Pruner-of-Vines Brings Home a Pet: An Overpowered Flashback

This month I've been working madly on Overpowered-related stories, including a sequel ("Revealer of Hidden Things," a Snow Queen/East of the Moon West of the Sun fairy tale) and several short pieces giving backstory for my favorite characters.

This snippet is from the backstory of Fig, one of my favorite "dwarves."  Additional parts will appear as I write them.

Pruner-of-Vines sat under the bramble and looked at the creature.  It was not very big for one of the dmutot-el, though it was bigger than the cubs he sometimes found crying alone in the bushes.  Its skin was pale and bare, not like the skin of a Proper Person, and the fur on its head was black and straight.  It wore a cloth around its waist.  Pruner didn’t know why.  Most of the dmutot-el seemed to wear them; perhaps they were ashamed because they hadn’t any tails.

            Pruner thought that the dmutot-el were quite interesting to watch, although the lone cubs worried him.  He always went and fetched Digger-of-Side-Passages when he found a cub; she knew what to do about them.  He was afraid that if he went up to one he would find that it was dead; that had happened to him once when he was young.

            This one was much larger and obviously not dead, but it was crying, though its cries were little nearly-silent sobs rather than the angry wails of some of the cubs-in-the-bushes.  It crouched among the fragments of its large water-carrying thing and trembled like a long-tailed mouse.  Pruner could see a red mark on its bare back where something had hurt it.

            Dirt and mist, Pruner thought.  He couldn’t just sit here and watch it crying.

            He crept out from under the bramble, leaving only a few strands of brown hair behind. He waddled toward the creature, and plopped down beside it.  He chirred at it soothingly.  “Fine weather we’re having, thus?  Of course it is Dry, but it’s supposed to be Dry at this time of the year.”

            It opened its eyes wide at him and wrapped its arms tightly around its knees, but didn’t run away.  That’s a meat-eating species for you, thought Pruner.  No fear.  “Soon it will be Wet,” he went on.  “I don’t like the Wet.  Things grow in my fur.”

            It chirred back at him, a meaningless trill of sound.  Then it spoke in the language of the dmutot-el.  “Shapan tob—shapan kheleb.  Lamah lo bekhorka?”

            Pruner squinted at it.  He knew a little of the creatures’ language.  Something about a hole…  It wanted to know why he wasn’t in his hole.

            “Yesh leka ra?  Ha’ata kholeh?”  Are you hurt?  Are you sick?

            Pruner chirped softly to himself, then assembled a sentence in the language of the dmutot-el.  “No, I not sick!”

            The creature’s eyes got even wider.

            “You sad!  Why?” asked Pruner, the strange sounds making his throat ache.

            It looked down at the smashed water-carrying thing again.  “I broke it, and now my master will yipqod me,” it explained.

            Pruner wasn’t sure about that word yipqod.  Visit?  That didn’t seem right.  Clearly it was something bad.  “Poor small thing,” he crooned, patting its leg with his paw.  He kept his digging claws away from its bare skin.  He thought for a moment.  When Digger-of-Side-Passages came to collect the little cubs, she always brought them back to the Burrows, where they would be warm and safe.  “Come live in hole?”

            The creature stroked the fur on his back.  It felt nice, and it seemed to comfort the creature to do it.  “I’m too big for your hole.”

            Pruner huffed.  He wasn’t so very small himself; he was fatter than almost all of his brothers and sisters.  

            He stuck out his stomach proudly.  He was certainly fatter than the creature was!  He was sure that it would fit.  “Come!  Big hole!”

            It looked hopeful for a moment, then gave a little shiver.  “But Master Zichri would come looking for me, and then he might hurt you, shapan.”

            Shapan.  Hyrax?  Pruner puffed up indignantly.  “I not hyrax!” he squeaked.  “I pazir!  I not afraid of dmutot-el.  They do not come in dirt.  They do not come in mist.”

            “Pazir?”  The small creature seemed to find that very interesting.  “Like in the stories?”

            “Thus, thus,” Pruner agreed.  “Many stories about pazir.  Come to hole?”

            “Thus.”  It chortled a little under its breath.  Pruner was glad it was not crying anymore.

            “Come, then!  Come!”  He rolled to his feet and scurried toward the brambles, with the creature following obediently behind him.