Tory waved goodbye like he was in the New Ring Parade. Barra swallowed emphatically. “What was that all about?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said. After a moment, he went on, “He saw me helping Marley—you know, the Bellbottom from the Mangrove Tree? Her family is making a den near mine. Anyway, he saw me helping her with some bindings and—“
“And he’s jealous?” Barra interrupted. Her face twisted up like she’d bitten into something rotten.
Tory replied with nonchalance, “I guess. I mean, he does have a point.” Tory gestured to himself. He waited for a snarky response, but none came. The despondent Barra seemed to have mentally drifted away.
Tory was a little concerned, but he popped the rest of the spiderfruits into his mouth and waited patiently. When he decided he’d waited long enough, he spoke up, “What’ve you and Venress Starch been doing today?”
Barra blinked rapidly a few times, and said, “Not much. The usual.”
“Are you, uh, okay?” Tory asked, skeptical.
“Oh yeah, definitely. I’m fine. You know, I think I’m still hungry. Where’d you get the spiderfruits?” she said as she stood up.
“I’ll show you. Come on,” Tory said.
As they walked together, Tory described the garden he was taking them to see. A spiderfruit bush required lots of water, and he’d helped create a base that could support one. He was proud of his work. Barra tried to show that she was impressed, but she wasn’t able to muster much enthusiasm. She was too distracted.
At the garden, Barra ate her fill, and then after a short but strained silence, she said, “Tory?”
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Do you ever think about your mom?” Hearing her own words out loud, she shook her head immediately. She tried again, “I mean—of course you think about her—but like, how do you imagine—“
“Tory! Barra!” It was Plicks. He came shuffle-running up to the pair with something large in his hands. “I’ve been looking for you all over the place! Look what Ven Tadafell gave me!” He held up a large lensleaf, not as big around as the one Barra had seen that morning, but huge nonetheless.
Tory responded first. “Wow, that’s great, Plicks!” He was genuinely impressed. Tory had a special affinity for bindings, but he had developed an interest in almost everything in the Coppice. Barra leaned in to inspect the lensleaf, and nodded emphatically.
Plicks was so excited he wasn’t sure what to do next. He hadn’t gotten the reaction he wanted from Barra, so he was frantically thinking of how to impress her. “Here. Here, let me show you,” he said, and scuttled between his friends into the garden. He held the lensleaf by the edges between his small hands, careful to keep his talons from scratching the surface. Looking at one magnified plant after another, he kept shaking his head as though none of it was good enough.
“Oh, oh! Here! Look at this!” he exclaimed, and held the lensleaf steady while standing to the side.
The entire surface of the lensleaf had turned fiery orange. After a moment of confusion, Barra looked around to the see the subject regular-sized. Sitting on a broad, green leaf was a fiery orange insect. It had a narrow body and a long neck with an oblong head perpendicular to it. The insect was only slightly larger than Barra’s nose!
The bups examined the magnified display closely. They could see every detail of the exoskeleton: its pores, segments, and pigmentation, even the veins in the folded wings.
Plicks explained proudly, “You are looking at the rare Aridifolia Tricopterus.” Inspecting the subject closely, he nodded and said, “She’s female. You can tell by the number of segments in the abdomen.” After thinking for a moment, he added, “They’re usually found deep in the Middens. Maybe she’s here for the spiderfruit? It doesn’t grow around here normally, right?”
“No. No, it doesn’t,” Tory confirmed, still mesmerized.
Barra gazed curiously into the lensleaf. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing.
There was strange, dark webbing oozing out from beneath the insect’s wings. The stuff was difficult to spot, even enlarged. Plicks tried to get a better view and Tory and Barra had to jockey for position to see around his furry head and large ears. “I don’t know, I’m not sure.” As Plicks spoke, the Aridifolia spread its wings. Threads of black ooze were revealed, gumming the wings to the body of the poor insect, grounding it.
