Northstar Vale who put the Halo novels here?

@Umi
Date: 10/30
Time of Day: Evening
Cloud Cover: Partly Cloudy
Precipitation: N/A
Temperature: 45°F 
Wind Speed: 8 mph   
Viewing Distance: 9 mi

if he had wanted to see the splendor of the lotus spring, he had missed out by a few months. the air had gotten too cold for the frogs to sing, and the fireflies had long disappeared, expecting the winter to come. benry didn't know what he was missing, however. it was still beautiful in fall. benry nosed the waving cattails, then reared up on his hind legs to bat at it, grinning as it swung to and fro.

The months had quickly turned cool. The willows draped overhead showered tiny brown leaves over her as she grew closer to the spring. Autumn had graced the earth with scarlets and rich earth tones that made her heart sing as she walked. The water source was close; she could smell it. She also sense the presence of a cat, and as she followed it, she recognized the fingerprint as Benry.

A smile fell across her face as she casually galloped toward him. She saw cattails toward the edge of the water bouncing up and down. A curious Benry swatted at them. She did not hesitate. Umi leapt at the boy, pouncing readily in order to pin him to the ground.

It was a proper feline greeting.

First thing I thought of:

he heard paws thumping on the ground towards him. he paused in midair, one paw raised. huh? he managed to say before umi barrelled in to him. he was frightened at first, his claws unsheathing. what was on him what was— wha? he gasped, recognizing her. his anxiety disappeared. oh broooooo! he grinned up at her, sheathing his claws. brooo, he said again, quieter.

Legit that what I was thinking xD

Yeah bro, I got u bro. She thought it to herself, pushing him to the earth with little contention. Her grin widened. He was bigger than her. She knew that if he wanted to, Benry could easily pin her to the ground. This wasn't exactly a point of strength. As Umi felt him under her, her smile grew wider and more silly.

At last, she let him up, stepping back, her tail high in the air in a friendly and courting manner. So, she started, as though execting something grand. Mister Benry, Umi continued, how are you? The sentence was a basic one, but Umi felt giddy and bouncy. She wanted the details on what he'd been up to.

he rolled onto his belly when she finally let him up, tucking his paws into a little loaf. he was purring — he couldn't stop himself from doing so. of course, he really meant it.

his ears twitched as she spoke; he had done that more as of late. it had helped him focus. uhhh, good. good. he said. nothing much had happened since the last time he saw her. i'm getting really fluffy. he grinned. fluff boy hours.

Benry looked like a meatloaf. And he vibrated. Umi sat down, stretching her front half as he spoke to relax some of the energy she had. She raised a creamy, spotted back paw and scratched behind one of her ears as the boy explained his world of current events, or lack thereof.

Me too, look! Umi declared, throwing herself from her regal, seated position onto her back to expose a soft, white belly. The last of the spots along her stomach were fading fast with the changing season. By next spring, it was likely she wouldn't have any juvenile features left apart from her child-like eyes. I can't wait for winter, she said, rolling toward him back onto her side. There will be snow everywhere all the time. For her, this was a good thing. Her favourite foods were all easier to track and kill in the snow.

he looked respectfully at her stomach as she presented it to him. like, she was showing off to him, right? he didn't think it was rude to look, but he respected women and all that. especially umi. mmmiiiii'vvve never seen it. snow. he admitted. even in his part of norcal it was far too warm for good snow to come down. he was raised beyond the sierras by the shore, though he didn't know the name of the mountain range. he knew it was cold and fluffy and white, but that was about it.

Umi blinked. She rolled back over so that she could grip the earth with all four paws, as though what Benry had just said was so dizzying that she might fall off the earth if she didn't hold herself there.

You what? It was rhetorical. She knew full well what he had just said. Umi also didn't want to make her friend feel silly or dumb, so she tried to find a way to redirect. She didn't want to explain snow if he knew what it was or what it felt like or why it was important, but given everything she had learned about the oddball lion, she went into professor mode.

