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It has been a long, hard journey. He has made a perilous trek through blistering cold and scorching desert, traveling for many days and nights, risking life and limb--- okay, well, maybe not that bad, but this is still incredibly difficult to manage. He's made most of the journey backward, and in fact, that's what will get into Nettle's clearing first, with much crunching and shaking of leaves and rattling noises. His tail twitches from side to side, agitated beyond belief, flicking the leaves that would otherwise cling so that they fly every which way.

Each step backward is a struggle. It's also loud as anything, but Peeper figures that's a plus; he wants Nettle to hear him coming and stick his bony, much missed head out. Out of all the interesting kimeti that Peeper's been meeting lately, Nettle is still his favorite. Not just for the fact that Nettle is certainly the most interesting, but also for the weird rattly way he moves and the way he can sometimes look unbearably dignified and the way he was so very very nice about letting Peeper hide out in his clearing.

A clearing he is maybe doing a lot of damage to on his way in, as he drags a heavy, leafy branch through the break in the nettle plants with all their dead leaves. His neck aches. His back aches. But this is going to be so awesome...

Peeper's tail swishes back and forth so fast it almost makes his entire back end sway. "Hi! I missed you." He leaned down and dragged the branch further into the clearing, disrupting the smoothness but also making it so that the much nibbled on leaves are front and center. "Stay there!"

He goes back to the nettle bushes and pulls a branch aside, waiting. Eventually, step by slow step, something ... emerges from the dead leaves. Something violently blue. And patterned. And with a grumpy look that matches Nettle's face so well that Peeper begins to grin as it heads (slowly) for the green leaves in the middle of the clearing.

"Tada!"

It is a turtle.

"I named it Crunch. That's really all it seems to do. And it's pretty mad at me, so I thought that it would be perfect for you. It's even blue!"

It is, in fact a blue turtle. And since it is a blue turtle, Peeper prances just a little bit (much more restrained than anything his new friends would have guessed he was capable of) in pleasure. "Yes. He's-- well, I don't know if it's a he, I haven't really checked-- definitely for you."

Peeper sweeps his tail out of the way just in time to avoid a slow dart of the turtle's head. "See? It's just like you." He stops, and considers the statement, his head turned almost all the way to one side. "Well, no, not really, because I like you better and you look much nicer." He pushes the branch at it to get it to eat more.

"It's really only happy when it's eating and I know it would be a lot of trouble for you to try to feed it on your own and I guess I really didn't think about that but I can stick around for you and bring it things if you want me to so you don't have to go out of your way and I will do it really quietly I promise but I just saw it and thought of you immediately and it seemed like a nice thing to get you." He sucks in a breath big enough to make his pink sides heave. "So I led it here." His ears are up. He's pretty sure this is absolutely perfect.

Peeper's tail sweeps to one side, and then the other- cautiously at first, but then a little more enthusiastic. "Well, it didn't go after the live ones on the way in." He considers the grumpy thing, likely still munching on what he'd dragged in. "I can bring more stuff in-- branches and such, whatever. I don't really want to go that far away again." Another tail switch.

Nettle clearly has no idea what he's just given his permission for. Peeper perks so completely, though, that it's rather like seeing a wilted plant suddenly given love. "Absolutely." It is kind of huge, isn't it? He's pretty proud of that. "I can hang around and make sure but of course I won't go into your cave ever."

His tail sweeps back and forth, almost teasing the turtle with how close it gets on certain sweeps. "So that means I can stick around, right? As long as I don't go into your cave?" Peeper is unreasonably bright about this. Perhaps Nettle hadn't realized the implications of it; Pepper certainly doesn't seem like the type to have planned something like this, but it will keep him near Nettle for --- well, the foreseeable future.

"Never ever ever." That made him prance in place. "You'll hardly know we're here until we scare off anyone silly enough to bother you and keep your clearing clean and everything. You'll love it. Bye, Nettle! Be careful!" Nettle probably doesn't even need to look to see the silly grin that Peeper's wearing.