So it all started out the same as the two other days, right? I was watching the bush-dog go about it’s daily routine, which mostly consisted of finding a nice sunny spot to photosynthesize in, checking that its bushes were still healthy, occasionally spreading around more of the bushes along its borders, and sprinting to chomp at anything that might have triggered its bush-trap alarms.

Truly not the most exciting life, but I can totally see how it could be satisfying to one of my kind.

It’s nice to see all of this, honestly, because it kind of reinforces what I think I would be doing right now if I’d settled down in my own territory like a proper member of my kind, you know? Sure, maybe I’d have like a house or something, and maybe my area would be less bushy and more floral, but that’s all a matter of taste, isn’t it? And maybe the things I ate would be a little more substantial than the things this bush-dog eats, but that could just be because it’s already eaten all of the big game around here, right? It’s no wonder we corpse plants slowly increase our territories if we’ve already picked over all the good game we could find! But I’m sure the location could also be to blame, I mean this bush-dog sure did choose a very unexciting spot with not a lot going on. Sure, having a cozy and calm place to stay is wonderful, but considering how we live, you’d think it would choose a spot where like, idunno, maybe a bunch of orcs or even goblins live, right? Seriously a boring place to be. Bet the best thing it could ever hope to have wandering over is like the occasional bunch of wolves or a bear…

Or maybe a human.

Or maybe, like what just happened, a human child.

Yeah, I already knew there was a town maybe less than a quarter of a day’s walk away. It was obvious since, I would sometimes go and fetch myself a few snacks while the bush-dog was busy sunbathing. I tried to be courteous (shocking really, since I’m me and all) and go outside of the bush-dog’s territory to try and find food, and as it turns out, if I go a lil while to the east, I can see some smoke coming up from the distance and even a couple houses peeking out from the treeline. If I’m being honest, it’s actually a complete possibility that this bush-dog settled here exactly because there was a town nearby. I talked about how unexciting its prey options were, but I know if it were me when I was smaller, I would have practically salivated at the idea of setting myself up near a town. And let’s not forget, that’s me, with my mother’s fancy human memories that make me slightly care about humans, who’d think that, let alone a fully fledged corpse plant who would treat humans like nothing but turkey dinners.

Case in point: It’s completely coming to kill this scruffy little kid who just wandered into its place.

The boy couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 I think. I mean, I’m not super well-versed in the way that people grow up here, and most of the humans I’ve run across actually always look to be on the younger side, so who really knows, but for sure this little guy had to be young, right? He looked crazy lost, and his clothes were a mess. It’s 100% likely that this kid wandered away from that town I saw and has been slowly stumbling around trying to find his way back home. I mean look at his cute little face! It’s all scratched up and full of tears!

Me with my small (very small if I’m being real with myself) but still in place moral compass, I would never try to eat a kid like this. Adults? Sure! Because of mom I’d probably only eat ones that did something wrong, either to me or just in general, but still! And maybe I did eat that one teen that was part of those kidnappers, but again, he was doing something bad! Kids though, there’s no way they deserve to be eaten like that! It's better to just let 'em go on their way and live their little lives.

Obviously this bush-dog doesn’t feel the same way I feel about it, though, which is why we’re in the predicament that we’re in.

I’ll have you know, ever since my time with Til, I’ve actually tried to make myself think before I do some things. I guess you could say that I’ve tried to make myself become more rational. Sure, I’ve totally failed at it a number of times, including some very important moments, but I really think I’ve come a long way and done some good growing as a person (plant)! I even managed to control myself well enough that I earned my own name! And I’m super determined to keep doing my best and continue growing both physically and mentally!

Did I do my best in thinking out what I’m doing in this particular situation, however?

HELL no!

I just didn’t have the time!

My body and my moral compass moved before I could even think very much about it!

The bush-dog is fast, I’ll give you that; He runs on four legs after all, right? But you know what? I have ten legs! Or, well, actually I guess I have twelve if you count my roots, but I’m much faster if I’m running on tentacle power alone. Besides, unlike the bush-dog, I can launch myself veeeerry effectively since I’ve been constantly practicing it, so it’s obvious that I made it in time to save the kid before the bush-dog got to run its chainsaw teeth through the poor lil’ guy.

