Okay, so the lackadaisical Bat knew how to play. That gave Ephraim at least a starting point for a connection, and he moved as though to collect the moss ball and engage her in a game of catch, but then he paused and arched his brows at her. The nod was enthusiastic at first, but she wasn't stopping. Bat was giggling instead, seemingly enjoying herself as her over-large ears flapped around.

Thinking that this was some sort of game, Ephraim gave his own head a couple of shakes, but though his ears outstripped the average wolf pup's in size thanks to hybridization, they weren't quite large enough to hit him like hers were. It didn't matter in the end; she pranced over and slapped him, causing him to stutter-step backward and work his itching nose from where the tip of an ear had stung, and then she fell back and lamented her hurting head.

"Sorry," said Ephraim automatically, though he didn't know what he was sorry for. "Play somethin' else maybe?"

Immediately after suggesting playing something else, Ephraim realized he didn't have any good ideas. Oh, what it must be like to be a creative soul, capable of dreaming up any game imaginable. He was too rooted in the real world to even think of something. The first thought that drifted into his head was the game of chase Tux had called "tag", and he opened his mouth to offer that suggestion, but Bat was already distracted with something else. His small teeth clacked together as he turned his head quickly to see what she was pointing at.

There, along the edge of the wall where the cave was musty and moist, was a cluster of little white growths. Ephraim let his eyes pan along the wall and realized there were many such clusters, far too many mushrooms for any one pup to examine in an hour or two. They were all the same, it seemed, and as Bat approached, the more cautious coywolf followed slowly behind. Is it a flower? she asked, and he frowned and replied, "what's a flower?"

Beaches and underground caves, it turns out, are not great places to find flowers, and he somehow had never noticed the flowers blooming while he traveled across the mainland with his family prior to the storm. He didn't know what they were, but Bat was probably right: this bulbous white thing on the end of a stringy stalk was a flower. He liked it, and leaned forward to sniff at its earthy cap, then sneezed, causing the cluster to bob in place.

He rocked back a couple steps and sneezed once more, then turned his watery eyes on Bat, who passionately diagnosed him with 'lergics'. "Wha's lergic," he asked, blinking away the tears, and then followed up with, "wha's porky pines?" She corrected herself moments later and though Ephraim also didn't know what a pine cone was—he'd seen plenty during the flight from Grimnismal but didn't know the name of them—he merely nodded, feeling self-conscious about all the things he didn't know.

Was there anything he did know that Bat didn't? It felt sort of doubtful. Lergics in particular were well beyond his knowing. "Porky pines makes you sneezy?" he asked, attempting to clarify for himself what it meant to be lergic to something. "If you sniff 'em?" he added, because prior to sniffing the 'flower', he hadn't known he was lergic.

Sneezes and boogs and bad breathing all sounded horrific to Ephraim, who didn't need much urging to back away from the mushrooms on the wall. He appreciated Bat's offer to protect him, though, and fixed her with a shy smile as they backed away from the bulbous flowers. It was weird to be around a pup who wanted to help him rather than disadvantage him; he and his siblings had been competitive, and to say that they liked one another was a stretch. It was a pleasure to find he actually enjoyed Bat's company.

"Yeah!" Ephraim readily agreed, now with much less timidity than before. He wracked his brain, drawing up the game that Tux had tried to play with him not long before: "tag?" And then, just the way the tuxedo pup had done, Ephraim reached out and poked Bat's shoulder.

He waited too long to start the game and Bat reached right out to tag him with little effort required. The coywolf blinked, torn between yelling "no fair!" and simply tagging her back to get his revenge for outsmarting him. In the end he decided to surge after her, compelled by her fleeing figure and the connection they'd made by both being lergic. He could have let her clever move sour his mood, sending him into a pout, but for once he didn't.

Bat moved slowly for a fleeing wolf, and Ephraim caught up easily. He reached up, hopped the last step on three legs and tapped his paw down on her rump. "You're it!" he declared, triumphant, and this time he spun around and bolted instantly, cackling as he went because he was just so much faster (read: she was just lazier than him right now).