Thistle blinked at the odd request. "I suppose"

"Why not?" SlipLock shrugged.

"All right, we'll make you a deal. If we go and find your daughter, Dappledew stays with you," Thistle proposed, eyeing a strawberry on SlipLock's plate hungrily. The ottermaid sighed and plopped it on Thistle's plate.

"That sounds all right. Unless, of course, we" Omory started, but he was interrupted by his wife's joyful exclamations.

"REALLY? Dearie me, she's been lost for days, we've looked everywhere, everywhere, mind you!" Ditia whipped out a flowered handkerchief and blew her nose.

Thistle was already making plans. "Right, we'll leave at dawn and then circle the burrow looking for clues. If we find any, we'll proceed in that direction while keeping a steady eye out for any more clues"

SlipLock sighed. "This is gonna be a loooooong night."

~***~

Edela Darengton sat on a stone, basking in the morning sunlight. The trees seemed friendly in this place. The spacious gaps between them were filled with a rainbow of flowers, and the birdsong wasn't just chirping, it was music. She refused to believe she was lost in sucha pretty place, though deep down she knew she was. All she'd wanted to do was go and pick some pretty flowers for her motherwell, there were plenty of flowers here.

Cracking sounds issued from somewhere nearby, and Edela clutched her bunny-doll tighter. "Wanna" she whimpered.

"Why's that?" A brown muzzle tapering into rust colored fur thrust itself out of a nearby bush. A fox! Paralyzed with fear, Edela curled herself up in a ball and sniffed. "Don' be scared, I ain't gonna hurtcha," the fox said, and he squirmed out of the bush.

He was no older than she was! The battered tunic and earring dangling from one ear gave him a mischievous, wild appearance. "Who're you?" she asked, gathering up her courage.

"I'm Oster. What's your name?" Oster looked curiously at her.

"IAlede?" That was her own name backwards. Edela still didn't trust the young fox. She turned her head sharply when she caught a twitch of movement out of the corner of her eye. The rabbit witnessed two more foxes materialize beside Oster.

"I told you, he wasn't to be trusted. He could've stolen from that young'un over there!" the older, slightly plumper one exclaimed.

"But Zest, he's so cute, and he can play the tamborine so well!" the other one grinned. Sure enough, Edela saw a tamborine clutched in Oster's paw that she hadn't noticed before. She turned her gaze to the other two.

Zest looked quite formidable with a fencing sabre hanging from her right paw. Her brown skirt billowed out from her blue bodice, and there was a red scarf tied jauntily around her head. The other fox was slim and pretty, with all sorts of bangles adorning her wrists. Her skirts didn't billow, they glided, and all of her movements were graceful. The same sort of red scarf was also tied around her head.

"Sorry, dear, about Oster, was he botherin' you? If he was, I'll chop his paw off," Zest said, glancing at Oster and twirling her sabre menacingly.

"You can't! Then he couldn't play the tamborine, and then what would I dance to?" The pretty fox stomped her footpaw.

"I can, and I will, Torynia, if he doesn't stop wandering off!"

Edela just sat on her stone, watching the whole exchange wide eyed. She then remembered Zest had directed a question to her. "No" Zest nodded.

"You lost then?"

"How can you be so kind to her, and yet not to Oster?" Torynia wrapped her arms around a slyly grinning Oster.

"He's a little thief, and I don't take kindly to 'em. I met enough at the tavern!" Zest glared, and Torynia seemed to know that there was no point in arguing any further. "We'll make camp here, and darling," here she gave a kind glance to Edela, "you can eat breakfast with us, if you'd like." Edela just nodded, and clambered down from her perch.

~***~

"Right, her name's Edela, she was last seen wearing a white dress and blue pinafore, she's got speckledy tan fur," Thistle said, ticking off each item on her paw. "She went out of the burrow and straight into the woods, and she never came back. This was three days ago, correct?" Ditia and Omory nodded.

"You be good, Dappledew," called SlipLock as they walked out the door. Thistle's eyes lit up as they passed a rowan tree.

"Lookit there, some pawprints! Did you know that the rowan tree's a deciduous tree, and it's part of the rose family, and"

"This, be quiet, I don't particularly want to learn about the rowan tree," SlipLock said, rolling her eyes.

"Are otters' noses good for smelling? Maybe you could sniff Edela out, I'm sure it would be easier than wandering willynilly all over the forest."

"No."

"Then we'll just have to rely on my sharp wit and keen logic to figure out where she is!"

"We're doomed."