"...so he said, 'You can't eat that entire muffin! It's as big as your head!'" Fidget chuckled to herself, flapping her wings to keep up with Dust. "Boy was he wrong. It did take me a while though."

"Uh-huh." Dust responded to the Nimbat flying a few steps behind him as he hiked up the hill, his longcoat billowing out behind him in the wind.

"Ah, and it was so good! It had chocolate chips, and was firm on the outside but all soft on the inside, and it was still warm from the oven, and..."

"That's great, Fidget." Dust said, cutting her off. "We're at the teleporter, come over here." The two of them were heading up Archers' Pass to go visit Hayley. Fidget had a pretty good idea of why he really wanted to go – Dust already had pretty good gear and seemed to be handling the monsters just fine, and she didn't think it was Matti he was interested in talking to. But that was fine: Fidget was just pleased to be literally anywhere other than the Sorrowing Meadow. 

They'd been hiking through the wilderness for a while to get back to Archers' Pass, and other than feeling the need to let out all the water she'd been drinking during the trip, it had been a pleasant and scenic hike. Or flight, in her case.

Dust dug around in his pockets and took out the blue crystal Hayley had given him, holding it up to the big stone door as he approached. It reacted to the crystal and opened, the two halves of it sliding into the ceiling and floor, but he didn't go inside, peering instead into the darkness.

Darkness that shouldn't have been there, because something should have lit up the room.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" Fidget snapped as she looked inside as well, flitting around Dust's shoulders. "Where's the teleporter? The big, glowy portal thing? Did it break? Fix it, Dust!"

"Calm down, Fidget." Dust responded as he took a few steps inside and looked around. There wasn't anything obviously wrong – no sparking bits, no broken-off pieces, nothing on fire. "I don't think I can fix this. I don't even know what's wrong."

"Come on, do something!" Fidget complained. "Something is better than nothing!"

"What do you expect me to do, kick it? I'm not a mage!"

"Clearly not, if you were then we would just be teleporting straight to where we needed to go in the first place. Ahrah, you're magic! You fix it, then."

<I'm not sure what you expect me to be able to do, Fidget.> Ahrah responded with pulses of its runes.

Dust shook his head and walked back out from the cave. "Look, we'll just have to walk up and tell Hayley. She's probably the only one who can fix it."

"W-Walk up?" Fidget stammered, putting her paws to her mouth. "All the way up the pass?"

"Why not? We did it before." He cast his gaze up to the skies – or at least, Fidget assumed so. She could never tell with that ridiculous hat always covering his eyes. "Don't be so scared. We'd better get going soon, too, unless you want to be caught in the rain."

"I'm not scared!" Fidget protested. "I just, uh... can I have a moment before we go up?"

Dust turned his attention back to Fidget, misunderstanding her reasons for wanting to wait. "Come on, Fidget. I'm going ahead. You're welcome to wait if you like, but you're going to get rained on, and then you'll be a very wet Nimbat. And there's monsters around too." He turned on his heel and started heading off, jumping up to a higher platform.

"W-wait!" Fidget called out, furious with Dust for ignoring her. Of course, if she admitted the real reason for her hesitation, he'd just tease her even more. Folding her arms and flying off after him in a huff, she refused to give him that satisfaction. She could just hold it until they got to the blacksmith's.

--------------------

Halfway up the mountain, the wind picked up, making it even harder for Fidget to keep up. Soon after that came the rain, rapidly escalating to a torrential downpour, and Dust let her take shelter in his backpack before she got too wet – but not before giving her an "I told you so."

Using the flap on top of the pack as shelter from the rain so she could still peek outside, she fumed silently to herself. They'd gotten caught in the storm anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered if he'd just let her go pee first! Now she was stuck hiding in the bag with her legs crossed – she had half a mind to uncross them and release her bladder all over everything under her, but she dismissed the idea. Not only would Dust be sure to never let her forget it, but she still had a good distance left to ride before they made it up to Hayley's, and was happy to be somewhere that wasn't soaking wet.

