Yesterday, we decided that today we’d show Purps around town. I was quite excited to show him around. It’s something I always love to do whenever I meet someone for the first time.

I had so many thoughts, of where we’d go, what we’d do, I could practically see the places. I sat up in bed after doing my exercises, as I felt the hard, wooden floor press against my bare feet. The sound of them creaking as I stood up, filled my ears. When I walked towards the door, I could hear the three of them already up, chatting away. I opened the door and, without being noticed, I snuck away into the bathroom. The tiles were cold, naturally, as I began to undress myself as I stepped into the shower. Then, after a nice, hot, steamy shower, I snuck back into my bedroom with a towel wrapped around my chest to decide what outfit to wear today. I opened my wardrobe to decide which outfit I’d wear for today. 

Whenever I go out, I love to dress up, even if it’s something as simple as going to the store to buy milk. I just love dressing up wherever I go. Today, I had decided on a long, wavy green dress, complete with a flower clip and a flower bag. I gathered all my stuff, to then head out into the living room. Kumoto was sitting on the right side of the couch, facing Fluffy and Purps who were next to her, talking with some show on the TV playing, quietly in the background, overlapping with the sounds of the voices being made by all my friends. I gathered myself the same breakfast as yesterday, feeling the coolness of the spherical bowl touching my skin, as I carried it to the couch in order to join everyone in their conversation.

“Morning, Kura.” Kumoto said.

“Morning.” I breathed, fearing that my voice was not as stunning as hers. Fluffy and Purps also said hi, to which I just smiled at the two of them. I plopped myself on the other side of the couch, as I began to eat my breakfast.

Once I had finished, after I put my bowl and spoon in the dishwasher, I watched as they all stood and headed towards the door so we could begin to head to show Purps around town. We left the house all together, though I slowly began to drift behind as they held conversations I wasn’t a part of. I listened as they all walked ahead, to the sounds of their voices. The laughter that I felt didn’t involve me. The sounds of their footsteps, meters ahead of mine.

We walked through the forest, with Kumoto next to me, and Fluffy and Purps a few meters ahead, with Fluffy riding on Purps’ back like a horse. We stopped when we heard a familiar voice.

“Is that Kura, Kumoto and Fluffy I see?” We all stopped and turned around to notice our neighbour, Miss Fennec, sitting outside her house with our other neighbour Mr Canis, both staring at us with a friendly, welcoming smile.

Mrs Fennec was an old fox who had been living here with her husband, Mr Canis, who was a rather tall wolf, since long before Kumoto and I lived here. We didn’t often walk by their house, but it was always nice when we did. They were always so friendly when we saw them, despite not talking as often as we’d like.

“Oh, hi Miss Fennec!” Said Kumoto, rather cheerfully, as she wandered towards her to chat, and I promptly followed, with Fluffy and Purps coming after.

“Oh please sweetie, call me Francis.” She waved her paw around in protest. Mr Canis walked over to his wife, in order to speak to us better.
“How you doin’ love?” He huffed out, in his deep, raspy voice.

“I’m good, Mr Canis. How are you?” Kumoto replied.
“Oh, don’t you call me that. You know we’re friends. Call me Dennis!” He said.

Honestly, I didn’t have much to say. I guess it’s because we haven’t seen them in a while, so we feel less close as friends, which might be why Kumoto was calling them by their surnames instead. But despite that, they were still friendly.

They both gave a warm welcome to me and Fluffy before Francis said;

“Now who’s this you’ve got here?” As she gestured towards Purps, who was standing shyly behind Fluffy.
Purps and Fluffy both sat down next to each other, as Purps took off his hat as he introduced himself.
“Name’s Purple Cat, but you can just call me Purps, ma’am.” He put his hat back on, then continued.

“I’m new around here. First I found myself this here friend” He looked at Fluffy.
“Then all of a sudden, they let me live ere’ at their place.”

