"I don't like it up here."
"Shh. I think I see him!"
Taro was stock-still, clutching the wood so tightly his knuckles were white, while Koto squirmed with excitement on the limb above him. This was all her idea, and he wasn't happy about going along with it, but when she got that look in her eyes, it was hard to say no. She always said he didn't get out and do things enough, and maybe she was right. She certainly had a way of making him feel guilty.
But he hadn't expected this idea to take him twenty feet off the ground in a huge magnolia tree, and now that he saw how far the ground was from where he was, he was starting to have second thoughts.
She had said they were going to hide and play a trick on their father when he came back later. He was always playing tricks on them, and they had to get him back. Taro didn't like tricks. He never saw what was so fun about them. Koto was convinced that she was going to show him they could be fun, but this certainly had yet to be very fun.
Koto was leaning down on her limb. "Here he comes," she whispered, growing still. "Ready?"
He nodded, swallowing the lump of fear in his throat.
"Now!" she hissed, and he could feel her energy at work. He joined it with his, and a root at their father's feet lifted, causing him to stumble before he righted himself and started laughing.
Taro was laughing, too. "We did it, Koto!" He looked up at her just in time to see her eyes rolling back in her head and her tiny body slipping from the limb.
It was a split second too late.
She hit some smaller limbs on the way down, waking her just enough to scream before her inevitable drop to unforgiving ground.
Fox kit keening filled his ears.
"What were you doing that high up?" their mother shrieked. His ears were pinned back, attempting to block out the panicked, furious cries and Koto's pained wails.
"I don't know," he managed, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Their father was already tending to Koto's injuries with every plant they had available. She would be fine, he said. It was just an accident. But that didn't make their mother any less upset, or Taro's guilty feelings any less prominent.
It was while before either of them climbed any trees again, but he never again saw Koto climbing more than two limbs high, just as she never again used her energy while in the trees. He was content with that.