Hey guys, just going to say that I realized I've made a mistake, that I will edit later on, but for now I'll just tell you. Cal and Toby are heading NORTH EAST in the story, while Buck and the others are heading WEST. Unfortunately, I wrote Buck and the rest of the family were going on a trip west, but later realised I f****** got mixed up. One day I'm going to do a piece of graphic art of the map I have in my head of this world, and upload it somewhere so you guys can all get a visual, but for now just bare with picturing it. Sorry, and I'll be sure to edit it later.
The Marten walked for half an hour, that would have been ten minutes had she'd been going the pace Cal and Toby usually kept. But this mammal ambled, shuffled it's way along the river bank, and then made a curved turn into the jungle. Cal and Toby remained extra vigilant, after their encounter with the wiry raptors. Cal often did a 360 degree turn on the spot, or would leap up the trunks of trees to keep an extra eye out.
She had just finished one of these miniature reconnaissance's and returned, when she noticed the Marten was gone.
"Toby, where'd she go!?" Cal asked. Toby appeared from behind a bush from where he'd been checking the area himself.
"Oh great." He muttered. "Hold on, I'll pick up her scent."
He took one sniff and pointed to a tree, and they jogged over.
There was no hollow or entrance to a den they could see, but Cal's foot met very soft, springy earth.
"Trap door?" she asked.
"A really good one. It's practically seamless." Toby said, going to all fours and prying with his claws until he found the rim, and pulled up the top of an entrances door, made of dirt, roots, and rotting leaves.
"The leaf litter mostly hides her scent."
"Gods knows how a deranged marten came up with that." Cal said, impressed.
"Maybe it wasn't her." Toby said, and Cal realised her mistake. This kind of ingenuity was exactly something her brother would think up. While Cal would maybe put trip wires around a den she would dig, or choose a particularly strong tree like the Grandfather tree, Jai would make something practically invisible, and hard to find for those who didn't know where it was.
"Is he here?" She asked, sniffing around.
When his scent reached her nose, her heart quickened.
"He's not at the moment but he was, not very long ago." Toby said, confirming her own thoughts.
The door next to them opened, and the marten crawled out, with an object in her paws.
She sat down at the entrance, looking completely at ease, ignoring her two guests as usual. She turned the object over in her paws, and over again, smiling as she did so.
Cal sat down next to her, aware that Toby raised his head and reverted to his scout instincts while Cal had her guard down.
"What is that?" Cal asked the marten.
The marten looked at her, and Cal wasn't sure if it was her used to being ignored by the marten that made the look more intense, or whether it was particularly strong.
"Dreams!" The marten whispered loudly, harshly, and offered the object to Cal, who took it gently. It was a carving of a light-coloured wood, which had small silver river stones embedded into it to make it shimmer in what light could be made from the above ground world. It had five points, perfectly spaced and smoothly finished, barely a nick in the wood that could be seen.
"Toby, is this what a star looks like?" Cal asked.
Toby chanced a glance at what she was holding, before securing his gaze around them again. "I know less than you about it. If Adrian were here he could tell us. He's the youngest one to go up there, and that was years ago."
"Jai made it." She was sure of it. This marten couldn't be as good as Jai at carving. She looked up at Toby.
"You get some rest, I'll keep an eye out for anything. I'll wake you when I get tired."
Toby hesitated, but must have seen she was telling the truth. She wasn't like Jai, or her dad. She couldn't lie to save a life, she was even worse at it than her mom.
Especially around Toby.
"Okay."
He came over to her and went to all fours, turning in a circle next to her side before curling up, his back pressed into her hip.
They changed shifts twice, the marten sitting awake the whole time, staring at the ice-sky above them dreamily.
Cal was taking her turn resting when Toby shook her awake, holding a paw softly over her mouth. The world was light with coming dawn, and it was almost noisy with bird and dinosaur calls. Cal stiffened, but stayed silent, staring into Toby's black, black eyes before she heard something coming. It was small, and travelling in a hurry without running, managing to stay under the ground plants of the jungle.
