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Poison Gloam was a wanderer, and wander she did, far and wide, her faithful (and sometimes nagging) swan Glowing at her side/flank/heels. Someone had to remind the slightly cracked doe to eat.

Poison was also a talker. She talked to everything, from Kimeti to songbirds to snakes to rocks and trees and occasionally apples. Which is what she was doing when she saw him.

He was green. Okay, he was green and pink and white, but mostly green. And he was eating green apples! The very apples she was talking to. But he was green, like her, well okay she was mostly black with white circles but she had green on her spikes and tail!

Being a talker, and having just finished her rather lengthy conversation with the green apples, she decided to talk to him.

Sort of.

"Well, hello, apple. I see you are being eaten by a green buck who is green but not my green."

"Hmm? No, dear, I was talking to the apple you were eating. He says it's okay that he's being eaten by a green buck who coordinates with him. But the seeds itch, you know." Poison related this all in a loud whisper, because obviously the apples couldn't know she was sharing their secrets, on no! They'd be ever so furious to find out that she spoke of everything.

"Stand up straight, greenie, you look short." This was said loudly enough for all the apples and trees in the vicinity to hear, and, of course, the buck it was spoken to. Poison ignored the n** Glowing gave her, asking instead, "Do you only eat green apples or do you eat the red ones too? I think the green apples work better with your coat, though I suppose the red might be a nice contrast..." She trailed off in thought.

"Clearly he thinks you don't contrast well enough, and he's saving them for himself to coordinate with. Silly foxbun." Poison gave him a sympathetic smile. "The red apples prefer to be eaten by those they coordinate with. Green apples just don't care." She took a bite of a large apple after reassuring it that she would eat all the seeds to relieve the itching. "Must be polite, after all. It is feeding me," she informed her baffled conversation partner.

"So, greenie-guy, what's your name? Does it have anything to do with apples or green? Is that why you eat them? Is your name Green Apple? Are you cannabalizing yourself?!" Poison looked at the buck with dawning horror. "Oh my Swampmother, you are! Poor apples!" She began herding the fallen apples into a pile behind her, clearly attempting to keep him from killing these extensions of "himself."

"Bite, huh? Well, I suppose it's a good name, after all you do bite quite a bit. My name is Poison Gloam, but you can call me Dotty. Or Specks, or Poison or really anything." She told him. "The swan is Glowing Gloam. She's a bit pecky today." Again, the loud whisper that concealed nothing from anyone in the vicinity, including the purple swan who nipped at Poison's leg again. "See? I told you!"

She bent down to one of the apples, cocking an ear toward it, then carefully nudged it over to Bite. "Green apple says he wants you to eat him. So you should."

The dark swan ruffled her feathers and wings, waving off the words of a Kimeti willingly talking to her crazy owner.Poison giggled. "But that's why he wants you to eat him! Being eaten by a Kimeti feels much better than having a worm wiggle about inside, silly." She bit into the apple, a neat hole that exposed the wiggling worm. She delicately plucked the little creature from Green Apple, dropping it by Glowing, then rolling the apple to Bite. "There, no more worm, and Glowing might stop pecking me," she said around the crunching piece og fruit in her teeth.

Poison cocked head and crunched the apple piece a bit more before swallowing. "Huh. Well, whatever then." She cooed down at the apple, "Don't worry, Green Apple, I'll eat you, no problems!" She proceeded to take a larger bite of the apple. "See, no issues! And Green Apple is happy, too!" She told Bite.

"Silly Mr. Bites-Green-Apples! Kimeti don't need to wash their feet!" She lifted her foreleg as proof: the fur around her hooves was a matted, mottled dark brown from the mud and muck she'd waded through to get to a small island. She trots after him for a few lengths, then calls out, "Well, Mr.Only-If-It's-Wormless, I'll see you later! I'm going to stay and talk with the apples some more! They have great stories! You should listen sometime, you never know what you'll hear!" The quirky, harmlessly crazy doe returned to the apple trees and her swan, who was busy sweeping apples into a pile for her mistress.