"It's going to take a while to heal. Give it a week. If you can't apply pressure to it then, come see me again." The antelope pushed her glasses up her snout and scribbled down a prescription of pain pills and handed it to Sel who attempted to read the chicken-scratch. His brows were knit together, partly from the pain in his foot after the chunk of lighter metal was removed, and partly from her medical prescription of 'gabapentin'. 

Sel hobbled out of the vet's office and over to Kira who was sitting on a bench, waiting patiently. Harbnet was nowhere to be seen since he had wandered away the minute they had arrived nearly two hours ago. 

"Howzit?" 

"Still sore but I'll live." 

Kira breathed a sigh of relief. 

"Would've been terrible if.. y'know." Sel nodded. 

"Where's Harbnet anyway? Not that I want to see his ugly mug." 

Kira shrugged. "I'll ask the front desk to page him down." 

Out in the woods, Kraim, Shino and Kay stumbled upon a small mound in the dirt. After uprooting it, Kraim discovered it to be a music box full of his mother's jewelry. "I thought everything burned in the fire!" Shino leaned over his shoulder and flared her nostrils. 

"It hasn't even touched the fire," she murmured. 

"You think it was a robbery?" 

"Or distraction! What if they robbed you and started the fire to get you out of there?" Kay started bouncing on her toes. "That's a stretch," Kraim said while tapping a finger to his chin. "The same could be said vice versa," Shino mumbled. 

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean what if they intentionally burnt the house down but made it look like a robbery," she said louder crossing her arms. A crackle of snapping twigs was heard from deeper in the woods causing Shino's ears to swivel sharply. Kraim and Kay turned in time to see a lumbering figure move hastily through the woods. Shino gave chase while Kraim and Kay ran behind at a steady pace. A yowl was heard as a thump of someone big falling filled the air, shaking the trees and making the branches bend and sway. 

"I-I was lost, I swear! I'm just a vegan meat f-farmer, I wasn't peepin' or nothin'!" Shino had wrestled the badger onto his rear end so they could see eye to eye. Her grip tightened on his shirt collar and she wagged her tail and smiled. 

"It's okay," she said with a grin and playfully tilted her head, her hand's violent grip on his plaid shirt clearly didn't feel as playful. "But if you had anything to do with that fire--" 

"Shino, let him go," Kay said quietly.

Shino huffed and backed away from the trembling Goliath of a badger. Kraim stepped up to the badger who, even on his haunches, was taller than him. "Uh... sir, what were you doing out here?" 

"I was looking for herbs to season my vegan m-meat," he stammered. "I got l-lost and now I'm out in the boondocks. She's not g-gonna hurt me, i-is she?" Kraim pointed his thumb over his shoulder to Shino. "She won't. If you want to go home, you can go over that rock formation there in the clearing and it'll take you to Bruno Avenue." 

The black and white badger nodded his great head, stood up, took Kraim's paw in his own huge clawed one and shook it firmly. "Thank you so much. My name is Bethesda. What's yours?" "Kraim. That's Kay, and that's Shino." Shino lifted her chin at her own name with a prowess most lion's are born with. Bethesda nodded again, then waddled away toward the open space he had been directed to. 

Kraim turned to Shino. "You scared the living crud out of that poor man! Why'd you go hunt him down for?" "What if he was spying on us? I don't trust him..." Kraim's eyes narrowed and he pressed his eyebrows together with frustration. "Uh... Kraim, let's talk about this at home," Kay said, twitching her whiskers. She gestured in the direction of the rock pile and Kraim looked to see that Bethesda had disappeared. 

"We aren't alone," Kay whispered. Shino's nose twitched and her tail began to bristle. "I could go get him if you want--" Kay pressed her hand over Shino's mouth and looked into the woods. A flash of black and white shone in between the trees followed by Kira entering the clearing. "Hey, are you guys coming home? I asked your parents if you could stay and they said yeah." "Yeah, yeah, we're coming." 

.

.

.

Bethesda's eyes lit up and he quietly snaked his way through the woods, far from the group.