Toby removed his paw, and Cal stood slowly, staying tightly wound and ready to launch if she had to.
The marten got up calmly and walked towards the denser plants, smiling.
Someone appeared, and gave a sigh of relief. "Alma, you're okay. You know not to go off without telling me or I end up looking for you all night."
Alma, the marten, laughed as if she'd not just been given a stern talking to. "But I found Mars, River Boy, and a moon too!"
She pointed to where Toby and Cal were still hidden by morning shadow, and the newcomer turned his head.
Cal's breath caught in her throat.
"C..Cal? Toby?" Jai stepped back, looking between them.
Cal was frozen from head to foot, her heart stuck in her chest. Maybe it was a trick of the light, the remaining darkness tricking her into thinking that part of her brother was made of shadow.
Jai clearly didn't know what to do either, just stared at her in shock.
"Jai, we didn't come here to hurt you." Toby said calmly.
Jai let out a breath, blinking a few times, and relaxed. "I… I know. Sorry. I know there's a lot to explain-,"
"What happened to you?!" Cal shrieked, and Jai flinched back.
"Cal, please, don't be mad. I don't know why I ran. After they got dad I couldn't stay-,"
"I'm not talking about that. What happened to you!?"
Jai blinked, then looked down at himself. "Oh. That. Yeah." He laughed nervously.
The right side of Jai's body was lacking fur, but what was underneath wasn't skin. A black, smooth, leathery layer was there instead. It was patchy in some places, and it hadn't really reached his face, only a few scattered dots were on his cheek and chin. The fur had survived in some places, adding to the ragged look.
"You two really shouldn't be here." Jai said, instead of answering Cal's question.
"Neither should you." Cal said harshly back.
Jai opened his mouth and closed it again. His face turned slowly sour.
"I didn't want you to follow me. Go back home Calamity."
"No! Not without you telling me what's going on. You ran off! At least give me a reason. I was starting to think you were dead."
Toby looked at her, but she ignored him. She had never told him her thoughts, her real beliefs that maybe their search was useless, that Jai had really gotten himself eaten along the way and all of it had been for nothing.
But it wasn't. Here he was, fine and dandy and telling her to go home after she'd travelled this long, and Toby too, to find him.
"I don't belong back there, Cal!" Jai snapped. Cal felt a retort rise, but she held it back. She had asked for a reason, and she was about to get it whether she liked the reason or not. "I'm not like you, or Mum, or," he swallowed, "Dad. It was always you who was destined to be the glory child, the one with all the power and fame. You were the fighter, I never was. You could protect yourself, and whoever else you wanted. You made friends. Mammals like you. Hell, dino's like you! I would always come off second best."
He breathed in, and growled it out as he finished, "With Dad gone, I couldn't go back. I never knew how much I relied on him till he was dead, Cal. I would never have survived that fight without him, and I never would survive further. I can hide from dino's until the sky cracks open, but I can't hide from a family that would always love you more."
Cal waited for a few seconds, before having her turn. "Um, first off, Dad's alive."
Jai's body jerked as he stood rigidly straight, hearing her, but she continued before he could interrupt her. "Second, what the HELL Jai? Love me more? You do realise you were always Mum's favourite, right, or did you forget about her too?! Did you forget mum exists once you saw Dad get a splinter in his side? Did you forget Adrian, Jess, Trudy, Abu? They didn't love me any more than they loved you, so don't be like that. You're just being selfish."
Jai's breathing had visibly increased, as he looked at the ground in front of him. "Dad's alive?"
"Yeah."
He shook his head. "Doesn't change anything. I still had to leave."
"Well if you'd told us you were leaving, then we would have let you go! I wouldn't have followed you for months on end to the other side of those bloody mountains, if I'd known you were thinking straight. But no. You ran off in the middle of a battle thinking you were doing anyone any good. And you still haven't told me what all that's about." She pointed to the dark, leathery skin that was trying to encase him.
Jai swallowed, and Toby spoke up.
