Aetas Infinitas

Chapter Seven

Just Another Winter

The fog lingered over the hidden knoll, still as thick as a magikarp's lack of wisdom. Veri slowly traveled through, and not a sound anywhere could be heard. Suddenly an enormous, shadowy figure materialized in the fog above her. The black specter slowly took form and seemed to remain once it had taken the shape of an enormous animal with piercing red eyes, still only a silhouette against the slate-gray of the atmosphere. Veri huddled into a ball trying to make herself as small as she could. The ghostly form slowly enveloped the tiny fox as she sent a howl of fear through the air.

Veri quickly arose to a sitting position, full alert and breathing heavily. Her sweat had gotten into her mouth and the salty taste made her wince. She looked around and the six mushrooms were still cuddling in a heap around Fern. She sighed in relief. The crickets were playing their usual symphony, and Veri, for several minutes, just sat on her haunches listening to their melody. Bored, she rose to her feet and ambled over to a short hill that overlooked a thinner part of the forest. The half moon set everything ablaze in a white light. Veri stared at the moon again and imagined herself gliding through the cool night air that rushed through her fur and briefly pondered over exactly what the moon and the stars were.

In the bushes behind her something stirred and disrupted the serenity of the hill. Veri twitched an ear and turned her head, taking a deep breath. The vulpix let down her guard when she saw that one of the shroomish had followed her up the slope. It seemed very uneasy.

"Hello there. I'm sorry if I startled you. Why don't you come and sit over here with me?"

The mushroom was hesitant but made its way to her, plopped down on its bottom, and stared up at her.

"You don't have a name yet, do you? Well, I guess if you keep it a secret, you can be called Kyp."

It seemed to understand, and let go some of its uneasy tension. The pair sat on the overlook until the both of them were fast asleep.

The autumn phased on by and the oddball family began to witness the first signs of winter approaching. The leaves began to change to the colors of the flame that strangely made Veri quite comfortable. Something that puzzled the vulpix however was that the leafy petals around Fern's neck also turned as red as her claws and eventually drifted to the ground, one by one. It didn't seem to bother Fern, but Veri never got around to asking. In a few more short weeks nearly all the leaves in the trees had been shed and Fern's neck was completely bare. Veri also noticed that her fur began to thicken significantly as the season progressed. A few days after Fern's neck became bare, she suddenly fell frenzied and irritable. She would snap at her children, or if Veri was in the way, and when she ordered everyone to begin digging a large hole and storing food, Veri somehow got the courage to ask Fern the purpose.

"Why? Because if we don't have enough food we'll starve and without shelter we'd all freeze. You too, so keep helping."

Expecting this type of response, Veri gave out her reasoning regardless of the fact that she knew the breloom didn't want it.

"Well, I was just curious because where I grew up we had food all winter and storing food is a little new to me,"

"I understand that it's a new thing for you, but you live with us now and that isn't what we do."

The breloom turned away.

Veri wanted to say more, maybe even apologize. Apologize? Why? It wasn't her fault that Fern had grown cranky and impatient, and it was probably just some seasonal thing, like many other things were. Veri had learned by now that in life some things just shouldn't be taken to heart, no matter how inconsiderate. This way, she realized, things went generally a lot smoother and she contradicted herself less. It was only now Veri could actually begin to feel herself maturing.

She realized that many of her personality changes came naturally and for the better, and dealing with Fern strengthened them even further. She even recognized the fact that she wasn't fully mature yet, and knew she still had a lot to learn- she felt mature just for thinking that. In her sleep Veri would ask herself over and over if she truly had the confidence and the maturity to withstand every trial that life could dish out.

The maturity she was so positive she was learning was finally put to the test when Fern suddenly asked Veri to watch the shroomish while she ran an errand.

"Wh-what do you want me to do?" Veri was quite surprised that she would be asked this, especially since Fern's mood change.

"Can't you just keep an eye on them for half a day while I go out? It can't be that hard,"

Veri knew that the way Fern talked to her was rude, but she didn't want to make her even angrier, so she just accepted the fact as part of life. She did hope, on the inside, that Fern's irritability would end soon.

Early one morning, when the air had an extra chill to it, Fern got up and paced away from the nest. Veri speared to be asleep and heard the breloom leave. She was careful not to twitch an ear and when she had disappeared from sight, Veri fell asleep once more.

