Okay, so they had snuck out. The two smallest of the bunch wandered out toward the north of the maze toward a deserted type of land with not a lot of plants. Thick trees stood alone from each other, but where the ground was moist, an interesting plant seemed to sprout up in tall bunches. Rheum's idea, since both she and Fuji, wanted to be healers like mama, was to gather a plant to take back home and replant it in mama's garden. That would impress her right? How could it not impress her? And it wasn't like they were going that far outside of the pack's boundaries. Towing her miniature sister along with her, Rheum babbled along to take up the time. "Ya see, I wanna gather somethin' to take back to mum's garden, ya know?" She said as her head bobbed up and down. Agreeing with herself, it didn't really matter if Fuji understood, she just needed a companion to go along with her. Surely Otis would've noticed by now that the two of them were missing so they wouldn't have too much time to get this done. Stopping for a minute to take a break, she let her tongue roll out the side of her mouth to pant. It sure was warm here. "Fuj, what're we gonna take back to mum's garden?" Rheum asked inquisitively as her golden eyes narrowed. Continuously searching for something interesting, she stopped on the big bushlike plant with fanning leaves. "There! Ya, that shoul' be perfect!" She squealed in delight as she wandered over to the plant that smelled like a skunk. Alright, well it didn't smell nice, but mama did say that all plants had some sort of medicinal quality to them. Or painful, she couldn't remember which one. "Help me gather this, will ya?" Her Sedna tinged accent more prevalent by the day as she reached forward to rip off the first branch. word count: 323

Fuji was in agreement. Mumma had been so busy lately, the least her girls could do was help her stock her garden properly. But why they had to come somewhere so dry was anyone's guess. The pink girl wrinkled her nostrils, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth as she continued to breathe the dry air in and out. It was dusty out here, and she kept catching glimpses of Chips out of the corner of her eye. No doubt a grown-up would be along to fetch them at any moment and their plans would be thwarted!

It seemed Rheum had the same idea though, as she rushed towards the smelliest bush in the world and started ripping at the leaves. It looked big and heavy, and far too much for Fuji to drag home, not to mention she didn't want that stink all over her fur. She turned her attention turned instead to a creeping ground cover that was growing not too far away. Its fat green leaves looked like they were full of water and its whispy yellow flowers stood out starkly against the sand. She gently lifted its trailing tails to try and find where the roots were but kept finding little bundles along where the runners trailed across the ground. She didn't know if it was important to take the whole plant, or if one of these little sprigs would do, but she supposed, if she bought the whole thing, it might have more of a chance of being useful.

Her finger-like paws scooped at the sand and rocks beneath the plant, watching Rheu with some concern. Her own plant extracted and placed to the side she came closer, starting to dig at the base of the plant. "Don' rip it up too much! It'll die from stress!" It was a new word to the girl, but one she had heard used quite often recently, mostly that she was the one causing it, and there might have been a mutter of her driving someone to an early grave, but she didn't care. It didn't matter when it came to other wolves, they were tough, but plants were delicate.

“Speech”

Just move those left feet, go ahead, get crazy

690/1500

Crap, Chips was following them. They were going to have to hurry themselves before they really got caught. Distracted by wanting to get the plant harvested, she hadn't realized that Fuji had gone off to gather her own. What the heck? Oh well, they could bring both back successfully to impress mum. Successfully breaking a branch off of the very pungent plant, she heard Fuji bark at her about something about being careful. Careful of the plant? Oh, right. She didn't want the plant to die before getting back to the maze. That part would be the most important. When Fuji came over to help dig at the base, Rheum stepped back to help. Quickly furrowing her small paws into the dry dirt that spread in the wind, she held back her coughs. Feeling her throat and mouth get drier by the second, she let out a squeal of happiness when the large bush began to slowly careen over. Stumbling out of the way the best she could, Rheum looked over to Fuji to make sure her sister was in okay condition. "Careful," she spat out through dried lips. "Think this is enough to plant in the garden?" The bigger, but yet still small, girl asked. Looking at her pile of smelly plant with its large leaves, she smiled. When she glanced at Fuji's sprawling vine and yellow flowers, she smiled bigger. "Mum 's gonna be so proud!" She let out another squeal as her paws danced happily. "Le's get back before anyone really notices," Rheum's golden eyes glance up at Chips with a snarky grin as she grabs ahold of the bush. Picking it up as best as she could with as little of it dragging on the ground, she turned back to head toward the maze. Making quick work back to the maze where they could easily find the garden, Rheum made sure to peak around every corner to ensure no one was watching them. Sure, Chips was still keeping an eye on both of them, but they were back safely now. With no harm done. Standing in front of their mum's garden with her eyes sparkling with excitement, she turned toward Fuji. Exhaustion also ran through her because dang, this was a lot of hard work. But, they still had more to go before they could show mum what they'd done. "Alrigh', where we gonna plant these things?" She asked for Fuji's opinion, knowing the smaller girl was a lot more observant and studious than she had been. word count: 1,111

Fuji barely managed to dodge the falling tree her sister had chosen to uproot, and she could smell the skunky leaves getting smellier as they fell towards her. She scowled, not at her sister, but at the offending bush. She would have set the whole thing on fire if it had dared to land on her.

She nodded her agreement to Rheu, it should be enough, but also subtle enough that mumma wouldn't be overwhelmed. She gathered up her own plant in her jaws, sap from the fat leaves sticking to her tongue as they raced as best they could with their burdens back into the maze. Once back in the green walled safety of home, it was a bit slower going sneaking back to the garden. After all what good was a surprise if you were caught in the act? She was starting to feel a little light-headed, assuming it was from all the running she had needed to do to get back home, her short legs having to work twice as hard as anyone else's to get anywhere. Also, colours seemed a lot brighter...

But there was work to be done yet! Once they reached the garden she got started with her excavating, only pausing to try and shake some of the dizziness from her head. She kept feeling a grin pull at the corners of her mouth, but she had no good reason for the expression to be there and would scowl when she caught herself. She took note of how the soil was so different her to what it was out in the desert, but it also seemed to be close enough, so she used her fingers to press the soil down around the base of the plant.

Rheum's was a lot taller than her trailing plant and she imagined with it's roots disturbed it might not stand up so well. She went to fetch a thin bamboo shoot that stood about as tall as her sister's tree and she stabbed it into the ground alongside the trunk. She took some leaves from a larger bamboo and used them to tie the bottom of the tree to the stick to try and hold it up, but that wasn't quite enough, the top still sagged looking sad. She clambered onto her sisters back to reach up higher and just finished tying her knot when another wave of dizziness overtook her and she tumbled to the ground with an oof, sprawling on her back with her belly exposed, looking up towards the bright blue sky.

She couldn't contain the giggle that left her lips. "Hey Rheu, that cloud looks like a butt!"

“Speech”

Just move those left feet, go ahead, get crazy

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