Chapter 156 - Brain Freeze

"Don't worry, we got it all on paper," Miss Nabi said while flapping calmly to Petunia and landing on her nose.

"Really? Where?" she asked while preventing herself from scratching her nose and accidentally hurting Miss Nabi.

"There with a pen and paper." Miss Nabi pointed at the roof of the tree-mushroom house where a monkey holding a twig waved back at them while making excited monkey noises.

"What was I trying to do again?" Petunia muttered to herself while trying to figure out what it was that she was trying to write earlier.

"Hmm?" Miss Nabi asked with a slightly tilted face, "I think we should go settle inside the house first," she added with a smile which made Petunia unable to decline.

"What was it?" she muttered to herself while walking closely to Miss Nabi in order to not get lost inside this foreign place.

***

"Here's what you wrote earlier," Miss Nabi said while the monkey was placing the paper and pens on the table in front of Petunia.

"Stat-hut? Mission, Heize, Leviathan, Curse, Monica, and Cloud, what are these?" Petunia wondered while most of the animals watching her also had the same confused expression on their faces.

"Can you understand her, papa?" one of the baby foxes asked Hodgewart, giving him the spotlight in the room just until he nodded and everybody put their eyes on Petunia again.

"You said you have something to tell me, what is it?" Miss Nabi said, trying to help Petunia recall her memories back but Petunia only seemed to be having a hard time inside her head.

"Okay, how about we start with this, Stat-hut. Do you know what a Stat-hut is?" she asked while pointing at the first word Petunia wrote earlier.

"No," Petunia said with teary eyes.

"It's an important technology for humans, why did you write it? Do you need it? Or are you looking for it now?"

"No," Petunia shook her head, somehow still knowing how to answer Miss Nabi's questions without knowing anything.

"I.. Uhhh," Petunia stuttered while grabbing something that seemed to be missing from her neck which gave Miss Nabi an idea of what it was.

"You used to have one, look, your fur has traces of something missing from here, something chunky and a little bit tight. Was it a collar? You had a Stat-hut for a collar?" Miss Nabi asked, not holding herself back from voicing out her speculations.

"A collar, I-I think that's right. I feel like I'm naked over here," Petunia said while still scratching her neck.

"Okay, do you need our help to look for it?" Miss Nabi offered while watching Petunia close her eyes and shook her head slightly.

"My memories, I think it's there," Petunia said as if trying to recall some more of her memories that were now in shatters.

"Yes, that's why, do you need our help to look for it?" Miss Nabi asked again which Petunia automatically responded with a slight shake of her head again.

"I don't know why but my head's telling me no," Petunia confessed which made Miss Nabi slightly annoyed.

"Very well," she only said before excusing herself from the crowd.

"What's wrong? You seem to be fine just earlier," Hodgewart said after moving closer to her.

"Do you know me?" Petunia asked which made Hodgewart stiffen.

"I-I was the one who brought you here just earlier, have you forgotten me already?" Hodgewart asked in disbelief.

"I don't know, everything just seemed too vague and blurry, I'm sorry," Petunia said while covering her ears and burning her face to the slightly soft mushroom table in front of her which made Hodgewart realize just how extreme Petunia's case was.

He was not new to seeing animals with fading memories, especially since it was a sign that they were already close to their deaths, but Petunia's case was the weirdest so far. 

"You asked me to bring you straight to Heize earlier, was this the reason?" Hodgewart asked despite knowing it was already pointless to ask Petunia anything.

But to his surprise, Petunia nodded to his question with teary eyes. 

"Heize? This Heize? You know where she is? What could I possibly need from her? Why did I ask you to bring me to her? Ahh, my head hurts so much," Petunia asked restlessly while banging her head to the slightly soft table that was made of mushroom as if she was used to doing that already.

Hodgewart didn't bother stopping her from banging her head to the mushroom table which made his kids look back and forth from him and Petunia weirdly since they couldn't understand a thing that they were saying earlier.

"Pa, why aren't you stopping her? She could hurt her head," the orange fox on Hodgewart's right said while gliding closer to Petunia and figuring out how to stop her without getting her attention much.

"The food's coming any minute now, tell her to stop, pa," the other orange fox on Hodgewart's left side said while tugging his little left arm quietly.

"Okay," Hodgewart said in animal language before calling for Petunia's attention. "Hey, stop that, the food's on the way, I think you should eat first, it might help you remember things."

"Huh?" Petunia said cluelessly while looking around and even got surprised when he saw the baby fox beside her.

"There there," the baby fox said while pushing Petunia's spine and fixing her chin gently before leaving with a shy expression that he managed to hide from Petunia while walking away from her.

"What was that for?" the other baby fox said to his brother and even landed a slight punch just to tease him. "I didn't know you were this sweet," he added, which made his brother hide his face out of embarrassment.

Somehow, looking at the two foxes even without understanding what they were saying made Petunia remember something about two same human guys that were always inseparable in her memories. 

And although they also fought sometimes, Petunia was sure that they were just like these two that would always fight sometimes and make up the next day.

She could even see some parts of her last memories with them inside a flying house.

'Who could they be?' she asked before paying attention to the monkey and two penguins that were serving them food and water from the kitchen.

"What is this?" she asked Hodgewart while staring at the dark blue sticky meal in front of her.

"That's a blueberry vegetable iced shake," Hodgewart answered without getting too much into detail, making Petunia remember someone who also does the same thing every time she's awake.

"Fily," Petunia said and wrote the word down on the table using her wooden spoon.

"Heyy, why would you do that? Do you know how hard it is to maintain this table's smoothness?" a squirrel who saw what Petunia just did said but ultimately ignored her anyway after starting with her meal after remembering that Petunia wouldn't be able to understand her anyway.

But Petunia understood what she said and just pretended not to, because aside from it's weird, it would also go against her introduction and thus make more confusion between her and the animals in this community in the future. So she just chose to dismiss what the squirrel said and continued on with her life.

"This is kind of tasty, how did you make this?" Petunia asked after tasting the shake with her tongue just like every other feline in this dining room.

"It's made out of blueberries, oats, carrots, celery, nectar, and shaved ice from the backyard," Hodgewart said, lying about the last part just to see Petunia's expression but her face didn't change like what he was expecting.

"It's so yummy, I don't think I've ever had something like this before," Petunia said before finishing her meal in one continuous gulp, "Can I have more?"

"Umm, we're rationing our food so I hope you understand-"

"Of course," Miss Nabi said, cutting Hodgewart's words off and ordering her assistants to grab more food for Petunia who seemed delighted after tasting such a delicious delicacy.

"But do you guys get full from this? Why do you still eat ice inside this cold place?" Petunia asked innocently which would have brought her trouble if the others were also able to understand her, but thankfully Hodgewart and Miss Nabi were the only ones who understood what she said and did not think of it as a big deal.

"As Hodgewart said, we're rationing our food and trying our best to keep things friendly for everyone," Miss Nabi explained vaguely, which Petunia seemed to understand anyway.

"But since you're new here, we'll let you eat more. You seem to have a big appetite, I'm guessing you came from a rich family, also based on your Stat-hut. Not all animals were given the opportunity to use one," Miss Nabi said with a slight shrug.

"Did you also have one?" Petunia asked without paying much attention because the refill for her food was already brought in front of her.

"As a human, yes, but as a butterfly, no." 

"Oh, I think it was because I used to be a human too," Petunia said and forgot about it immediately because of the brain freeze that she got from gulping the whole bowl of frozen blueberry shake in one sip, "Ouch!"