There's a Lump in My Tail

That Menacing Tree Poker

Racing into the little hut, Bai Qians tongue was still poking at her tails when Zhe Yans large hands lowered to pick the ball of fur up to look at her.  There was something decidedly wrong with the little miss.  He had felt her uneasy energy just moments before she arrived, or rather crashed through his door to send his vials flying off the low bench which thankfully had been empty.

"What's got into you Xiao Wu, is something wrong?" he asked through the tails that were now sweeping across his face and making his nose twitch.

Whining into her rear end, Zhe Yans frown deepened.  It wasn't like her to come back from an outing fussing this much.  In fact she was more likely to stay out overnight and would only come back if there was food about or her brother had come to collect her.  At fifty thousand years of age, she was old enough to take care of herself so long as she didn't travel too far, and having been taught to defend herself by her father and older brothers, he had never worried about her safety, even if she did spend the entire night outside.

Only the distress she was in and going by the way she was poking at her rear end, suggested she had hurt herself, so placing her down onto his observation table, he then took hold of her flailing tails to get a look at where her nose was nudging only to fall back onto his own rear end when she immediately returned to human form.

"Zhe Yan!" she screeched as a flurry of towels and medicine vials flew across the room in an attemtp to cover herself having forgotten she had no clothes on.

"Heavens wept girl!" his normally soft voice grunted painfully as he picked himself up off the floor to glare at her only to quickly spin back around so she could cover herself.

"What the hell were you just trying to do?" she hissed at the back of his head before flicking the edge of a towel at him.

"Well obviously I was trying to see what was wrong with your tails.  You burst in here as they were on fire." he snapped back over his shoulder while rubbing the sting at the back of his head where she'd hit him.

Grunting back at him, her mind once again returned to her tails.  Whatever had been there was now gone, or at least she thought it had, or maybe it hadn't, she couldn't tell, only her mind was soon moving to the tree itself and the noise that came out of it.  Quickly covering herself up with a blanket he always kept folded at the end of the table, her thoughts were soon spilling from her mouth which had him turning back to gawk at her all over again.

"Zhe Yan, what kind of magic have you placed in the grove?  I mean have you done anything different lately?" she asked which instantly put a frown back on his face.

"Why?  What happened to you Xiao Wu?" he asked again and this time a little more forcefully.  Something had definitely happened to have brought on that question, because she knew full well that he allowed his grove to grow naturally, he did not use magic to grow anything, and nor did he use magic on any of the water features either, the only magic he used was on the barrier that surrounded it.

"I think one of your trees is ..........  sick....." she whispered low seeing as she really had no idea how to explain what she had felt let alone heard.

More than a little confused, Zhe Yan had no idea what to make of that either.  One minute she was racing into the hut as if her very life was at stake, and now she was telling him he had a sick tree?  Some of his trees died, that was the natural order of things and such a trivialty should not have distressed her this much, which only had him heading towards the door before giving her the order to dress herself.  

Normally he would not bother with the girls antics, she was after all still a kit in his eyes and full of mischief, only what he had just seen was not feigned.  Something fishy was going on and he was going to find out.  And no sooner was she dressed then he ordered her to lead him to the 'sick' tree.