The first place they had in mind was the large watering hole that the other animals usually flocked to daily. But, once they arrived, it was nothing like they had pictured the day prior. The big freeze began to settle in as the shivering fox rubbed his paws together and hopped off Roz's shoulder.
"Brrrr! Is this place even habitable?" Fink shuddered, the chilly climate tingling up his arched spine.
He and Roz looked up ahead at the large ice-cold lake. Its current state was a barely freezing body of water that could numb even the thickest coats of fur. Various swarms of fish and other sea creatures were still swimming around, but some of them were frozen in the deeper ends. It was a sad, desolate excuse of a place.
Fink lifted a paw and gently dipped it into the flowing water before pulling it out instantly, shaking it dry with a chatter in his teeth. "Yeesh! That's the coldest prickle I've felt in a long time!" He then turned to face Roz with his tail wrapped around his legs and quickly asked, "You think you could make this lake a little warmer?"
Her glassy eyes quickly scanned the lake with a ding before reporting, "According to my calculations, my heating mechanisms would take an impossibly long time to finish the warming process. Even so, if this job were to be completed, the warmth would only last for just a few minutes."
"Wow, and we had a whole day planned just for ourselves," Fink's eyes closed as he wiped some crocodile tears with a flick of his bushy tail. Then, his stomach growled loudly, and his floppy ears drooped with a bashful look of hunger. He promptly regained his composure and proudly proclaimed, "Oh, well. We can always just skip to the next…"
Before he could escape, Roz extended her flexible arm and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.
"Argh, what the…I wasn't trying to run off, I swear!" Fink protested, his nimble legs now flailing in the air.
He was then unwillingly pinned to the ground by her tight grip.
"That's alright. We can always try someplace else," she now dragged his back against the dry, shriveled dirt under constant surveillance.
His lips trilled with an exasperated sigh and a piercing scowl on his weary face. "Whatever you say, Roz."
This time, they tried out someplace else located closer to the shore where the loud ocean waves crashed against the tall rocky cliffs. Roz scanned the area with her optical lens while Fink explored the narrow streams of water and occasionally dodged a few broken tree branches. She searched for smaller wet areas until they eventually found a semi-large water basin that flowed directly into the wavy ocean.
Fink hopped across the drippy stony paths and sniffed the air before his nose wrinkled in disgust. "Ugh, saltwater."
As the oceanic waves surfed over the sandy coast, Roz made a few minor adjustments to reform it into the shape of a pool. She used her extendable arms to transfer large blocks of limestone and formed a thick barrier that sealed off the water flow, creating her own makeshift lagoon. A blue checkmark pinged in her blue-tinted display, and she placed her hands on her hips with a heightened sense of success.
"Now, this is much easier to work with," Roz said with anticipation.
In the meantime, Fink caught up not too long afterward and stood beside her legs. "Have you finally found the one?"
Roz nodded.
"Ooh! Alright, then, let's see you work your magic," he held his paws together as she charged up her laser.
She pointed a finger directly at the body of water and waited for a bit until it shot a long, red beam that reached down to the deep end. As he continued to eye the glowing blend of red-blue hues in the water for the next few minutes, some steam finally evaporated from the cold mist.
"Ok, I think that should be enough," Fink said.
Roz followed his directive and halted the process before he added to his request by stating, "Hmm, let me check first."
She stood patiently as he raised his paw and dipped his toes in the water. His golden eyes almost immediately widened and nodded a bit as he sank his front leg deeper until it was knee-deep.
While he took his time swirling a whirlpool with his leg in the water and humming to himself, her scanners detected some mixed signals from his emotional wavelengths. Roz was left confused with some tiny orange blinkers signaling between her eyes, unsure whether Fink was satisfied with the heated pool or not.
Eventually, he pulled out his drenched leg and stared at her directly with a tiny smirk and his ears folded back. Roz knew straight away what that look meant.
"Um, actually, it's still a little bit cold." Fink sniveled with a sly grin.
Without warning, her laser reactivated instantly, nearly grazing the white tip of his tail. Fink yelled a high-pitched whine and pulled it away just in the nick of time.
"Hey! Watch it!" Fink embraced and caressed his delicate appendage.
After waiting for another minute or so, Roz stopped her heating contraption once the measured temperature reached over a hundred degrees. "There. Is this now satisfactory?"
Fink's ears perked up with a soft gasp now that the whole pool was emitting large clouds of steam. The nervous fox hesitantly looked down at his hazy reflection from the pool, for he could feel the hot steam alone spread deep down to his bare skin. He dipped his toes once again but retracted them quickly with a loud pained hiss through his sharp teeth.
"Aah! Now, it's too hot!" he yelled with a sweltering sensation in his feet.
Roz heaved a heavy agitated sigh and rolled her eyes, her voice growing increasingly annoyed. "Please just make up your mind."
