It was beautiful morning in the sunny fields of Mireh, and Believe, Seize, Waste, and Cecilia were happy that they got to be out and about for the day. It had been raining earlier, which meant that the ground was still slightly soggy, and filled with small puddles. Most of the whelps didn't mind though, except for Believe who was avoiding the puddles and mud at all cost.

"We should go visit Tsidal!" Waste suggested as the whelps got near the beach. The other whelps seemed to be caught off-guard by the suggestion. Seize wrinkled his nose. "I don't think we're allowed to go that far out, Waste."

Waste shrugged. "Aw come on!" he said, rolling his eyes, "Cecilia wants to go, I don't see why we shouldn't."

Seize raised an eyebrow. "We shouldn't be walking into other colonies regardless. They might not want visitors at all."

Believe rolled her eyes. "It won't be that bad! And nobody would even know we went all the way to Tsidal."

The three whelps ran off, briefly leaving Seize behind. The blue whelp rolled his eyes, briefly wondering if he should go tell on them, but quickly decided to just follow the three instead.

---

The atmosphere around the neighbouring colony was... Strange. Xunari were walking around, clearly rushing between buildings, carrying mysterious boxes.

Usually when they visited they would be greeted and welcomed in, but today that wasn't the case. The whelps were given odd looks as they wandered onto the colony's territory, several Xunari whispering to each other as they spotted the four.

Eventually they were stopped by a white and purple reef Belemoid. Seize remembered that on a previous trip, they had been introduced as Mutu. Mutu seemed nervous, even more nervous than last time when they had been introduced.

"You guys ah- aren't supposed to be here." She said carefully, while nervously glancing around. "I'm sorry, but we can't have visitors right now."

Believe frowned. "We came all this way for nothing?"

Cecilia and Waste seemed sad too. "We just wanted to say hi-" one of them said, sounding especially defeated.

Another belemoid called Moira walked up to them, a frown on her face.

"Ah! I was just telling them to leave." Mutu said.

Moira nodded in agreement. "I think that'd be for the best- let me show you the way out."

She immediately guided the whelps back out of the colony. Seize looked back, trying to give a friendly wave to Mutu who was watching them leave with a frown on her face.

"Did we do something wrong?" Believe asked, confusedly, looking at Waste. The other whelp shrugged.

"We thought we could come over for a visit." Cecilia added. "We hope we didn't insult you or anything-"

The spring belemoid had started rambling, but was quickly cut off by Moira. "It's nothing like that, we usually love visitors. Just- ah- not right now. We have some things going on." She smiled at the four whelps.

When they were about halfway back to their colony, Moira stopped. "This should be far enough right? You lot can find your way back from here."

The whelps nodded politely. They honestly hadn't needed for Moira to walk them all the way back. still, Seize smiled politely. "Thank you for bringing us back, Moira!"

Moira nodded, and quickly hurried back where she came from.

The sun had begun to set, with clouds covering the sky. The plains weren't as sunny as they had been that morning, and Seize was way less keen on being outside now.

"Maybe we should just head home." he said. Sting and Cecilia nodded, but Believe seemed deep in thought.

"They were acting kind of strange, weren't they?" Believe said eventually.

Sting frowned. "I mean, maybe Seize was right- it might not have been the best to just burst in... Maybe next time we should just ask something."

Witness hummed, still distracted. "It just felt strange, y'know?" She said. Neither of the other whelps seemed to really understand what she was talking about, though.

"They were probably just busy." Cecilia said, shrugging.

"Yea!" Waste said. "I wouldn't think too much about it, really."

Still, Witness couldn't help but feel like something was off.