“Barra, you know where the closest bellflower is, don’t you?” Vallor had approached the bups from behind, undetected. She startled them all, seeming to appear out of nowhere. She was watching the insect carefully. Barra took only a moment to grasp her request, and she nodded and dashed away without a word.
“Where’d you come from? Uh… where’s she going?” Tory asked of no one in particular, but Barra came back before anyone answered him.
Barra held a large bulb-shaped plant with her tail. The bellflower had thick translucent walls that were shaded peach and lined with thin green veins. The bellflower wasn’t a flower at all, but a segment from the eponymous vine that grew it. Barra had already drained the bitter fluid from it so that it could be used as a container. Holding the bulb next to the insect, she pursed open the narrow stem. Venress Starch guided the insect into the bulb with gentle waves of her hand.
Plicks clutched his lensleaf close to his chest and asked, “Do you know what that sticky oozy stuff is?”
“I don’t. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, but I’ll take her home and see if I can help. She certainly doesn’t look well,” Venress Starch said. She added confidently, “I know a thing or two about the Aridifolia Tricopterus. I’m sure she’ll be fine.” As Venress Starch spoke, Barra thought she was hiding something behind the dismissive attitude.
“You’ll let us know?” Plicks asked. He rotated the lensleaf in his hands anxiously.
“Definitely. Barra knows how to find me,” Vallor said as she pulled herself up with her tails, and then she swung away.
The three friends stood together, somewhat stunned. Tory was the first to speak up, “That was odd.”
Barra squinted and nodded as she said, “Suspicious, you mean.”
“Well, that’s not what I meant. But, sure, yeah, suspicious,” Tory said. He didn’t know what to make of it all, but he could tell Barra had some idea.
Plicks could see the idea taking shape in his friend’s mind; he knew her too well. Looking back and forth between Barra and Tory, he hoped he was wrong. Instead, he saw Barra raise her eyebrows to Tory, and the Rugosic smiled back slyly.
“Aw, come on…” Plicks said, but the deal was done. He heaved a sigh. “Okay, but I’ve got to stash my new lensleaf at home first.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Vallor stood alone in her den contemplating the bellflower. She held the container carefully with both tails assuring there was no escape for the insect. Shuffling over to her garden plot, she looked over her wyrmwood. The thick stump of a plant had a few stubby branches, but was otherwise a leaning cylinder. It had a sheath of rich brown papery bark covered with dark-purple buds. She nudged one. Sluggishly, the petals of the bud unwrapped, revealing they were actually wings. The creature rolled down the side of the wyrmwood, and then flew up in a sudden, agitated flash. It was a Rush, furry and round with a button nose, deep-violet eyes, and ring-shaped ears. It flew around the den in quick, short bursts. Eventually it settled, hovering steadily at eye level with Vallor. Many ribbon-like tails danced beneath it as three sets of rapidly beating wings kept it afloat.
Rushes are fast, their wings galvanized by unique nectars found in distinctive flowers throughout the Great Forest. They have to drink often, so they instinctively keep a perfect map of the flowers they sample. But their favorite and most potent fuel is the cultivated sap of the wyrmwood. Most Arboreals keep one well-tended in their dens.
“I have a message for Doctor Fenroar,” Vallor began.
“Fenroar? Fenroar. Yeah. Got it. Know exactly where he is. Exactly. Don’t you worry.” The Rush flitted around the den in a blur.
She held up the bellflower. “Tell him I need this insect tested right away.”
“Yep. Need it tested right away. Got it,” the Rush confirmed, talking fast and blinking even faster. He flew around the bellflower, sizing up the package from several angles. “Yep, yep. I got it. Totally can do. Yep.” He licked his lips between words with flicks of an extraordinarily long tubular tongue.
“You sure?” Vallor was dubious.
The Rush stopped a paw’s width from her face. He hovered there, perfectly still except for the flashing of his wings. He narrowed his deeply saturated violet eyes. “I got it,” he said, miffed.
