tea inside them, down on the ground in front of him. He then reached out to Addie, and he put his hand with spindly long fingers right above Addie’s ankle. He gently pulled down on her ankle and pointed down to the ground with his other hand.
Addie got the meaning right away and also moved to sit down on the floor. Nettal was already on the floor, still sitting upright in her furs.
Once all three of them were sitting in a triangle on the floor, the Warrior Furrian passed one cup to Addie and another cup to Nettal. Then, he began to sip at the liquid inside, holding the cup with both hands.
Hesitantly, Addie picked the cup up in front of her and smelled it. It smelled earthy and fresh, reminding her of cut grass. She took a sip, and it smelled like mushroom and moss juice— which was probably exactly what it was. She tried not to make a face while sipping it, before putting it back down on the ground. She didn’t want any more of it.
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After Addie put the cup down, the Furrian put both of his hands at the ends of his crossed legs and then bowed his head. He stayed like that, unmoving.
“No,” Nettal said while waving her arms, “Please raise your head! I didn’t do anything too special.” She turned away as her cheeks flushed.
Even though he shouldn’t be able to understand them, he raised his head and gave a toothy smile. He dumped the rest of his mushroom tea into his mouth all at once and swallowed. He looked at Nettal for a bit, and then at Addie, considering. Then, he stood back up and left the small building, leaving behind the two cups of mushroom juice for Addie and Nettal.
“We should ask them about the fog,” Nettal suggested, now that it was just the two of them again.
“They can’t understand us,” Addie pointed out.
“You understood him when he told you to sit down, right? And we understood that he said thank you to us.” Nettal countered.
“That’s different. He didn’t say that stuff using words,” Addie pointed out again with a huff.
“Yeah, but maybe we don’t need words to understand each other. You’ve practiced with Ember a lot, right? And I’ve practiced talking without words with Lotty. It’s just like that, the way he talked to us. He used his body to talk to us with meanings instead of words.”
“Huh,” Addie looked down as she thought about it. What Nettal said made sense, she decided. Addie moved her eyes up and made eye contact. “Alright, let’s ask them about the fog. Maybe the Furrians can help us get home.”
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They didn’t have to wait long for the Warrior Furrian to return. Addie thought maybe they would wait awhile longer so she and Nettal could rest, but they came barging in just about ten minutes after the first time.
The Warrior Furrian didn’t stay long, he just paused long enough to grab Nettal’s empty bowl and cup, as well as grab Addie’s still half-full cup (she couldn’t drink the rest since it was yucky).
So it came to be that just Nettal, Addie, and the Furrian with the weird mushroom hat all sat on the dilapidated floor of the half-ruined building.
Addie had to readjust her position, the hard rocky floor really hurt her bum. She thought about it for a moment and then decided to scoot closer to Nettal so she could also sit on the furs.
Watching the two of them, the Mushroom Furrian smiled.
Maybe he had just come to check in on them, or maybe he just wanted to make sure they had gotten enough food or something. Addie had no idea, but he didn’t intend to stay long. He started to stand up before Addie stopped him.
“Wait!” Addie broke the silence in the room, “We wanted to ask you some questions.”
He stared at her for a moment, then took another step in the direction of the entryway.
“Wait,” Addie repeated.
He stopped, and must have finally understood her meaning, since he walked back closer again.
Now would be the tricky part. How was Addie supposed to communicate fog using nothing but body language?
First, Addie tried waving her fingers around down near the ground, spreading them out while moving them left to right.
He just looked at her with a confused expression.
Addie sighed. She glanced at Nettal to silently ask for help.
“Alright, I’ve got an idea,” Nettal said as she started standing up.
She pulled on Addie’s hand to help her stand up, and then together they walked over to the Mushroom Furrian. Nettal also grabbed his hand; she led the two of them out of the building with Squishy and Lotty following from close behind.
Together, everyone walked over to one of the closest puddles. There were tons of them throughout the cave, and this particular one had a few smaller glowing mushrooms.
Once they reached the puddle, Nettal let go of their hands so she could put her hands in the puddle.
“This will work. Addie, can you put some flames in here and boil all the water to turn it into steam?”
Addie’s eyebrows shot up, “That’s so smart! I’ll do it.”
Addie touched one finger to her chest, and struck it down her body like a match— the symbolization helped her will come to form. She allowed the white-hot flame on her finger to grow and spread past her entire hand and start moving up her arm.
The Mushroom Furrian whooped, and his eyes started to dart around in panic.
In response to him, Nettal hurried back over and held onto the old Mushroom Furrian’s hand, which seemed to calm him down enough to not run away at least.
Once the fire had spread across Addie’s entire body, she pointed her finger out and channeled all of the flames down her arm. She flicked her hand toward the puddle and the flames washed off of her in a torrent. In retrospect, this had probably been overkill for such a tiny puddle, but the entire thing exploded and sent steam all into the air.
The humidity from the explosion lingered, and a gentle fog enveloped the surroundings for a little while.
Nettal scooped at some of the steam with her hand and practically shoved it into the Mushroom Furrian’s face so he could see it.
His eyes went wide, and he stared as the steam gently left in the area, dissipating within just a few moments.
Soon, the only proof that the puddle had ever existed was a black mark on the slight indent in the rocky floor. The mushrooms near it had turned to ash. Oops.
“Fog,” Nettal said to the Mushroom Furrian.
He nodded his head once, with brightness in his eyes. Without waiting a single moment, he quickly started marching off. He clearly had some destination in mind.
“Do you think he understood?” Addie asked Nettal.
The mugginess of the area started to stick to Addie’s face and arms uncomfortably. At least this deep into the cave was pretty warm compared to how cold it had been outside.
“I hope so,” Nettal responded with a slight nod of her head.
“That was a person with purpose. He understood.” Squishy chimed in.
“Should we go back?” Addie asked. She wanted to go inside and sit back down on the furs. She needed to get some proper rest soon, too. Sleeping on the cave floor last night had been pretty awful.
“Let’s wait here for him to come back.” Nettal decided for them.
“Okay, I guess.”
As they waited, Addie had to try hard not to close her eyes. They kept drooping down of their own volition, and she caught herself from falling asleep a few times, too.
“Look, Addie!” Nettal pointed.
Addie followed her finger to see the Mushroom Furrian coming back. He had something in his hand, but he was still too far away for Addie to tell what it was. Once he got a little closer, Addie could tell that he was holding a book in his hand. A dark brown leather-bound book, and there were even some words printed on the cover, too.
Once the Furrian got closer, he bowed from the waist while holding the book out to Nettal. She took it from him, and he easily let go of it, coming out of his bow after she grabbed it.
Addie looked over Nettal’s shoulder. It took her a second to process what she was seeing, since most of the text on the cover didn’t make sense.
“The Mountain Demon,” the cover read, about two-thirds down. Above it and below it, were quite a few more lines on the cover, each about the same length as one another, all using the same font and at the same size. It was like someone had written the same exact thing on the cover in ten different languages.