"I think you both need a bit of a break."
Cal whirled, about to say something, but he interrupted her. "Cal, Jai needs a bit of time to think about some stuff, so do you." He looked to the sky. "And we need some more rest." He turned to Jai. "We'll be back later."
By the way he said it, Cal knew he was warning Jai not to try and run off. Jai seemed to as well, because he nodded with a dark expression, and said to Alma, who'd been sitting and watching the whole ordeal with rapt interest, "Come on Alma, we both need some food."
Alma nodded enthusiastically and followed him to the trap door, where he paused and said to Toby and Cal,
"Don't drink from anywhere but the river, unless you want this." He had indicated to the black invasion on his skin, and then dropped into the den, closing the entrance disguise behind him.
Cal stood in the morning light with her arms crossed and her head bowed, feeling hot moisture at the rim of her eyes. She would not get mad. She would not, get mad.
"Let's find a log Cal," Toby said quietly, and when she didn't move, he pried her paws gently from where she was gripping her own arm, and tugged her away from where Jai had disappeared.
It was only a few dozen feet into the jungle where Toby found a hollow log. He let Cal go in first before doing a final check and following her in.
In the darker, warmer log, Toby heard Cal sniff, and watched as she furiously rubbed her face with a forearm, turning away from him, clearly ashamed.
"It's okay Cal." He said gently, putting a paw on her arm. "He's just figuring some stuff out. But he's alive."
"Yeah," Cal laughed cruelly, the sound falling dully in the log, "He's alive. But nothing's changed. Dad always said he might snap one day. He was right." Her whole body shuddered but her shoulders kept shaking long after the rest of her had stilled.
Toby wasn't sure what to do at first. This was Cal. She was tough, unpredictable, and unbothered by anxious thoughts and doubts. Her mind was sure. Not now, though.
He shuffled closer and put his forehead on her shoulder blade, a paw on her shoulder, trying to still her. She eventually did, and sagged into the side of the wood, then turned on her side and put her face into Toby's neck, curling up like a frightened kit to his chest.
He'd slept close to her for months now, both their bodies wound tightly around the other for warmth and protection, possibly even for comfort, but never before had it made his heart beat like this. He placed his paw on her head softly, and combed his claws through her fur. It raised the fur on her spine in goose bumps at first, then slowly she grew used to it. When he stopped, she nudged his arm to keep going, and he did, until she fell asleep.
It was near midday when she finally awoke, finding Toby with food in his paws, some nuts and roots.
"There seems to be no fruit trees nearby." He explained, as she gently took a root from his paws.
She wasn't interested. All she wanted to know was what was going through her brother's mind.
And her own.
She ate quickly, then crawled out of the log.
"Let's get this over with, so we can go home." She said.
"Cal, wait, what are you saying?" Toby said, scrambling to follow her.
"Jai's come here and he wants to stay, why should we have to? If he's not coming, we should just leave."
"You're just saying that because you're angry."
"Why should that make me any less serious?"
Toby stood in front of her, looking at her sternly. "Because you're a bad thinker."
Cal growled in her throat, and felt her anger reverberate like the growl in her chest, and she wanted to launch at him, but all it would do would prove him right.
"Whatever, come on."
Toby, feeling a little deflated compared to several hours ago, followed her reluctantly to Jai's den.
When they reached it, it looked very different in daylight. Very, very ordinary. The tree wasn't even a large one, the roots wouldn't have been as sturdy as some of the other jungle trees in the area. Cal wasn't sure why Jai would pick such an ordinary, invisible spot, if it could be dug up by a keen raptor in a matter of seconds.
Cal honestly thought that the only reason she found it was because Jai was already sitting outside on a nearby mossy stone, carving at wood with a new knife, his bow and a set of old and new arrows beside him. Alma was there too, arranging dozens and dozens of silvery, shimmering stones on the ground, muttering to herself.
Jai looked up when she and Toby emerged from the jungle, looking unsure, and Toby knew it was because of Cal's unpredictable attitude.