"Ugh, fine," he grumbled.
He pondered for a moment if the scalding hot warmth would be worth the risk of burns. But, at the same time, anything would be better than the cold, frigid climate that clashed against the hot temperature of the water. He ultimately decided to take a leap of faith and dive headfirst into the pool. Her eyelids blinked a few times with expectancy as she sat and waited patiently until he resurfaced, spraying a mouthful of water.
"Oh, this is perfect, mmm!" Fink moaned, fully laid back.
Fink resubmerged his head in the water for a brief second before popping out of the water again. "It's a bit shallow, but this works just fine."
"Glad to hear that," Roz answered with an accomplished tone. "Phase one is now complete."
"Wow! It's just like a hot spring. Soooo relaxing," Fink paddled around with his paws in a soothing voice.
Her illuminated stripes glowed a myriad of rainbow colors with an audible jingle like one of his phrases activated her cybernetics. "Phase one is now incomplete. There is still one missing component that will make this experience even more relaxing."
"Oh, yeah? And what would that be?" Fink tilted his head in confusion, now leaning his soaked back against the edge.
Roz ejected one of her glowing hands from her wrist which crawled with its fingertips on the sand and plunged down the edge of the pool. After that, it latched all of its fingers into the rocky crevices right below his back.
Fink felt a tiny tickle from behind and asked, "What are you—woah!"
A large jet stream pumped out from her wrist, the small motor filling the heated water with large bursts of bubbles. The sudden blast shocked Fink at first, and he gritted his teeth from the high pressure as the water slowly turned into a tingly bubble pit. The powerful surge also shifted the flow of the water, which affected the temperature quite a bit.
"Are you trying to boil me alive?!" Fink panicked, his widened eyes facing her directly.
"Please remain calm," she assured him with a soft voice and raised a hand. "It won't hurt, I promise."
Fink had always trusted her as the expert with all these weird new technologies, so he knew it was better to just remain still and let it simmer. As the jet stream continued to spread further, his back slowly but surely began to feel deeply massaged. Shortly after, he became fully relaxed with a lax feeling he had never felt before in his body. Even his tail laid still from how restful he was.
"I don't know what this is, but I love it," Fink slurred his words with his eyes closed.
"When you referred to it as a hot spring, my vocabulary interpreted it as a jacuzzi, also known as a hot tub," Roz explained her new process.
"A hot tub, huh?" Fink raised his eyebrows. "Ooh, very hot, indeed."
"And it wouldn't be complete without underwater jets of water to simulate an oceanic water flow."
Some of the larger bubbles popped as Fink gave another relaxed sigh and sunk his head deeper underwater, gurgling, "Oh, that's nice!"
But, he slipped down too fast and snapped out of his trance. A small, air-filled gurgle floated to the surface as he stuck out his head again to catch his breath. Fink shook off some of the damp clumps of fur near his eyes and noticed Roz still sitting on a heavy stone, alone. He plopped his chin on the sandy surface and sighed before looking up at Roz.
"Say, you wanna hop in for a bit?" Fink tapped the warm water near the edge, offering her to sit next to him. "There's still room for one more,"
"No thanks," Roz answered. "The abrupt change in heat would cause my wire harnesses to overheat. And after I reexpose myself to the outer temperature, it would lead to severe frosting of my metal exterior."
"Oh, well. Suit yourself," he shook his head without a single understanding of her inner workings.
He laid on his back once again and let himself get lost in his deep thoughts as his mind wandered off back to the past. He cracked a little smile as he recalled all the amusing interactions he had with Roz, learning a lot about her unorthodox ways of living. Fink also snickered from that one time he pulled a prank on that eastern grey squirrel.
But, when that little gosling came back to mind, all of those memories he usually looked back fondly now had a tinge of aching longing to them. The lack of Brightbill's presence just couldn't escape his mind. All those little quirks that he usually found annoying, he now had a new sense of appreciation for them. Why was that?
He looked at Roz, and, to his surprise, she was staring blankly as well! Her cyan eyes gazed off into the distant skies, which he could've sworn had a paler shade than usual. Was she thinking of something similar? To test that theory, he tried striking up a conversation by bringing up the subject of the little gosling that could.
"Brightbill would've loved this," Fink sighed with a wide grin, which hid his aching pain from their son.
"Yes, he would have, now that he knows how to swim properly," Roz answered, her glowing stripes subtly blending with pink just from hearing his name alone.
"Oh! Remember when I used to teach him how to swim here?" he chuckled to himself, recalling the dropkick he attempted.
"Yes, and that was not even the proper way," she replied with a half-hearted chuckle. "Your mother has a very peculiar way of teaching you how to swim. I was also wondering, is it common for foxes to learn to swim this way?"
