Spring was coming. The snow on the windowsill had already melted, and the sun's rays penetrated the window higher and higher, passed through the glass and rested against the log walls and ceiling.
On the wide bed, which took up a significant part of the room, lay a white fur blanket, rolled into a tube, with a "filling" inside.
The "filling", of course, was not ordinary. The top of the head of a girl with brown hair was peeking out from one end, and her short feet from the other.
"Cake, what happened?" a voice came from under the blanket.
"They want to eat me, sis," the voice from the door answered. "Come to me."
The blanket unfolded. The girl found herself in a white towel, which was held on her breast, which was disproportionate to her height.
"The cake is calling me. This is serious."
The girl got out of bed and with her eyes closed went to the kitchen.
"Sis, it hurts..." a cry from the low table came.
The girl opened her second eye and saw a creature with horns on its head, which was reaching for the cake with a thick blue tongue from the opposite side of the table.
"Stop, why is the cake calling me sister?"
... Unana opened her eyes and heard she screams.
"Cake…"
The girl ran out of the room, in what she was sleeping in, and even forgot to put on the headphones, which were lying on the floor near the bed.
… The low table by the wall stood empty, with no traces of animals. The refrigerator was still in its place with the door closed. The floor looked clean, without food packaging.
Unana rushed to the refrigerator and abruptly opened the door. The cake stood on one of the shelves in a wooden box with a blue energy lock, special protection from animals.
"It was just a dream," Unana sighed and closed the door. "I've had a lot of scary dreams since I got another pet, but this one was too scary."
"Are you hungry?"
"AAA!"
Unana turned around in fear. The girl's breast jumped, as if it was experiencing the same feelings as her owner.
"It's you..." the archer sighed and stopped her breast with her hands. "Don't scare me."
In front of Unana stood the lizard girl, smiling stupidly with her tongue hanging out.
"You came out of hibernation because you were hungry," Timnichan explained. "Bear cubs need to eat to sleep."
"I can't explain to this lizard that I'm not a bear," Unana thought. "But if I were fed and not forced to study, I would agree to become a bearry."
"It's spring now," Unana explained. "So I woke up."
"Yup, it's already spring here," Timnichan looked out the window. "But it's still winter in the north. It's still early. We need to wait a little."
"What do we need to wait for? Wait for the train?"
"We have to wait until it gets warmer in the north. That train never arrived. I checked a few days ago. That station on the seashore turned out to be abandoned."
"How did you guess?"
Timnichan stopped smiling stupidly and even hid her tongue, which for some reason did not interfere with her speech.
"Someone has taken over the rail there," the lizard girl leaned over and looked at Unana very seriously.
"What?" the archer suspected something very strange.
Timnichan summoned a screen with an image of a rusty rail, partially covered with moss and common ferns.
"Yeah, they are very dangerous creatures," Unana agreed. "The train won't be able to handle them. We can go by another railway, which is not far from here."
"That place was closest to the north," Timnichan looked out the window. "The first creator said to listen to the bear cubs if they become my creators. So I accept your offer, brown. All that remains is to ask the second bear cub."
"No need. He's my big brother, so we're the same. We're brown, right?"
"Yup," Timnichan looked at the ceiling.
"I think I've found a way to talk to this creature," Unana rejoiced. "Now she won't get too close to Yueret."
Timnichan went into the hallway, and then left the house through the open door. Unana followed her, but on the threshold she felt fresh cool air, not at all like in winter.
"The air is so tasty," the archer closed her eyes. "But for some reason it's still cold. Something is missing."
Unana opened her eyes and summoned a mirror. The girl didn't notice that she wasn't wearing any clothes. In the morning it seemed quite normal to her, but she noticed something more important.
"The headphones."
Unana returned to the room as quickly as she went down to the kitchen. The headphones were lying on the floor next to the bed. The girl touched them with her foot, then bent it at the knee and handed it to one of her hands, which had already put the "headdress" in its usual place.
"Finally I found them," Unana fell on the bed and looked at the ceiling. "Now I can eat. There's only food in the kitchen, and I don't have the strength to go back there. I need to call Kimchan to bring some yum-yum."
Unana summoned a virtual screen, in the middle of which stood out a large white refrigerator icon. After clicking on it, a window opened with many cells filled with food. Unana licked her lips, ran her finger through the air several times, and stopped at a cell with an image of a squirrel, with dough instead of a body.
"Squirrel yum-yum..." Unana said sleepily, but she still managed to click on the selected cell...
"Unana, here is your squirrel."
The archer raised her head and saw a tray with a fried squirrel wrapped in dough near the bed.
"Thank you, Kimchan," Unana got out of bed, reached for the treat and almost fell to the floor.
