Maggie took a quick dip in the creek to cool her head. She couldn't believe how foolish she had been. Letting her anger alienate a potential ally! Maybe her new species had something to do with it--she remembered that bears were not very social. Looking at it with a cool head, though, she realized that her position had not actually deteriorated that much. The fake buck was still planning to fight Jeremy, and it seemed the slut still had some feelings for him. And there were ways to help him without his cooperation. Jeremy would be coming home soon, of that she was sure.
++++
Leticia finally relaxed in the company of the herd. It felt good to be finally safe, but she knew that the worse was still to come. Jeremy would hear about what had happened, and would want to know why she had sought out Maggie--as if she had sought the she-bear out.
Here he was. "Are you OK, sweetheart?"
"I'm fine. Oh, Jeremy."
"Why did you try to take on mother?"
Leticia looked into her mate's brown eyes. Never before had she been so conscious of the age gap between her and the college kid turned herd leader.
"There's something I haven't told you about." she began.
+++++++
*Can't one little thing be simple* Naomi thought. "That's something your mommy knows best about." she answered the fawn.
"But I wanna!" Spike cried out. This was one of the rare occasions when Naomi wished she had children of her own. Then maybe she would know what to do with a crying child.
Spike's cry brought Jenny running. She embraced the crying fawn. "There, it's OK." She shot Naomi a dirty look, like it was her fault. "What happened?" she asked Spike.
"The mean doggie won't let me be a fee-rul."
Jenny turned to Naomi. "He wants to be a feral?"
"I don't wanna be a grown up and leave mommy." the fawn explained through his tears.
Naomi took refuge in the comfort of order and hierarchy. Juanita had said that Spike's stay wouldn't be extended, and that's how things would be. "He can't stay past the end of his allotted time." she told Jenny.
++++++++
Marth discovered that the bucks were mostly avoiding him. He was able to strike up a conversation with a doe named Lateisha.
"So you're Le, uh, Larry's friend?"
"Yes, and I'm going to bring HIM home if I have to thrash that creep Jeremy to do it."
"Jeremy's not a creep! They're in l---Look, Leticia wants to talk to you before you challenge Jeremy. You owe her that."
"Fine, if I can convince him to give up this silly nonsense about staying here without fighting, that's perfectly OK. But he's not staying here."
*The law of transgender strikes again* Lateisha thought. Marth was turning into a classical dominant male, assuming that the most important thing in the universe was getting his way. She felt sad, knowing that hearts were going to be broken.