• ---Underearth---
    Chapter two

    Tabby groaned and rubbed the back of her neck, which was warm and throbbing as if she had pulled a muscle. She couldn’t remember pulling anything the other day. Had she played a game with Brian and his friends? She couldn’t remember her bed being so uncomfortable either. She opened her eyes, then closed them, and then opened them again. It was completely dark. Have I gone blind? Tabby thought, suddenly overwhelmed in fear and cold. She realized she had absolutely no idea where she was, and being blind wouldn’t help that. But after a minute of frantically rubbing her eyes and stumbling around, she finally adjusted to the dim light. She looked up and saw an extremely small circle of morning light above her head, and remembered her terrifying descent. It seemed to be very far up, and the light beaming down from it had choked out to a dim gray in the blackness of… wherever she was.
    “That fall was… how did I survive that?” Tabby pondered, bewildered. She stared at the ground, and tentatively placed her hand down on it. It felt squishy and pillow-like. There was moss and other kinds of fungi growing here and there, and some patches were glowing a slight green. As her eyes adjusted more, she could see she had left a slight indentation with her body. She couldn’t help but giggle at that. Though there were a few planks sticking out here and there that had torn at her skin, she had been saved by whatever the soft substance was beneath. She guessed it was years and years of moss and fungi grown on top of each other, or something to that measure.
    Then she heard a slight scuffling noise, and jumped in a panic. She stared down at a pair of little unblinking blue eyes. For a moment she froze, her skin crawling, and then remembered, “Dinah!”
    Dinah mewled as Tabby picked her up and stroked her sooty fur. “You poor baby… I hope I didn’t squish you!” Then she felt a stabbing pain at her sides, and looked down to see small streams of dried blood caked around several little claw marks. Desperate kitten claws, no doubt. “Quite the opposite, I’d say. I think I must have broken your fall. I landed on my back, after all.” Tabby said, mostly to herself. Slowly, as the shock was wearing away, Tabby began feeling pain from each and every injury from the night before. Her back and neck were throbbing from the impact of the fall, and her sides stung from Dinah’s shocked claws. Her legs felt like she had just run a full marathon in five minutes, and were all scratched up and bruised. She was singed here and there from the fire, and her arms and face were sliced from streaming glass. Her back was also stinging from the dirt that had raked the raw wounds from the iron claw, and the back of her shirt was torn to reveal the gashes. On top of all that, her head was pounding with a wrenching ache.
    Tabby moaned a long, despairing moan and held her head in her hands. Dinah sat next to her with her tail curled around her little paws, staring curiously, as if none of this was strange in the least. Tabby desperately wondered how on earth, or under earth, anyone would find her all the way down here. It seemed much deeper then a regular manhole. Not to mention they might just assume she had burned to ashes in the fire, and not bother to look for her in the first place.
    The fire! Tabby’s head flew up, her eyes wide. Dinah was startled and jumped, fluffing up.
    “Oh, Dinah!” Tabby cried, “What if no one made it out? And even if they did, what if Uncle Tory killed them with his machine? What if he had gone ahead and destroyed the rest of the town? What if everyone else is dead, Dinah?” Tabby was sobbing, clearly distraught by all these thoughts.
    She really couldn’t help it, and now seemed like a safe time to finally let it all out. The endless tears streamed down her ashy face, leaving clean trail marks as they dripped down, off her nose and chin.
    After at least ten minutes, her sobs began to ebb. She gave a long, shuddering sigh, and looked down at Dinah. “Well, Dinah. I suppose crying won’t make anything better.” Tabby picked up the bedraggled kitten and stood shakily to her pulsating legs. “What do you say we take a look around?” She looked around herself, but discovered that she could not see anything past the small circle of gray light emanating from the hole far above her. She considered trying to climb back out of the hole, but discovered, when she ran her hand on the rocky walls, it was too wet and too vertical. Not to mention that her weary body would give out before she could get much farther then five feet at the most. So, she had no choice but to stumble around in the darkness. Tabby hoped she could either find sewer-workers or miners, or get eaten by a sewer croc and end her suddenly meaningless life. But who would take care of poor Dinah? She thought. Though an utterly pathetic reason to live, she had to make sure Dinah got somewhere safe at least. If she did get out and ended up in a foster home where no pets are allowed, she wanted to find a sweet old lady who would take good care of her kitten and give her a saucer of milk and other treats and generally spoil the little thing to her heart’s content. With everything and everyone gone, her mind had been shocked into emptiness, and being assured that Dinah was going to be okay was the only thing she could do now.
