Chapter Seventeen #4
Ree yelped softly, “Where are you going?”
“According to the song, they’re friendly.” Arms wide, palms up to show he meant no threat, he crooned the lullaby as he walked toward the creature.
It paused mid-chew and, unperturbed, watched him.
Marin wanted to dart out and pull him back into the relative safety of the trees, but she supposed Dax might know what he was doing? Because he knew a children’s lullaby? About a giant mythical rodential creature? No self-preservation instinct at all.
Rolling itself forward, the marmoose waddled toward the singer. It stopped and sniffed the air like a rabbit, and then it looked beyond Dax, straight at Marin and Ree, who were crouched between the trees.
Dax stopped walking but kept singing, still a soft, soothing croon.
With a huffing kind of snort, the marmoose stretched out one front paw, wrapped it around Dax, and pulled him close. With Dax, it rocked backward to sit on its hindquarters. Humming to itself, it smushed Dax against its belly, cradling him in its front paws.
Marin started to rush forward.
“It’s okay,” Dax said, still in a soft voice. “I’m okay. It’s being gentle.”
“That,” Ree said in a whisper, “is adorable.”
She looked down at him. “It is?”
“He’s cold and wet, so it’s hugging him,” Ree said.
Sure, that was one interpretation. Another was that it was just about to squeeze the life out of her far-too-trusting friend. Friend? Was that still what he was? Was that what she wanted him to be? Marin shook her head and focused on the marmoose.
She debated her options. She could run at the beast and make a loud noise, hoping it startled the marmoose into dropping Dax, but she really had no idea how the creature would react. For all she knew, it could squeeze harder.
Continuing to hold Dax in his arms, the marmoose began to waddle away. She and Ree hurried after. “Are you still okay?” she called to Dax.
He was still singing, so she thought that was a yes?
“Scream if it hurts you, and we’ll…” She didn’t know what they’d do, but she’d think of something. Jump on it. Throw rocks at it. Find a stick and bash it. She had no idea.
“I’m fine,” Dax said, singing the words as if they were part of the lullaby.
With wide waddling steps, the marmoose trooped into the forest, using a path it had undoubtedly mashed down during many trips through this area. She wondered if it was taking Dax back to its den. Maybe it wanted Dax to feed to its children?
Or maybe it just wants to cuddle him, like the song says.
That … would honestly not be the weirdest thing she’d ever encountered in the Crescent Islands.
That cheesemonger in Dew with the herd of unicorns had been unexpected, and her own home island was considered unusual for the sheer quantity of winged cats.
In fact, nearly every island was unique in some way.
It was only the empire that tied them together.
She supposed now they didn’t have that anymore.
The marmoose traveled for a bit of time, long enough that Marin had plenty of time to worry about Dax, Perri, her sailboat, her parents, Stowy, Rijes Velk, even Yarrow’s family.
So far, she’d seen zero sign of any villages or human habitations, but then she also couldn’t tell how large the island was.
Perhaps there were people outside of the marmoose’s forest? Or on another side of the island?
Around them, birds twittered and chirped, clearly not alarmed by the ambulatory antlered pillow or by the human and plant who followed it.
Along with the red-feathered birds, she spotted bright yellow songbirds as tiny as walnuts and striking black-and-white birds with a crown of gold feathers on the tops of their heads.
She also saw pale blue butterflies with sweeping tails that drifted between the tree trunks like jellyfish in the current.
At last, they reached the marmoose’s destination: the slope of a mountain. It paused by a pool at the base of the slope. Drawing closer, Marin noticed that the pool was steaming and edged with gold and teal-blue lichen. “A hot spring?”
The marmoose lowered Dax gently beside it.
Dax sat and held his hands out toward the steam. “It’s not a fire, but it’ll work.”
Eyeing the marmoose, Marin approached. She sat down next to Dax, and Ree scooted between them.
The waves of heat coming off the hot spring were wonderful.
She felt it soak into her wet skin. Steam began to rise off their wet clothes.
She felt Dax looking at her and wondered if he was as relieved as she was that he wasn’t dead.
Or maybe he was thinking about the kiss.
“Thank you,” Marin said to the marmoose.
It watched them with its wide, round eyes.
“So,” Dax said, “the good news is that it is a marmoose, and it has all the caretaking instincts that the lullaby claims it has.”
Ree asked, “The bad news?”
Marin knew it before he said it, but she let Dax answer.
“The bad news is that it’s very likely that this island is Picina, and we are far from where we want to be. Very far.”