Moving Along Remastered

Chapter 23: The Fires Inside?

A/N: Hello there. I'm back from a Disney trip. X3 hope you all have had a great few weeks. If not, I send my good vibes to you. <3

Chapter 23: The Fires Inside?

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"I really gotta learn to watch my tail," I groaned to myself from inside the wooden cell. "Oh great, I'm making more animal puns." I'd been there for a day or so and hadn't been able to do much besides stare into nothing. To be honest, it wasn't as bad as you might think. At least it gave me time to look back on everything that led up to this. Not to mention how surprised I was that so much could happen in so little time. Or that I'm even still alive.

Last time I checked, getting transformed into a furry, getting laid, fighting against a lizard organization, and almost dying over a hundred times, didn't happen in the span of a few months. Despite everything, I had to admit I was pretty impressed with myself. Back in the human realm, if someone told me I was one day going to be capable of all this stuff, I would've immediately dismissed them as crazy. Now I felt crazy for thinking the world was limited to just one realm. The bars around me didn't help convince me otherwise.

How exactly I'd gotten here had been an unforeseen slip up on my part...

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"Why are they looking at me funny?" I asked Amelia as we climbed one of the large trees via sturdy vines. It was a good thing I'd been moving around a lot more lately, otherwise this would've wiped me out big time. During our climb up, the furs above started to notice us ascending. Sure they recognized the snow leopard next to me, but their cautious eyes fell on me and for a fair enough reason. I wasn't sure how they felt about outsiders, but I was definitely going to find out soon.

"I'm not really sure," Amelia answered me after a moment of thought. "Usually we welcome new travelers with smiles and shouts of greeting." She sounded worried. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little worried either. Right now, the last thing I needed was more hostility and fighting. Falling several hundred feet made you tired, even if you had a healing factor. "Just stay close for now," the leopard advised. It was almost off putting to see such a young cub act so...mature..

At the top of our ascent was a long and wide overhanging wooden bridge that extended its reach all around the trees. It served as a light connection to all the tree homes and other vines to climb up. At first I was a little nervous, but the bridge turned out to be sturdy enough. I guess that was a given since it handled at least a hundred Furs a day everyday for who knows how long? But I'm sure you'd be a little weary too if the last bridge you were on broke. Granted, I caused that, but it didn't mean I wanted to.

"Hey you coming, Angel?" Amelia tugged at my shirt while I was in mid thought. I looked back down to her and nodded with a small chuckle. Without even letting me say another word, the little snow leopard was already running down the bridge pathway. She sure was eager to get out of here. Before I followed her, a few murmurs met my hyper sensitive canine ears. When I turned my head to find their origin, I could see some of the townsfolk were getting closer. Closer than normal. They seemed to be waiting for something.

Sure it was unsettling, but I wasn't going to be here long anyway. At least that's what I'd hoped when I set off down the path Amelia ran off towards. Hopefully she hadn't gotten too far away, considering it'd be hard to find her when I could hardly even navigate this maze of trees. I certainly wasn't going to ask the staring locals. Following her pawsteps, eventually led me to a towering archway. It was made entirely out of vines and tree branches that stemmed from the surrounding growth. My first thought was, 'did furs make this or the trees themselves?'