Cal looked at him for a while, then shifted her attention to Alma. She indicated to the deranged Marten with her head, and asked,
"What's her story?"
Jai looked at her, and was clearly as glad as Toby for the stall of the conversation.
"She found me." He looked back down at his carving, and his steady paws shaved off another feather-thin piece of wood. "I crossed the mountains, but I was a dead mammal walking. I came to the river," he indicated further East to where Cal and Toby had arrived from, "and fell right in. When I woke up on a bank, she was poking at me, kept muttering about my light not being out just yet. She calls me a lot of things, but one of her favourites is River-boy."
"How did you not drown?" Toby asked.
Jai shrugged. "I have vague memories. I must have been awake. I would have just kept my head up I suppose. Anyway, she didn't really help me, not on purpose anyway. I just followed her here to her den. It had an exposed entrance, and it was tiny, only enough for her to slip in and sleep. And that was when she was skinnier."
"She doesn't look too skinny." Cal said, and Toby nodded. Alma looked a fairly healthy weight, if not a little under, but that was normal considering the circumstances.
Jai shook his head darkly. "When I found her, I think she was just scavenging on dead fish and dino carcass'. She stank, and she was little more than fur on bones. I started getting her food, but she doesn't help. She occasionally goes off like last night, and I have to find her before she stumbles into deadly plants, which I've had to pull her from a few times. She doesn't realise she's in danger until it's almost too late, and once it's over," he snapped his claws, "she forgets the whole thing, or at least she doesn't talk about it."
"She's even crazier than Dad."
"Way more. The only thing she talks about is stars."
"She called me mars. What the hell is mars?"
"As far as I can tell, some stars have names, but she says things like 'Jupitar', and I'll ask which star that is, and she whacks me and says 'not a star silly', but bloody doesn't tell me what it is."
"Jupitar!" Alma exclaimed, seeming to only hear that only word out of the whole conversation "Lord of the Giants, with a wound as red as blood, swirling mass of strength."
"Cooooooool." Cal said, eyeing the female warily. "She havin' a dig at me?"
"Nope. She doesn't know a thing about us. Just what she interprets through her weird stars."
"Weird."
"Totally."
"So, what about you?" Cal turned, her voice accusatory. "What about that?" She indicated with her spear to his side.
He sighed. "That's a long story."
"It's not exactly like I've got to get home before dinner."
His mouth twitched up in amusement, ignoring the venom in his sister's voice. "Alright."
"After I had helped Alma out a bit, digging her a bigger den, putting the trap door over it, and starting to learn all about this side of the mountains, I took us north a little for a few days, and ended up finding something…horrible.
I'm glad Dad never got to this side of the mountains. The lands sick. Really, really sick. The plants are poisonous, dying, or bitter and inedible. And the dinos are dead, dying, or going insane with the sickness. I drank some water from a pond, but it was too late when I realised it was wrong. So wrong. I hoped it would just make me sick, but it would have just been too easy I suppose. After a week there was dark patch the size of a fist. After a month it was over most of my side."
"But you've been gone for four months. Shouldn't it be all over you?" Cal asked.
"Yes, and I should be dead like so many of the other creatures I found with the same thing. But I found a cure."
He looked intensely at Calamity. "That's why I can't leave. It's spreading further and further south every week, and it's going to get to our side if I don't find a way to stop it."
"In case you hadn't noticed bro, there's a whole mountain range between them."
"That's what I thought too, but to the East there's a break in the mountains, about fifty klicks across. It's enough for it to get through. I've been working on ways of stopping it but, it's just not enough." He reached behind him and grabbed a wooden cube, but pulled the top off, revealing that it was hollow inside. There was a dried plant in it, and it stunk, when dried plants usually didn't. "This is what's causing it. I don't know where it's originally from, but its roots secrete a poison and it's getting into the still water systems. Rivers seem to be okay, that's why Alma and I stick around here. Small, slow streams are bad though."
"Okay." She didn't move towards him, just looked at him from where she stood. "You wanna stop it?"
