"Shh, Pounce, be quiet. I hear somefang. Stay here," I told my custodian before I crouched and swiftly crawled into the brush. I headed towards the intruders. No one ever really came into my territory, and when they did they'd have to deal we either me or Pounce. He was my ferocious yet snuggly meowbeast lusus that has two pretty mouths with many, many teeth. I couldn't imagine anything happening to him, especially if a stray cholerbear got to him! I wouldn't have been able to live with myself.
I continued to prowl through the woods and soon enough I saw the intruders. It was an adult troll and a younger one who looked about my age, probably four and a half sweeps. Old enough to start growing bigger horns. His are still really small. Mine look like Pounce's ears! I kept them in my sight for a bit, then decided to go in for the "kill". I wouldn't actually kill them, I'm only just five sweeps myself. Old enough to know how to write functionally.
I leapt out of my hiding spot and pounced on the young one, tackling him to the ground. He lets out a frightened yell as his hands scraped against the brush. The older one shouted and shoved me off, picking up the previously pounced on one and started to run off. Before she got anywhere though, I grabbed onto her dress and yanked her back. She seemed surprised by my strength and was taken aback, yanking her dress away.
"Wait miss. I'm pawsitively sorry for pouncing on him, but I couldn't help but wonder why you're in my neck of the woods," I told her. She stared at me with wide eyes for a bit before I noticed the younger troll she has in her arms was bleeding- bright red in fact. My eyes widened too because his arm was all mangled. "Oh my god, he's hurt!" I exclaimed, reaching out towards him. She pulled him away from me.
"Don't touch him," she shouted protectively.
"D-Dolorosa, it's okay," he said shakily, trying to sooth her.
"Look, I don't mean any harm. I can help! My hive is only a little ways away. Pounce and I have a lot of medical supplies, more than enough. He obviously needs to rest, I've been injured like that and Pounce wouldn't let me out of my 'coon for a week, and not out of the hive for a month! Please, just let me help," I pleaded, using my sad young meowbeast ganderbulbs to persuade her.
"Please please please‽" he questions. There was silence for a long second.
"Where's your hive? Does anyone else live nearby?" Dolorosa interrogated.
"I live in the middle of the woods, no one else is around. Just me and pounce!"
"…Okay, we can stay for a little while," she sighed. The younger one jumped for joy and then groaned in pain.
"My name's Meulin, what's yours?" I asked.
"I'm Kankri, and that's the Dolorosa. She's really nice. She takes care of me."
"Where's your lusus?" I questioned as we all started to walk in the direction of my hive.
"Uh… Where's yours?" he asked, avoiding my own inquiry.
"Somewhere around here," I stated then lifted my hands to my mouth and yelled POUNCE at the top of my air sacks. Kankri and the Dolorosa covered their hear ducts, the Dolorosa muttered something. Within a few moments, my mighty white fluffy lusus leapt through the bushes and tackled me to the ground and licked my face with both mouths.
"WHOA!" Kankri shouted, startled by the sudden appearance.
"I see where she got it from," the Dolorosa stated to him. He giggled.
I tried to wiggle out from underneath the huge purrbeast I called a custodian. Kankri was laughing his head off at the ridiculousness. After an excessive amount of struggle I finally got out and explained to Pounce what's going on then asked if Kankri could ride him the rest of the way back. He gave a curt nod and bowed to let Kankri get on him. It took quite the fuss but eventually we got him sitting up on the creature; we headed towards my hive. Eventually we arrived at the cave entrance, and I moved the boulder that stood in the way. He seemed impressed at my strength. I strutted into the cave and told them to wait out there for a moment. They almost looked worried as I leapt into the cavern and through the tunnel to get a torch so they could see. It took me a minute to locate it, but as soon as I found it I headed back out and into the night. It was during the bright season so it was really easy to see. Too warm in my opinion.
When I came back out of the cave, a look of relief flooded the Dolorosa's face. I lit the torch and showed them inside of the cave. It took a bit to actually get inside, but when we did I lit some of the gas lanterns and pointed everything out to the Dolorosa. Her eyes widened when she saw all of the food. I took Kankri over to where all the medical supplies were kept and made him lay his arm out on the table. Grabbing out a few splints, I reset his forearm and placed the splints around it to keep it in place. I used old bandages of mine that I'd washed to fix it. To make it so if someone stopped by they wouldn't get suspicious, I bit the tip of my left index finger and soaked the bandages with my blood a bit.
'Now people will think he has olive green blood just like me!' I thought.
"Hey, why are you doing that?" he questioned incredulously.
"So people won't be wondering what your blood is."
"But I don't have that color blood."
"Well a lot of people don't like bright red blood. Pounce was telling me this the other night. I don't know why they wouldn't though. I think it is soooooooo purrety!" I exclaimed, smiling a big cleft lip grin at him. Pounce thought it was cute and that's why he picked me.
"I-It's not that pretty," he blushed red. I just giggled at him.
"It's purrfect," I concluded, starting to put away my medical supplies. He just sat there with a little smile on his face as I walked out of the block. A pleasant smell assaulted my nose as I stepped out into the nutrition block. As I looked around, I saw the Dolorosa placing some of my meat from the hunt near the fire. "Hey, what are you doing‽" I exclaimed in distress.
"I am cooking some of this meat you have stored up," she calmly stated.
"What's cooking?"
"Heating it up so you don't get sick when you eat it."
"I've nefur gotten sick."
"You eat it raw‽"
"Of course I do, there's no other way to do it that I know."
"Well just try it. Where are your spices?"
"What are those?"
"They make things taste better."
"Nofang tastes better than raw meat."
She didn't respond.
'I win.'
I walked into the other room to in time to see Kankri digging through my art supplies. I let out a loud hiss. "Hey! That's mine!" I shouted. He looked up at me with wide eyed with a worried face. He put up his one good hand and apologized profusely. I quickly rushed over and started to put everything back where it was beforehand. I had it all organized by order of color and my paintbrushes by size and it took me almost five minutes to put it all back. Kankri kept saying he was sorry. "Will you shut up?" I asked him, trying to stay calm. "I get you're sorry but you're super annoying when you do that."
He fell silent, then looked down out of shame and started crying quietly. "Nooooooooooo, don't cry, Kankri, I didn't mean it, okay?" I ran up and hugged him. He hugged me back with his one good arm and buried his face into my shoulder getting it all wet. "Kankri, I'm sorry…"
He sniffled a bit before responding, "Do you still think I'm pretty…?"
I giggled a bit saying, "yes I still think you're pretty, Kankritter."
"K-Kankritter?" he sputtered. Even though I couldn't see his face (we were hugging, remember?) I still knew his face is flushed.
"Yeah, I added a cat pun to your name!" I exclaimed. Oh boy did I love cat puns.
"Okay…" he trailed off and I kept giggling.