At first, when I grabbed up the kid and lept away, I thought that maybe all the screaming I was hearing was because I’d surprised him. I mean, let’s be honest; Even though I’m pretty certain the kid should have seen the bush-dog coming right for him with its jaws wide open and its spooky wriggling teeth coming right for him, that doesn’t mean that he knows I came to save him, right? It’s a completely fair assumption that I’m just trying to steal him away first if he just looks at me. I wouldn’t get mad at him for thinking that, honest, it really just makes sense! It all just screams plant on plant crime if you ask me.

But yeah no, the kid was screaming because I just yanked him out of the bush.

Looking at his lil’ tootsies, it’s obvious that the trap-bush that the kid stepped in must have somehow been holding onto him. I guess even though it felt easy for me to grab him up and out of it, it wasn’t nearly as easy or pleasant for the kid, especially judging by the rips and gashes that were all over his ankle and foot. Heck, there was blood getting splattered practically everywhere. No wonder he was screaming like that. If I were him, I’d be screaming my head off too!

…I better remember to heal that for the lil’ guy before the end of all this.

The bush-dog of course wasn’t happy that I’d stolen his prey, and unluckily for me, the direction that the kid came from was pretty sparsely packed with trees, so I couldn’t just go up and hide like I usually would. And honestly? From the way the bush-dog was looking at me, I don’t think it was going to let itself lose sight of me anytime soon. I may brag about how much faster I am than it, but if we’re going to be fighting while moving, then I’ll definitely have less tentacles to run with than I’d like, which is especially even more true now that I have this desperately wiggling little child wrapped up in two of my tentacles! Don’t get me wrong, I still totally tried to run for a moment just to see if it was possible, but the bush-dog is actually pretty darn fast, and I’m not confident enough to think that I could run from it forever. Besides, I can’t just run this kid back to his town with this bush-dog trailing me and lead the stupid thing to a feast! So yeah, we’re gonna have to scratch the whole running idea for now.

There’s no time to bury my roots and try to grow things to help me out, so that option’s off of the table. At least I can still fling myself, right? I’m very good at that after all! Can’t fling myself quite as hard as I’d like to though with this fragile little child in my arms, so I’m not going to be able to go terribly far. It’s a good thing I was able to run a little closer to some nice tall trees while I was busy getting chased!

Let’s see…

A skip, a jump, a well-timed leap, aaand~!

Yup, I made it near the top of the tree!

Like I said, this tree is niiice and tall. It’s definitely on the bigger side of the trees around here for sure. I was hoping I’d get lucky and this tree would be so tall that the bush-dog would lose sight of us, but that’s sadly not looking like it’s the case, so scratch that hopeful little idea. I could see the bush-dog pacing near the bottom of the tree with its ‘head’ looking up at us, even from this long ass distance. It never once noticed me in the trees these past few days, but I guess now that it’s become aware of me, its vision is just specially stuck on me or something. So much for that horrible eyesight idea. Guess once it looks in a direction it really looks!

Ah, whatever, let’s solve the more urgent problem first before I try and tackle that bush-dog, shall we?

=Hey kid, lemme see your foot for a sec.=

Seems like at some point the little boy had been too busy staring worriedly at the bush-dog circling below us, and had completely forgotten about the other plant monster that was currently holding on to him, teehee~. My eerie voice must have been all that he needed to remember the possible danger that was me. So yeah, he screamed and he started wiggling again. Surprise surprise. And with him wiggling and fighting against me like that, I gotta say it was gonna be hard to aim my sweet little healing droplets from my lily of the valley at the right spot, so I did the only sensible thing I could do to fix the situation!

I ripped off one of my tentacles and tied him to the tree so he couldn’t squirm any longer.

Don’t worry, I have plenty enough nutrients at the moment to heal up that tentacle and the kid. Or well, maybe it’s not nutrients in the most literal sense, but ever since I grew these mushrooms I’ve been practically swimming in excess magic, so yeah, I’m sitting pretty pretty right about now. It’s definitely not like the last time, when I had to fight that treant while I was running low on resources.

Healing the kid was a breeze once he wasn’t busy moving around so much, and growing back my tentacle was basically a walk in the park. You know what is worrisome though? The fact that the bush-dog stopped pacing around our tree! I could see, even from this long-ass distance, that his root feet, similar to mine although you know, dog-y, were unraveling and beginning to plant themselves into the ground. Its bush was opening up like it was preparing to eat something. For a moment I thought it might have been trying to send its little tentacles that it used for eating up at us, and I thought that it might have just been stupid, you know? But then this cloud of mist started floating up at us, carried by the wind or gravity or whatever directly towards me and the kid.

Seems like this dog decided to gas us out.