EXPLORE

It was the very beginning of greenleaf when Spots decided to bring Gaze out into the world. The older Warrior rarely left the camp due to her blindness and Spots wanted to make sure that she still knew the Territory in terms of feeling and smell. Their progress was slow but he made sure that nobody was left behind.

A few meters in front of them Tinker was skipping ahead, jumping up and down and loving life as they usually did. Spots smiled at her joyful laughter. He loved his daughter deeply and was happy to have her.

“Do you think the prey will be more bountiful, now that greenleaf has arrived?” he heard the rough voice of Gaze and looked into her dull eyes.

“Possibly. If the twolegs stay out of the forests it will return. Last year was hard, this year will be better.” he assured her.

They walked for a while before Tinker let out an excited squeal and jumped into a small shrub to her left.

“Tinker!” Spots shouted before he ran to the spot where his daughter disappeared into.

The shrub seemed to move, it rattled a bit before Tinker's multi-colored face poked out of it.

“Look what I found!” She meowed, moved the shrub with her body and allowed Spots to see what exactly it was that she got excited about.

He sighed.

“Tinker, that’s a Tortoise. You’ve seen them before.” gently Spots nudged his daughter away from the scared animal

“How do you know? I thought it’s a Turtle.” Tinker asked, confused. While she waited for a reply she helped Gaze find a comfortable place to sit.

“First of all Tortoises are way larger than Turtles, this seems to be a baby. They usually don’t live here unless a twoleg abandons it. Also Tortoises have thicker and rounder shells than Turtles.” - “Why would they abandon a baby?” - “I don’t know, Tinker. I’m not a twoleg. Let’s just keep going and leave it be.” Tinker seemed very unhappy at the idea of just leaving the small animal behind.

“No, we have to take it with us! We can’t leave a little baby all alone in the Forest.” - “Yes, we can and we will. It’s a Tortoise, it will be fine.”

Spots knew that it would be a while until he convinced Tinker to leave the Tortoise behind and keep going. It was always like this.