    So, carrying the little red kitten, she began moving towards a randomly-chosen direction in the complete darkness. But of course, she had only walked about five feet when her forehead slammed into a rocky wall. “Ow!” She shrieked, her head throbbing, and startling skittish, little Dinah again. Tabby cursed under her breath and began feeling along the wall. It came to an abrupt stop about a foot to aside of where she was standing. Of course, that would make perfect sense. Tabby thought angrily to herself. She sighed and began walking more slowly this time, steering clear of the wall.

    Endless darkness.
    Endless walking.
    Endless pain.
    Endless determination to make sure a teeny, bedraggled kitten would live.
    That’s all that was currently in Tabby’s life. She walked for hours and hours, and there was no physical reason that her legs hadn’t completely given out on her and refused to move yet. It was all mental power, we can assume. And a strange mental power that had enveloped her it was. It could only be from the trauma and numbing grievance of losing everyone real that she knew, except for a mere kitten. Tabby continued to trip over things, bash her head on walls and such, battering herself all the more. But she kept on getting up, kept on moving forward. If she even knew which way was forward anymore.
    But then, after squinting her eyes, she realized that there was a dim light in the distance; a small circle bobbing slightly, but surely it was either a way out, or someone with a flashlight. Tabby, her heart beating with hope and excitement, began stumbling faster towards the light.
    “Hello?” She called. Someone had been down here before, or was down here now; She was going to get out of this strange world of darkness! But strangely, there was no answer to her call.
    She got closer and closer, but… Something was wrong. She walked until she reached the light, and she realized it wasn’t a light or a flashlight; it was an orb. A random, glowing orb just sitting there in the air, in the middle of nowhere. Tabby shivered, and she clutched the kitten to herself as she cautiously inspected the floating orb.
    Then the orb began slowly drawing back.
    Tabby’s eyes widened as she realized there was a pink, glistening thing attached to the bottom of the orb that was holding it out. And her skin truly crawled when the orb lit up a gray face, staring at her with bottomless black eyes. It’s skewer-like teeth stuck out like a piranha’s do. The gray skin was stretched over its bony figure like aged fabric between rods. Its nostril’s flared ever-so softly.
    It didn’t move.
    Neither did Tabby.
    The only things that moved were the hairs at the back of her neck, and the cat wriggling in terror; ensnared in her owner’s stone-still fingers.
    Then the creature hissed and sprang.
    And the whole world of darkness came alive in that moment.
    In that heartbeat of a second, foxfire glowed eerily, floating lizards peeled themselves from walls, piles of bones cracked and separated themselves from the earth, becoming alive in a black fog of uprooted, disturbed dirt.
    Luminescent creatures began glowing and scratching at the earth, and a pair of lit eyes stared down at her from the ceiling. Little things, invisible in the darkness, scurried across the ground; across Tabby’s feet.
    Tabby shrieked the loudest she ever had in her life, and leapt to the side in order to avoid the creature, shoving Dinah back into her shirt in one swift but rough movement. She did manage to get out of the line of its killing strike, but the creature’s long claws grazed her arm as she fell down to her knees. She winced, but there simply wasn’t enough time to stop and feel the pain. Just as the creature turned swiftly to deal another blow to her painfully exposed back, another creature, bluish in hue, screamed and threw itself onto the creature in a flurry of fur, tearing it up in a matter of seconds. Tabby thought she might puke, but she simply did not have the time, for another of the bluish little furballs was slowly advancing on her, growling. She held her breath and backed away slowly, holding her mewling kitten tightly. It looked like a light-colored Tasmanian Devil, built to kill with its jaws stained red. But as it crouched to spring, its ears angled in the other direction, and it turned to see the other blue ‘Devil. It growled at Tabby and seemed to decide it could come back and get her later as it jumped to fight the other one over the dead pieces of the shredded piranha-monster.