"If you could see what it would do to home, Cal, you would want to stop it too."
Cal looked away, crossing her arms and fidgeting. After a little while of chewing on her lip, the turned back to him.
"Fine." She looked at Toby over her shoulder. "You in?"
He shrugged. "What else do I have to do?"
"You could watch Alma," Jai answered, "she tends to wander."
"No thanks."
Cal smiled at Toby, then turned to her brother with a harsher expression. She wasn't going to let him off easily.
"So how did you cure yourself? What's the cure?"
"It's Barberry, and Milkvetch root juice mixed together. It took me ages to get it right, but it worked. I haven't had to be re-dosed either. I've been measuring it's spread since I noticed it, and since I got the last formula, it hasn't spread at all, and that was a good two months ago."
"Cool, so where do we get it?"
Jai sighed. "Sit down."
Calamity glared at him, then reluctantly plonked down next to her brother. Toby stayed found a tall rock nearby, and perched on it in the crouched way that a rat typically sat. Cal couldn't help watching him for a little while as he rotated his ears and slowly scanned the jungle in a full cycle.
She looked away before she got distracted from her brother's explanation.
"It's extinct down here."
Cal's head turned so fast that's he felt her neck muscle wrench in protest. "What? How do you know for sure?"
"Because I've had to scour the bottom of the mountains for just the one plant that I managed to get. It was the only one. I suspect that it fell from the above ground world and grew where it fell. The ground around it was barren, it only managed just to take to the bad soil. Even the seeds didn't spread. I've been searching every day, sometimes going for days and weeks at a time, but there's none."
Cal put her head in her paws. "How did you even consider it, if it wasn't even here? What do we do?"
"I knew it could be a possible cure because it's related to goldenseal. Mum told me about it. Goldenseal grows down here but she'd never seen a Barberry."
Cal sat up with a grin. "Then why don't we just find some-,"
"I already tried Goldenseal Cal. It slowed it down but it didn't stop it."
Cal deflated again. "Then what do we do? They're plants right, they can be pulled out?"
"Yes, but it takes a lot of work. The roots are fibrous, and they can grow back if enough of the plant is left in the ground. If we manage to pull them out, we'll have to burn them."
Cal snorted. "Good luck with that, the rains are coming."
"Even I know how to maintain a fire in the rain, Cal, and so do you."
Cal rubbed her head. "Okay. So, can it be transferred from the dinos who have it?"
"Yes, if they bite. I saw it while looking for the Barberry."
"Dammit." Calamity muttered to herself. "So we need to not only dig all the plants up and burn them, but find enough Barberry to cure the affected dinos." She looked back towards Toby, but he wasn't paying attention. He was having to keep an eye on the jungle and also one on Alma, who seemed to have found a game on throwing small nut shells at him. If he was quick enough, he could dodge them or bat them away, but it was hard while also keeping watch.
Jai took a deep breath. "The Barberry might be extinct down here, but I know where they are."
Cal looked at him out the corner of her eye, and he glanced at her, then glanced away.
"You're not joking. You really mean that you intend to go up there."
"I do."
Cal saw Toby's attention change from where he was sitting.
"The above ground world? A place we've never been. We don't know it up there! If we don't freeze, we'll just die of starvation!"
"Cal, you crossed the mountains knowing that you might die doing it. You didn't know what was going to be over here. You took that risk. If you want to help me, you have to take this one."
Cal hung her head again, then stood and started pacing.
Toby leaped from his rock naturally and came towards her.
He stood in her path, and before she was going to step around him gracefully, he held up his paws. Realizing what Toby was thinking, she steadied her stance, and he steadied his, then she lifted her paws to chin level in fists, and then started battering at his paws with her fists.
"Uhhh, what are you doing?" Jai asked, watching the scene with confusion.
"I can't think. This helps." Cal answered shortly. After a few more hits, her brain was working again.
"Alright, we go get the cure first. Plants can't grow as fast as dinos can travel. If any cross that pass and spread it below the mountain range, it could be too late. The only problem is how we're going to survive up there. We don't even know where to find it."
