an opponent, being neither very muscular nor very tall, but it didn’t seem he wanted to risk having a fight two against one. So, he growled, gritted his teeth and left. The group looked after him for a few moments before releasing a breath of relief. Alba and Lakia quickly bounded up to them.

“Are you okay?” Lakia asked worriedly, looking at Aster. The doe took a shaky breath and nodded.

“Yeah, thanks to you…”

“You really should take better care of yourself,” Ronno sneered and stared at Aster with a strange look. The doe frowned at that and raised her head, slowly calming down and becoming herself again. She snorted.

“Thanks for telling me. Could I know that such a jerk would come around?”

“If our way home wasn’t in this direction, what would you have done?”

“I would have figured out a way. I already thanked you, what else do you want?” she replied with flattened ears. Had she just felt grateful to this buck? Or thought that he was maybe still a good deer? Hmpf…

“Yeah, sure,” Ronno huffed.

“Well, you seem to be okay now. You can be glad that Ronno heard your voice and figured out you were in trouble.” It was the first time Alba had spoken to her, and Aster quickly turned her head towards the blue-eyed doe. She was kinda dumbfounded. Was she suggesting that it had been Ronno’s idea to come and save her? He had arrived before the others, so it seemed he had hurried…how odd.

“Yeah…” she mumbled.

Ronno snorted. “Well, we better get going. Goodbye.”

Everyone said their goodbyes, even if Aster’s was only mumbled due to her half-absent mind, and started heading towards their home once again. Asters mind was working quickly. Ronno didn’t seem to be too bad after all, and he hadn’t opposed that buck to win her over…he had done so because she had been in trouble.

In that moment, she made a decision.

“Wait!” she called and ran after the group. They stopped in their tracks and turned their heads to look at her. Aster took a deep breath.

“It’s not right to leave a favor unreturned. I owe you. So maybe, I can accompany you until I got to make up for it? I haven’t gotten anywhere else to go, anyway…”

Ronno opened his muzzle to speak, but this time, it was Lakia who cut in. A satisfied smirk played around her muzzle. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. Another doe around would be nice, isn’t that so, brother?” She winked an eye to him.

Ronno snorted. “Yeah, whatever.”

He turned to go on.

The others grinned at each other. Lakia, Aster, and even Maverick and Alba seemed satisfied as the doe joined them on their way home. It was true she didn’t have any other place to go, here she didn’t want to stay. And in addition to that, she wanted to know more about this Ronno. And who knew, maybe she would even find her family along the way?

“But we must warn you of those dumb caribou,” Ronno told her after a while, still looking grumpy, but she figured that was just normal for him.

“Caribou?”

Lakia laughed. “We’ll tell you along the way…”