    Tabby, deciding now would be an excellent time to get as far away as possible from the pair of ‘Devils, turned and began running as fast as her weary legs and all the tripping rocks and roots would allow. Her breathing was panicked; quick and heavy, and making her feel rather dizzy.
    Then she halted in a snap, realizing she had almost run straight-smack into yet another petrifying, subterranean animal. This time it was the biggest snake she had ever seen in her life. It was snowy-white, and had strange, whisker-like things on the sides of its head. Most of its body was coiled up, but its head was up high in the air. Tabby slowed her breathing, hoping the snake was sleeping. They say its hard to tell if a snake is sleeping since it has no eyelids. But for Tabby, it was even harder considering the fact that it had no eyes whatsoever. She began tip-toeing in a wide arc around the snake, breathing quietly and never taking her eyes off the large reptile. But, just her luck, it seems the snake wasn’t asleep after all and was simply waiting to pinpoint her direction, as it turned its head, flicked its tongue and hissed, and lunged. Tabby didn’t even have time to scream, as the biggest bone foot she had ever seen close up, stepped down and crushed the snake’s head into non-existence. Her eyes the widest as humanly possible, trembling worse then a person having a seizure, and in a true form of shock, Tabby gazed up at the foot’s originator.
    The owner of the foot was almost the size of an adult elephant. It very loosely fit the image of a panther’s skeleton, if you could imagine a panther skeleton mutated and built up for wreaking havoc in battle. Very thin patches of shredded, bald, white skin stretched along parts of the skeleton, but left most of it exposed. Grime and dirt caked the creature all over, patches of yellowish-green moss growing along its bones. Roots were caught everywhere a root could possibly be caught. The creature generally looked like a skeleton that had been sitting half-submerged underground and slowly rotting. But as frightening as all that may be, the most terrifying part couldn’t be anything but the eyes, which were, luckily, not looking at Tabby. The eyes were gaping, black sockets with a tiny pair of glowing-red eyeballs that hardly fit the sockets. The only thing holding them in place were the disgusting veins that attached from the eyeballs to the edges of the sockets. And those veins looked like they had been half-submerged underground as well. Tabby thought she might puke, again.
    Tabby held her breath, and took all energy she had left inside of her to make herself as still and invisible as she could possibly manage. The skeleton was completely still; the only noise being the air being sucked into it’d gaping nostrils as it sniffed around, and the clicking of small bones inside of the ear holes, changing the direction of sound.
    Slowly, ever so slowly, with a slight creaking and cracking sound like the bones of an old man that had been sitting too long, the gigantic head turned downward until it was facing Tabby completely. It’s red eyes intently focused on her. Tabby, in absolute terror, pain, and complete shock from the strangest life-changing events in all of her days, continued to remain frozen to the spot completely, as she stared into the eyes. They were hypnotizing, probing… And emitted pure terror into the poor soul who gazed upon them.
    That moment may have lasted minutes, hours, seconds… if Dinah hadn’t mewled to be let go, perhaps the creature would have turned away.
    The animal snarled and roared, and then lunged. Tabby’s heart, in that split second, skipped a beat as she knew she was going to die. She had failed poor Dinah.
    But before the gaping jaws could reach her, the ground gave way under the sudden weight of the monster’s feet, and Tabby was plunged into darkness, hitting everything on the way down like a broken, fabric doll falling down the stairs. Completely unable to move now from the paralyzing injuries, Tabby only stared up, not even able to make a sound of pain. A skeletal paw scratched at the earth, trying to get through the hole. But alas for the creature, and a miracle for Tabby, it could simply not fit. She never got to see if it gave up, for she abruptly passed out.

    This time, when she opened her eyes ever-so-slightly, Tabby didn’t forget what had happened. The pain crashed on her immediately. How could she forget?
    She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the dim light of the foxfire and small, glowing parasites crawling around in the dirt walls. But after a minute or so, she realized there was a weight on her chest and a figure arched over her body. She gasped, and flinched back, not being able to move much, and the figure stumbled back in surprise. After a minute of panic she realized the figure was human.