"I also have to collect enough to finish the job in one go, or bring down seeds to grow it here." Jai said. A pattern was emerging between them.
"Once we've collected enough, you make up your weird potion, and we go separate ways on pterosaurs and give it to as many dinos as we find with it. How did you take it?"
"I only needed to swallow it. I might have to trial it on dinos at first to see if they need a stronger dose."
Cal nodded, feeling her skin heat up beneath her fur from her exercise. She was throwing in extra moves occasionally, like a high kick or elbow, and Toby himself was starting to move away from her, dodge some hits, or hit back and make her block before she was able to advance again.
"And then, we go get Dad and the others. As many mammals as we can who will help us. We'll fly back through the pass."
Jai's face twisted with many emotions. "Why?! Can't we manage on our own-."
"No, and you know it. I'm meant to be the stupid one here Jai, not you. Jeez. If we're going to dig up hundreds o' these evil-ass plants, we need Mum and Dad's help, and the rest too. Rufus is strong, Ruby too. And Toby here can probably rip them up by hand." To prove her point, she put all her power into her next right swing, but Toby caught it with barely a quiver in his arm. They stayed like that for a moment, signalling the end of their match, and then both let their arms drop, Cal slightly panting, but there was no evidence that Toby had been affected from the work.
Jai made a face, but nodded. "You're right. Sorry, I wasn't thinking straight."
"No, you were thinking about how mad Mum and Dad would be when you see them again."
Jai looked away. "Yeah. So, we have a plan?"
"More or less." Cal set down in the dirt.
"We do have another problem though." Toby said, and the siblings turned their attention to him. He hadn't spoken in a long while. "How do we navigate? We all know how it works down here, but up there, there's a horizon, and changing sky's."
"Well, the sun rises in the East and sets in the west. Dad says it's even easier on clear days."
"Exactly. Clear days. Up there, there's going to be snow and cloudy days. Then what? Plus, the fact that we could be turned around at night."
For the first time in months, Cal heard her brother laugh. The sound startled her, and she looked at him, alarmed.
"Actually, night would be even easier than day." Jai said.
Both Cal and Toby frowned at each other. Jai stood from where he was sitting and shook out his fur. "Come on, I'll show you something. Alma, stop playing with that Wait-a-while, seriously."
Alma stopped poking at the vines that had spikes bigger than her claws, and bounced over with a grin. "Are we going to see them, River-boy?"
"Uhuh. You lead the way."
Alma clapped her paws excitedly, then dived into the open door to the den. Jai indicated for Cal and Toby to follow, and they dropped into it reluctantly, being unused to the confined space. Jai closed the hatch after them as he came down himself. It took a few moments for Cal's eyes to adjust. Jai had dug small enough holes into the top of the den to let in some more light, and she was able to follow an excited Alma much easier than she would have without the aiding light.
She followed her down a sloping tunnel, where it got darker and darker until it was too deep to carve the lights. Eventually, she had to slow to a stop, and allow Toby to brush past her so he could lead. He grabbed her paw to lead the way, and she gripped on tight, staying close to him. Normally, she wouldn't even hold paws with her mother, but Toby was different. It seemed he was an exception to everything she had thought she was like.
Eventually, she was led to the left into what she knew was a chamber, and her eyes burned for a moment as she got used to the light.
There was a small fire burning in a pit, and a strange stone suspended above the flame with a wooden stand. The stone was clear as water, and sharply angled, reflecting the fire's light across the ceiling. There, dozens of stones like the ones Alma had been playing with outside, were embedded into the walls and ceiling. The room seemed to be a perfect dome, it must have taken Jai a week to get it right, and it was huge. Cal was able to turn in a full circle, over and over and over again, twirling in the strange…starlight.
"Stars? Is this what they look like?" Cal asked dreamily. It almost scared her. The abyss around her, even though she knew the walls were only a dozen steps away.
