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Peeper hops once, almost in place, and considers Lower Down, and then Twilight. It's almost solemn for him--for a moment. Then he grins and his tail flicks back and forth in a way that signifies amusement.

"You have an admirer and he's a creeper, Twilight. Man, aren't you lucky?" He shakes his head very hard, sending his ears flapping back and forth, and hops in place again, like he's limbering himself up. "Bet if we keep calling him a creeper he'll never show his face again. We could always try flicking mud at him next time, too. What do you think?"

He turns bright eyes on them both; no lingering signs of fear here, no sir, just cheer and amusement and a plan so obnoxious that only a pink poodle could come up with it.

The brown-and-purple buck simply laughs softly at Peeper's suggestion-- a nice sound after the chilling cackle of that nightmarish-kimeti and his dog. It's warm and full of life, and the glint of mischief shines in his eyes once more, as ever-- as if moments before he hadn't gone completely serious with a hardness in those same eyes that would make a stone envious.

He turns to Twilight after a moment, nodding simply, realizing that in the scuffle the little jewel had either been trampled into the muck or else kicked into the deeper, algae-filled water surrounding the clear pond. For some reason, he feels some regret at that, even if he'd never cared to collect baubles. "Yes... it probably is. Perhaps all of us might walk together until we get out of this mess-- just in case. He seems to be gone, but I wouldn't put it past him to come sniffing back after a time."

Twilight sets a sedate pace away from the pond, not really concerned anymore with keeping her coat clean -- she walks slowly through the water until it goes from knee-high to ankle-high, and then up onto the swampy ground. Somehow it's much nicer to be back in the marsh, even if it is the same swamp everywhere you look. And here, where the mangroves and cypresses aren't tangled so thickly together and clotted with moss, there are less places to hide. Twilight chews this thought over slowly, as it's not one she's ever had to think before -- and then decides that it's a good thing, if a little strange.

She looks over her shoulder at the other two bucks, "C'mon. I know a decent place to go and eat sweet berries. I can almost guarantee nobody will leap out of a tree at us there."

He never walks. He doesn't even walk now. Instead he bounces, making little wavelets and splashes, in Twilight's wake. It seems obvious that someone like Peeper would like sweet things, except-- well, he doesn't particularly. "Sure, I'll go that far with you." Bleeding Heart is clinging tightly between his shoulders and he's perfectly happy to go springing around with them that far-- and then maybe a little further. There's more to see tonight, after all.