"I'm not sure, actually," Fink's voice trailed off as the floodgates opened and all the childhood memories came flowing back in. "When I was young, there weren't many of us on this island back then. It was just me, my siblings, and my mom. She taught me everything I knew about surviving on this island."
With her curiosity piqued, she leaned forward and asked, "What was your mother like?"
Fink's demeanor immediately flipped like a switch, his ginger muzzle curving down to a frown. "She was probably the only one on this island who even remotely loved me. I was the smallest kit of the litter, and my siblings despised me just for existing. My mom treated me like a runt but never called me one directly. Said it sounded too patronizing."
Roz was taken aback by this new knowledge, and her bright eye lens shrank with a mix of compassion and pity.
Her voice softened as she droned, "Really? I-I can't seem to detect any mutations."
"Yeah, well, on the surface, I may just look like just a normal fox or apex predator, but you have no idea what it's like being compared to your family right when you're born."
Roz placed a hand on her round chin as she thought back to Longneck explaining her son's role as a runt which she described as defective. Even she was referred to by "Rummage" as that surprisingly derogatory term.
"When I was born, my mom held me up and said, 'You look like a fink!'" he imitated his mother's demeanor. "That's how I got my name."
"No wonder. I've always found your mom's methods to be quite…neurotic."
"You've got that right. She was…ruthless!" Fink shuddered at the thought of her former training methods alone. "Sometimes, I still get nightmares of drowning to this day."
"Swim!"
In one swift kick, a young Fink flew high in the air, screaming his lungs out, and splashed into the shallow waters. His mother, along with his brother and sister stood alongside the edge of the water as they saw some tiny bubbles floating above the water. Soon enough, Fink resurfaced albeit for a brief moment before sinking again.
"Mama! Help–blrb!" Fink shouted, who could barely get any words out before his short muzzle submerged underwater.
His brother, about a foot taller than him, asked impatiently, "How long are we gonna keep waiting for?"
"Shush!" his mom pinched his mouth shut with a hushed voice.
His sister, who was about the same size as the bigger brother also whined, "Mom, I'm hungry. Can't we just let him be?"
"No! We will keep on waiting until your little brother figures it out!" Fink's mom shouted in frustration. "Do I need to repeat myself?"
"But, he's just a–" he argued.
"Uh-uh, we don't use that word around here," she shushed him again.
"Aww!" his dark brown lips pouted with an angry huff while his mom stuck her head over the water to check for any sign of Fink.
"Come on! Keep your head up!" his mom demanded with desperation.
Meanwhile, Fink struggled to resurface and keep his head above the water. No matter how hard he tried to thrash around his legs, he sank even deeper and began to run out of breath. Eventually, his legs gave out, and he exhaled his last air-filled breath with some of the water now burning deep down in his lungs. His body went limp, and his eyes closed for the last time. Or so he thought.
"Oh, for crying out loud!" a muffled yell echoed from outside the water.
A large splash caved in through the depths of the sea after something in her instincts kicked in. She swooped in and grabbed his neck by the jaws before pushing herself upward to the surface and tossing his unconscious body onto the dirt.
"Is he dead yet?" he gasped with a glimmer of hope.
Not even a second later, Fink violently coughed his lungs out, spewing out what appeared to be many ounces of water. His bigger brother groaned loudly and then Fink shook his drenched fur coat dry, which had a lighter shade of red compared to the rest of his family.
"Aw, man. I thought he drowned for real this time." his sister said loudly for everyone to hear.
Fink gasped with fright at that grim remark and ran to hide behind his mother's legs, which still shivered from the soaked fur. His siblings stuck out their tongues at him, disregarding his well-being.
"Shorty!" he jeered.
"Runt!" she sneered.
A mother's deadly glare ensued.
"Uh, I mean, wimp!" she reiterated with a different insult.
Fink's mother sighed deeply and kicked him away from her legs. "Do I have to keep pampering you every time? We've been through this already."
"I-I'm sorry!" Fink whimpered. "My legs are just too small to paddle, okay?
"That's no excuse. How is it that you come from the same litter, yet everyone else can swim except for you?"
Fink held his head down in shame. "I don't know."
"And that's just the shallow end. How are you gonna move onto the deep end if you can't even keep your legs up for that long? Your other siblings already swam all the way to the other side many moons ago."
"I know, but–" he muttered.
"And what about all those hunting lessons I gave you? You can't pounce, you pass out at the sight of blood, " she counted with her claws, "l mean, what kind of fox are you?!"
"I don't know! I never asked to be one," Fink choked with a sniffle in his wet nose.
"Well, too bad! You are one, and you know it!" she hammered her point.
Then, she pointed at her other fox kits. "And that applies to you two as well! We may be apex predators, but until then, you three are still potential prey until you learn to hunt like a predator."
