Camping Trip 2 [Gumdrop Balaklava Chiaray Sekhmet]

A large camping trip had been organized and it was quite the trip out. The whole while up, Gumdrop had stayed in the back but he could always see the flying Hitotsu he knew as Chiaray up front, leading the way. He knew somewhere in the bunch of people and Shi’vali his other friends were about too but he had lost sight of them once he’d finally reached the campsite. He noticed quite a number of individuals branching off out of the clearing and into the woods. They had their good reasons for doing so and Gumdrop had his good reasons for skulking about their lonelier setups like the stalking cat he was.

By nightfall he had eaten a number of lunches while people had their backs turned. No one ever suspected the pink and polka dot Ko’kumai to be the one stealing the goods and he had gotten away with it all scott free. Hours later and he had grown bored of the activity. He wanted to see his friends already and started padding around in the clearer grounds. All while licking his chops clean of course.

You think it wouldn’t be hard to spot a big flying dragon but Gumdrop could prove you wrong. He didn’t see Chiaray, nor his other, more brutish companions Sekhmet and especially Balaklava. No where to be seen. Frustrating as it was, it still took him quite some time of circling around the same tents before he caved and decided he’d find someone to ask.

Initially the decision was hard but once he paid attention to the colorful stranger Shi’vali, he could a few of them had broken off from the clearing and were trotting off for the woods. Gumdrop followed after them and caught up with a big stonetouched feral.

“You, green girl!” Gumdrop yowled as he came up to her side. She grunted lowly and side-glanced him but didn’t immediately give any sort of actual greeting.

“Have you seen a mottled-brown feral, and an onyx one with a skull for a face?” Gumdrop inquired, dry in tone as he looked up at her, “you can’t miss ‘em, they’d have a big dragon for a friend too just flying around. You know, just the one that everyone saw coming up to this godforsaken camping ground. Hm, hm?

“Nah.” The stonetouched responded gruffly. “Could be up where the others are going though.”

“And where’s th--”

“No where a little thing like you should go.” The feral’s lips curled up into a terrible grin. She stopped just long enough to roughly jab a foreleg at the Ko’kumai, making the pink-furred male stumble a little. It earned her a glare but she only seemed more amused by it. She was happy to continue on and explain.

“Supposed to be ghost-story telling, and maybe some fun in the dark. Why don’t you run back to whatever little girl lost a hold of your leash, kitten?”

“That’s Gu--” Gumdrop coughed a little, “that’s Overload to you.”

“Overload? It does sound like a kid named you.” The stonetouched Yase snickered. Gumdrop was getting the feeling she never had anything nice to say, but at least she returned with her own name. “Queen.”

But sure enough Gumdrop was right; Queen really didn’t have nice things to say. He described his friends again, first Chiaray whom Queen finally admitted she had seen but said she could have mistaken her for a thrown noodle. Sekhmet, whom Queen insisted sounded like she was all too ready for October every damn day, and then Balaklava.

“I bet I could beat her in a fight.” Queen said gruffly. God, it was like talking to a real life barbarian, it was actually something spectacular in a weird way to Gumdrop.

Gumdrop tried to hide his smile and give a straight answer. “Oh, you should totally try.”

Gruff and brutish as the stonetouched feral was, Queen still walked on without insisting on Gumdrop--or Overload--from going back again. Gumdrop was pretty sure it was because he had told her how he stole a bunch of meals today and only after Queen had said she had eaten her’s early in the day did Gumdrop realized he could have easily had taken her’s too and probably shouldn’t have risked the story at all. Thank the stars he had lucked out.

The two lagged behind the other Shi’vali but Queen knew the way well. Gumdrop was willing to guess that this wasn’t her first time up the mountain. Someone had likely roped Chiaray, Sekhmet, and Balaklava into this ghost story crap too. Maybe it was some sort of weird spring time tradition along with the rest of this camping trip? Gumdrop wouldn’t be able to say and Queen wasn’t enough of a conversation to learn.

They came across a cave and even from a good distance one could see a fire lit inside it. Gumdrop could hear the growls and laughter of other Shi’vali gathered and the ground was a mess of pawprints. They were definitely in the right place. Entering, Gumdrop immediately saw Chiaray and on either side of her were sitting three ferals; Sekhmet and Balaklava on one side and then on the other side a ginger-maned one that Gumdrop wasn’t as familiar with, but Chiaray seemed to be happy to talk to. Gumdrop would later learn the ginger-maned male to be a Yana name to be Seonmul.

Gumdrop strut right over to Balaklava and sat down on an old log some Shi’vali must have dragged in.

“Balla!” Gumdrop purred as he got comfortable. The other gruff female in his life, Balaklava, looked down at him with zero friendliness; just like you could expect from the girl. However she wasn’t all brute strength either, and like Queen, she had a gruff welcoming atmosphere to her; at least by Gumdrop’s standards. Maybe he was just getting too used to these kinds of ladies in his life.

Balaklava greeted him warmly enough. “Gumdrop, good to see you finally.”

“Gumdrop?” Queen snickered.