    A human boy.
    And boy, was he blushing.
    Tabby stammered, “W-wha?”
    The boy scratched his head, gave a little, nervous laugh and stammered in his slightly-raspy voice, “S-sorry, I was trying to see if y-you were still breathing…”
    He had black, shaggy hair, and equally dark eyes. They were so black, she couldn’t distinguish the iris from the pupil. If there was indeed an iris in the first place. His sheet-pale skin only made them look even more like dark holes in his head. He didn’t look too much older then Tabby herself.
    Tabby tried to sit up, but cringed and groaned at the sheering pain that convulsed through her body as she did so. The boy cautiously crawled closer, eyeing her numerous wounds.
    “Damn, you really are a mess…” He said softly. Tabby was in too much pain to think up a sharp retort, and she was suddenly feeling very dizzy. She hoped she wouldn’t faint again; she’d done that too many times today. The boy gently put an arm on her back and helped her to sit up. “Come on, lets get you out of here before something worse smells your blood.”
    Tabby’s eyes widened, “Something worse? Worse then that… that… uh…”
    “Trust me, much, much worse.” After much agonizingly slow shifting around and shrieks of pain from Tabby, they managed to get her into the boys arms and up in the air. By the end of it, Tabby was so dizzy she couldn’t see straight.
    “You’re unbelievably lucky, you know. Not only did you fall into the tight part of a pit and avoided being eaten by the Bone Beast, but you also fell into a pit with an easy way out. I won’t have to attempt climbing with you.” The boy told her. He pointed to the steep but sure pile of dirt, boulders, and debris leading to the top of the deep trench. It looked difficult, but not as difficult as trying to scale a vertical, dirt wall. Tabby supposed it must have been karma trying to make up for the fact that she’d lost everything in her life, and just spent several hours in hell tearing up her body. It was a sucky attempt for balance, but convenient nonetheless. “My name’s Silas, by the way.” The boy told her as he carefully made his way to the other end of the pit.
    Tabby blinked up at him drowsily, and replied with pain-slurred speech, “I’m Tabby.” And with that she fell into a half-conscious slumber, rocked to sleep by the steady footsteps of Silas as he carried her to safety. Or at least, what her last conscious thought hoped would be safety.

    Tabby woke up inside a dimly-lit shelter. Half of the shelter was submerged in a huge, hollowed-out boulder, and the other half consisted of well-crafted wooden and stone walls. It was very small, but very cozy, and well-protected against the cold air of this under-world. There was a small, wooden table with two chairs unevenly on each side, with hand-made cups and bowls and such laying around on it. There were plenty more of those all over the stone counter, which had wooden cabinets built into the walls above them. The sink was a hollow in the surface of the stone counter, and there appeared to be a primitive, stone icebox. In the center of the kitchen was a small stone circle holding a crackling fire pit, which seemed for warmth as well as cooking. Areas of the floor (not around the fire obviously) there were animal furs and woven rugs to cover the stone ground. In the back there was a hollowed entranceway to what was probably more rooms.
    Tabby was laying on comfortable bedding which seemed to be somewhat-crude fabric stuffed to the brim with probably feathers, and draped over with several furs. She was snuggled up in a few velvety blankets and two soft pillows, all of which she hoped weren’t also made of fur. She sat up slowly and stretched her stiff muscles, sending a pain shivering through her spine. “Ugh…”
    She had been extremely skittish ever since she’d been traveling around down there, so when the front door opened, Tabby jolted. But she calmed immediately when she saw Silas’s pale face. But what she found funny was Silas jumping at the realization that she was staring at him when he entered the room, and couldn’t help but giggle weakly.
    Silas regained his composure almost as quickly as Tabby had. “Y-you’re awake…” He set the bag he was carrying down on the table and slowly walked over to her, scratching the back of his head. “Um, how are you feeling…?”
    Tabby sighed and put a hand on her head, “Slightly better then yesterday at least… But that’s probably because I’m not currently running for my life from something freakishly mutated.”