The cave right before Hayley's place at least provided some shelter from the rain, and Fidget popped her head out of the bag. "Uh, Dust?" she asked timidly, "Can we stop for just a moment?"

"We're almost there, Fidget." He said dismissively as he walked briskly across the cave floors. "You can eat when we get there."

"It's not that!" Fidget blurted out in frustration. "Though I wouldn't mind some food. But no, I, uh... you know how we brought extra water this time, and that's good, but I kinda... need to, you know..."

"Just wait a few more minutes, Fidget." Dust stated flatly as he kept walking. "I'm sure you can hold out that long."

Fidget was less sure - she was already to the point where she had to keep her legs tightly closed to hold it in. But rather than protest any further, she shuffled back down into the bag with a huff, bouncing slightly inside of it on top of the wrapped provisions and random bits of monsters that Dust was bringing to the blacksmith for appraisal. "Hmph. Fine."

Getting bounced around wasn't helping her situation, despite how tightly her legs were crossed. The final jump down from the cave to the area outside of Hayley's especially didn't help; Dust made a three-point landing on the ground, the sudden stop after the fall sending Fidget down far enough into the pack for her head to be completely obscured. She could hear the wind and the rain coming down pretty hard, with an occasional clap of thunder in the distance. The rain was sheeting off of the large overhang above the blacksmith's area, relatively sheltered by the rock overhead.

Dust immediately made his way to the lone building that served as Haley and Matti's house, knocking on the door. It opened almost immediately; Hayley must have been looking through one of the windows and saw Dust approaching.

"Hi, Dust!" Fidget heard Haley call out as she tried to clamber back up to the top of the backpack. "Taking the scenic route today?"

"Not by choice," Dust replied, ignoring the Nimbat fumbling around in his backpack. "Did you know the teleporter isn't working?"

"It isn't?" Hayley leaned on the door frame, looking thoughtful. Turning around, she looked over at Matti as she waved at Dust for him to come inside. "Hopefully it just needs a fresh crystal. Matti, do you know what might be wrong?"

Matti's incoherent grumbling was accompanied by a downward gesture of his hand towards the teleporter. "Oh, that's good." Hayley said before turning back to Dust. "We'll get that fixed as soon as possible."

"I'll... take your word for it." Dust hesitantly replied, closing the door behind him. The living room was cozy enough, with a large fireplace keeping it lit and well-warmed.

"Where's your friend?" Hayley inquired, "Did something happen to her?"

Fidget seized the opportunity to pull herself up and out of the backpack, shaking her head and blinking. "I'm here," she announced, "But because of someone's teleporter being broken, we had to walk all the way up!" She was about to climb out of the backpack entirely, but another pang from her bladder reminded her to keep her legs tightly closed.

"I'm sorry about that. We don't get many visitors. Do you think it'll take a while to fix?"

Matti made a series of short noises that vaguely reminded Fidget of an unhappy cat. Hayley seemed encouraged, however, standing up straight and beaming wide at Dust. "Great! We'll try and get that fixed tomorrow morning. You're welcome to stay the night in the meantime. You can sleep here in the living room – I'm pretty sure you don't want to be out here in this." She gestured towards the outside, where the rain was coming down hard, a bright flash of lightning in the distance illuminating the area moments later.

"Yes, thank you." Dust answered. "I did have some things to show you as well."

"Of course! I didn't think you came all the way up here just to say hi. Well, bring 'em out."

Fidget pulled herself out of the backpack entirely, flapping her wings as she took to the air. "I'll let you two do that," she mused, "I'll just, uh... take a look around." 

She turned to leave, but Hayley called out to her. "Where are you going in this weather? Stay inside! We've got a fire going, you can keep yourself warm."

"I just want to go outside for a little bit." Fidget said anxiously. If she didn't find a way out sooner rather than later, she might get caught inside indefinitely, and she didn't see that ending well for herself, or for any furniture in her vicinity.