"I think so. I don't know why, and I don't know how, but Alma seems to have the night sky all locked completely in her head. I was going to go above ground in a few days with just her and do as we planned, because she's made this. I've managed to find a few significant stars, some in the North, a few in the East." Jai nodded to himself, his leathery side reflecting some of the reflected light. "We can do it."
Cal looked at Toby, and laughed at how funny he looked. He looked at her and smiled.
"What?"
"Look at your coat."
His fur and eyes were so dark that they reflected part light around them, and he looked like he was speckled in light.
He laughed, and did a spin. "Hm, does it suit me?"
"Definetely." Cal laughed, then turned back to her brother.
"So, we're really doing this?"
Jai nodded, looking around, as Alma babbled to herself in the background. "Yep, we have to."
"We're saving the world?"
"Looks like."
Cal grinned. "Sweet."
They spent hours in the chamber, Jai telling them what he could get out of Alma about the stars, and putting their knowledge of the above-ground world together from what Buck, Adrian and Ivory had told them.
When they climbed up to the surface again, it was already night, Cal was yawning every thirty seconds, and Alma had already fallen asleep hours ago, snoring loudly and muttering several now-familiar astrology terms in her dreams.
"Jeez, I'm so tired. I'm going to bed." Cal said, stumbling towards the log she and Toby had stayed in the night before. "You comin' Toby?"
"I need a drink, I'll be there in a minute." Toby said. Cal hesitated, then waved at them both tiredly.
Toby turned to go to the river, and Jai turned and walked with him.
"So, you've been travelling with Cal this whole time."
Toby smiled. "Yep."
"So how's that been?"
Toby pouted, thinking, remembering. The times they've dangled from clips, been strangled by ravenous plants, Cal having fights with raptors and kicking them out of trees, all in one day, and then falling exhausted into a pile that night, hungry and ragged.
Toby hung his head. "Exhausting."
"Oh." Then Jai smiled. "Well, that's my sister."
"She's been fine, it's the trip that's been exhausting."
"You believe that?" Jai said, looking at Toby sceptically.
Toby rubbed his temples. "Okay, you got me. She is too."
Jai laughed.
"But," Toby said, "It's worth it. None of it bothers me. She's just so full of life, sometimes it's hard to keep up."
Jai stopped in his tracks, and stared at Toby with wide eyes. Toby eventually stopped as well, and turned and looked at him.
"Jai? What is it?"
"You love her."
Toby sighed. "Maybe a crush. But I don't think it's l-,"
"Yes it is!" Jai said, looking horrified.
"How would you know?" Toby snapped, feeling a little frustrated, and a little uncomfortable. He really never expected to have this conversation, especially with Jai.
"Because Mum and Dad talk that way about each other. Sasha used to talk that way about Trudy. That's so weird."
"Hey, no offense Jai, but this kinda isn't your business." Toby muttered darkly.
Jai blinked, then calmed down. "Sorry, yeah. But I mean, it's my sister."
Toby continued walking, rubbing the back of his neck.
Is it that severe? I thought it would go away, but it just…hasn't.
Was 'it'…love? He didn't know. How could he?
"Look, I'm not going to talk about it." Toby said. He made it to the river, and took a drink, mainly so he didn't have to talk.
"I'm sorry that I brought it up, it just was kinda sudden."
Toby didn't answer. He finished drinking, then he washed his paws and turned to leave.
"I don't know what it is, but right now it's not important." He explained as he walked away. "It's just going to shake everything up, and we don't need that. We just found you again and Cal is unpredictable when she's confused, and I'm not going to be the person to do that to her. Goodnight."
He walked back to the log without saying anything more, or bothering to hear if Jai had a reply.
When he got back to the log, Cal was curled up inside. He sighed, and set down in the opening, trying not to look at her, but trying not to look away either.
He heard her shuffle, and she said tiredly, "Toby? What's up?"
"Huh? Nothing." He struggled with what to do next, but decided the best thing to do was act normally.
He crawled over to her, and nudged his neck beneath her head, tucking his paws beneath his head, and ignored the hammering in his heart.