    Silas smiled, “Yes, you’re lucky I was there. Those lands are not a place for amateurs…” He sat down next to Tabby’s bed. “I heard a shriek, and decided I should go check it out. I figured it was just some unlucky animal, but it sounded strange so I guess I was curious… Then I saw you fall through the ground and waited until the Bone Beast left to go see if you were still alive.”
    Tabby frowned and said sarcastically, “Oh, thanks.”
    Then a bubbling sound started in the kitchen, and Silas stood up to go get what was currently over the fire pit. It was a crude and dented metal pot with a spout and handle, so Tabby guessed it was supposed to be a teapot. Tabby tiredly watched as he took out a couple of glazed pottery mugs from one cabinet, then a bowl of dried leaves and a jar of golden liquid from another. He poured the hot water into both of the mugs, crunched up some of the leaves, and mixed them in along with a little of the golden stuff, which she figured must have been honey or something. What could possibly make honey down here was beyond Tabby. Then he walked over to the icebox and took out what was most likely milk, mixing that in as well, and then bringing the mugs back over when he finished.
    “You like herbal tea?” He asked, handing her one of the mugs.
    Tabby shrugged, “No idea, but I do like trying new things.” She took a small sip, immediately deciding she liked the sweetness and the sharpness of the herbs together, and took another. “Mmm, it’s good, thanks a lot.” She looked up at his face, his eyes studying her. “For everything really, I’d probably be dead right now without you.”
    Silas smiled and looked down, seeming embarrassed, “Yes, you probably would be… You’re welcome nonetheless.” He took a sip of his own tea. “But you can repay me by telling me something…”
    Tabby looked up from examining the painted images on her mug, “Yes?”
    Silas looked thoughtful, “Are you… Are you from, up there?” He pointed upward.
    “You mean on the surface of the Earth?” Silas nodded, so Tabby answered, “Yes, I do. Why, have you never seen the sun before?” She had asked that jokingly, but was also curious to know if that indeed was the case.
    Silas shook his head. “None of us have. We Underearthians only have children’s nursery rhymes about there being a surface in the first place.”
    Tabby immediately looked confused, “Underearthians? You mean there’s like, a civilization down here?”
    “Many civilizations. Our kind populates the Underearth.”
    Tabby looked baffled, to Silas’s amusement. “That’s amazing. Why does no one on the surface know?”
    “Oh it’s been too long since there was any contact between the Under and Upper Earth. Both races of people adapted to their environments so much that neither could survive in the other place. You upperworlders can’t see down here, so the dangers are great enough to be fatal. We would be blinded instantly by your sun; our eyes are almost entirely pupil, you see.”
    “So, why do you guys know about us, but not the other way around?”
    “Oh, most of my kind doesn’t even know there is a world above, really. They believe that the caves of the Earth extend in levels forever. Though I’m sure a select few of your people above must know about us. I only know your because my uncle stumbled upon your world.”
    “Was he blinded?”
    “Oh yes, he had to get a new pair of eyes.”
    “What!?”
    “He was lucky the Welders had a good pair…”
    “Wait, slow down…”
    Silas smiled, “Look, there’s a lot down here to explain and for you to process right now. And you aren’t well.” His smile vanished, “In fact, you have a fever. I have no idea how to take care of that, and my dad’s herb garden died a few days ago anyway. What’s in our tea currently is the last of it. I have to take you to town and have the healers there take care of you.” He looked rather anxious.
    Tabby blinked and put a hand to her forehead. She did feel awfully warm… “Fever…?” She repeated dizzily.
    Silas nodded, “I tried ice, but it kept melting too fast, and I haven’t been able to take a trip to frozen waters yet. You’ve only been out for a few hours, after all.” He tried a slight smile, “Besides, maybe it’ll be easier for you to understand everything if you see it first.”
    Tabby sat there and sipped her tea, thinking hard about pretty much everything that had happened. Then she remembered something. Her eyes opened wide and she paled, if she could possibly get any more pale, and almost dropped her mug. “Dinah!!” She shrieked.
    Silas was startled at her sudden outburst and stared at her. “What…?”