Hayley clearly got the wrong idea, however, as she turned back to Dust. "I think she might have altitude sickness again." she whispered, but not quietly enough to stop Fidget from hearing.

Before Fidget could protest, Dust spoke up. "Oh, no, she's fine, she just needs to be let out so she can go pee."

Fidget could have died of embarrassment on the spot; it was bad enough that she was visibly crossing her legs while keeping airborne, she didn't need Dust discussing her private needs so openly and so loudly.

"When you say it like that, it sounds like she's your pet." Hayley commented, only making Fidget all the more mortified.

"It kind of does." Dust agreed, "I keep her fed, she follows me everywhere, I have to open doors for her..."

"I'm NOT a pet!" Fidget snapped in reflex before she could even think about it. "Anyway, I'm just fine, you jerk. Why don't you mind your own business and show your girlfriend some of the monster bits you brought back for her?"

It was Dust's turn to be embarrassed, which gave Fidget some vindication. "Fidget, she's not my- look, just go do whatever."

As Dust and Hayley began talking about the things she could make with the materials he'd brought, Fidget immediately tuned them out and started looking around the room for a place to go take care of her pressing need to pee – if she didn't find somewhere soon, she'd be making more of a mess on the floor than Dust was as he dripped water on and around the mat by the door. Pretending to be checking out the room, Fidget flew between the various bits of furniture and decorations. There were lots of shelves and bookcases, but there was nothing private she could hide behind. And the only way out of the room was through doors or windows, all of which were closed given the storm going on outside.

"Tell you what, Dust, wait here for a little bit. I was just about to make dinner." Fidget heard Hayley saying, and she turned to look at the pair.

"Thanks, Hayley." he replied, adding, "You only need a small bowl for Fidget. Maybe one of those little side dish plates."

Hayley started to leave as Fidget huffed and folded her arms. He'd already forgotten that she needed to go outside, and she wasn't about to bring it up again and have him make another comment about her being a pet. This was all Dust's fault; all she needed was to find somewhere for a few-

Wait, the door! Fidget saw Hayley leaving, the door swinging closed behind her. That was her chance! Fidget flew across the room for the door, but it closed shut before she could get there, and she flapped her wings hard to stop short before she ran into it.

"I know you're hungry, but she won't cook any faster with you watching over her shoulder." Dust remarked, and Fidget didn't grace him with a verbal response this time. She had more important problems on her hands - and between her legs.

Running out of ideas, she flew to the top of a bookcase and landed on it, sighing and sitting on the edge with her legs crossed. Her bladder was almost constantly panging now from how full it was, and she needed to find somewhere to go, and fast. But she had no way to get out of the room on her own, and there wasn't exactly much by way of hiding spots in the living room itself. She glanced over her shoulder, seeing a slight gap between the bookcase and the wall. Maybe she could...?

"So, Matti." she heard Dust say, "Been up to much since we were last here?" She didn't make out a single word of his grumbling, and after a short pause, Dust answered, "Well, all right then. Good to hear, I think." She'd forgotten about Matti, but he was so short, he'd never see her up here. And Dust with his oversized hat could never look up...

Matti pointed to the exterior door and made some vague mumbling noises. "Sure...?" Dust offered, and Matti started to leave, stopping to grab an umbrella from a varnished wooden umbrella stand beside the door.

This was her chance! She wasn't going to let it get away this time. Flying high, close to the ceiling, Fidget stayed high above Matti where neither of them would see her. Matti reached up, grabbed the door handle, and pulled it open... and right at that moment, Fidget swooped down and through the open door. She was free!

...free to get buffeted by a gust of wind, almost knocking her into the side of the building. She didn't want to stay outside any longer than necessary. She looked back at Matti just long enough to see which direction he was going, and then headed off the other way, finding herself in the area around the forge.

Tools and materials littered the area, some organized properly, and most... not. While the rocky overhang protected Fidget from the rain, the wind still blew through the area, rattling loose items and howling through the crevice that Hayley and Matti's home was located in.

