Chapter 154 - Letter To Self

"Is that…" Petunia said and paused behind Hodgewart which also made Hodgewart pause while looking at her.

"What?" Hodgewart asked her before returning his gaze to the mini village in front of them.

The houses were made of mushrooms, sometimes with the combination of twigs, straws, and woods that were almost unnoticeable because of the snow almost covering the whole village, making them unnoticeable in the eyes of a wanderer.

Well, they were almost unnoticeable, just until when the sun finally set and the darkness came. Lights started appearing everywhere in the village, faint mushrooms and fairy lights that looked adorable and magical inside a snowy forest that immediately made Petunia ask herself "How could this be possible?" 

"Huh? We use the glowing goos from the hostile slimes that attacked us in order to warn them to not make the same mistake again, and sometimes, we get fireflies to volunteer light service in exchange for shelter, but ever since we learned and recreated how fireflies make their butt light up, we rarely ask them for service and use the improvised lights instead," Hodgewart explained flawlessly while nearing the village.

"Hodgewart! It's Hodgewart! But who's the cat?" Petunia heard the village people gossiping while approaching them.

"Hodgewart!" a baby fox greeted the giant hedgehog with a wide smile and a warm hug.

'There are all kinds of animals here, huh?' Petunia thought to herself while looking around the dim village using her night vision..

There were squirrels, penguins, baby foxes, rabbits, and even winter bears on standby beside the huge pine trees! Just how diverse this community is?

"These are my children," Hodgewart said, which caught Petunia's attention immediately, because instead of little hedgehogs, Petunia was greeted by two baby red foxes cuddling with Hodgewart in front of her.

"Uhhh, hi?" Petunia said awkwardly which was also responded to by an awkward gaze from Hodgewart's 'kids' who also waved their tails at her while pouting.

"Are you also lost?"

"Or did your mom also leave you to die here in the winter woods?" the two baby foxes said simultaneously which ultimately shocked Petunia for two things.

One because she had been mistaken for a baby cat, and two because of the fact that the last fox unintentionally shared their past to her which made her really sympathetic.

"Your mom did that to you? Oh no… and n-no, I'm just lost," Petunia muttered to herself nervously, not knowing how she should act in front of these people who did not even understand what she was saying and just thought she was just really weird and nervous about meeting new people.

Petunia thought she couldn't be her usual snobby self this time because somehow, Hodgewart and his kids had already grabbed her attention and sympathy without even trying!

And even though Petunia thought she liked it here, she was now afraid of leaving a bad impression which made her even more nervous than before.

"Hello, I can see you've brought someone new with us here today," a deep female's voice suddenly talked from behind the crowd which took Petunia a little bit more time before seeing who it was.

"Miss Nabi," Hodgewart and the other animals said in unison, even bowing down a little bit in order to give her a space to pass through.

And there she came, flapping through the crowd unstably with an abstract golden ring on her head that was supposed to be a crown. She looked like a fairy along with those luminescent edges of her body and wings.

'Ah, I really want to see the real colors on her wings. I think they'll look gorgeous with my human eyes…' Petunia thought to herself while watching the village's leader having a hard time balancing the abstract golden ring on her little butterfly head.

"So, who is this new fellow, and what is her business with us?" Miss Nabi said with a few exaggerated gestures with her six luminescent little legs in the dark.

"I invited her to stay for the night before continuing on with her rogue adventure, Miss Nabi," Hodgewart said, which was then met with a kind response and nods from little Miss Nabi and her people.

"Very well then, I hope you have a great time here. If Hodgewart invited you himself then you must have been special. So, where did you come from?" Miss Nabi asked while leading her and everyone else to the biggest and brightest house carved out of a big mushroom mashed inside a lush and big fat tree.

"From the silver woods?" Petunia asked in a question form as if unsure herself, since she was always traveling and hiding from people, Petunia didn't really consider anywhere her home and just thought of the closest place she could call home, aside from Yvandir of course.

But unlike the kind reaction from Miss Nabi and her people earlier, this time, Petunia was met with weird stares and negative gossips from the people because of unknown reasons.

"D-Did you just use the human language?" Miss Nabi said which her people didn't seem to understand because of their curious stare at her and back at Petunia.

"I-I guess so," Petunia answered, not even sure what kind of language she was using herself and how she was able to understand these people or rather animals from the get-go.

Understanding what they were saying made Petunia think that she was speaking their language and not the other way around, but because of their reactions, there was no reason for Petunia to believe that anymore.

"Oh no, I shouldn't have opened my mouth," Petunia thought to herself while looking at Hodgewart and his clueless fox children for help.

'It's okay, you just need to show you're good,' Petunia interpreted Hodgewart's look which made her even more nervous.

'I was famous for making people's blood boil at the first meeting, how am I supposed to deal with this?!' 

"So, are you also a human turned into an animal, or are you an animal that was also taught how to speak the human language?" Miss Nabi said with wide eyes while mentioning herself as the human that was turned into an animal and to Hodgewart who was a real animal that was recently taught how to speak human by Heize.

"Uhmm, I- uhhh, I'm a real human," Petunia said without looking at Miss Nabi or anyone else, "Yep, I used to be a human… I guess," Petunia added when she noticed some parts of her memories disappearing from her mind.

"Oh, you poor thing," Miss Nabi said, which surprised Petunia and even the other animals who understood her before she gave Petunia a little hug in the nose.

"Don't worry, we got you. So, for how long have you been living as a cat now?" she immediately asked while pouting which made Petunia feel weird for being able to read an insect's facial expressions.

"For almost ten years, I guess," Petunia said while looking up at the sky, unsure of anything anymore because of her deteriorating feline memory.

"Ten years?!" Miss Nabi repeated in shock which made Petunia look at her in the eyes directly.

"I guess, I'm not really sure," Petunia said with furrowed arrows, even shaking her head to get her memories back but it was as if they had already fallen from her grip.

"Excuse me, do you have a pen and paper? Anything I could write with?" Petunia asked Miss Nabi and her people in a rush before going back to the snow and writing something down using her paws.

"This isn't good, what if I suddenly forget everything tomorrow and even the purpose of my visit? Where I came from and what I was trying to do…" Petunia muttered while writing the keywords down.

"What's wrong?" Hodgewart asked, which was only responded with a wait sign.

"I can't forget these things, not now. Not when I don't have my stat-hut with me," Petunia said in a panic while still trying to write things in the snow.

"Could you please copy what she's writing in this paper?" Miss Nabi said to her monkey assistant that just came out from the mushroom treehouse.

"Okay." The monkey nodded and climbed the treehouse to see what Petunia was writing on the snowy floor with a pen and paper in her hands and with the help of fireflies whom Miss Nabi also tasked to roam around the words that Petunia wrote in order for her assistant to see and copy everything precisely.

"What's happening with her?" Miss Nabi finally asked Hodgewart with her six arms crossed while watching Petunia panicking from afar.

"Ah, I should've known! I should've just brought the Stat-hut with me instead of putting my memories at stake for this seemingly impossible mission. I even let myself get distracted when I should've just asked him to bring me to Heize immediately!" Petunia muttered to herself in disappointment before finishing off her letter to herself.

"Done, please don't step or ruin this!" She even announced to the animal people while knowing the fact that they wouldn't be able to understand whatever she was saying anyway.