Gumdrop jerked his head around to see the burly stonetouched feral sitting down on the otherside of the log. She definitely had an amused look in her eyes, moreso than before. “What happened to Overload?”

Balaklava barked a laugh, “is that what he told you his name was?”

Much to Gumdrop’s dismay the two brutish girls got along swimmingly opposed to one beating the snot out of the other. He tried to pay attention to something else, and ended up eavesdropping in on the Hitotsu and ginger-maned Seonmul.

“They’re still a little creepy.” Seonmul sounded unsure.

“You think? I think they’re cool!” Chiaray held up one paw and hooked on her digits were several skulls she had apparently gathered up someplace. She twiddled them around and as she did so she gave each of them voices. In spite of himself, Seonmul chuckled.

“Alright, they’re okay,” the Yana male conceded with a small shake of his head. “But couldn’t you have picked some of the skulls with less gunk still on them? I saw some clean ones hanging around…”

Sekhmet grimaced from the otherside of Chiaray and groaned audibly. “Ugh, are you two still talking about that place? Don’t be won over to their ways, Seonmul.”

Seonmul waved a paw, “I know, we should have gone fishing! But if they were gonna stick around for an hour then I had to start looking at the silver lining, don’t you think?”

“No.”

“Aw, c’mon!” Chiaray bleated to Sekhmet.

“Where did you guys go?” Sekhmet chimed in. He tried to inch away from the two muscley females that were Balaklava and Queen towering over him, talking about some sort of arena, but it was hard. They had moved closer together and successfully wedged the smaller male between their flanks.

“Into the woods.” Sekhmet answered first. “Let’s leave it at that.”

Seonmul explained it more properly; “we--uh, Chiaray, Sekhmet, Balaklava, and I, that is--picked berries and then came across some freaky part of the woods. There were bones and squirrels stuck to the trees…!”

“So I took a few!” Chiaray extended her paw for Gumdrop to see. The Ko’kumai rasied a brow.

“Did you need to bring take any all the way up here…?”

Chiaray shrugged, “Well, we ran into a Hinshu that said it was normal to do for ghost stories. Bring a few skulls--”

“--and snacks!” Seonmul tagged on and shifted himself. Leaning a little, Gumdrop could see on the other side of him the Yana male had gathered a significant amount of berries and a dead squirrel--probably the one from the trees, Gumdrop guessed. Although the entire haul must not have been his because there was a Hinshu next to him grabbing a stem of red berries and Seonmul didn’t bat an eye at the theft.

Gumdrop curiously took a moment to look around the cave at the other gathered Shi’vali. The ones that had come from the campground like him and Queen were empty-pawed but there were a few others that Gumdrop did not immediately recognize that were covered in a bit of dirt and were eating fish, some had more berries, and one had actually managed to catch a fat fawn somewhere. The more confident and mischievous looking Shi’vali that sat closest to the fires; likely the ones intending to tell tales tonight indeed had an array of skulls and other bones with them as well. One even puppeteering a few the same way Chiaray was.

Gumdrop wasn’t hungry and he had no personal interest in collecting skulls but he couldn’t help but feel a little left out looking at them all. His eyes went to the dark exit of the cave. A few Shi’vali still entering. The little get-together hadn’t technically ‘started’ yet.

“Did you want to go look for something of your own?” Chiaray guessed dead on.

“Oh stars, please no!” Sekhmet groaned. Her eyes went straight to Gumdrop. “Let’s not and say we did!”

“Well, apparently if I want to tell ghost stories I’ll need it.” Gumdrop smirked. “And Queen did put a little challenge on me that I was too kiddy for this stuff.”

He nudged her but he already had her attention as soon as he had said her name. Both Balaklava and Queen were looking down at the candy-colored Ko’kumai, both just as delighted as the other with their brutish kinds of smiles.

“Yeah, do it, Gumdrop!” Queen egged on.

Balaklava chiming in with a hearty, “yeah!”

“Alright!” Gumdrop was squeezing his way out from between the two feral females and standing proudly there. He urged with a turn of his chin for the others to follow before waltzing his way out from the cave.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Chiaray repeated again and again. She had to drop off her skull collection however before she could follow and by then Balaklava had already gotten to her paws as well, following right after the little Gumdrop.

“No, no!” Sekhmet yowled, “I’m not going! I refuse!”

She turned her head up but caught a glimpse of Seonmul getting to his paws. He looked a little reluctant, his own eyes going back to the pile of berries.

“Watch the berry pile for me then?” Seonmul asked. Sekhmet sneered and immediately stood up.

“Actually! I’ll go! You watch the freaking berries!” Guarding food sounded like the least exciting way to spend the evening, anything in the woods would be better than that for Sekhmet. She quickly trotted off after the others before Seonmul could give any sort of answer.

“I’ll make sure they get something good this time!” Sekhmet proclaimed. She sounded determined, like she earnestly meant that too. If she was going to go out exploring the dark, creepy woods again then she might as well look at the silver lining just like Seonmul said he did. Hopefully she would enjoy it more on round two.

Little did she know that Gumdrop was going to absolutely insist on bringing back the most bones he possibly could. He was intent on showing off now.