It was clear the moose monster suspected something.


    Ever since it had brought her into the rain room it had been watching her. She wasn’t sure if it had simply known that its magic wasn’t working from the start or if she had done something to make it suspicious. Either way, it was hard to escape its eyes.


    Since it clearly knew that she wasn’t being controlled, she decided to simply learn as much as possible. The moose monster had always used cunning before, having it know its plan had failed just meant it would come up with a new plan. A perfect opportunity to gather as much knowledge as possible. She had no doubt she would eventually fall under the monster’s control, but the more she learned before then the better chance she had of breaking free later.


    If she could even work up the desire.


    While the idea of being food for a monster wasn’t all that appealing, all of the other benefits she had been receiving made it a much harder choice. Paying close attention as she followed, she had learned a number of new words. Even if she couldn’t use them yet, just having them was a boon. That alone would be enough to consider offering herself, but to also receive the disks that needed the monsters’ magic to create and the smothering warmth from its nest made things all but certain.


    If only she gave up her freedom.


    A terrible decision to have to make, which is why she had been resisting. So long as she could walk along the possibility rather than make a choice one way or the other than she could take all the good without consequence. Unless the monster had only shown her the bare minimum to get her interested.


    Which very well may be true, considering what she was watching.


    She was crouched in the monster’s lair, watching as it took strands and used its hands to make them larger. She couldn’t guess the purpose, but the implication that the monster had much more magic she wasn’t aware of made her second guess her stance. Did the monster let her be passive and not make a choice because the reward came from the choice, not as a way to entice her?


    Was… was she robbing herself of something better by not choosing?


    A worrying thought, both in that she had thought it and in what could be better than what she had experienced. There was a distinct possibility that the monster’s cunning had not faltered yet, its plan not so much failed as incomplete.


    As she was pondering her ultimate fate, the monster finished what it had been working on. A blanket now accompanied the strand, folded in a strange manner. She tilted her head slightly to try and comprehend the purpose of this new creation. Something that didn’t take long as the monster moved the strands in a way that opened a hole in the blanket. When the monster put the small book it sometimes carried into the hole, that purpose not only became clear but also very interesting. How many treats could she fit into something of that size, all of them? Even if it was only half, it would be several sleeps worth of food and a much better way to carry things she needed.


    As she pondered all the things she could accomplish with such a creation, she failed to notice the monster pick up her trinket.


    Once she realized that the monster was doing something to it, she quickly lost interest in future possibilities and tried to determine what the monster wanted with it. Ever since the trinket had stopped working, she had put it to the back of her mind. As far as she was concerned, if her trinket didn’t work then she needed to stay by the monster’s side forever. The trinket was protective, but it had clearly never worked against the moose monster, so there was no point in having a broken trinket try to protect her from something a working trinket failed at.


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    She had also realized that nothing would dare to attack the moose monster, not even the darkness.


    After the rubbing in the rain room, she and the monster had returned to its lair only to find the darkness still inside. While the darkness lingering in the corners of a room before it was banished was nothing strange, the darkness in the moose monsters lair was resisting the light. As the light in the tunnel had fallen to the darkness, she realized that the darkness inside the lair was similar to what it had been before she had left. She could see clearly and the tiny lights still fought, though they were more dim.


    As the monster worked, the tiny lights seemed to gain some strength, though not as much as they had when she woke. She had felt it obvious at that point that the moose monster was interfering somehow. Clearly the darkness had not attacked the monster in its lair. It didn’t dare to attack the monster at all it seemed. The tiny lights in the lair were the prey that the darkness was chasing and the moose monster was….


    Prolonging the conflict?


    What was the moose monster doing? It clearly didn’t want the darkness to win, as the lights dared to live in its lair untouched. However, it didn’t let the light win either, as she had seen the light banish the darkness completely before. Was the monster enjoying the conflict?


    More mysteries to figure out later. She still hadn’t determined what the monster was doing to her trinket, though it seemed to involve a small blanket. While a broken trinket couldn’t protect her from anything and her following the moose monster made it irrelevant, she would still prefer it stayed intact. It could be a valuable thing in the future if it could be fixed.


    She was wary of what the monster planned when it stood with her trinket in its hand. She stayed crouched where she was as it walked into the tunnel, prepared for what it might do. She was not prepared to be attacked by the light, however.


    She had been too uncomfortable when the moose monster woke to really think about what had happened, but as the light and darkness had always fought, she thought it was easily understood. Now, as she covered her eyes to stop the painful light, she had to once again question everything she knew.


    Had the light attacked her and not the darkness?


    Or had it attacked both?


    If she had been marked by the darkness somehow and that had made her an enemy of the light, it would explain why she had never been attacked before. The fact it only attacked her eyes meant that they could be what was marked. It was strange, as the darkness had never been painful when it attacked her, it only stole her vision. She already knew she needed to learn so much more about the conflict between the two, but the more she learned the more she believed she had chosen the wrong side.


    As the pain subsided, she noticed the moose monster looking at her. It gestured and walked a bit away from the opening. She scrambled to follow it. As safe as she felt in the lair, there was nothing preventing other monsters from catching her there if the moose monster was gone. She believed that nothing would bother the moose monster’s lair, but she didn’t want to test it.


    Once in the tunnel she watched the moose monster. She couldn’t see what it did, as she was behind it, but she definitely saw her trinket fly far into the tunnel, the darkness falling away as it went.


    It… it worked again?


    The monster had fixed it. Why had the monster fixed it?


    She stood stunned by the turn of events. Her mind unable to figure out the monsters plans, even in the short term. She had thought she had grown better able to predict the monsters’ next steps, but this made no sense. When she noticed the monster watching her, she was startled out of her swirling thoughts.


    Was it a test?


    It didn’t matter. If the trinket was working again she couldn’t afford to let it be lost. She scrambled and picked up her trinket, seeing the changes the moose monster had made. It seemed the small blanket was attached to the trinket’s arms with the strands. When she looked up to see what the monster was doing, it had disappeared. While it was likely that it had simply returned to its lair, she now had a difficult choice to make.


    The thought caught her breath. A choice to make. Was that the monsters plan, to force her to make a choice? She struggled for a moment, but the choice was clear. She had so much information to parse, so many new things to think about and new things she needed to test without the monster’s interference.


    She padded down the tunnel out of sight of the monster’s lair. There was so much to do when she got back to her home. Enough treats to last for some time and her new understanding of the darkness meant the only thing to fear were other monsters.


    She just hoped the monster would let her return after she finished.