Chapter 22: Hide and Seek (part 1)

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            Chapter Twenty-Two: Hide and Seek

With a mighty stretch and a tired yawn, Vaida awoke on the hard meadow floor. Her eye was still fuzzy and clouded as she tried to look around, so she rubbed it several times until she could see clearly. She lifted her neck slightly and saw that her feet were far from her face; she was still not used to the size of her new body.

"That's weird. I thought he was with me," she mumbled as she felt the ground beside her.

Despite the powerful winds blowing to the northwest, the ground still felt slightly warm. This confirmed her memory that Hatasuko had been right there beside her, but now he was not. She sleepily sat up and looked at the starlit world around her.

            A faint moisture clung onto every blade of long grass, and every grass blade swayed in the gusty breeze

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A faint moisture clung onto every blade of long grass, and every grass blade swayed in the gusty breeze. The grass twinkled because the moisture reflected the starlight, but the stars had not swallowed the whole sky. A layer of clouds slowly crawled in from the southeast, darkening the land beneath its shadow. The meadow was vast; it stretched in all directions. Other than the sail-rana beside her, which stood motionlessly due to the wedges beneath the wheels, there was almost no sign of life for as far as she could see. The only exception was a small family of agili bounding through the tall grass. The mother agilus guided her energetic young as they quickly made their way south. Vaida watched with a smile, though she accidentally startled them when she stood upright. The agilus family ran off, but they darted toward a small grove.

Vaida's stomach growled and alerted her to a hunger that she had not yet realized. She glanced around one more time for Hatasuko, and then she jogged off toward the grove. As she ran, she muttered, "I hope he didn't go too far. I miss him already."

But before Vaida reached the small forest of fruit trees, she heard something large and clumsy rustle through the brush. The footsteps sounded louder and heavier than those of a human or agilus, so Vaida already began to suspect the culprit.

"How does she carry so many of these damn things? They fall out from the littlest bump," Hatasuko groaned as he approached the edge of the forest.

"You're just what I needed to see right now!" Vaida exclaimed.

Before Hatasuko even realized she found him, Vaida tackled him with enough force to knock him on his back. Though he was happy to see her, the impact caused the fruit in his arms to roll away. Vaida gave him a swift and clumsy kiss, and then she grabbed the nearest albapomus and shoved it in her mouth. Even as an Astrodeus, she still could not open her mouth enough to envelope the entire fruit, so she held as much as she could in her teeth. With a big grin, Hatasuko looked up at her and saw a smile form at the corners of her lips.

"Somehow I think you were talking to the albapomus and not me," laughed Hatasuko.

Before she could speak, Vaida took a large bite of her albapomus. This process caused several drops of juicy nectar to fall onto his shirt, slightly staining the material with a yellowish color. Vaida giggled and pulled the fruit out of her mouth with her scarred hand.

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