The trails always lead somewhere.
“That’s why they are trails.” FastPile enjoyed saying. “If they went nowhere, no one would follow them, and they would not be.”
The trails that FastPile the turtle was leading the group on, were mostly visual trails. Chakik the squirrel could see many other routes through the trees and among the undergrowth, that sometimes he knew would be faster. At least for him. The squirrel had no desire to leave the turtle behind. It was the sheep, Sunny, he could do without.
The sheep called itself Sunny. In her defense, Sunny was as lost as her new friends. She had been living happily among her flock for as long as she could remember, which wasn’t long, Sunny was very young. When the turtle and squirrel first approached the fence surrounding the sheep, the sheep had no idea what these new creatures were. Very quickly rumors spread that they were magical and could only be appeased by a sacrifice of some sort. From her birth Sunny had been rather practical for a sheep. Many of the rest of the flock though her strange for this understanding, and were somewhat frightened by her. When the chance of sending her away with these new strangers, especially if they were witches, made the thick wooled flock very happy. Her father had gotten to the fence before the Major could, but thankfully he spoke only a few words of non-sheep. The Major arrived in time to steer the witches through and give them Sunny as an offering.
She was slowly learning the words of these strange animals. Sunny had never seen a turtle before, but the slow movements and predictability of FastPile immediately endeared him and she felt safe near him. She tried to tell him how she felt, but her only outside words were of her clan and identity. “Also sheep.” She wanted to say “Thank you, what are you?” or “Where are we going, why is the long tailed one so fast?” but all she could say was “Also sheep.” After trying their words and muttering gibberish, Sunny decided to listen and observe.
Their names she had understood, but not yet tried to voice out loud. The slow, furless one was called FastPile, she liked him a great deal. He reminded her of her great-grand-papa, but with a strange hard fur, and stubby legs. And he was shorter, and maybe meaner. She really wasn’t sure why he reminded her of her great-grand-papa, but there was something.
The quick one with the long tail was much more of a mystery. He seemed young like her, but showed no interest in playing games. His crazy long tail was always busy, twitching this way and that, standing right up at other times. He seemed to try and avoid her, which only made her want to play with him more. He ran up the trees most of the time when she approached and she could only watch in awe. Many times she tried to follow him, but her feet did not grip onto the trees as his, and she remained grounded with the turtle.
So she stayed on the ground with FastPile, who spoke a bit more of her language, and who seemed very intent on teaching her new words. “Tree” was her new favorite, and she found herself repeating it as often as she could. Every time the squirrel ran up one, she learned to say “Chakik also tree.” This made her ground bound friend the turtle smile immensely, so she made sure to say it frequently.
This made Sunny happy.
It drove Chakik insane.