Lost Change

Chapter 20

I think I dozed off a few times as the night went on, and at some point I saw the hazy distortion of the Kymari's invisibility field approach a distant tree with a direct line of sight to me, but otherwise the night was uneventful. I heard other animals out in the distance, but they seemed too nervous of the Kymari's scent to get close.

The morning eventually approached. I looked towards the eastern horizon and waited for the first glow of the sun to emerge... and when it called, I rose into the air above my friend's grave and danced the Morning Song. The missing feeling from the day before was still in the dance, but it was lessened. Knowing I was dancing over my friend again helped.

When the dance ended I hovered in the air, flapping my wings only enough to stay in the air. I savored the next few moments of the day, taking in the scents and savoring the sounds of the other forest inhabitants beginning their day... then with a trilling sound of farewell, I flew from the grave to join the life out in the forest.

I abandoned my burrow. The Kymari all knew where it was - I had launched directly into a Morning Song right above it, without taking any of my normal precautions to hide, so it was probably bugged now to watch for my comings and goings. That burrow had also been built with a larger creature in mind, and now that the tunnels would no longer need to be wide enough for...

I found a secluded spot near a grove of maple trees. Their large roots took some work to dig beneath but formed a comfortingly strong ceiling, not to mention the pleasant scent they gave off, and by late afternoon I had a new burrow carved out. I made a few trips between my old burrow and my new, making sure no Kymari were spying - though I couldn't rule out the possibility of cameras or other recording devices too small to see - until I had moved over my watch, the leash, and a few handfuls of berries I had stashed for a rainy day.

I caught my breath and relaxed on the branches as the day wore on... then when the sun fell into evening, I flew to the river. I caught another fish, prepared it, and added it to the first one still at Susie's grave. I pulled a pinecone from a nearby tree and rolled it around on the ground, bumping it with my head and chasing after it. I was aware of the shimmering haze of an observing Kymari in the distance as I played, and I tried to ignore it and focus on the game... but without somebody to flick the pinecone to, it just wasn't the same.

Night fell. I rolled the cone towards the grave and left it near the two fish. I gave another farewell warble, then flew off to my new home to sleep.

I set the watch to wake me early the next morning, and blearily woke to the sound of its simple beeps. It was still hard to get used to sleeping without the gentle rise and fall of Susie's chest to lay on, and the night had been a restless one with lots of turning and awkward twisting.

I stretched inside the tunnels, finding I had more than enough room to move in even inside the smaller passages, and realizing that I had probably made the den larger than it really needed to be.

I hadn't ever dug tunnels with just myself in mind before, so there was a chance something large might be able to follow me down into my home. Without... without help, that could be a problem.

I looked back towards the main hollow and tried to think about how I could fill in the tunnels, but nothing easily came to mind, short of bringing back in some of the dirt I had worked so hard to get rid of. That would be hard to do without... on my own.