Luckily, something grabbed the clumsy little sister and sat her on the bed, after which the tray ended up in her hands. Only then did Unana open her eyes for real and saw instead of her pet a guy in a black robe, very similar to her.
"Where is Kimchan?" Unana asked.
"She went to her sister," Yueret answered. "Don't you remember?"
Unana pulled a strand of hair with her fingers and at the same time looked at the window, outside which tree buds were blossoming on the tree.
"She disappeared in the winter," the archer turned her gaze to the windowsill. "Then we got a message from Itinit that he took her. He didn't even talk to us."
"He is dad's little brother after all," Yueret explained. "You shouldn't be surprised."
"But we got this lizard. I can't imagine where she will lead us."
"Don't worry. We have maps in the interface and another map in the "Mausoleum of Nature". If it gets lost, we can find it."
"This is the guide we need to find. Somehow, I'm not surprised by this. Maybe we should lock her in the basement? She's cold, so she won't spoil. There's probably not enough space in the fridge."
"No. We'll have to go after her. Only she knows how to find dad."
"We can just ask her where to go."
"It won't work. Dad made it so that we move according to a certain algorithm. So if we ask this lizard where to go, it will direct us to the den, because the snow hasn't melted in the north yet."
"So we have no choice."
"Yeah, only she knows where Dad is, even though she doesn't understand it."
Unana quickly finished her food, after which she realized that she wanted to drink. Luckily, Yueret knew his little sister well, so he pulled a bottle of green liquid out of his inventory and handed it to her.
"Did you milk this juice from the tree yourself?" Unana grabbed the bottle and began to open the cork.
"No, I haven't had time yet," Yueret looked out the window. "A few days ago, the last snow melted, and today the needles are already blooming. In winter, they are dry, so you can't milk them."
Unana opened the cap, threw her head back, and then inserted the bottle into her mouth. Yueret could only watch as the level of the green liquid gradually dropped and then disappeared into the mouth of his insatiable little sister.
"Uh..." Unana sighed after emptying the bottle. "Now I need to stroke my tummy. It ate too much."
The archer fell on her back and pointed her index finger at her belly.
"You're not a child anymore," Yueret objected.
"I'm your little sister, not your big sister," Unana answered.
"Sorry. I shouldn't be here. I'm just filling in for Kimchan, so I brought you some food."
Unana tried to say something, but Yueret was no longer in the room.
"Maybe next time I should call a lizard?" the archer looked at the ceiling. "No, actually, she'll bring fish that aren't even in the fridge because bears eat fish."
***
Spring was coming to the Northern Continent. The snow had almost completely left Yenekit and remained only in the park, where it was collected in a pile near the turbulent river.
This attracted a girl with the ears and tail of an arctic fox, who stood nearby and looked at it.
"What are you doing, Etinnei?" a bird's voice came from behind the trees.
The girl turned around and saw the head of a dinosaur, which was cautiously peering out from behind a thick trunk with black bark.
"Tuot, are you hiding from someone?" Etinnei shuddered.
"No," the dinosaur approached the pile of snow. "I'm just peeking on you. It's a habit."
"It's clear, so, nothing to worry about. I was already thinking that you met a doll or..."
Etinnei began to tremble. The animal girl fell to her knees and rested her hands on the ground.
"You can't think about him," Etinnei closed her eyes and tried to imagine something cute.
Tuot looked at his friend's trembling ears and tail and realized that he had better go back behind the tree, but Etinnei suddenly stood up and began to look at the pile of snow again, as if nothing had happened.
"What are you doing?" Tuot asked. "Do you want to eat this snow?"
"Minniges thinks it's ice cream. But I know it's not. It's just water, but very cold. I can do that too, but mine turns out clear, and here it's white. I'm trying to figure out why it's white and how to make water like that."
"It is snow, and you turn out ice."
"Is it true?"
Etinnei looked at her feathered friend in surprise, then lowered her head and pulled her hood over her eyes.
"And I was wondering why these things fall from the sky and then fold together, while regular water just becomes solid," the Arctic fox girl continued. "I thought it was the same thing, but not quite."
"I also wondered why some coniferous trees are without needles in winter," Tuot looked at the "bald" tree with black bark, behind which he had recently been hiding. "In the summer they are all normal, but in the fall some turn yellow and that's it. I didn't know that coniferous trees come in different types."
"Do they come in different types?"
Etinnei looked at the coniferous tree without needles and opened her mouth.
"I thought Kyotyoryon just cut it. She cuts everything she sees. But she's not stupid, just new."
There was a pause, soon broken by heavy footsteps.
"Hey, were you saying something about me?"
Tuot turned to the source of the voice and noticed thick thighs that seemed tasty to him. But as soon as he looked down and saw the metal bracelets near those feet, his appetite immediately disappeared.
"No, you imagined it," the dinosaur answered.
