Hita asked Holly if she minded him sitting on the cart, to which she gave the gyropahnt version of a shrug. "I don't mind," she said. "And you don't have to get off if you don't want to; you don't look very heavy."
She then heard another rustling in the grass, this time obviously made by something much larger than a grass snake. The Noel gyrophant glanced in the direction it came from and saw a bleached penticorn watching them from the top of a small hill not too far away. A moment later, the penticorn was joined by a pair of young cobalt albies. The penticorn seemed to speak sternly to the two albies, though they were too far off to clearly hear what was said, then came trotting down to meet them.
The Penticorn introduced herself as Lynn, their healer, bowing before the young prince. Holly smiled and nodded her head in greeting when the penticorn raised her head. "My name's Holly," she said. "It's nice to meet you."
Susan likewise introduced herself. "And I'm Susan, Holly's trainer. Good to have you and your little friends," she indicated the two young albies, "along."
When Blaise suggested setting up camp, Susan nodded, and was about to go unharness Holly from the wagon so that she could walk around more freely. However, before she could do so, Blaise attempted to get one of the tents out without first removing what was on top of it, and called her over to help him as he realized his mistake when the tent caught on the sack on top of it.
Susan was was tempted to roll her eyes but resisted and simply thought 'Men', chuckling quietly to herself. "OK," she said aloud, "just a sec."
However, before she could even get there, the young magic user Belinda had climbed to the top of the pile more quickly than Susan would've thought possible and freed the tent. 'Well," Susan thought as the youngster grinned, 'that's interesting.' She suspected that she'd have to get used to unusual occourances with a magic user in the group.
Turning her attention back to Blaise, Susan said, "Well, as that problem seems to have been solved, just let me un-harness Holly, then we get started getting that tent set up."
Climbing down from the cart's driver's seat, Susan gestured for Holly to crouch so that she could more easily reach the buckles. Once Holly had obliged, Susan quickly undid Holly's harness. "There you go," Susan said when she had finished, patting Holly's flank affectionately. " Go ahead and walk around if you want, just don't go too far."
Holly stood back to her full height, and gave Susan a nod and a smile in thanks before stepping clear of the hitch in front of the cart. Now unencumbered part of her wanted to run around laughing an playing in the tall grass, but she had learned the hard way the dangers of straying too far from the group, and besides, Susan had told her not to go far.
Given that there wasn't much she could do to help with setting up the camp either, Holly decided to go talk to the young Prince. If he was going to be leading this group, it would be a good idea to get to know him. She walked over to where the Prince was waiting for Belinda. "Hello, Prince," she said. "What are you and Belinda doing? And can I help?"
~GG
{3}