"Aaaah, leave me aloooooone...!"

The familiar, frightened whine caught Duvo's attention immediately as he was starting past the sheltering cluster of rocks on the east hill. He paused, narrowing his eyes at the source of the sound.

"Or what? You'll call your big, furry protector on us? He's probably halfway across the compound, little guy."

"Why you always running to him, anyway, little guy, huh? Can't look out for yourself?"

"Go awaaaaay... please, just leave me aloooone...."

"Little wimp needs to grow a backbone!"

"Stop poking me!"

Duvo bared his teeth and moved around the boulder in his path, letting his shadow fall on the trio of whorlings previously hidden by the little quarry. Two heads came up immediately as he came into their field of view, two pairs of eyes went wide at the sight of him, and two bodies went stiff with surprise.

"It's the furball!"

"Run, run!"

Duvo lunged and snapped, catching a retreating tail-tip and pulling out a mouthful of feathers as its owner escaped. He spat them out sourly, barking after them, "Keep your miserable tails outa my sight before I bite 'em off!"

He got no response, of course; the two were too busy fleeing. At least he'd gotten to them before anything too bad had started up. With a sigh, he turned to the object of their torment, little Tayus, huddled on the ground with his paws over his face and tail curled so tightly to his bottom Duvo couldn't even see the pink part of its underside.

"Are they gone?" the little whorling whimpered without peeking past his paws.

"They're gone," Duvo answered gruffly. "Get up, now."

Tayus did as instructed, shaking himself vigorously, and gave him a mournful look. "They always pick on me...."

"You don't exactly make it hard for them," was Duvo's response, but he didn't comment when Tayus made a grab for his fur and used it to scramble up onto his back.

"I try to be braver," he sniffled once he got there. "I really do try...."

"And then you give up the first time someone looks at you wrong," Duvo snorted.

Though he'd never admit it to anyone-- and he'd never apologize-- Duvo immediately felt sorry when Tayus fell into a hurt silence, except for his repeated sniffling, leftovers from his scare. He didn't know why he liked the little whiner, or always came to his rescue when all that was happening was a little unpleasant teasing and pushing around, but he knew he wasn't about to stop. Every now and then, that annoyed him. He had no business coddling a weakling, letting him come to depend on him, failing to let him learn from his mistakes. So why did he always do it? He let out a grumbling, senseless mutter of sound, lowering his head and stalking back to his patrol, taking Tayus along with him.

By the time he'd finished his patrol for the afternoon, Tayus had forgotten he was upset at Duvo, and was chattering brightly about something or another that Duvo really paid no attention to at all. He didn't have any interest in what new kinds of flowers were growing on the west slopes, or what kind of new pet the tigons had started adopting, or how much the new wynd Dynce was bickering between its members. But since Tayus liked to talk, and Duvo could tune him out unless there was a question, he just let him chatter.

Instead, when he wasn't glaring around him at various anory denizens who gave him funny looks for carting the little whorling around like a pony-- or who gave him hopeful, admiring looks, which annoyed him even more-- or growling warningly at potential trouble-makers, he was thinking about that same little whorling. Surely there was something he could do to get the idiot to grow up a little, start looking out for himself-- or at least make him a little happier on a more consistent basis. Duvo couldn't be there all the time, and none of the other whorlings seemed to want anything to do with him. Well, really, he couldn't blame them. Tayus was annoying.

"Well, Kaz sent them all off in search of dragons, or something," Tayus was saying, one wing waving idly in time with his speech. "They might even bond. Wouldn't that be something, a little herbivore pony bonded mind to mind to a big, meat-eating dragon!"

Duvo flicked an ear in response, ignoring the babble, like usual, until several seconds later-- when Tayus had already moved on to something else-- he realized it had stuck in his brain.

"Say that again?" he asked abruptly.

"Uh--" Tayus stalled a moment, then said hesitantly, "Copperleaf decided he doesn't like how he did the north fence, so he's going to try it again?"

"No, before that. About the wynds."

"Oh, you mean Summer and Autumn and Kaz sending them off to find dragons?" At Duvo's nod, he cheerfully launched into the tale again, and this time Duvo paid attention. An idea was poking at his brain, latched onto that story, and it might even have been an idea with merit. He needed to talk to Kaz.

"You want to do... what?" Kaz asked that night when he told her about it, giving him a very skeptical look.

"Take Tayus someplace where they have those dragons and do that bonding... thing," Duvo growled, annoyed that he had to repeat himself.

"Whatever for?" she asked incredulously. "He's a little brat-- I know you like him, duVaa knows why, but you can't deny he's a whiny little child without a clever or brave bone in his body."

Duvo snorted at that line of conversation, neither in agreement nor disagreement; he didn't particularly want to follow it. "It could be good for him." At her continued disbelief, he growled to himself and added his bribe: "And if you really want, I'll bring one back, too. For the boss."

Everyone knew how the owner of the anory was always telling Kaz to go to some new and exotic locale and bring back something interesting to live on his land. Everyone also knew that she hated it, and delegated the job to someone else whenever she had the chance. Her gaze on him turned speculative rather than skeptical. "Tell Tayus that's why you're going," she suggested. "Then he won't be so disappointed when no one there wants to deal with him, either."

The only reason Duvo didn't growl at her was because she was his supervisor. As it was, he got the location and time to teleport from her and left as quickly as he could so he didn't manage to lose his temper, and thus his job.

At least he had a plan. He had to find Tayus and let him know they were going on a trip.

Back