Francis smiled with her eyes closed. I actually rarely saw her eyes open. I’m not sure what it is, I mean, I’m sure she’s not always actually closing her eyes, they were just a bit hard to see. Maybe it’s because she’s just really fluffy, which is cute.
“Did you hear there are some other new neighbours who just moved in?” ‘Hmm.’ I thought to myself. I feel like I would know if someone else moved in. Then again, it’s not like I’m really part of the community, so it could be possible that I just didn’t hear about it. Though I feel like Kumoto would tell me if anyone new moved in, as she is generally more active when it comes to neighbours. I do try to be though. I wish I was, at least. That way I’d fit in better.
“No?” Kumoto and I said in unison.

Fluffy and Purps didn’t say anything, but I assume they didn’t know either. I mean, Purps just moved in, so there’s no way he’d know, and Fluffy had a look of confusion on his face, with his eyebrows slightly furrowed. The sun shone brightly on Francis as she continued, almost as if the heavens themselves were giving her the spotlight.

“Yes, apparently two new dogs moved in just today. Same as you Purps!” She let out a short, cute chuckle, wrinkling her nose. Then, almost immediately after she said that, we all heard a rustling coming from the bushes next to us. We all turned to look to see what it was, when we saw two dogs sitting upright in the bush with rather long necks, one black and one a sort of brownish orange colour, wearing sunnies and cowboy hats, similar to Purps’ one. They seemed to be holding some kind of binoculars in their paws.
“Eveway eenbay pottedsay. Issionmay bortaay.”
Said the brown one, in what I’m assuming is pig latin.

I do know some pig latin, but I’m by no means fluent, so I had no idea what they said. But I think they were trying to be sneaky, acting as if we couldn’t see their meter long necks sticking out of the bush.
“Etslay ebay neakysay. Eway antcay rawday nyaay oremay ttentionaay otay urselvesoay.”
Replied the black one, looking at the other. The brown one nodded vigorously. I was perplexed to say the least, watching these two interact.

“Esidesbay, Iay ontday hinktay nyay foay hemtay reaay Harliecay.”

The black one continued. The longer this went on, it became somewhat of a mild entertainment for me.
“Etslay ogay.”

I watched as they fumbled over each other, clearly trying to sneak away whilst ironically drawing more attention to themselves, crashing and scraping, as they fell on top of each other.

“Wait!” said Kumoto, walking up to them with her hand in the air.
I couldn’t be bothered to talk to more people today, but I guess I had no other choice, so I followed along, paying more and more attention to what was going on around me as I decided to tune in.
“Are you new in town? We’ve heard there’re a few new neighbours.”
They looked at each other and nodded, before turning back to us and talking. Honestly, these dogs were so tall. It’s actually quite interesting, because you’d think all canines would be quadrupeds, like Francis and Dennis, but these two were clearly bipedal. The story began roughly a billion years ago, though no one’s %100 sure what, some people think it was a spell, others think animals taught themselves to do this, but there were three splits in the animal tree lineage. One where animals like Francis and Dennis belong, where they’re still quadrupeds, but they can communicate with Trixins (Trixin is what we call something that’s not an animal, creatures like humans, elves, and vampires would fall under that category), one where they kinda stayed the exact same, and one where they gained more of a human side to them. Now, animals learning to talk, everyone’s pretty certain that was a spell given to a few animals back in ancient times, since there are spells like that today, but no one’s quite sure how lots of quadrupeds became bipedal. It could have been a spell, but it could have also been a choice, for what reason, we don’t know, but there have been studies to show that some quadrupeds can teach themselves how to walk on two legs, and then teach their kids, and so on and so forth. Although, the reasoning for some people believing that it was a spell, is the fact that some of these bipeds can be born with more trixin traits than animals. For example, they could grow ram horns and a tail, but other than that everything else is completely trixin like. Which is why some believe that someone might have once cast a spell in order to combine a trixin with an animal at some point, although there’s no spells like that that exist today.

“Hello. My name is Minnie.”