The Rush landed on the bellflower and steadied himself expertly as he tested the surface with his glassy, needle-like claws. Satisfied, he buried his claws deep, flexed to secure his grip, and then displayed his wings broadly. They were iridescent underneath and spanned a length greater than the distance from his nose to the bottom of his tails. In an instant they vanished, flapping faster than the eye could see. Vallor released the bellflower, and the Rush floated up, then down, and then back up again, straining.
“I got it, I got it,” he said to the once again dubious Vallor. Righting himself, the Rush licked his lips, and then flew from the den.
Venress Starch shuffled into her kitchen, turning her back to the doorway, and Barra slid down from where she’d been hiding, stealthed. She snuck back out unnoticed. She met up with Plicks and Tory a short distance down the pathwood where they were waiting for her.
“Did you have to go back in there?” Plicks clicked his talons together as he spoke.
“Relax. She didn’t see me. Besides, it was worth the risk,” Barra hinted.
Plicks waited, but Barra didn’t continued, and he finally asked, “Well?”
“She’s not keeping the Aridifolia with her tonight,” Barra reported, wide-eyed. “She Rushed it to Doctor Fenroar’s!”
Plicks considered a moment, and then gave up and asked the obvious, “Why’d she do that?”
“I don’t know,” Barra said, clear she thought it was a very good question indeed.
“Who’s Doctor Fenroar?” Tory asked.
“I don’t know.” Barra’s eyebrows were raised, leading.
“What’re we gonna do?” Plicks was frustrated.
Barra let her excitement out all at once, “Wanna go spy on Doctor Fenroar?!”
Plicks was exasperated. “Why do you always want to get us in trouble? Tory?”
But Tory wasn’t worried. “Sounds fun,” he said with a wink.
“Great!” Barra said, “Let’s go!”
5. The Rush
The three bups walked along the pathwood as quickly as they could without drawing unwanted attention. As they went, Barra shared the discovery of her father’s journal; there were too many similarities between the descriptions she’d read and the black sticky strands that plagued the Tricopterus for her to hold back any longer. Her friends listened intently while they tried to keep up with the Rush. Luckily, the little messenger was slowed by the weight of the bellflower and stopped frequently for nectar. Whenever they lost sight of him, Barra would raise her nose to the air to find the wyrmwood scent that marked his trail, and so they travelled deeper and deeper into the Umberwood Nest.
The oldest dens of the Nest were closest to the trunk. As families aged they often migrated into the homes of their lineage leaving the ever-shifting outer boundary of the Nest for the young. Barra had never met Doctor Fenroar but she could tell he was old; they were deeper into the Nest than she’d ever gone. There were no other bups in sight, no one even close to her age. The trio hurried along with affected purpose trying to look like they belonged.
Tory hung back from the others after hearing about the journal. He wanted to be happy for Barra—he was happy for her—but he was also frustrated. It wasn’t the first time she’d kept secrets. He wondered if she’d ever trust him. Sure, Barra hadn’t said anything to her own mother either, but Tory didn’t know what to make of that. He struggled with his feelings in silence.
The quiet blanket of Tory’s reticence went unnoticed though as Plicks kicked it off with his excitement. The Kolalabat asked question after question wanting to know every detail. He jumped at the opportunity to share and connect with Barra about her father, a topic he’d deliberately avoided in the past. His relief came out in a flood of words that Barra worked to stay above, pausing more often than necessary to find the Rush’s scent.
They were travelling slower than the messenger. Sometimes the Rush crossed paths with another, and choosing the right one to follow was tricky. There were distractions too; sights, sounds, and smells that were different from the rest of the Loft tugging at Barra’s nose. She found it difficult to keep up her part in the conversation and soon the trio was walking in silence. No one spoke a word again until Barra noticed Tory lagging.
She bound over to him and asked, “What? What is it?”
“The bindings used here are so different from anything I know,” Tory said. All the experimental bindings in the Coppice and he’d never seen anything quite like these.
Barra rolled her eyes. “Come on, we gotta keep moving.”
