"And you're sure they're rare?" Skye asked warily, looking up and down along the banks of the slowly moving, and sharply winding river. The walk down the long and meandering path from the village to nearly the base of the mountain where it was located had been a fairly quiet one. Judy was mostly focused on Nick to make sure he was doing alright. Aside from having more trouble going downhill with his healing leg than climbing up, he was keeping up just fine. Skye added softly, in a mutter, "I can just imagine them around every bend. It's not a good headspace for me."
"Motti sees two her whole life," she answered quickly, obviously caring about how nervous the lady fox was. "Buibui is very not common far from the caves on the other side of this mountain. They only sometimes come out. River is more dangerous. Worry about river."
"What?" the vixen asked with trepidation.
"Thanks for that," murmured Jack as he had just finished loading their belongings into the wide, modern inflatable raft. Judy had actually expected they would be loading into a primitive canoe or trying to pack everyone onto a wooden raft. She scolded herself for forgetting that these mammals liked being away from the city and excluded from the busy lifestyle of the urbanites, but that didn't mean they hated everything modern. It was especially sensible that they would prefer the safest means of travelling on a river that clearly carried some risks.
Nick expressed his curiosity about those dangers as he asked, "While we are on the river, what should we be looking out for?" He helped Motti push the tan and red raft into the water in the lazy, shallow part of the river.
"Just stay in the raft," she answered. "Then, nothing is there to worry you."
"I can do that," Jack offered, jumping deftly into the inflatable raft from the side of the river.
"Will do." Skye added, hopping in less gracefully. Judy and Nick both climbed in, with Motti getting in last. She picked up one of two paddles that were lashed to the inside wall of the raft. Skye grabbed the other one and assisted on the opposite side. She seemed naturally inclined to just do things, Judy noticed. Skye seemed pretty high-energy where Nick assuredly was not.
"Would you believe I've never been in one of these?" Nick asked.
"We did a water rescue exercise in one, didn't we?" Judy asked. She sat down toward the back of the raft, actually impressed with the size of it. Travelling like this, despite it being a little warm, didn't seem so bad. It certainly was a new adventure she could talk to her family about. They didn't seem tired of the stories of her usual day-to-day work, but this was altogether different!
Nick answered curtly, "You got to be in this type of boat, remember they paired me with Francine for that exercise."
"Oh that's right. Francine in this thing would not go well," Judy mused. "I forgot, they had you on that hovercraft thing."
"I wanted to be in the raft. That thing was so loud!" Nick said as he sat down beside his bunny. Judy took a moment to just enjoy the natural splendor. They were in something of a valley. The much larger of the two mountains was the one they had just walked down for over an hour. The river did not appear overly deep, and the water was brown with lifted sediment. It was pretty wide, but definitely winding with the busy topography of the region. Even as the raft moved at a decent pace with the current, Judy wondered if they saved much time winding down this tangled stream of a river.
"How's your paw doing?" Jack asked, leaning forward a bit. Judy inspected it as well when Nick held it up. It looked pretty normal.
The red fox answered casually, "It's kind of tight still, opening and closing it, but it doesn't really hurt now. Thank you again, Motti."
