The Many Misadventures of Bo

Friends

Aaaand we're back from commercial! Hopefully our lovely hosts have picked a safer topic for us to explore.

(No I'm not trying to be insulting, it's not my fault TCBNN didn't pre-screen their questions. Fine, I'll behave.)

Who were my friends growing up? Same as any kit's: my schoolmates—yes, we have school in the Hinnom Forest—my fellow Igis Chosen, my dad's friends' kits, but the two people I ended up sticking with the most were Kenton and Seri.

Yeah, I know in the previous story I said I hated him—I was what, six? by the way you humans reckon years, and we're obviously friends now (how we got to be so is a story for another day), but for now I'm gonna tell you about the time the three of us got in big trouble with the Innah, Auntie Praha, and the rest of the council. We were all around ten or eleven and bored to death of being cooped up inside for hours on account of it being Frix season . . .

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"I'm bored!" Bo announced, throwing down the ball of spinner-floss he'd been batting about.

"Nyss said as much when he dropped you off earlier," Seri said. She didn't lookup from the game she was playing with Ken. 'Chess,' he called it, and had been trying to get Bo to play for the longest time. But the ugly carved pieces and the game's overly complicated rules were all too . . . human, for Bo's tastes.

"I'm not bored."

"Yeah, 'cause you keep winning," Seri muttered as she moved another piece, scowling and lashing her tail when Ken plucked it from the square wooden board and added it to his ever growing collection.

Bo pointed an accusing finger at her. "So you admit it! You don't wanna play Ken's silly game either."

"Well Ken doesn't like playing 'humans and klia'ans,' and there's nothing else to do."

"Wrong." Bo grinned at Ken and Seri. "We can hunt frix sprites!"

"Outside? In that storm?" Seri's eyes went wide and Ken shook his head. "We'll get in trouble; I don't want to spend hours doing chores 'cause we left the loft when Mother said not to."

"We won't be out long enough for her to notice we're gone," Bo said, and turned pleading eyes on Ken. "All the stories say if we catch one, we'll be frix proof like Hinnom Trees."

"No one's ever seen one in real life."

Bo shifted into s'hinoian form and growled at Ken, glossy black fur shining in the light cast by the frix dancing on the leaves outside the loft's window. "Then we'll be the first."

Ken and Seri shot searching looks towards the spinner-floss curtain separating their room from the Innah's.

"I am curious to see what a frix sprite looks like," Ken admitted and started gathering up his chess pieces.

"But Mother–"

"We won't go far from the tree," Ken said, interrupting his adopted sister's protests. "If we don't see a sprite within a few minutes, we'll come right back, okay?"

Seri chewed on her bottom lip, but nodded and grabbed some frix proof jackets for herself and Ken. Bo shifted and shrugged on his own outerwear—along with the gloves Zha'ar had given him for his birthday before second frix—and quietly they snuck out of the loft and descended the Tree of Elders.

"All I see is frix sparks," Seri said, crossing her arms tightly. "Can we go back now?"

"You scared?" Bo teased, giggling when she bared her fangs at him and pinned her ears flat against her head.