The shroomish were up early as usual, and Veri had little time to stretch after awakening. They already wanted breakfast, so Veri looked around to see if Fern had left anything for them to eat, Of course not. Veri sighed to her and figured that she had seen this done may time, so it couldn't be too hard. Sometimes they ate seeds, or leaves, they could eat small insects and flower buds. They seemed to have quite a variety in diet, and she continued to glance around at the surrounding woods as the shroomish danced around her, waiting for food. Finally she spotted something that she had no doubt was their favorite. Not too far was a cluster of flowers that was probably the last sprouts for the year and winter was approaching fast. She turned to them and asked them to follow.

"Here you all go, these are the last for the season, so don't hog them and enjoy."

Veri watched them completely devour the patch of what had been about thirty, medium-sized flowers. When they had finished, she got to her feet as they swarmed around her once more.

She wagged her tails. "How would all of you like to play a game? Kyp and err, this one and I will wait until the rest of you have hidden yourselves so that we can't see you. Ready? Go!"

Veri and Kyp closed their eyes as they heard the other five shroomish frantically try and find a spot to conceal themselves. The frenzied chirping noises in the background made Veri laugh to herself as she held her paws over her eyes.

She heard one disturb a small pile of rocks, two dive behind a log, and the rest hide in various placed nearby. Once everything was quiet, she turned around and poked Kyp on the side. Veri ambled around, and saw one of the shroomish with only its face buried in a bed of grass. She tired not to laugh out loud.

"I wonder where they all went…" She crouched low and took a pounce at it from behind. It jumped up when she scared it, and looked over, to see that Kyp had found the two that she had heard behind the log. That left only two more…

She managed to surprise the one hiding behind the rocks, but even with everyone searching, they couldn't find the sixth shroomish. Veri called out to it, but no one answered. Veri began to grow worried, the shroomish wasn't in any of the surrounding woods and Veri wasn't sure exactly when Fern would return. That was the last thing she needed, having the breloom erupt because she lost one of her children. After frantically searching more of the outlying woods, the five shroomish still trailing behind her, she heard a soft, panting, noise coming from somewhere that she couldn't see. Veri looked all around and then, up in the tree, perched on a thick limb, was a large, green creature a good deal taller than Fern. She couldn't see it exactly, but to her horror, there it was, the sixth shroomish, clutched in the creature's mouth in an exhausting struggle.

Veri had to figure out a way to get it to come down…she couldn't throw rocks that high- that would just make it run away. She didn't want to burn down half of the forest, either…Veri grew even more desperate as she realized that saving this shroomish and keeping the other five together was going to be quite a task. With no other ideas on hand, she called out to the creature.

"Umm…excuse me, but you can't…have that…" Veri felt absolutely ridiculous. She sounded that way too. Yes, that was a very threatening warning and it would just come down and hand it back to her. It startled Veri when it spoke, for she apparently hadn't expected it to speak, but it did so in a sinister, dim-witted voice that almost sounded like a reprimand.

"What, it this yours? I'm a bit busy right now…"

Veri didn't reply. She was stalling, thinking of a way to get it to come down.

Suddenly she dashed behind all of the other mushrooms and nudged them forward. As she pushed them they began to squeak in uneasiness.

"You can have the entire batch if you come down to get them…No strings attached,"

This seemed too easy. It wasn't stupid. He shook his head in frustration, the long leaf hanging from the top waving as he did so. But then again, all of the shroomish sounded tremendous in meal terms- he wouldn't have to eat for several weeks. But having been raised by those younger than himself, he wasn't the brightest of his species, and leapt down from the tree.

When she saw him comply to her offer she told herself that she would have to be quick in making this a nearly flawless effort. To reassure the grovyle, she stepped back from the pile of fungi. He dropped the one in his mouth, and started to carefully circle the others. Veri waited several moments before she leapt at him, otherwise her flames would have charred the young as well. When his back was facing the outside, she dove and lit the grovyle aflame. He squealed and shook his head as the leaves extending from his wrists, head, and backside ignited, and crying as he fled back up into the canopy.

"That was too easy," She said to herself quietly in utter disgust at how easy that rescue had just been. She had expected a much more challenging fight. Why, even the playful spars with the ponyta had been more exciting.

Veri's thoughts ran back to the sixth shroomish, and she rushed to it to inspect its condition. Much to her relief, it was unharmed, and the others seemed to be fine as well. She let herself fall to the forest floor in utter reprieve, sighing modestly although she wasn't sure what she had to have been relieved of, based on the walking tree's introduction.

After that the offspring surprisingly entertained themselves for quite awhile. During that time Veri lay still on her back, taking occasional deep breaths to enjoy the calm day and using her ears to watch the mushroom mob. She jumped hesitantly to her feet when she heard the chime of Fern's voice approach them. By her expression and tone of voice, Veri gladly suspected that the season of irritability had ended. By the way the mother breloom greeted her children Veri could confirm this notion.

