Seymore wandered the fungal forest looking for various mushrooms- as he usually did when there was nothing better to do. He quite liked the forest; with the tall mushrooms reaching into the sky, blocking the sunlight from his sensitive eyes. Today's walk wasn't as relaxed as usual, though, as Mermaid's scale and Crimson Crown had seen him head out and quite literally begged him to take them along. Taking two out of three youngest colonists with him had quite drastically changed the vibe of the walk. They has been walking trough the forest for a while when Seymore noticed a change. The mushrooms that usually stood tall were starting to look withered and hunched over, nearly collapsing from their own weight. Crown scoffed "Why do people always talk about these mushrooms when they're so ugly?" the other whelp chimed in- "Yea! These aren't cool at all! I could push one of these over without even trying!" and instantly dashed forward to one of the sad looking mushrooms, only to be stopped by Seymore last minute. "Let's- not do that, okay?" he frowned at the whelp in his arms, not convinced the kid wouldn't run off any minute. "They don't usually

look like this- they're just withering, I suppose. " Both whelps gave him a blank stare. "Withering? You know." they shook their heads, and Seymore sighed. "Going bad? Like how when we go somewhere to forage, we have to make sure to eat everything quickly or else we have to throw them out so we don't get sick." huffing, Scale squirmed out of his arms. "We're not even gonna eat these mushrooms, silly! We would never eat a mushroom this ugly!" Suddenly, a strange, clay-and-white Tsabhua poked her head out from behind a mushroom. "They've ah, been withering for a while now." she spoke softly. "I'm- not sure why." Seymore couldn't quite stop the two whelps from dashing off to greet the newcomer "Hi!!!" both chattered excitedly. Seymore feared it was only the first of many things about to pour from the little one's mouths. "Do you live here?" "Why does your pelt look like that?" "Are the mushrooms your friends?" "Do they ever talk to you?" "Do they always look so ugly, or is it just because *we* wanted to see them?" Crown rolled her eyes at Scale's last statement. "Of course not silly! Mushrooms don't just- *choose* to

wilt." Scale snapped back "How do you know? You're not a mushroom." Seymore decided to step in now, before the sibling argument got too heated. Nobody wanted to see that, after all. "Girls- let's not fight, okay? I think the nice lady was trying to tell us about the mushrooms." Scale couldn't quite let it go- sticking her tongue out at Crown anyways. Seymore smiled at Litmus apologetically "Whelps, am I right?" he said as the stranger gave him a strange look. "Well, like I said- nobody is sure why they're withering." she wrung her hands nervously "Oh uhm, I'm Litmus, by the way. The mushrooms- well, it could be all sorts of things. Lack on nutrients in the ground, disease, pests. You name it, we've got it." she chuckled shyly at her own joke. the whelps, however, had not failed to pick up on the word "ground" and instantly tried to bolt towards one of the mushroom- only Crown succeeding, Scale quickly being held back by Seymore again. The unrestrained whelp however, quickly started digging into the soft soil. "Something in the ground??? Ill take it out!" she said, already covered in mud. Seymore struggled to find words as

he tried to keep both whelps contained from their sudden excitement for- digging? He wasn't sure what was going on, really. "Scale no don't-" he looked at Litmus "Thank you for explaing I'll- Crown *stop that*, I'll send someone over and maybe we can- Crown *really*, I promise you, you cannot dig that deep. We can send someone to check it out. Maybe someone else can help you figure this out but I gotta- I gotta get these rascals home first. Strangely, I'd prefer them not to be crushed by a rotting mushroom." Litmus nodded, taken aback by the sudden burst of energy of the whelps and looking on as Seymore herded the two back where they came from, regularly interrupted by wails of "But I wanna digggg" and "You never let us do anything *fun* Seymore!"