WF41 Taming 1

Archer stretched and rose, climbing out of bed and shuffling his way into the kitchen. A quick glance out the window told him that the peaceful, warm days of sun and light breezes over the past few days had come to an end, as the sky was cloudy and dark. He assumed that there would be rain later in the day, so he worked quickly preparing breakfast and getting ready to take his tokos Avgas and Tiko out for the day, as well as his friend’s sphinx, Balan. There were a couple of streams that he wanted to check out with Avgas, as she loved the water, and Tiko was getting a bit plump so some extra exercise wouldn’t hurt the toki. Archer didn’t feel comfortable with leaving Balan home alone yet, so he decided to take the sphinx with him as well. He walked out of his house and was surprised to see a set of fairly large tracks making their way across the mud in his front yard. The tracks were definitely a tokota’s, but they didn’t seem to be coming from Archer’s barn, leading him to believe that there was a loose tokota wandering around. Archer knew that if one of his tokotas was missing he’d want it back as soon as possible, so he ran into the barn and let Tiko and Balan out of their stalls. The toki was still pretty shy and reserved, but he was working on coming out of his shell, and Archer thought that today would be one of his confident days, as after greeting Archer, Tiko wandered out of the barn to play in the mud rather than cling to Archer’s side as he saddled up Avgas. Both Tiko and Balan were shy tokotas, and didn’t always run around interacting with each other all of the time, but did respect each other’s boundaries and were tentative playmates.
The lilac tokota was eager to go, nose twitching and ears pricked as Archer finished saddling her up- there was definitely rain on the way. Outside, Tiko had gotten his light fur sufficiently muddy and had picked up a new scent, wandering over to the set of large pawprints in the mud just as Archer rode out on Avgas. The lilac tokota dipped her head, interested in the scent that came along with the tracks, before Archer touched his heels lightly towards her side, moving her forwards in the direction that the tracks were heading. Tiko, unburdened by any excess weight, bounded ahead of Avgas, stopping occasionally to sniff at various interesting objects with Balan padding slowly after him. His grey- white fur kept getting muddier and muddier with each mile, and Archer could only hope for rain just as they were getting back home, which would clean the little toki up. All he had to do for Avgas was to fill up the kiddie pool in the back yard and the blueish tokota would be all over it- like her mother Avgas had inherited an extreme love of the water and anything wet, much to Archer’s displeasure in the winter months.
The group continued on relatively quietly, with Tiko letting out occasional yips of excitement as he found something amusing. More often than not it was a bit of reflective trash, which Archer instructed Tiko to bring to him, but there was the occasional flowering plant or interesting stone that caught his attention. After a half hour or so following the tracks, Tiko stopped, sniffing curiously at a patch of tan something in the mud against a tree. Archer pulled Avgas to a halt and walked over to see what had piqued Tiko’s interest, and saw that it was a patch of tan fur that had been rubbed off against the tree. Archer was a bit curious- he didn’t know of any tokos in the area with that particular color of fur, but he supposed that he or she could have gotten lost or was wandering aimlessly, or had gotten focused on tracking after a scent or hunting something. Balan hung back by Avgas, looking around warily with his nose twitching. Archer returned to Avgas and climbed back on her back, touching his heels to her sides again and the group started off, continuing after the tracks. They seemed to be getting fresher, which meant that they were catching up with the loose tokota. As they continued, Tiko grew closer to Avgas’s left side, while Balan kept a bit of distance between him and the lilac tokota to her right, but his head was raised and moving, meaning he was keeping alert as to what was going on around him. Archer began to feel a bit uncomfortable- they were surely getting closer to this loose tokota by now and the tracks seemed very fresh. Balan paused, head pointed towards a spot in the bushes and whined. Avgas’s ears flicked to the same spot and she stopped as well, looking with interest at the same clump of bushes that Balan had, while Tiko glanced around curiously and padded towards the leafy plant. A growl rippled from the bush, and a large, tan tokota slowly emerged, fur bristling as she fixed her golden eyes on Tiko. The toki glanced up at the large tawny with a look of shock on his face before turning and running to hide between Avgas’s legs, who bristled and let out a snarl in response to the other female’s challenge. Balan stood his ground, looking uncomfortable but raised his tail, curling his lip at the female. Archer reached for his saddle bags, pulling out a pistol in case things went down hill- he hadn’t thought to bring his rifle with him as he hadn’t been worried about encountering an aggressive, wild, or rabid tokota. Seeing that there were three tokotas, instead of one small toki, the female stopped her growling, but still glanced at the group with wary eyes. She swung her head back and forth, looking between Archer, Avgas, and Tiko, and Balan, who was still standing off to Avgas’s right. Wanting to defuse the situation, Archer slowly reached into his saddle bags with his free hand, fishing for the stack of treats that he had thrown into the bag to reward Tiko’s behaviour when he was anything other than shy. The molasses coated cookies were a huge hit with all of the tokotas Archer had owned, and he figured that this female wouldn’t mind a few. She wasn’t on the skinny side, but a few sweet treats often helped an irate attitude. Archer tossed a few treats in her direction, and it was a few moments before the female glanced away from him to sniff at the treats, which she ate hurriedly, glancing up occasionally to make sure that Avgas, Tiko, and Balan weren’t advancing towards her to take her meal. Archer wasn’t too sure about this tokota, as he didn’t want to try and bring her back with him, due to her aggressive nature, and guessed that it was either a stray or a wild tokota unaccustomed to others. While he hadn’t heard of a new wild tokota in the area recently, he also hadn’t been in town catching up on the latest gossip, and now was a good time for wild tokotas to work their way down into the valley, following the prey and warmer weather.
Archer fed the tan female a few more treats, carefully watching her as she ate. She licked her lips as she finished up the last of the treats, and stared at Archer for a few minutes, before turning suddenly and kicking up mud as she darted back into the bushes. Archer was left looking after her, puzzled, before deciding to turn Avgas, Tiko, and Balan around for the day, and return to their initial plan of checking out a couple of streams. Tiko seemed a bit reluctant to move from between Avgas’s legs at first, but with a bit of coaxing and a few of the leftover molasses treats, Tiko wormed his way out from underneath Avgas, but still stuck to her closely, not wanting to be separated from Archer. Balan simply padded behind Avgas as they worked their way back along the path which they had come from, heading back in the rough direction of Archer’s house, leaving him with the idea to head into town over the next few days to find out more about the tan tokota with the stumpy tail.