"Children, I've brought you back something that will help you a great deal his winter, and I can imagine that it tastes wonderful,"

Fern set down a small gathering of six, small objects that resembled grainy pebbles. As the mob swarmed around the food, Fern took Veri aside.

"Veri, I just wanted to apologize for the way I have been acting the past couple of weeks. There's no excuse, except that I do know that is a tendency for females of my species at this time of the year. I really hope that you can forgive me…"

Veri had oddly anticipated this apology from Fern. "It's alright. I'm just glad that things are back to normal,"

"Oh, by the way, that reminds me. Come with me,"

Veri and the mushrooms followed her back to the den site.

"Veri, I'm sure that you have probably guessed by now, but here's where we'll be staying for the winter. Why don't we all go inside and see how it fits?"

Everyone crammed inside the tiny doorway, but much to Veri's surprise it was a bit tight, but considerably roomy for everyone being inside at the same time. Fern would have to curl up along the back, with her young in a bunch beside her, with Veri near the door. This worried her a small bit, but she knew that she did have the fur and normal high body temperature that they lacked. It wasn't clammy inside, or too warm for her comfort, and she noticed three small air holes in the sides of the wall. Not five minutes later all six plants were asleep and the first snow of the season had begun to fall.

Veri watched the entrance of the cave for hours as layer after layer of snow piled up on the outside. It was a soft, quiet snowfall, making the scene as peaceful as the nights on the prairie had been. The only thing that disrupted the silence was a rare call of a lone winter spearow or murkrow passing overhead. Over the few hours she sat watching it, she could feel the ground harden significantly beneath her, even with the layer of foliage placed on the floor. After quite a long time Veri lay her head on her outstretched paws and fell asleep.

Several weeks into winter passed by slowly, and Veri found that winter days here trailed on much slower than the winter days on the prairie. She ran her thoughts several times back to Kapok, and many times during the first half of the winter she thought of him. She would wonder what he was doing right that very moment, if he was okay, or if he was even alive. Sometimes these thoughts made Veri rather depressed, and she tried to distract her thoughts by taking the shroomish out for quick games in the snow.

She knew that they could not be out very long; for fear that they would freeze, so she tried to find ways to keep their playtime short but have the daft young fungi get something out of it. While along in the den as the rest of them slept, she thought of some of the useful things that she could teach them. So one day she woke them up and took them outside.

Veri showed them how to huddle together and use their breath for extra warmth, and she helped them learn how to roll around in the snow to dig a hole in order to find food. She emphasized taking frequent breaks, and soon enough they were all finding food when they were hungry, and when none was to be found they ate from what Fern had stored in the walls of the den. Many winter days were like this, and by late winter light could already be seen shining through the thinning walls. By the arrival of spring, the walls were nearly stripped clean of their stored foliage, and just in time to come out of slumber. Fern had been asleep much of the snowy season, but she had awoken a few times to the sound of her children playing outside.

One day during an especially warm spell for the season, Fern took Veri aside, as she sometimes did.

"Veri, I must say, I'm not one to be superstitious but I think that you have a bit of good luck attached to that beautiful brown hide of yours. All of my children lasted the winter, and thanks to what you've shown them, I am confident they will see many, many years."

In return I'd like to show you some of the things that I know as a healer. Over this coming summer I think that what you'll learn could be of great use to you someday; it has assisted me countless times,"

And so it was, over the duration of the summer Fern watched her offspring grow, and displayed nearly everything she knew in a way that Veri could understand. Another long autumn snuck up on the family, and Fern decided that it was time to let her young go.

x x xx x x x x x

Just a bunch of quick A/N's:

There's chapter seven- I didn't really enjoy writing this chapter, and I'm glad that only the first page of chapter eight is with this family of a walking mushroom whom I consider to be quite the soccer-mom, if you know what I mean. The walking mushrooms are annoying, and this is the last chapter where things go pretty boring and slow. Things begin to pick up after this…I promise that they'll get better. ; )

I already have the next four or so chapters written, I'm just re-reading through them to check for last minute errors. You can expect them all within the next five days or so.

Thank you again for all of my wonderful reviews. I very much enjoy your compliments, but I am also very open to constructive criticism, which some of you have so generously provided already, and much to my benefit.

Once again, I apologize for the long wait. If you haven't noticed already, a big part of Veri's character development, which is going to take place over a long period of time, is that she has this somewhat deep inner struggle with how mature and confident she sees herself. That may shape her into a morbid, melancholic young lady as suggested, or…she may find something that puts her at ease…