Awake When Asleep

Episode 1: Does this make us crazy?

It would seem Nyao-E is in a pretty good hiding spot again, where-oh-where could she be? Finding Nyao-B was easy enough with her white, fluffy rabbit ears poking out behind the biggest boulder in the forest, but even from this height Nyao-S has a hard time finding her dear cat-astrophe of a friend! That one was quite good at this game, yes, she was always the best. There was a town wide hide-and-seek not too long ago as a matter of fact while they were passing through, can you guess who won? Why do they continue to play this game with that girl when there is no winning against her!

You're not asking why a wondrous little town would all play hide-and-seek, are you? That's just silly, why wouldn't they! In their little world, they can have all kinds of wonderful adventures! It's the best place you could ever be, they don't talk about the other world. Their real one, no no, that one is no fun. Here there are adventures to be had, land to travel, monsters to quell and reputation to be earned! They agreed to not tell one another their actual names, that might make something unwanted happen. But no doubt, no fear, loyalty is undying here. They are the heroines, they are the queens, they are the bridges it would seem. Regardless of brutality, here they'll never care about reality. Waking up is always a pity when you're feeling so itty-bitty, but fall asleep for too long and you might not wake when everything is at stake....

I might be making this too creepy? What was I talking about? ...Ah, oh well. The mission at hand is too find Nyao-E! It's been like, 3 hours! Why doesn't she just try to find us? I'm not sure how much longer I can keep looking... I'm gettin' the munchies. I think Nyao-B is too? She looks kinda out of it right now. She probably just doesn't want to deal with the height up here... but we really gotta find that cat! The darn girl has better night vision than us, if it hits nightfall we'll never find her and she's gonna come back to us in the morning all upset... like last time. Shoot!

I poked Nyao-B on her shoulder, she waited a few moments before turning her head in a daze to me. The poor thing is probably very tired by now, I don't think she likes climbing big rocks as much as I do, but she was the one to hide up here anyway.

Gathering her thoughts, Nyao-B's eyes widened and became attentive. She asked, "How long have we been looking now? I feel like we've been up here for some time...." I shrugged and tried to think of how to approach the topic of us just leaving when she wobbled a bit; I held her shoulder to straighten her up and she continued, "Wait... ugh... we're looking for Nyao-E, right?"

I blankly looked at her. "Yes? For hours now? This whole time?"

"Well, don't you have her brush? Why don't you just track her scent? You're part dog, Nyao-S." .............Oh. Yeah. The whole tracking thing, ha ha. Of course.

Reaching for my satchel, I poked my head in to find her sunset themed brush. Which I did, but it hit my eye, so now that hurts. I think I can use that against her as a guilt trip or something. A black eye would be more convincing though, I wonder if I should punch myself to make it legit? Yeahhhh. Or maybe Nyao-B can do it.

I looked over to Nyao-B with the brush now in hand, she looks like she's zoning out again, so maybe she can't muster the strength to punch me at the moment. That's okay though, I'll ask her later. Her eyes loomed to the brush and she looked relieved to see it.

"Wonderful, we can use that to find her. I hope she isn't far. I think I'm almost ready to wake up, I've used a lot of energy here." Nyao-B moved away from my grip on her shoulder and put her hand on the ribbon of her beaded choker, twirling it around her finger in contemplation.

"Aw, you think so? Well at least finding Nyao-E will go a little faster now, so try to hang on 'till we can find her." Putting Nyao-E's brush under my nose, I took a few deep breaths and inhaled her scent. It smelled kind of like... strawberry cinnamon tea and honey crackers. Yes, must be the smell of her soul or something. At least that's what I like to think when I interpret somebody's musk. A few more sniffs of the brush and I slowly put it to my side, smelling the air from the top of a mossy boulder. The amount of smells usually confuse me a bit, but the smell of a person is easier to locate rather than an object. And speaking of, a small waft of Nyao-E came diagonally from my left. I turned to Nyao-B and pointed toward the direction of the smell, she nodded in response and walked a few paces to her side attempting to find a way back down. I shook my head to her silly notions, thinking so much about safety will make things much less fun here in Kaida. I bent down to the ground, one leg stretched out behind me ready to propel me forward, and I leaped into a sprint toward the edge of the boulder. Nyao-B turned in surprise as I hurled myself off the rock and fell 20 ft downward to the leaf ridden ground. I thought I looked pretty cool jumping off into adventure like that, but it turns out that falling down 20 ft off a giant rock isn't actually a good idea. As I landed a loudly audible crack erupted into my ears and sent a shock through out my body. I collapsed onto my side and whimpered in pain as I saw Nyao-B leap from rock to rock down the path she developed, and quickly went to my side. Kneeling down beside me she inspected my oddly bent legs, confusedly waving her hands around them not sure if she should touch them or not. Why is she so adorable!