Welcome to Gaia! ::

"We meet again, my friend. How are you today?"

For any outsider coming around the corner, it would have been a strange sight. Mossflower crouched down behind the school storage shed where the bins were lined up, talking to the shadows behind them. She was smiling cheerfully and chattering on, random thoughts about her day and questions that never got answered.

She was in fact talking to one of her newest friends; a shy fox that often scavenged food from the school bins and lived somewhere nearby. Mossflower had noticed him last week and had been doing her best to befriend him. The going was slow so far, but she had high hopes.

"I’ll bring you some treats tomorrow, I promise!"

"Oh!" Mossflower exclaimed in surprised, not having expected anyone to come back here. "Blue!" She recognised her nephew immediately, partly because it was important to know who your family was and mostly because there were pictures of Lullaby’s kids all over her house and Yawn never stopped talking about them… when she was actually awake of course.

She wasn’t the only one surprised and in the next moment there was a clatter as the startled fox darted away, smacked up against the bins and sped off to the edge of the school grounds. Mossflower didn’t have time to say goodbye or be sad because one of the bins was toppling over.

The green filly scampered out of the way as the bin crashed over and spilt its contents across the ground.

"He’s very shy," she said by way of explanation as the ‘rubbish dust’ settled, then she sighed. This was going to be a nuisance to clean.

"Either way I think he would have bolted," she said as he kissed her hoof, the action spreading a little blush across her cheeks. Mossflower had heard her nephew had some interesting personality traits and she found his mannerisms charming so far.

"It’s good to meet you properly too. I don’t know why we haven’t all had a big dinner yet to-"

"Mossflower. Blue Suede."

The voice belonged to their teacher, who had heard the clutter of the bins while patrolling the grounds. She did not look impressed by the rubbish strewn across the ground. "Who made this mess?"

Mossflower only had time to look at Blue with wide, pleading ideas and mouth the words, ‘don’t mention the fox’. She hoped he understood.

Mossflower gave her nephew a look of relieved gratitude and then she stepped forward, because there was no way she was letting him take all of the blame.

"That’s not completely true. I’d also just dropped off some rubbish and we were playing around together when he fell onto the bin, so it’s both our fault."

The teacher looked at each of them and then sighed. "I don’t care who did it, both of you can clean it up and then go straight back to class. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Mossflower sighed in relief when the teacher left them to fix the mess. Then she followed Blue into action, using her magic to gather the yuckier bits of trash.

The filly grinned back, full of gratitude. "Thank you, Blue. This means a lot to me." She laughed. "I think I'll try convince him to make his home somewhere nicer."