“Moose.”


    She held up the page she had found.


    She didn’t know what it said or why Moose was looking for them, but she got a small treat every time she brought one. She never went far. At least not here near the garden. Moose must have found everything it was looking for in the area near her home, having left and not returned for some time now. They now made frequent trips to the area near the garden.


    She had looked around as best she could in the area near her room, she felt safe and had memorized it. So long as she never entered the magic room with Moose, she had yet to find any dangers lurking. She was quite sure that Moose had fought them all off.


    The area near the garden though?


    She shuddered just thinking about it.


    Moose had only opened the wall once while she had been present. Seeming content to leave it blocked away, Moose rarely even ventured that far. She didn’t know if it preferred the smaller rooms or if there was something it was trying to find. She suspected that Moose was looking for something specific. Even though she got a small treat for every page, most of them were only glanced at before they were set aside and forgotten.


    She had wanted to search in more places. She had been dissuaded from doing so by Moose though. When she had tried to search in a wall space that was too low for Moose, she had been stopped. She hadn’t understood why, not until Moose took a piece of hard water from the space she had just opened.


    When Moose held it up about as high as its shoulders and let it go, she had been confused. When the hard water touched the ground and broke into a great many pieces, she had begun to understand. Moose didn’t want her searching like she had been. It seemed that Moose didn’t much care for the hard water, but the demonstration was clear enough. Whatever Moose was searching for was fragile. If the hard water could break so easily, she didn’t want to see what happened to something that wasn’t water.


    She had stopped opening things to search after that. If she couldn’t see it from where she was, she wasn’t going to bother it. That had limited her ability to find things of course. She had to go farther away from Moose than she liked in this area. Never far enough to not hear Moose. But sometimes she was behind a wall or corner and that made her heartbeat faster.


    Would she be able to outrun something that would challenge Moose?


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    She hoped to never find out. For now, she just enjoyed the small treat Moose handed her and watched as the page was looked over and put aside like the others. She picked it back up and read what she could. There were a lot of words that she had never seen before. Words that seemed to have meaning, but she couldn’t understand what that meaning was. What even was an ‘incubation’ anyways? It seemed to be going well, whatever it was. At least according to the page.


    She had been spending as much time as possible trying to figure out the secret to the book that Moose carried and used to make more words. Truth be told, she much preferred when Moose sat in its nest and did whatever it was doing with the pages that had been brought there. When Moose was in the lair and settled in its nest, she could sit with her back to Moose and read the small book.


    It never ended well of course. The warmth from Moose always fogged her mind somewhat, even now after all the time she had spent in that position. To make things worse, sometimes Moose would rumble as she was trying to read. The feeling of the words Moose was speaking always turned into tingles as they hit her back, making it even more difficult to focus.


    She always wanted to scold her body for distracting her, but at this point she had to admit that her mind enjoyed it just as much. Not as much as the rain room though. She didn’t know what ‘good’ was, but if she repeated the word to Moose, it would rub her head. That never failed to send tingles all over. The warm rain and the tingles from a head rub often left her lost and confused when they stopped and the storm started. They were worth it every time though, that was something she couldn’t deny.


    Things may have been a bit different if she had not accidentally prevented herself from entering her home. Ever since then, she had followed Moose everywhere. Before, if Moose went somewhere she was scared to go, she would simply return and look through the Pages. Now, that wasn’t an option. She couldn’t return. If Moose went somewhere and she didn’t follow, she didn’t know if she would ever see it again. As she still relied on Moose for its magic, she just couldn''t take the risk. All of that extra time spent with Moose meant she was exposed to more magic. It was why she could no longer say her mind didn’t like it.


    She barely even thought of her home anymore. Moose’s lair was more likely to come to mind if she even thought of the word.


    She followed Moose down another tunnel. Everything really had changed when she had magic used on her that first time. Thinking back, she had been so afraid of it taking her mind. Of losing the will to say no. Had that happened?


    Was she not able to say no, or did she simply not want to?


    She wanted that thought to be scary. To not know if she didn’t want to or wasn’t able to, should make her panic and do everything to find out. But it just… didn’t. What would she do, give up the warmth? Run away from Moose and never get a head rub again?


    Let the emptiness back in?


    If she couldn’t say no, did it matter, when she was pleased with what she had?


    Her pondering was interrupted by Moose rumbling. There seemed to be another wall like the one near the garden. Moose was doing something near the wall to the tunnel, rumbling things she didn’t catch. It did seem that Moose was having trouble with whatever was going on though.


    Was Moose trying to break into another monster''s territory?


    Maybe she didn’t need to stand that close after all.