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“Lift…up….your…thoughts?”
“No, no, lift up your heads.”
The tree’s hands shook no with three frowning mouths before making a new gesture entirely.
“Oh, oh, I know this one!” I pointed at the two fista crossing in midair. “Love! Lift up your…love?”
The tree shook no again, the curtains on either side floating out as though sighing.
I turned to Mat and shielded my lips from the tree’s face: “How much more can you take of this? Let’s just climb out, this place has nothing good anyway.”
“No, hey, I can’t see anything if you do that—stop!” Mat struggled to climb higher in my hair to avoid my fingers.
I thought about it and realized that it must be hard to see while being so small, so I changed tactics and covered the empty eyes of the mask opposite to us. The three mouths bared their teeth and chattered endlessly in response, but it didn’t matter since I didn’t know what they were saying.
Mat blinked and looked serious for a moment, “This is such a nice location, why not settle here? You don’t seem to like humans and there are no humans who stay in this area for long. We’ve hardly seen camp remains on our way here. There’s plenty of coverage from the sun, a stream nearby, maraming prutas—what’s wrong with helping out the previous owner a bit?”
“Why are we staying here? Do you want to stay here? You can do that, but I need to go somewhere.”
“Oh, we need to go somewhere? Where are we going?”
“…It’s hindee… handay… hen…” I shook my head and grabbed Mat to steady it before it could scream. “Anyways, I’m going somewhere. If you like it here, you should help them out.”
“Well, hold on now, we still stumbled across this place and our friend here needs some help. We’re not in a hurry, are we?”
My eyebrows twitched after hearing Mat say “we” so many times. I tilted my head to let my hair cover my face.
I removed my hand from the mask and slowly untied Mat before placing it on the ground. “You figure it out. I’m going to sleep.”
Before Mat could say any more words of protest, I transformed into a beast, curled up in a comfortable position, and faced my butt towards it.
Color.
Bright red.
A blooming rose upon a swollen belly.
Long nails.
Picking apart flower petals, stained with pink plant juice.
Thirsty.
No longer thirsty.
Moonless night.
My fur stood up on end as I my eyes flashed open. Saliva built up in my mouth as my throat felt like it was clogged with the taste of copper. I stuck out my tongue and chewed on my tail to get rid of the sensation.
“You are awake! Good, there’s something that we need your help with.” Mat called over from an unseen height.
For a moment, I thought that it had climbed out without me and was prepared to jump out myself somehow. Fortunately, I spotted miniature-sized Mat bundled up in a very tall pile of ash green fabric and relaxed my tensed legs.
“Whus’ the matter?” I shook my fur out as best I could in the narrow space and asked.
“The tree said that there’s something blocking its tongue, which is why it can’t speak. To fix it, we have to climb in its mouth and figure out what’s blocking it.”
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