    Tabby was trembling spastically, “My kitten, Dinah! Oh my god she must have been eaten…” Tears sprang to her eyes and one rolled down her cheek as she realized she had lost the only thing truly left in her life, the one thing she had been trying to make sure would be okay.
    Silas continued staring at her as if she had just turned purple, and then something dawned on him. He stood up and walked over to the bag he had brought in. He reached inside and brought out a little, red, squirming thing by the scruff of its neck. “Is this it?”
    Tabby, overwhelmed by relief and probably the adrenaline from excitement, let out a cry, jumped to her feet, took Dinah and squeezed her half to death in a hug, constantly repeating, “Dinah!” over and over. Dinah looked dazed and mewled, trying to wriggle out of Tabby’s death grip but at the same time looking as happy as a cat can look to be back in familiar arms.
    Silas couldn’t help but laugh. “I found it trembling in a crevice a little ways away from the pit you fell down. I didn’t know what it was, so I was curious enough to stick it in the bag and take it with me… It’s an Upperearth creature?”
    Tabby nodded vigorously, “Yes, she’s my cat. And I love her to death, you don’t even know how relieved I am that you found her…”
    “Heh, I think I could take a guess.” He rubbed his arm, “I’ve never seen anything much like her. There are some animals down here with a figure sort of like hers, but they’re all huge and scary compared. She’s teeny…”
    Tabby smiled, “Well, she’s just a baby, but cats don’t get a whole lot bigger.” Then Tabby lost the smile, loosening her grip on the cat and suddenly feeling extremely dizzy, losing her balance. Silas caught her before she could fall. “Hey, you probably shouldn’t have jumped up, you’re really not well…” He said with a frown, looking concerned. “Come on, lets get ready to go to town.” He helped her back over to the bed and sat her down, putting the cat on her lap, and rushed into one of the back rooms to get something. The wave of dizziness and nausea passed, but Tabby decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to stand up again.
    All of a sudden, Dinah puffed up and lay her ears back, hissing at the door. A furry, black head almost as big as a dog’s poked through, with ears atop that would look huge on a bat. Glistening-white fangs ran down past it’s chin, and its sulfur-yellow eyes glowed dimly. It stared at Tabby and Dinah and growled softly. Tabby just about had enough with all the horrible creatures down here, and shrieked, “Silas!”
    Silas poked his head around the doorway almost immediately, his eyes wide, “What is it?”
    Tabby’s trembling hand pointed at the head in the doorway, without taking her huge eyes away from it.
    Silas blinked, and then laughed, “Oh, that’s just Toban. He’s mine, you don’t have to be afraid of him.” He stepped fully into the doorway and called, “Toban, come.”
    Toban shouldered his way through the door and pranced in. He had short, black fur covering his body, and huge black claws. His tail was extremely long and bony, and his ears looked much too big for his head. Yet the most strange thing on the creature were the bone-spines running down each side of his body. They curved downward as if they were a ribcage split in half and extended. Around his neck was a black, leather-like collar which was studded by what looked suspiciously like small teeth. All in all, he was about as big as a German Shepherd, but had a very feline figure.
    “I’m guessing this is what you mean by creatures with a figure sort of like Dinah’s?” Tabby asked, her voice shaking nervously.
    Silas nodded, walked over and sat down in front of Tabby’s bed, pulling Toban over by the collar.
    “He’ll be wary of you at first, but once he gets to know you, he’s really friendly. You should probably let him sniff you, however…” The big head stared cautiously at Tabby, who stared back, stiff from nervousness. But Dinah decided she liked the big scary thing she had previously hissed at, so she jumped down from Tabby’s lap and padded up to Toban courageously, purring and rubbing against his legs. Tabby held her breath, sure that her kitten was about to be eaten. But Toban casually bent down and sniffed Dinah, snuffling her fur as the kitten mewed. When he was finished with her, Toban stepped over to Tabby and began sniffing at her leg. Dinah, continuing to purr, jumped back up on the bed and stared down at the big, black figure, swishing her tail back and fourth.
