OPEN suffer does the wolf, crawling to thee

[iida ryosuke]

It weren't uncommon for Ryosuke to sleep loads. Thanks to being half-n-half, Ryosuke did actually have eyelids he could close, unlike his mum, so it didn't conserve energy by lowering his metabolic rate like spiders did, and given that he was still very young, its energy levels raised and dropped pretty quickly and with seemingly little to no explanation half the time.

But sleeping for days on end, like this? Even for Ryosuke, that was odd. Sleeping through a volcanic eruption was even odder. He remembered, distantly, that it'd told Ichiro he was gonna go for a nap, 'cus it'd started getting snappy, and then he'd wandered off into the forests beside the Hawit River System, crafted itself a little nest of web, and hit the sack. Hadn't expected to sleep for days. Hadn't expected to wake up to... This, either.

The first thing he thought, after he'd ate his web and wandered back off to find Ichiro again, was that its home looked like... A mess. Things had changed. It no longer recognised some of the pathways, and for a mind as underdeveloped as its own, that had spelled trouble rather quickly. His four eyes flicker anxiously around the unfamiliar terrain. It smells of heat and ash and smoke, and it doesn't like it. It hurts his nose.

"Hello?" It calls out, his voice warbly and strained. It's so young, not used to stress like this. Why can't he find his way home? "Helloooo? Is anyone there? Ryosuke is lost!" It tries again. And again. And again...

[KNOX.]

Knox had been out replanting seeds very carefully in sporadic places, hoping to mimic nature's own chaotic placement of regrowth throughout devastated lands. She didn't really know what she was doing, to be completely honest, but she was doing what she could and it felt better than sitting back with nothing at all. She hadn't heard the child's voice at first, but bits of a very distant whining did catch her attention eventually and she decided to put a pause on her activity. It didn't hurt to help a lost child, and she supposed she'd probably been there once or twice. Being so small and new to the world made these things a lot scarier than they really were.

Picking up the bundle of cloth, it wandered closer to the source of the noise. She returned a deep, calling roar around her cargo in an attempt to give the child some sort of response without having to drop the remaining seeds. Not that it would really be much difference where she planted or left them, but she figured she had enough to still spread further than the spot beneath her on a well-used trail...or once well-used. Finally coming upon the spidercat, she carefully set her cloth piece aside and shook out her thin mane. There were certainly some strange creatures living amongst them, but it was used to anything at this point. Even she herself wasn't exactly the most natural.

"How did you end up so far without any knowledge of returning?" It was not aware of Ryosuke's choice of when and where to nap, but that was certainly an unlucky pick. "I can help you back to the caves. You'll have to be more careful with reorienting yourself to the island."

[iida ryosuke]

Ryosuke felt instant relief course through its weird little body as he picked up on the sound of that loud roar. It wasn't a sound it really recognised, but it meant someone was close enough to hear him, right!? Before Ryosuke could even bother experimenting with calling out, however, he caught sight of the lioness walking towards it. His four eyes lit up, all eight pupils dilating as dopamine flooded its system.

'Oh! Ohhh! This one is familiar! Ryosuke knows this one!' it thought to itself, hopping from side to side as Knox approached, bundle of seeds in tow. Interesting choice of snack, the spidercat mused internally, but didn't comment.

"Ryosuke will be extra careful from now on," he assured, offering a big, grateful grin, mandibles clicking happily. It stretched up, attempting to but its head against Knox's shoulder; or as close as he could get to Knox's shoulder, given the height difference; in an affectionate gesture. "Thanks for coming to save me, Knox-san!"

[kamo ichiro.]

Planting was no fun. Ichiro had never liked gardening, but being told he had to had only made it all the more tedious and all the more uninteresting to the snakecat. He had been grumbling and growling about it for the entire five minutes that he had been half-assedly dropping seeds in little holes he'd dug.

He hadn't heard the whining himself. It was Knox's roar that alerted him to the fact that anything was wrong, and he turned towards the sound, curious, just in time to see a flash of brown and pink through the trees.

Ichiro promptly dropped his bag of seeds. He took off in a sprint towards Ryosuke and Knox, tripping and stumbling over roots and rocks that he swore hadn't been there before. "RYO-TAN!" Ichiro called, moments before he full-body collided with the spidercat, bowling them both over and into Knox's legs. Oopsie. "Ryo-tan! I missed you so much, you've been gone for so long! I thought you were dead! Don't ever leave my side again, Ryo-tan!"

[KNOX.]

Knox hummed, patting the child with a large paw after it headbutted her. It certainly felt good to be appreciated, even if this was only the least she could possibly do for someone. "You are welcome, Ryosuke. I do hope you're serious, I cannot be everywhere at once to help lost kids all the time. Come on-" And just as she had been about to offer they get going back to the caves, the other strange hybrid kid appeared calling out. Her ears pinned back, children could be shrill, and she stared down at the two as they fell over into her legs. Well, wasn't this just a heartwarming reunion.