Groova and the aspen dryad stepped out of the cabin at the worst possible moment.
Gen was still in the crop field with Vyxia, close enough that their shoulders almost brushed.
He had one of the purple fruits in his hand, turning it over in the light, and Vyxia had just conceded the name Vipluvi with all the grace of someone swallowing a mouthful of something bitter.
She was trying to act like she had not just accidentally helped a human name a plant, and failing at it, and Gen was trying not to grin about the whole situation, and also failing.
They were standing there in the middle of the argument’s aftermath, and to anyone watching from the cabin door, it looked exactly like the kind of moment Gen would have described as “bonding.”
Groova saw it.
Her red eyes locked onto the two of them and the air around her went very still, the way it did right before she decided something needed to die.
She crossed the yard in 4 huge strides, scooped Gen up with one arm, and hoisted him against her chest.
Her voice came out low and flat.
“Gen is Groova’s.”
“Groova!” Gen wheezed, because her arm was wrapped across his ribs and she had not exactly been gentle about it.
“Put me down. What are you doing?”
“Gen was standing close to nox sister,” Groova said, glaring over his head at Vyxia.
“Gen was smiling at her. Gen let her touch his food thing.”
“It’s called a fruit, and she was helping me name it, that’s all. There’s nothing going on, she’s not, I’m not, it was just a fruit, Groova.” Gen was flailing a little, trying to get his ribs back from her grip.
“And anyway, I’m not a thing you can claim. I’m a person. A very squished person right now.”
Groova shook her head firmly, her whole body going stiff with conviction.
“Gen marry Groova. Not pale one. Not nox sister.”
Gen’s face went red.
“Groova, nobody is marrying anybody. That’s not what’s happening here. I’m not marrying anyone, why does everyone in this forest keep trying to marry me, I’ve never even had a girlfriend, I’m not ready for this level of commitment from an entire ecosystem.”
He stopped because he saw her face.
The pout had snapped back into place, her lip jutting out far enough to catch rain, her eyes gone shiny and wet in a way that was either about to produce actual tears or about to produce actual violence, and with Groova it was genuinely a coin flip. This chapter was copied from novelping(.)com without permission.
He let out a long, defeated sigh and reached up to pat her on the head.
“It’s ok,” he said, softer.
“It’s ok, alright?”
The pout lessened by a fraction.
Not gone, but lessened.
Her grip on him loosened just enough that he could feel his ribs again.
She pulled him into a giant group hug anyway, crushing him against her chest until his feet dangled a good 2 feet off the ground and his spine made sounds he was fairly sure spines were not supposed to make.
The aspen dryad watched the whole thing from the doorway with her usual blank expression, unmoved.
Vyxia watched too, somewhere between offended that she was being out-dramatized and quietly horrified at the idea of being picked up like a sack of potatoes.
Gen patted Groova’s arm until she loosened up enough for him to breathe, and she finally set him down on solid ground.
She put him on his feet, then immediately turned and shot Vyxia a glare with enough force behind it to wilt the crops.
Vyxia glared right back.
She had her arms crossed and her chin up and she was absolutely not going to be out-stared by some giant gray tree woman, not in front of the human, not after she had just lowered herself enough to help name his little vegetable.
The two of them stood there locked in it for a solid 5 seconds, neither one blinking, while Gen stood between them like a man caught in the middle of a thunderstorm with nowhere to shelter.
Then Groova turned back to Gen, and her whole face transformed, jealousy gone, replaced by the kind of pure sunny enthusiasm that always made Gen nervous because it usually meant something large was about to die.
“Gen!” she said, bouncing on her heels.
“Can Groova kill something for Gen?”
Gen blinked at the whiplash.
“Sure? I mean, yeah, if you want to. Just keep it to a usable amount. About a day’s worth of food for everybody.”
He started counting on his fingers, going through the list out loud because he had learned the hard way that if he did not say it, Groova would decide the target number was 1 of everything in the forest. Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping.com.
“Me, you, the pale one, Nøx, Vyxia, Nyobin, and Mittens. I mean Ozin. Sorry. Ozin. Old habit, he’ll always be Mittens to me even if he is a demon cat the size of a panther now, and he probably eats more than I do at this point, so factor that in.”
Groova nodded so hard her wild black hair bounced.
“Yes yes! Groova will get something big for Gen! Very big! The biggest thing in the whole forest!”
“Not the biggest thing in the forest, Groova. The biggest thing in the forest is probably a dinosaur, and I don’t want to have to butcher a dinosaur. Get something normal sized. Something that feeds 7 people for a day and does not require a week of carving and a second miracle to fit through the cabin door.”
“Groova will get something perfect for Gen!” she declared, and she was already bouncing toward the treeline, all her earlier anger forgotten in the excitement of an approved hunt.
She stopped after a few steps and turned back, waiting for him, still grinning like the sun had personally come out just for her.
The aspen dryad had been standing in the cabin doorway the whole time, watching the exchange with her usual blank face.
She walked over now, unhurried, silent as a shadow, and stopped beside Groova.
Her pale hand came up and she made a small gesture toward the trees.
A request.
Gen tilted his head.
“You want to go too?”
She nodded once.
“Sure, if you want.” He paused, thinking about it, and then a real curiosity crept into his voice.
“Honestly I kind of want to come watch this one. I’ve never actually seen you two hunt together, and I’m curious how that even works, whether you coordinate or just sort of go feral in the same general direction and hope for the best. It feels like the kind of thing I should know about the people living in my house.”
The aspen dryad blinked.
She looked at Groova.
Groova looked back at her.
Neither of them moved for a second, and then something passed between them, some silent dryad agreement that Gen could not read and was not sure he wanted to, and they both turned to face the treeline with the same patient stillness, waiting for him to catch up.