Chapter 139: Cats, Curls, and Card Tricks
Vuvi, Sha’Rona, and a small cluster of beast-kin step out beyond the village’s edge, armed, armoured and fully kitted for a violent confrontation.
Vuvela stands and back watches in awe as the forest folds itself shut behind them, swallowing the tiny village whole like it had never existed in the first place.
"That... is a really useful ability," Vuvi tells Sho’Rana, shouldering her pack and slinging her Boombuster to her side. She turns to the endless sea of trees ahead and groans, her whole body slumping downward like a puppet that hands its string cut. "Ugh, I am soooo tired of hiking through trees."
Sha’Rona grins. "Good. You don’t have to."
She lets out a piercing whistle that rings through the canopy like a bell struck with a warhammer, and moments later, more than a dozen shapes shift between the tree trunks and branches around them.
Yellow eyes glimmer against the forest’s green shadow as large, limber bodies flickering in and out of the leaf-dappled sunlight like they can’t quite decide if they exist or not.
Vuvi shudders as one of the shape leaps down and lands right beside Sha’Rona, sending up a shower of dust and leaf litter, light peeling away from its body in slow ribbons until a Glimmercat stands fully revealed, pressing its body up against the bunny-kin’s thigh.
"Uuuugh... I hate glimmercats," Vuvi shudders, right before a second one materializes directly beside her and shoves its snout right up her backside.
"You’re welcome to walk, if you’d prefer," Sha’Rona snickers, swinging herself up onto her own mount with an elegant flourish. "They’re friendly, I promise." Sha’Rona assures.
Vuvi shudders again as her glimmercat rubs its whole body against her legs, purring hard enough to rattle every tooth in her skull.
"Nope! Not happening!" Vuvi says firmly, "Not even the Great Mother could convince me!"
Minutes later, Vuvela Blackthorns’s scream of unbidden terror tears through the forest as her mount leaps from branch to branch in great, bounding arcs, weaving between trunks with a weightless, half-visible grace that makes her stomach lurch somewhere outside herself and never quite come back.
Sha’Rona’s glimmercat keeps an easy pace beside her, barely a leaf disturbed as it weaves through the forest in carefully calculated movements.
Vuvi’s own mount seems personally committed to finding the largest gaps between every pair of branches and leaping it anyway despite her constant and very. audible protests.
"SHUT UP!" Sha’Rona hisses, "you’re announcing us to the entire forest!"
Vuvi squeals, grits her teeth and lets out a muffled, slightly more dignity-preserving howl instead.
The glimmercats finally slow as they near the treeline.
Sha’Rona dismounts with the kind of casual and professional grace that makes it look easy.
While Vuvi slumps straight off her mount, flat onto the forest floor, groaning, eyes rolling, before jerking upright and clapping both hands over her own mouth in a valiant attempt to keep her stomach exactly where it belongs.
A short while later the Vuvi and Sha’Rona are crawling through undergrowth together, much to Vuvi’s visible dismay, she bites back curses as twigs snag in her fiery curls and a variety of bugs crawl across her face and neck like she’s personally offended every insect in the forest.
They finally poke their heads out toward a clearing, where two hulking, steam-belching contraptions chop and load timber with mechanical efficiency. A handful of dwarves shamble about, lazily directing the operation from the ground, occasionally rolling a barrel, tightening a bolt or tugging a rope.
Vuvi whips out her spyglass, delighted, pointing out gears and crystals and pressure valves like she’s spotting old friends from her school days.
"You are enjoying this far too much," Sha’Rona snarls.
"I’m an inventor," Vuvi says, clearing her throat badly, "I can’t help admiring a well-built machine... even if they’re committing forest crimes."
Sha’Rona rolls her eyes and explains the usual plan. "We watch, wait, sabotage the machines quietly with weapons and magic, and if needed," she says, slower and deliberate, "we take out the workers."
"That’s it? That’s the whole plan? Watch, wait and murder?"
"That’s not what I..."
"That sounds like a very slow way to lose a forest." Vuvi interrupts.
"It sounds," Sha’Rona responds, "like someone who’s never had to be patient in her life."
"I am extremely patient."
"Why do I doubt that."
"Whatever... do you have to kill them, though?"
Sha’Rona scoffs. "Never have. Doesn’t seem unnecessary since they’ve never once hurt any of us..."
Vuvi tilts her head back slowly. "What, exactly, do they do, then?"
"Nothing." Sho’Rana shrugs casually, "They run. They just... run away whenever we get close. And any beast-kin they catch... they just release them back into the forest unharmed."
Vuvi’s jaw drops open. "This is genuinely the strangest logging dispute I have ever heard of."
"It’s a war." Sha’Rona sneers.
"It’s a breakdown in communication!" Vuvi responds.
Sha’Rona scoffs and turns back toward the machines. She releases a low string of whistles that ripples through the branches around her, and Vuvi watches as masked beast-kin warriors emerge from the foliage all around them.
"What are you doing?" Vuvi whispers.
"Watch. I’ll show you how we handle business." Sho’Rana grins.
She starts to rise, but Vuvi quickly yanks her straight back down by the sleeve. "No! Absolutely not. I am done, done being dragged along for nonsensical side quests."
She stands, brushes leaves off her overalls, plasters on her most businesslike smile, and marches straight out into the clearing.
Sha’Rona watches, mouth hanging open, as every single dwarf in the clearing drops what they’re doing and rushes toward Vuvi scowling, before their discussion turns surprisingly amicable.
Heads start bobbing as Vuvi produces a small card from her coat with a practiced, professional flourish. The dwarves stare at it, gasp in unison, clapping hands to their mouths and chests before swarming her, talking over each other in a delighted, overlapping babble.
Vuvi turns, her face plastered in a grin, as she waves wildly for Sha’Rona to join them.
"Beastmother save me!" Sha’Rona groans, dragging a paw down her own face before rising reluctantly out of the foliage, her expression twisted into the specific, strained smile of someone actively suppressing a scream.