The four sat around a fire on mossy rocks. Torynia was busy cooking pancakes, and Zest was setting out apples and cheese. Oster sat beside Edela, entertaining the small rabbit with stories of his adventures.

Edela found herself relaxing in the foxes' company. They, for the most part, were jolly and kind. Zest was intolerant of thieves, fighting, lying, and cheating, as she soon learned when the vixen told off Oster for trying to take one of Torynia's bangles.

"I don't mind, honestly!" Torynia protested. Edela giggled suddenly, and Zest turned her cool gaze to the rabbit.

"What's so funny?" Zest asked. She then turned her head in Oster's direction, and she caught him making silly faces. "Aha, our little troublemaker thief."

"How'd he get to you, anyway?" Edela shocked herself by asking this, but soon was eagerly interested in Zest's story

~***~

A season earlier

The tiny town was called Seabrink for a reason. It was on the edge of the shore, where the water meets the land. If you wanted, you could exit the sandy streets of the town and go for a dip in the nearby sea. Lines of market stalls full of glittering wares snaked along the edges of the town. Rickety houses were clustered in the middle, as if the inhabitants were afraid of the pirates that frequently docked there.

Zest Mansam walked the streets of the harbor town. Her posture was upright, her head facing forward, and she acted like she owned the place. She couldn't help scowling, though, at a young fox snatching a gold necklace from a beast in front of them. The fox just grinned cheekily at her and ran off, a tambourine in his hand jingling after him.

The vixen despised openly dishonest people. If you went about your business more subtly, though, she could respect the cleverness and scheming involved. Her former job, though, required neither of those. Just brute force.

She was a tavern maid. Serving drinks wouldn't satisfy her alone, but keeping the peace was a job she was born to do. Any brawlers or rabble-rousers immediately fell victim to Zest's ready blade. She didn't kill them. She just chopped off one of their paws, a necessity for a corsair or soldier.

Zest, however, didn't feel satisfied with her job. So she followed in her mother's footsteps, and ran away. The tavern would be well kept by her father and siblings. She then met Torynia, a talented dancer, and they formed their own act. Zest would do swordplay and beat time while Torynia danced. They usually earned enough valuables to buy food and drink to last them until the next town.

A sudden hiss of, "Damn it, Zest, you're late!" caught the vixen's attention. She submitted to being dragged down an alleyway by a slim, pretty vixen.

"Torynia, you're just going to dance on the street, what on earth is the hurry?" said Zest.

"It's the concept o' the thing!"

Zest sighed. "Well, get out there and start!" Before Torynia went, Zest grabbed her red headscarf and straightened it. "There."

Torynia headed off to beside a stall and began to twist and contort her body into daunting positions. A warm-up, she called it. If Zest didn't know better, she would have called it torture.

That in itself gathered a crowd of watchers, including, much to Zest's chagrin, the little fox thief. She watched Torynia start to slowly dance to the music forever echoing inside her head (so she told Zest, who was a bit skeptical of this). The vixen didn't draw her sword quite yet, wanting to witness which routine Torynia decided to do.

And then, a lone jingle began to beat in time to Torynia's dancing. The vixen was surprised at first, and then her eyes lit up as she saw the little fox tapping the tambourine with his paw. She danced with a will, and kept up with the fast paced tambourine music. Zest was so enthralled with the music that she didn't realize where it was coming from.

They earned more valuables that day than they had before in a week. After their impromptu show, Torynia rushed up to the little fox and hugged him.

"Oh, Zest, can we keep him?"

Zest blinked as she saw what had made the music, and murmured a rainbow of choice language.

~***~

"So you let him come with you?" Edela asked, grinning at Oster.

"Yep, that's about right. I wish we hadn't, though," said Zest.

"You know you love the little rascal," smiled Torynia.

"I love him as much as I love blood-sucking leeches. Maybe a bit less, to tell the truth."

~***~

Thistle was skipping happily along in the forest, pointing out all of the trees and prattling on about their various medicinal uses and such. That is, until she spied a trail of rabbit footprints in the loamy ground.

"Aha, judging by the size of these prints, I'd say that we're dealing with a young female rabbit, four seasons old," mused Thistle.

"Yes, we knew that, as Ditia told us this 'fore we left," said SlipLock.

"You're ruining the moment."

"I do what I can."

They went along awhile longer, SlipLock restraining herself from banging her head against a tree at the insufferableness of her friend.

"Halt, stop, cease, pause, rest, desist!" called the mousemaid, her pink nose twitching. "Do you smell food, sustenance, vittles, nourishment, pabulum?"

"Why do simple sentences need a buncha words that mean the same thing?" SlipLock crossed her arms and sent Thistle a mock look.

"Because it's fun, obviously, why else would I waste my brilliance upon such lowlife as yourself?"

"Um'cause I'm your friend?"

"RRrgh. Anyway, I smell something," said Thistle, glaring right back.

"Uhhuh. Well, I s'pose we should"

"Examine what is aromatizing from ahead?"

"Whate'er that means, yes."

The maids crept forward, Thistle silent for once, and hid behind a leafy raspberry bush. They espied three foxes sitting around a fire with a rabbit. "They've rabbitnapped her!" hissed Thistle. "On three, we jump out and fight the foxes to the death for the babe! One, two, THREE!"

SlipLock stood up quickly and at the exact same time as Thistle. The ottermaid lifted her arm automatically, knocking Thistle headfirst into the bush.

"YAAAAGH! ALL RIGHT, FOXES! Even though I'm incapacitated at the moment, I'm not afraid to rip your stomach out with my bare hands! Fear my wrath!"

"Excuse 'er, she's having a temporary personality issue a' the moment."

"I do TOO rip out stomachs!"

"More likely to make beasts vomit in boredom!"

"I'll get you for that, Slip!"

"If you can do that to the bush, I'd hate to think of what you'd do to me!"

"Sarcasm! Sarcasm, BLATANT sarcasm!"

The four around the fire turned around to witness the odd scene playing out in front of them.