Fidget didn't care; it was effectively private, and that was all she really needed. Her large green eyes cast over the area to look for something – anything – to use for her relief, and among the piles of scrap she saw a small metal bucket, probably for bringing water from a nearby stream for topping up the water barrel. Battling the wind, she flew down and landed on the ground beside it, shuffling on tightly-squeezed legs to back up, taking a little shelter from the wind behind the stack of metal pieces it was next to.

For her smaller body, it was perfectly sized to mimic the full-sized toilet one of the larger people might use. It was cold with a narrow rim and difficult to keep balance on, but it would do. Climbing up onto it quickly, Fidget uncrossed her legs at the last possible moment. It was just as well; no sooner had she spread her legs than her dam broke and she couldn't hold it in any more. 

A thick and heavy – for her size – stream gushed from her urethra, flowing a couple of inches through the air before breaking up into droplets that hammered on the inner side of the bucket. A groan of relief escaped Fidget's lips before she quickly clasped her paws over her mouth; it was unlikely anyone would notice her, but she didn't want to take the risk. Instead, she let her eyes lid as she savored the sensation of her long-awaited relief, and rested her arms on her legs.

A cold wind only partly broken by the loose stack of metal behind her rushed past Fidget's fur, and she clenched her muscles to try and empty her bladder fast so she could get back inside. She could hear her stream hammering on the inside of the bucket as the let it out, but it wasn't like the sound of water hitting a solid surface was out of the ordinary at the moment, as the storm raged on past the sheltered overhang.

Thankfully, her thighs prevented the wind from blowing her stream around and making a mess, and soon she heard her stream trickling off as it started to splash in the pooled pee at the bottom of the bucket rather than drumming on the side. She clenched her muscles to get out every last drop in a few final squirts, then hopped down from the bucket. No longer so desperate, she looked around briefly in the piles of junk and found a scrap of cloth that looked fairly clean, quickly wiping herself with it before tossing it back in the pile where it would probably go untouched for months like the rest of the stuff there.

Fidget felt pretty good about herself for solving her problem without Dust's help – until she got back to the house and found the door firmly closed. She tried to land on the door handle and tug it down, but she couldn't find a way to both push it down and push the door inward at the same time.

However, the racket she was making by rattling the door handle attracted attention all the same – Fidget almost fell inward as the door got pulled open while she was still on the handle, and she managed to regain control in midair enough to get back to a reasonable altitude. Only then did she look up and see an amused Dust waiting there, closing the door behind her.

"How the heck did you get outside?" Dust asked, tilting his head. "I looked away for barely a minute and you were gone."

"Maybe I'm just more clever than you give me credit for." Fidget quipped, flying back to her perch on the bookcase.

--------------------

Hayley eventually returned with dinner for all four of them, though thankfully, she had ignored Dust's facetious request to give Fidget her meal in a pet bowl. Ignoring Dust while eating her meal and enjoying the cup of cocoa Hayley had made for her, Fidget eventually calmed down and by the time their plates were empty and the after-dinner conversation had ended, she was more than ready to get some sleep. The storm had ended, but it was pitch black outside, so they certainly weren't going anywhere until the next day. 

As Dust stretched out on Hayley's couch, Fidget stole one of the extra side cushions from the sofa and set it down nearby, curling up on top of it. Several hours later, though, she woke up again with a pain in her abdomen; she was a small creature, it had been a large mug of cocoa, and the predictable result had happened. She turned and rolled, pressing her legs together, hoping it was almost dawn, but after a few minutes she realized there was no way she was going to be able to hold it, and rather than deny that and risk another disaster like she been doing earlier, she decided to be proactive and find somewhere to pee sooner rather than later.

It was oddly cool in the room, and looking around, she saw that one of the windows was open. Dust must have opened it at some point to cool off. She certainly wasn't about to thank him for it out loud, given how he'd been acting that night, but she quickly flew up to it. It was a small window only letting through a little bit of air, but she was small enough to squeeze through. Easy!