Snow is.. just about the best thing ever, other than sunbathing, she said, click to clarify. Rolling around and/or sleeping in the sun was definitely the best thing on earth. No amount of explanation would convince her otherwise. It's, you know, I dunno if you know what it looks like, it's fluffy and white and cold and it smells like a mountain top, she ran through the words fast, like she was in a race for who could say the most words in a minute. And animals make tracksinit the way like mud does and they don't likeit when they have like hooves and then youcatchem and it's so good, she explained in full.

She grinned, thinking that of course, he got all that. He should be excited about snow.

he knew that was a bad thing to say, knew that she'd judge him for it, even if she didn't mean it. his ears pressed back and he looked away, sheepish. um- he began, his voice quiet, but umi had already began speaking, fast and fast. the words became a blur. he could pick out a few syllables and words here and there, but the fast pace umi went out made her sound like sludge. benry was only aware when she finished speaking, still trying to keep up. she was grinning. he could only blink. wha?

Benry blinked.
Her smile faded, and she realized, at least partially, her mistake. Though she didn't realize that he had an issue with processing sounds, it was clear that she had gone way too fast and had data dumped him without actually knowing what he wanted to learn about. Her excitement about snow evaporated and she made a silly expression that included both a smile and pursed lips.

Oh.. Umi stood up and looked around her, wondering if the terrain might help her out for a minute here. There! The declaration was immediate and strong. She stood, pointing her features toward the top of one of the Sunspire peaks that bordered the Vale.

Where she pointed, white coated the peak. It was in a thin sprinkle, for most of it had melted in the last spring and had yet to be replaced with fresh ice. That white stuff.

the speed from her words before still echoed in his head. he was shaken up now, with the touch of something being explained like he was a kitten about something that he knew about putting him into overdrive. i....m...i mean, i know...know what it...sno... he curled up a bit, more defensive than before. the words weren't coming out right. i just....i just...ain't seen it happen buh...bbbbbbbb... he trailed off, still half-purring the consonant. his pupils dilated.

Benry appeared to be short-circuiting, and Umi didn't know what to do. She thought she was being helpful. He seemed like he was from an alien planet, what with weird hair-topped naked animals dumping him out here and all that. She didn't know what he knew and didn't know, but he appeared to forget how to make words, and she gasped in terror.

He started to curl up, and she promptly attempted to help further by running over to him and going on, Oh my god I'm so sorry what happened wh— oh no, but that seemed to make it worse. So, she stopped talking, scared, and a bit weirded out. She lay down in front of him and put her head on the ground, her paws splayed out in front of her. She stared at him, frowning.

He didn't seem to be choking or like... physically dying, so she stayed there, panicking internally. Oh god, I've killed him, she thought.

his head felt fuzzy. like static, buzzing through his brain. he could see, sure, but his eyes were fixed ahead, staring at nothing. umi's face came into view, and his vocalizations slowed a bit, until they finally felt silent. the static began to fade. he blinked once, twice. 'msorry. he murmured, his lips and throat feeling like lead had been pumped into them.

It took a bit for Benry to return to the land of the living. Umi was confused, and scared, but his eyes seem to refocus onto her. She resisted the urge to run up to him and risk overwhelming him with more of whatever she did to make him die. He slipped out an apology, and she crept in a weird sideways motion slowly toward him, using her paws to push her forward.

W-what happened..? Her expression was wide eyed.

he was still crawling back to clarity, just as Umi decided to crawl over to him. in any other time, he would have laughed, but he was too sluggish, too mentally weary. fffffuzzy. brain fuzz. he had no other words to describe the mental overstimulation and the toll it took on him. weirdo benry hours. he huffed.

Umi wasn't sure exactly what brain fuzz was, and she thought about what happened when she stood up a little too fast. She decided that it was like that, where your vision went kinda funky and you had trouble focusing. Usually that went away after only a few seconds, though. Benry's brain fuzz seemed to last a lot longer. Weirdo, she parrotted, reaching out a paw to boop his nose.

That happens when I stand up fast, she said, mostly to confirm she knew what he was talking about.