"I heard "she cuts". You were talking about me."
One of the legs rose up and assumed a vertical position, after which a short blade extended from the bracelet and almost reached Tuot's head.
"Don't hurt him, he's my friend," Etinnei looked at the new creature with fear.
"Go away, furry," the voice of the metal spirit answered. "I obey only my creator. She will come soon and strike you with lightning."
"I'm not afraid of lightning," Etinnei looked at her sleeve. "I shoot lightning myself, because it hardly harms me, just a little."
"Then you can be cut," Kyotyoryon's leg, aimed at Tuot, bent at the knee. "But first I will step aside so that you do not shoot lightning at me."
The spirit of metal jumped back a few steps. The blade disappeared into the bracelet during the jump. Now Tuot could see not only what interested him most, but also the "inedible" part of the character – a dress made of metal plates that reached the middle of the breast, as well as a head covered in gray hair with strands sticking out on the top and two metal horns resembling cones of pine trees.
"My creator will be here soon," Kyotyoryon repeated. "She forgot to put on shorts and she thinks people will look at her because of it."
"Yeah, Halankuo doesn't like it when unfamiliar creatures look at her," Tuot recalled.
"I suggested that the creator change her brain so that she wouldn't have to think about such things, but she refused," Kyotyoryon continued. "And then she released water from her eyes. Oh, I think I told gossip."
"What is gossip?" Etinnei asked.
"It's when one being tells other beings about another being when it's not around," the spirit of metal explained.
"I don't understand anything," Etinnei looked at Tuot.
"I don't understand anything," the dinosaur admitted. "Let's ask Halankuo when she arrives."
Tuot noticed the end of the blade in front of him, and then slowly turned his head to the side and saw Kyotyoryon's leg, from the bracelet on which this "terrifying" weapon began.
"I understand," Tuot slowly stepped back. "I will not tell your creator anything."
The blade went back into the bracelet. Kyotyoryon bent her leg at the knee, then lowered it to the ground and looked around.
"My creator must come," the spirit of metal said. "Maybe someone disassembled her for meat?"
"Halankuo is not a doll," Tuot shook his head. "She is impossible to disassemble."
"That's why I said that she was disassembled for meat," blades emerged from the bracelets on Kyotyoryon's hands. "Let me show you if you don't believe me."
"No!" Tuot raised his head higher in fear...
The metal spirit's face was no longer masked, and the tip of a blade was sticking out of its open mouth.
"It's better not to argue with her," the dinosaur shuddered.
"Kyotyoryon, I told you that you can't walk around the city without a mask," a voice rang out from behind a thick, "bald" coniferous tree.
The metal spirit instantly turned towards the source of the voice and hid her tongue back in her mouth.
"This is not a city, creator," Kyotyoryon pointed to the river, beyond which the park turned into a forest. "This is a village for pillars."
There was laughter from behind the tree. The spirit of metal raised one of her legs and leaned to the side to see the source of the sound, but the thick trunk reliably protected the object even from such glances.
"I'm here, birdie," the voice behind the character continued.
Kyotyoryon turned sharply on one leg and almost fell. The spirit of metal was saved by the blades on her arm bracelets, which lengthened, turned into wings and helped her maintain balance.
"Creator..." Kyotyoryon's eyes bulged unnaturally, and a blade the size of a short sword emerged from her mouth.
In front of the character stood a girl with long, smooth black hair, wearing a black T-shirt, shorts, stockings and massive boots.
"Sorry, Kyotyoryon, for appearing so suddenly," Halankuo bowed her head. "I told you not to walk around the city without a mask, because people might see your tongue and get scared."
Kyotyoryon tried to put her tongue back into her mouth, but she only partially succeeded. The tip of the blade was still sticking out from where it shouldn't be.
"Let me help you," Halankuo sighed.
A wrench appeared in the creator's hand, which was aimed at the character's tongue and forced it out of the airspace. After that, a gray metal mask with a beak fell over it mouth and closed it tightly.
"Well, that's it," Halankuo said. "Now you're completely assembled."
"Am I assembled like a doll?"
"No, you're alive. Go to the river, but don't cut anyone there."
"There are stones there. They're evil. I haven't completely defeated them yet."
"Ah, stones can be cut."
Thank you, creator. You are good, but the stones are not.
Kyotyoryon went to beat the coastal stones. Halankuo turned to her feathered friend, who for some reason looked at her in surprise.
"I need to talk to you, Tuot."
"Who are you?" the dinosaur took a step back.
"It's me," Halankuo pointed the wrench at her friend and turned away.
Tuot's mouth slowly opened, and his eyes tried to leave his head.
"Yes, I just combed my hair," Halankuo answered instead of her friend.
Tuot looked down and saw legs encased in suspiciously familiar stockings.