"Get down here right now or else I'll pull that fluffy tail right out of your butt!" Inari hollered at the squirrel. It ignored her, which only seemed to aggravate her more. Suddenly, the scrambling paws of another wolf whooshed past her, mere inches away from her snout. A golden blur launched itself into the tree and after a shocked blink, she saw another cub about her own age balancing on the branch.

Wait… wolves could climb trees!? The squirrel seemed to be thinking the same thing as it dropped the pine cone and darted away in sheer panic. Inari's own shock faded and she glared up at the boy above her, holding his prize above her. "Hey! That's mine! I saw it first!" she growled, her front paws scraping uselessly on the trunk.

The branch the cub had chosen to stand on didn't seem to want to hold his weight anymore and it began to sway violently, doing all it could to toss the wolf. At once, Inari's anger turned to worry as she watched helplessly. She jumped against the tree, but didn't understand how to get a purchase on the rough bark. To her small form, the branch seemed impossibly high and the thought of watching him fall made her stomach sink.

Why did he jump up there without knowing how to get back down? "If you can get up there then you can get back down. Come on, just jump like you did before. You can do it!" she cheered encouragingly. Moving from the truck, she began to kick the fallen leaves underneath the branch as quickly as her awkwardly large paws would carry her. If she could get a pile of them then it would cushion his fall. Better to lend in that then on the cold, hard ground!