"Maybe he won't even live that long." his brother remarked with a devilish grin. "What kind of a fox can't even swim?"
"Well, he should be lucky that I'm his mother. Any other fox would've just left him out in the sea a long time ago," she spoke uptight with pride.
She was right. Her other animal friends had repeatedly advised her just to abandon the runt, but something deep down in her heart told her otherwise. But suddenly, a small whine interrupted their argument as she noticed small tears escaping from Fink's eyes. A snort escaped her snout as she approached the sobbing fox, pressed her paw pads against his tiny head, and stared him down.
"Are you really sure you want to survive?" she asked in a stern tone.
"Yes! Yes, I do!" Fink wept. "Ah! It really hurts, Mom!"
She dropped back to all four feet and yelled, "Well, crying's not gonna solve anything! A predator won't avoid eating you just because you turn into a blubbering mess."
His mom rolled onto her back and grabbed her neck with her paws to reenact a predator choking her.
"Waah! Oh, no, Mr. Grizzly, please don't kill me! I'm too busy wallowing in my feelings for you to consume me," she mocked with a dramatic voice, hamming up her performance while his siblings hysterically laughed along.
"Mom, just stop!" Fink screamed at the top of her lungs with a voice crack, his fluffy ears pressing against his head.
Everyone came to a screeching halt but not before his big brother broke the awkward silence with a snicker in response to the crackly voice he just shouted.
His sister nudged his shoulder hard, and she continued her lecture. "What if a bear were to chase us and swimming was the only option? Hmm? Who would survive then?"
Fink refused to answer, looking down.
"Well?" she waited for a response.
He still kept silent, digging his claws in the dirt.
She finally had enough. "Ok, then let's try swimming again."
"No!" Fink barked before dashing away, scampering his quick feet far away until he hid behind a large pile of rocks.
"Fink, get back here right now!" she pointed to the ground below her.
"No! I'm never going back there ever again!" he shouted, still hiding out of plain sight.
"Stubborn fox," she muttered and then gave a great big yawn when the golden rays of sunshine glowed on her tawny face. "Alright my little kits, it's getting dark outside. Let's head back to the den now."
"Finally!" his brother sighed.
"I'm starving!" his sister added.
They waited with anticipation until she now carried her young in her open mouth.
"Aww, I wanted to be carried next!" she complained.
"You already did that the last three times," he groaned with a roll of his eyes.
"Just shut up and keep walking," she muffled with her mouth full.
Fink waited reluctantly for them until they all passed by. At first, he refused to join them, fed up with all the torture he dealt with constantly for a fox his size. But at the same time, she was his mother after all. There was no one to turn to but her. He hesitantly took one step in front of the other and slowly caught up with them until he was right behind his mother.
"What's he doing here?" his brother asked with disgust.
"Fink?"
"Huh?" he blinked and now sat upright in the water, leaning his front elbows against the sandy surface.
You've been quiet for the past few minutes," Roz stated. "Was there something else on your mind?"
"Um, no. Sometimes, I like to run my mouth off a lot, and other times I just don't feel like it," he explained.
Roz knew that was a lie. "It's okay. Maybe you can tell me more about her later."
"Oh, right, her," Fink sighed.
"Maybe your mother meant well," Roz tried to answer with a comforting tone. "You've just shown me that you are fully capable of swimming."
"I mean, if she really did love me, then she rarely showed it anyway," Fink disregarded her question about love.
"Was this a…?"
"Jeez, you ask too many questions," Fink wailed, baring his sharp teeth with a snarl.
"Maybe if you weren't such a fusspot, the interrogative process could run much faster," Roz replied smugly.
"Oh ho ho, you and your fancy words," Fink shrugged off her statement with a quick wave of his paw.
"It means when you complain too much, thank you very much," Roz clarified, swaying her shoulders with a hint of sass.
Fink gasped with a paw over his heart. "Oh, now you're the one to insult!"
"Sometimes, I utilize my mimicry to humorous results, including your misfortune," she shrugged as it was all part of her programming.
Fink grumbled in defeat, for she was right. But, once they paused their conversation, he felt the water getting cooler down with most of the steam already escaping. Before he could point that out, Roz was already quick to mention it.
"Would you like me to reheat the pool to your liking?" Roz asked, her finger already glowing red.
"No, no, no, it's fine," Fink gently pushed down her hand. "I'd rather not."
The flow of the bubbling water eventually slowed down, and it caught Fink off-guard when her hand suddenly jumped out of the water and crawled back to her wrist.
"I think this phase should be more than complete," Roz twisted her hand back on.
"You can say that again," Fink tilted his head to the side until his stomach randomly growled once again, which caught her attention of her golden hearing sensors.
"Would you like to move on to the next phase and grab a bite?" Roz asked
"I thought you'd never ask," Fink chuckled, licking his watering lips.