The sun blares down on the land this hot and muggy day. The wind does not offer a single degree of reprieve, as sweat refused to evaporate in the air already full of water. And yet the cheerful chirps of whelps persist despite the sweltering heat. Citria, Tezcatlipoca, and Bloe rest in the shade, trying to do what they can to get reprieve from the weather. Ycthuthrheth, being an a climate-controlled room and piloting a modified DPIP drone, took up looking over the whelps as they played. Tara snuck off on her own to play alone in the cool little secret spot.

The secret spot is a patch of freshly sprouting giant mushrooms, all of varying heights. And she plans to go there again. The shortest mushrooms are small enough for her to jump on, others are the perfect height to jump on from the shortest ones, and others continue the chain.

With her stumpy little whelp legs, she slowly and surely makes her way up. As she rises, she sees sights she has never seen before, starting from being able to see from the perspective of an adult, to seeing a perspective that would only be common for a flying creature. And then, Tara sees it. The tallest mushroom she could possibly reach. She steps around the current cap she stands carefully. Some moisture has precipitated on the surface of this mushroom cap, making it a bit slippery. It shouldn't be an issue if she roughs up the surface a bit for some extra grip. Preparing for the jump, she roughs up a patch on the edge of the mushroom cap in the direction she plans to jump. Before she makes the jump, she wants someone to witness it, even if it means exposing the secret spot. "Citria! Bloe! Tez!" she shouts, "Look at this!"

Citria, Bloe, and Tezcatlipoca snap into attention immediately. The voice didn't come from the direction the other whelps were playing. They made their way to the direction of the voice.

Not thinking much about it, Citria shrugged. "Ah, Tara probably found a bug or something."

Bloe chuckled, "Let's hope she didn't dirty herself too much again trying to catch it."

Tezcatlipoca looked a bit concerned. "Didn't her voice sound too high? Like in elevation?"

The moment they were in Tara's sight, she shouted again, "Look! I'm going to jump to that mushroom over there!" Tara took a few steps back to get as much of a running start she could before the great leap.

They all looked up in horror as this whelp was about to injure herself.

Tezcatlipoca yells, "Stop!"

Citria runs underneath the flight path, preparing to catch a falling Tara.

Bloe flies in front of Tara to physically stop her from jumping.

"But why?" Tara complains, "I know I can make the jump."

Citria speaks to Tara in a firm but gentle tone, "Even if you can make it, it is too high up. What if you fall from there? You will get hurt."

Tara shrugs. "I just need to not fall."

Tezcatlipoca starts speaking, "You'll need to prove that you can actually-"

Tara interrupts, "I can, you just-"

Tezcatlipoca continues, unabated, "-make the jump before we let you try that one."

Tara rolls her eyes, "Okay, how can I prove it?"

With her vantage point, Bloe scans the mushrooms and formulates a path little Tara should be able to traverse, and one similar jump at a low elevation that won't hurt too bad should Tara miss. With the tip of her tail, she points out a particular mushroom close to the ground. "From this mushroom-" Bloe points to a different mushroom with a similar distance between them, "Jump to that one."

Tara nods, sighs, "Alright," and makes her way to the first pointed mushroom. Preparing to make the leap, she wipes off the precipitation on the cap and scratches it up a bit for better traction. She takes a few steps back, runs forward with all the might she can muster in the few steps the space allows and jumps. It is then she realized that she scratched up the mushroom cap to much. Viscous fluids within the fungus seep through the wounds and caused her hind legs to slip. The trajectory to the next mushroom quickly became a trajectory to the fungal forest ground.

Citria managed to help break the fall, but Tara still had a few scrapes and bruises.

Tezcatlipoca walks up to Tara and lightly brushes dirt away from her minor wounds. "Let's get these cleaned and bandaged up."

Tara gets up, but her head hangs low. She speaks, trying to hold back sniffles, "Thank you for helping me. And sorry for being mean."

Tezcatlipoca nods, "No problem."

Citria smiles, "I'm glad you're not injured."

Bloe pats Tara's head with the tip of her tail. "And sorry if we scared you."