    Tabby sat there, hardly daring to breath, as the giant feline sniffed her all over, his giant ears back against his head. She swallowed when she saw his huge fangs up close, and prayed that even if Toban did lunge at her, that Silas would be quicker then that pair of glistening daggers.
    “S-so… What is he e-exactly?” Tabby stammered nervously, not taking her eyes off the animal.
    “It’s called an Ash Fello, their a pretty common companion. Not too hard to tame and train, and pretty efficient.” He patted Toban’s side and stood up. “C’mon buddy, you’ve freaked her out enough.”
    Dinah mewed sadly when Silas took his pet with him back to the room he was in before, but Tabby couldn’t help a sigh of relief. She lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, feeling that she wouldn’t be able to take much more excitement today. But she also knew that she was inevitably going to run into more trouble. At least with Silas, the danger will be lessened. She hoped, anyway. He seemed like he knew what he was doing. He seemed to live alone, after all, and he’s survived all these years.
    Thinking about Silas, Tabby started to drift off, her eyes closing. But then Silas came out with a handful of… stuff? He dropped all sorts of things on the ground, and knelt down.
    “Well, I’ve been pondering about how to get you there without you having to walk, since I doubt you’ll get very far.” Tabby yawned and sat up carefully, listening to Silas. “I thought about maybe dragging you along in a wagon or something, but there’s too much climbing, and things wheels couldn’t get through, so that won’t work.” He was tying some leather bands together with loops and rings as he spoke. “And I also figured I wouldn’t be able to carry you all that way, since my arms got tired enough just taking you from where you were to here. So that’s another no…”
    Tabby rubbed her eyes, “So, what are we going to do? I can walk if I have to. I think…”
    Silas gave a half-smile, which Tabby couldn’t help but think was rather cute, “You can’t even jump up without almost passing out. You wouldn’t make it all that way.” He held up the strange circuit of leather straps he had created. “But I thought maybe we could strap you to my back… since you’d get too tired to hang on yourself after a while.” His face seemed to turn a little pink at the suggestion.
    Tabby blinked drowsily and shrugged, “That could work…”

    Tabby thought that getting strapped to the back of another human being was the most awkward thing in the world. First they tried having her get onto his back while he was standing and then try the straps, but of course she lost her grip after about a minute and fell down as they got tangled in the leather bands. Then they tried the same with Silas sitting, which was even more awkward but more efficient. Silas kept having to adjust the straps, so they kept having to redo it repeatedly. When they finally got Tabby secured, Silas had a hard time standing up again with the weight on his back. He almost fell over and squashed Tabby several times, but finally he was up and ready to roll. Then they remembered that they had to decide how they would take Dinah. Silas suggested sticking her back in his bag, but Tabby was horrified by the idea. She thought maybe she could just hold the kitten, but admitted that she’d probably claw up Silas’s back, after remembering with a twinge what the kitten did to her sides. In the end, they realized she followed Toban wherever he went. They decided that as long as they had Toban with them, which was unarguable since he could guard them against most potential threats, Dinah would toddle right along with them.
    After packing a few essential items, and argument from Tabby to put the backpack on her own back, they finally were out the door. As he walked, Silas just kept talking and talking about pretty much everything there was to say in his Underearth, as they called it. As he was speaking, Tabby got the gist that he hadn’t spoken to anyone like this much in a very long time, and felt a thrill to use his voice so much. Though she was hardly any conversation, being extremely drowsy and constantly nodding off. She probably got less then a third of what he said on the trip, but he didn’t seem to mind that she didn’t say much of anything. He seemed happy enough to continue their conversation on his own. When they got to a really steep climb, Silas finally shut up to concentrate on the finding foot- and hand-holds, saying it would be even more difficult then usual, being so top-heavy. After a few slips and panicked jolts from Tabby, he did make it to the top. He had stuck Dinah in his bag for the trip up, and now he deposited her back on the earth. Tabby sleepily asked if Toban made it up, and Silas replied, “He took the long way around. He’ll catch up to us quickly.”
    When Toban had finally come galloping up to them, and Tabby was assured that Dinah would be okay, she finally dozed off, again lulled to sleep by the steadiness of Silas’s walk.