Camptastic! Fun with the Animals

TheCuriousSeed

Chapter 4,will there be more? Just follow the tale to figure without fail!



Camptime Luncheon with the Moles

~The moles were all invited to camptime lunch, enjoying their favourite fare: worms. The fairies, however, had pastries and sweets and berries. It was a pretty nice time at the site despite having to share with insectivores.

~"Honestly, could've done without all the gross eating," said Foxglove. "I'm also surprised I still have an appetite."

~"Be nice," said Daylily.

~The moles enjoyed their meal, but soon they had to return to work.

~"It was a pleasure to dine with you," Daylily told the moles in their language. "Come again soon!"

~"Thank you for having us," said a different mole. "Now, we must continue our work."

~Once the luncheon was over, the moles left to continue tunnelling.

~"What endearing moles," said Holly.

~"They sure were a grand company," said Daylily.

~"I don't know about you, but even remembering the moles eating those worms at lunchtime sickens me a little," said Foxglove.

~"Oh, don't worry about them," said Elva. "When it gets too cold, moles will, instead of hibernating, dig deeper underground to escape the freeze line where they'll have plenty of grubs and other subterranean invertebrates to eat, you know, the uzh."

~"There's nothing uzh about moles surfacing in a realm this cold though," said Pearl. "Were they lost?"

~"Not exactly, but time to move on."

~And that's what everyone did.

Winter Coating

~Next were some marmots preparing for winter. The marmots were also digging deep burrows underground and gathering food to fatten up. Unlike the marmots that usually roamed the Winter Woods, turning white there, these particular marmots almost always remained earth-toned and had less even colouring.

~"Where are they going?" asked Pearl.

~"Who knows?" asked Gloriosa. "All I know is that some animals change to their white coats in the winter to better blend in with the snow."

~The marmots were busy, busy, busy! They began scurrying about to make sure they were winter ready and would make it to next spring, but they weren't the only ones!

~"Look at those ptarmigan!" exclaimed the taller Silver as the ptarmigan flew about in their white plumage.

~"I thought the plural was ptarmigans?" asked the smaller Silver.

~The rabbits hopped about, the marmots scurried, the ptarmigan flew, the owls did too and there were even a few chipmunks nearby. Everyone was so busy here!

~"Let's let them work in peace," suggested Elva.

~"Good idea," said Jessie.

~Realising these animals would be quite busy here, the girls decided to head elsewhere for...

Camping with the Ptarmigan?

~"Oh wow, look at that huge covey!" said Pearl, pointing to the ptarmigan covey.

~The ptarmigan were about to take off when someone rushed towards them, scaring them off!

~"Oh no, the covey!" cried the taller Silver and her sister.

~But there wasn't just one, there were two that scared off the covey: the twins Emerald and Buster Sandyray. These two were a little Incomplete and neither was an Animal Talent, explaining why they were so terrible with animals. They were also bundled up, making them Warm fairies.

~"What happened to the ptarmigan covey?!" cried the taller Silver.

~"We don't know," said the Sandyray twins.

~"Now we gotta find them!"

~"Find what?"

~"The ptarmigan covey! They were getting ready to migrate when you scared them off!"

~"They did? We did?"

~"The ptarmigan can't be that far off," said Daylily. "If we can just follow their trail..."

~"What trail?" asked Magnolia.

~But Daylily could already feel her heart beating faster than normal, and being so small, Neverfairies have much faster heartbeats than humans. She could feel the ptaimigans' fear in her heart... and she too felt scared and started to sweat despite the cold.

~"Daylily, you okay?" asked Heidi.

~"I can literally fell my heart beating almost seventy beats faster!" cried Daylily. "They're still scared! I'm scared! They're returning, but in chaos!" Daylily felt such strong panic that she told Holly, Elva and Jessie to placate the ptarmigan covey since she was much too strong an empath to handle this alone.

~"It'll be okay," said Jessie. "It'll be okay."

~But as soon as the ptarmigan returned even more scared than ever, Daylily fainted.

~"Whoever heard of a fainting Scout?" asked Emerald.

~"I know, right?" asked Buster.

~"You two are not helping," said Jessie, heading to the ptarmigan first.

~"We calm the ptarmigan, we calm Daylily," suggested Holly.

~Holly, Jessie and Elva did their best to calm the ptarmigan covey, but only once Daylily came to and sang them a lullabye did the ptarmigan covey and she calm down. Daylily checked her heart... finally a calm beat.

~"I think it's safe to say we're good to go," said Foxglove.

~With everyone calm again, time to return to camp.

But the Sleuth Shall Not Be Moved

~"Are you kidding me?!" cried Foxglove when a sleuth of just-grown male bears decided to surround the campgrounds.

~"Oh no, they're too thin," said Daylily, inspecting the boars. "They just began venturing out of their mothers' care this year to gather their own food and they hadn't gained enough weight."

~"What about this one?" asked Pearl, pointing to the biggest grizzly. "She looks pretty fat."

~"They're all boars, Pearl. They need to eat more than the sows to survive and thrive. Even Chauncey has too little weight on him."

~"We have to relocate them," said Foxglove. "They're ruining our campsite."

~"Okay, Rule no. 1 when dealing with a sleeping sleuth: the sleuth in rest is to remain at rest until ready. Should the sleuth need to hibernate, however, make sure said sleuth reaches their respective dens safely first."

~"Oh, just perfect. Now what'll we do?"

~Daylily listened to each boar's heartbeat. "They're not hibernating yet, just resting," she said. "But they need to fatten up some more so they can make it through the winter."

~"Why not Pixie Dust the bears and we can have them float to plentiful food?" suggested Onyx.

~"The bears won't like that," said Holly.

~"Why not?"

~"We'll just have to wait. In the meantime we can enjoy their company while they sleep."

~But a few hours passed and the bears were still asleep. What was worse, a few skua had flown to this spot all the way from Antarctica because it was quite cold here like back home.

~Better divert the skua, thought Holly as she, Heidi and Daylily went to shoo off the skua until the skua left, then there was the issue with the bears sleeping at the campsite. It looked like the bears were sleeping here tonight since they were too tired to move.

~The group then decided to join the bears as it was getting too late to keep searching for other campsites, ergo they slept inside the ring. No one really knew why, but Daylily had a strange feeling why they chose that night to surround their campsite.

~Perhaps tomorrow we'll know why, thought Daylily, drifting to sleep.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter!