After dinner, which consists for me of half a fish head and some syrup I took out of our stores for awful situations (and believe me, this was an awful situation), I tackle Dark Rainbow.

"Hey, DR! It's time for you and me to have some girl fun!" I sing, ignoring the completely flabbergasted expression on her face.

"What the heck are you talking about, Avery?" she says, trying to free herself.

"We're going to do a makeover!!!" I sing like a bird, letting the last note go up and down.

"A what?" Before she can say anymore, I get out the Starberry flowers and sharpen my blunt claws as well as I can.

I get up to her face, wrinkling up my nose as her wretched breath fills my nostrils. I plop a Starberry flower in her mouth. She murmurs in protest, but it smells better so I don't take it out. I brush down a long, fluffy strand of her fur and comb it across her face, ripping apart the gnarly tangles with my claws. After a half hour of arranging, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple fall across her face in a perfect braid.

Gently, my paws throbbing, I place the final touches in the fur- beautiful blue flowers that match her eyes. I finally get up, and she asks, "How do I look?"

"Well, you look great... but... we still need Phase 2."

"Phase 2?"

"We go to Natrina's and get the biggest darn pack of breath mints she has."

She looks offended. "What's wrong with my breath?"

Spritz comes over with a few green plants. "This is the strongest stuff in the forest. Silver Valley Mints. They're fast-growing, invasive plants that use extremely strong scent to ward off enemies." Spritz's eyes are watering.

I take the herb in my paw and breathe it in. It is truly the strongest scent I've ever smelled in my whole life. Holding my nose, I drop it in her mouth. Dark Rainbow chews for a bit, looking hesitant, and then begins to cough on the mint and the petals.

"Are you trying to poison me?!" she gags, spitting out the Starberry petals and mint leaves and wiping them off her tongue frantically.

"No..."

She looks at me sarcastically.

"I'll make it up to you. What do you say I show you the best of the forest tonight?"

"No," says a familiar voice in the back of the tree, "We'll take her."

"How long have you been there for, Torch?!"

"Half an hour. Okay, it's sunhigh now, so we can just relax for a bit. I ran all the way there and back, and I still have to put in the-"

Dark Rainbow stares at us intently, a sly smile on her face.

"Oh, you thought you could make me talk, didn't you? Well, I don't spill the beans that quickly." Torch sticks his tongue out at her, and she laughs. "I would've missed it, too. Luckily Natrina's Palace is downstream, so Riana got on her paws and begged that I try out her new raft. It only took thirty minutes, and then the walk back was pretty easy. Only about two hours. Stayed for some sweetbones at Natrina's. Did you know that they sell Marinara Sauce flavored sweetbones now? They're apparently some sort of tribute to Verhamera, but I don't know wh-"

I place my paw over his mouth, effectively stifling him.

"You two would make a great match," I say finally, "Torch smells like burning things and you smell like... I don't think there's even a word, and you both can't shut up."

Torch blushes violently and Dark Rainbow stutters, "H-hey!", even though she knows it's a joke. (Well, I hope she knows. I wouldn't want to be mean on purpose. I just like joking around.)

Torch heads over to the sheltered willow branches where Dark Rainbow's new room is soon to be in place. I watch Toni and his little gang of baby Canira play with my PowerPet, and congratulate myself on a well-done makeover.

We even enter an awkward conversation:

Dark Rainbow draws the Obsidians' mark into the ground. "What were they like?" I ask her. "Did they have awesome darkness powers or what?"

"They can shapeshift, that's about it." She says, doodling with her claw.

We say nothing more, just sit there together in the shadows together.

For just a second, in the darkness of the night, I see a black wolf behind her. He nods to me, and then he's gone with the night air.