Melissa

Adia was being naughty. But she couldn't help it. There was just so much to explore, and being cooped up at camp with Cindre and Ben was starting to outweigh the terrors lapes little heart leapt to at all the dangers and surprises. Now, it was night. No looming, impossible sky of blue. No cataclysmic sunset of world-burning fire. Just black, and stars. Friendly, familiar stars, if dim. Adia found Red Might, and smiled at it. Darkness was homely, cool, and protective. Lape slowly snuck through a line of houses. They were so small, and there were so many.

"ARGHP AR-RAPH MARPH!! AMPH!!"

Lape fled with the speed and fear of prey, snapping teeth blowing hot, angry air over her ankles. Over wood, over stone, over grass, the world blazing past in a dark blur, until a burrow appeared, lapes mind fixating on it.

Lape darted into the black space, rolled in a flail over something wonderfully soft, and slammed with force into something cruelly hard.

Adia blinked. Adia blinked again. Nothing much else seemed to work but blinking. The world spun gently, zipped back to where it belonged, and spun again. Adia found this confusing.

A cool softness pressed to her head, and lape groaned in discomfort, the world spinning a little less. Water dribbled into her mouth and she drank, parched, whimpering for the unexplained kindness. Something perfect combed through her fur, and lape heard singing.

Then, blackness.

Lape jolted upright with a start. Sunlight shone in through a high window, the room was bright and festooned with thousands of unknown things. She lay in a bed, which she wasted no time in diving under, freezing in prey-panic. She shared her hiding place with a soft, fabric doll. Over the next hour, she listened to the sounds of Terran lives, and remembered it was called a teddy-bear.

Then something thundered in rapid steps, growing louder alarmingly quickly, introducing a sape-fae, kit, dressed in impossibly-pink clothes. Sape paused at the door, unsure, carefully removing shoes.

"Hulloh.. bunny..? Did you run away?"

Adia felt her heart shatter, her tightly-wound terror melting in a dizzying instant, which spun into a wild and real dizziness, making her moan softly.

Sape dropped to her knees smoothly, keeping to the doorway, eyes large for a sape, dark brown, full of concern, hair straight, earthy and very long.

Adia could only stare.

"Hey bunny-girl," sape cooed in a voice so sincere it made lapes eyes water. "Wanna come out? Are you still sick?"

The two stared at each other. Sape seemed ready to sit at the door and smile for all time. Adia wriggled backwards, behind the bed slowly, and rose enough to peek a nose and whiskers over the sweet smelling covers, peering with the hulking shape for protection.

Sape giggled and shook her head. "I don't know what you are, but you're so bloody cute!"

Lape looked around the room. The window was open, with the bed ready to provide a way up there. Sape blocked the door. Adia's legs moved on their own.

"W-wait!"

Adia froze. The sape kit had her hands out, waving downward, trying to calm. "Please.. don't go? Please?"

Lape whimpered, eyes darting rapidly between sape and the beckoning window.

"Why?"

Sape started, eyes big, and for the first time lape saw fear in them.

"Y-you.. you can talk," sape whispered, voice tiny. "What are you?"

Adia mounted the bed, threaded the window, and fled.