Whaaaaat was this?!
It was like the green-and-red-and-glitter time, but more… orange. The trees had dropped their leaves, creating a golden-red carpet which moved underfoot. Morveren had tried to throw some of them over her Thing, but he felt annoyed and told her no. ‘No’ was one of the few words Morveren understood. She’d waited loyally for some time while her Thing played around with nothing which looked very interesting or smelt very nice, before deciding to follow her nose to this place. This place…!
The colours. The smells. The things.
There were things everywhere, walking around and laughing and breathing sugar-scented fumes into the cool, dark air. There was so much sugar in the air that the mere aroma sent quivers up Morv’s spine. There was water, too – the smell of it oozed from dark wooden barrels containing yet more sugar. One young thing knelt a barrel and dunked her face in. She emerged a moment later with an apple wedged in her mouth, throwing back her white-yellow hair in an arc of rainbow water-droplets. The orange light from the paraffin lamps hanging in the trees caught them, making it look for a moment like a shower of glitter.
A scream tore through the air, making her jump and spin around. A thing in a white bedsheet was leaning heavily against a tree, laughing, while two smaller things in obscure get-ups ran delightedly away. Morveren loved to run.
A very young thing, smaller than Morv if she stood on her hind legs, was facing a vibrant red cart which stank of sugar. In her pale pink hand, a slender wooden stick was heavily weighed down with… something. It was about the shape and size of an apple, but smelled like Shy Rabbit Friend’s Thing’s room of sweet smells. Morveren trotted forward, ducking between the legs of grey-and-black clad things as they teetered about and spilled strong-smelling liquid. With a quick snatch, she ‘rescued’ the sugar-apple from the small thing and bolted towards the water barrels.
Water was Moveren’s refuge. It was calming when the world of land was exhaustingly thrilling. Wagging her tail at the very round thing stood beside the barrels, she leapt up onto the edge of one and dived straight in. The shriek of another young thing, his face inches from the rippling surface, became muffled through the water. The water-fox sank to the bottom and gripped the sugar-apple between her teeth, crunching. The first layer was like a bolt of pure energy, but at the centre there was a real apple! Morveren loved apples.
The water wasn’t still. The surface kept being disturbed by things poking at it with their funny front paws, and more blurred faces had appeared above. Having bolted down her apple, Morv pushed off from the ground and shot back up to the surface, huffing in amusement as the things screamed and jumped back.
She blew at the water through her nose and huffed again as the round thing moved forward, flapping his arms. Vibes of agitation radiated from him, and his face had curled in anger the way her Thing’s did sometimes. Before he could touch the water barrel, Morveren leapt up onto the edge and over it. She raced away through the streets of amber and gold.
Morveren could – had always been able to – run faster than she could see and react. She barrelled right into a thing before she knew it was coming and tumbled backwards, rolling three times. She flopped, finally, at the base of a stalk-limbed thing whose green-eyed face she ended up gazing straight into.
It was him! Big Green Friend’s Thing! Morveren loved Big Green Friend!
She yelped with delight and righted herself, snuffling around Big Green Friend’s Thing’s paws to see if Big Green Friend was here. He wasn’t, but someone else was – someone whose scent Morv vaguely recalled. She remembered hanging from a tree, gazing upside down at the Thing with Two Friends. Only one of the Thing’s friends was here: the short furry one. Morv thumped the ground with her tail and pushed her nose against Short Furry’s one, making a soft brr sound. ‘Short Furry’ probably wasn’t an adequate name, since Short Furry was actually taller than Morveren was, but it would do for now.
She yelped again and sat back on her haunches, sniffing at Big Green Friend Thing’s front right paw. He had a flask of liquid which smelled like a headache that her Thing had once.
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