Said the brown one, standing up straight, clearly taking herself more seriously than she needed to. I noticed as a subtle breeze flew by, carrying with it a small, pink butterfly with stripes. It was pretty. I like bugs, at least the ones that aren’t bad in some way.

The two dogs were clearly taking themselves way more seriously than they needed too, but it was funny to watch as they continued, with their paws on their hips, and their heads held high.
“This here is my brother Mooey.” She gestured to her brother, standing next to her.
It was incredible how much they mirrored each other. I’m not sure if they were twins or not, but it felt like they were reading each other’s minds. It was amusing to watch, yet kinda creepy. The way that they were standing was the exact same. They copied each other exactly with every movement. It was strange.

They looked at each other directly in the eye, or, glasses I guess, before Minnie said;

“Excuse us for a moment, will you?” Then walked a few meters away. As they walked away, I noticed the sounds of a stream wafting by. I didn’t notice it before, but it grew louder and louder when Minnie and Mooey walked away. Then, the sun shone brightly yet again, this time on Fluffy and Purps, who looked just as perplexed as I was, watching this whole interaction go down.

I tried my best to focus my attention on what Minnie and Mooey were saying, with all the background noise, and I could just make it out. It seemed as if they were trying to whisper in each other’s ears, but it wasn’t doing any good because I could hear the entirety of what they were saying despite the loud background noise and I’m assuming everyone else could too.

“Do you think they know about him?” Said Minnie, anxiously.

“Perhaps. They have lived here longer than us.” Supposed Mooey, putting his paw up to his chin, in a cloud of thought, with his other resting on his hip.

“Okay, but you ask, I’ve done enough of the talking for today.” Minnie whined.
“Do you have the photo on you?” Mooey asked.

“Yes I–” We watched as Minnie fumbled around, patting her round waist, assumedly looking for a photo, but I’m not sure where it would be considering she wasn’t wearing anything but a hat and sunglasses. “Damnit!”

She whined again.
“What is it?” Faltered Mooey, in a serious tone, though not seriously enough for me to take him seriously.
“I’m not wearing my trenchcoat?” She said.
Mooey took a good look at her.
“Oh yeah, you’re not.” I guess it really took her a long time to realise she wasn’t wearing anything. I chuckled to myself.
“I must’ve left it back at the house.” Said Minnie, worriedly.
“I guess we’ve got no choice but to take them home.” Said Mooey, with a deep sigh. Oh no. ‘Please don’t invite us over to your house’ I thought. I’ve already dealt with enough people today. I didn’t need a new interaction, at this point I just wanted to go home.

“Whyyy?” Minnie complained. Clearly we were on the same wavelength. He gave her a stern look, crossing his arms and lifting his chin.
“They might know a lot about him. They might be the key to cracking this case.” Strange. It almost sounded like they thought they were detectives, but from what I was hearing and what I was seeing, there was no way they were. I feel like you’d need some sort of training to be a detective, so I thought they were just joking for a while, but the more interactions we had made me think they actually thought they were detectives. I’m not sure what they think, but I’m pretty sure you can’t just give yourself a case, then call yourself a detective by default.

They walked back towards us. ‘Oh god.’ I thought to myself, fearing what would eventually happen.

“Hello. Apologies for earlier. It was very unprofessional.” Minnied bowed.
I looked at Kumoto, then at Fluffy, then at Purps. We all had no idea what was about to happen. This also just further proves my point that they actually think they're detectives. Obviously they’re not really, but they clearly really thought they were.
“Upon much consideration, we think it would be in everyone's best interest to come over to our house for tea. After all, we are new here and would love to get to know everyone.”
Something tells me they didn’t want to get to know us. I looked at Kumoto, desperately trying to signal that I didn’t want to go over to theirs. And I assume she didn't either, because without looking at me or without missing a beat she waved her hand in the air and said;

“That’s fine, actually. We were just about to go ho-”

Before she could finish her sentence, Minnie took her arm and started walking.

“Please, we insist.” Said Minnie, as she walked behind us then started shoving us with her freakishly large paws.