Tory didn’t budge. “Look at that,” he pointed at a den with intricate fountains on either side of its entrance. The bases were each made from a single branch which grew in consecutively smaller circles, the end rising up in a flourish from the center. The fountain on the left was a spiraling tower of rings, while the other was dominated by sharp angles with steps and platforms. Colorful cup-shaped flowers and jagged protective thorns grew all over both. Tory recognized the flowers and he explained, “Those spillpetals fill with water every measure, and tip over when they’re full. The way they’re growing the cascade must be beautiful. It took a lot of care and time to bind them like that.”
As engrossing as his description was, Barra didn’t have the knowledge of bindings to even guess at the mastery on display. She understood it was important to Tory, but didn’t think they could stay any longer. She urged him, “Come on, the Rush is getting away.”
Tory stared for another moment trying to absorb it all, and then he started moving again.
Plicks matched his pace and asked, “Think you’ll bind like that someday?”
Tory shrugged.
Reminding Plicks of his older siblings when they just wanted to be left alone Plicks took the hint even though he thought the behavior was unusual for Tory. He tried not to worry about it.
Barra pushed them to keep moving, but that didn’t stop Tory from taking a look back at the fountains before they passed out of view. An old squat Nectarbadger came outside to prune. He squeezed the claws that grew between his fingers together several times rapidly to sharpen them. Thwick thwick thwwwiiick. He clipped at the fountains like he’d done it a thousand times. The jagged thorns didn’t bother the Nectarbadger. He just kept trimming without a care.
They rounded a corner, and Tory tuned back into Barra, who was explaining the importance of being sneaky-quiet to Plicks. “It’s the only way. We don’t want to get caught, right?” She dashed away.
Plicks squinted at Barra’s back as she sniffed the air. He tried to bolster himself, saying, “I can be sneaky. Even if I can’t stealth.”
Tory leaned in toward Plicks and whispered, “Just do your thing. You’ll be fine.” The Kolalabat’s stride perked right up.
Slyly, Barra popped up between the two and startled them. Through gritted teeth she whispered, “We’re here.” She pointed ahead, and the boys looked just in time to see a downy grey Leghund open his den to the Rush.
There were a few Arboreals meandering about, but none were paying any attention to the bups. Barra thought they could act without being noticed. “Okay,” she said with a hu
shed voice as she leaned in toward her friends. “I’m going to the roof to see if I can find a way inside. You two wanna go around to the windows and see if you can find a good place to listen?”
The boys nodded. Tory was confident, Plicks apprehensive. Then all three ran and jumped from the pathwood.
Barra went lithely from branch to branch until she was positioned above the Fenroar den. Lowering herself down to the roof with her tail, she stealthed, camouflaging her fur to match her surroundings.
Plicks couldn’t jump very far with his short legs, but he scurried pretty fast, regardless. He dove around and down to the claw-marked, unkempt underside of the pathwood. Soon he was hugging the bottom support bough of the Fenroar home. He found a ventilation hole and listened in.
Tory could have cleared the distance to the den in two jumps, but he had to move slowly to avoid drawing attention. He found the closest branch large enough to hold him and ran out onto it. The bough flexed down toward one of the Doctor’s windows, and Tory swung himself underneath. Hand-over-hand, he moved right up to the window and hoped he hadn’t been seen.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Inside the living room of the Fenroar’s cultivated den grew many elegant displays of lighting and watering flowers. Elaborate watershelves lined the walls, and a silky exotic moss covered the floor; rich brown accented by sprouts of bright blue.
Darby Fenroar called out, “Yorg? Yorg!” The Leghund eyed the Rush he’d just let in with suspicion, his marbled nose twitching. Darby’s great size and strength made him an imposing figure despite the downy softness of his light grey coat.
A Muskkat responded to the call, entering through one of the curtains of braided vines that separated the rooms. “Yes, Darby?” Doctor Yorg Fenroar asked. The average-sized Muskkat was slinky-slender and short, so he was dwarfed by Darby. He was covered in glossy, dark brown fur, and had a long snout topped with two large blue eyes, and the wrinkles on his face accentuated his beguiling smile.
Sunborn Rising Page 4