She made it about a foot from the window before the air was split by a loud howl of sort of monster. She stopped and looked around in a panic, backing up, and she could swear she heard snarling. Her mind filled with visions of something huge and fierce, with glowing evil green eyes and teeth the size of her head, ready to chomp her down in a single-

As fast as she could, Fidget zoomed back in through the window, furiously flapping her wings to shove it closed once she was inside. She almost slid down the window onto the windowsill and sat there, panting for breath, her heart pounding in her chest.

The outside clearly wasn't an option.

<Are you all right, Fidget?> she heard inside her head, the room dimly lit by the pulsing of Ahrah's runes. Dust seemed to have slept through the whole thing, which didn't surprise her very much.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fiiiiiine." She replied, standing up and taking to the air. "You know, just trying to slip outside for a couple minutes and almost ending up in some monster's belly."

<Why are you trying to go outside at this hour?>

"Why do you think?!" She retorted, folding her arms. "Last time it was all, oh, Fidget, did you know there was a window open? You could have saved yourself some embarrassment but I just said nothing? Well I thought that maybe, just maybe, we could avoid that whole thing this time, but apparently not."

<That's quite enough, Fidget.> Ahrah responded calmly, almost annoyingly so for the upset Nimbat.

"It's not fair." She grumbled, sitting on the back of the sofa as she looked around the dim room. "Nobody else around here is my size, so neither is anything else I need! Even if I could get to the outhouse, it would be too big for me. I can't... go... while flying, you know! And this jerk," she said as she glanced down at Dust's prone form on the sofa, "he complains about me needing some help, and then complains when he doesn't give it to me and I do something about it myself."

She sighed and squeezed her legs together. "Well, I guess I'll just get this over with," she added as she took off again, "Please don't look."

<I don't have eyes, Fidget. I am always aware of my surroundings.>

"Then think about something else! I don't know, stabbing things, like those monsters outside." She flew closer to the door, her eyes having adjusted to the dark enough for her to make out the outlines of the objects nearby. She briefly considered peeing on the doormat, since it had already gotten wet from before, but then she saw something next to it: the umbrella stand! She recalled Matti taking it earlier when he went outside. The umbrella had dried off but all the water had run down into the bottom of the holder, and hadn't fully dried off yet.

It would do. Fidget perched on the rim of the stand, a varnished wood cylinder with legs to keep it stable. The umbrella currently standing point-down in it was much bigger than her, so she was able to grab onto it to support herself. She squatted down with both hands holding the umbrella, grasping the edge of the stand with her toes.

She tried to put the monsters outside, and Ahrah inside, out of her mind. With a few deep breaths, she relaxed enough to unleash her bladder against the lower part of the umbrella, where it quietly pattered on whatever waterproofed fabric it was made of and ran down into the umbrella stand. A little sigh ran out of her, and she felt herself relax mentally as well; she was just going to have to get used to doing this sort of thing, it seemed.

For a little under a minute she remained squatting there, clutching the umbrella as she peed onto it, grateful for how quiet this was. When her stream trickled off she was briefly shocked by the splashing as her last droplets missed the umbrella and fell into the combined rainwater and Nimbat urine in the bottom of the stand, and she shifted a little closer when she squeezed out the last few spurts. With a bit of effort, she twisted the umbrella around in a half-circle to expose the dry side, and rubbed her loins against it to dry herself.

Her business taken care of, she flew back to her purloined cushion and curled up on it. "Sorry about that, Ahrah," she mumbled sleepily; with the excitement over and her desperation gone, she was ready to get back to sleep.

<I do hope that this doesn't become a regular occurrence.>

"I-It's not my fault!" Fidget insisted, pushing her upper body up with her hands to turn and glare in the sword's general direction. "I tried to tell Dust, but he wouldn't listen. He made me wait and then didn't let me out. And once he's asleep it would take the end of the world to wake him back up. So it's all his fault, really."

<Of course it is.> she heard in her head. Curling up once more, she was asleep before she figured out if that was sarcasm or not.
