Petey's happiness flagged behind him, waving from side to side as he excitedly watched everything happening around him.

And there was a lot to be looking at! After the teeth-plants, the anuran (who Petey still didn't know the name of) had led them into a really huge clearing of REALLY SUPER HUGE TREES. A lot of dome-shaped houses were built into the sides of the trees, but even more than that, it looked like they'd been grown out of the tree's outsides! How did they do that!?

A whole bunch of different anuran that kind of looked like the one they were following were watching Petey and his group with funny looks in their eyes, and Petey wasn't sure how to deal with that. They all had such cool outfits! Even the tiny ones wore little stuffy clothes. Petey had not had good experiences with clothes himself - one of his owners, a really pretty lady with pink hair and metal bits on her face, had tried to put him in clothes way back when he was a pupper. It always ended with him uncomfortably walking around while she aimed a square thing at him and made cooing noises. But he only got pats if he didn't wear the clothes, so he had stuck with it until he grew out of them, and then she took him to the side of a road and left him there. He still wasn't sure why, but one thing he was sure of was that she had a good reason. There were no bad hoomans, his experiences told him.

Shaking the dark thoughts away, Petey activated Floof Speed and ran around the village, sniffing everything and marking a tiny patch of weeds as his own, because he'd really needed to do some marking and there was no better time than no time at all.

Once he was done, he ran back to the group and let everything speed back up. Or was he slowing down? He'd been having a lot of questions about how stuff worked ever since the cave a while back, and he still wasn't sure why.

The moment he let everything go back to normal, a giant trail of water blasted into the sky everywhere he'd walked and thoroughly doused everything. Petey jumped as he remembered that Leula didn't like getting wet, and suddenly realized that she'd been on his head the whole time. Looking around his feet worriedly, he felt a tug on his head and relaxed, barking, "Oh good. I thought you were gone!"

Leula's voice was tense in his head. What... what happened? We were - we were there, and then we... weren't!?

Petey shook himself off and told her, "I know! I went fast."

She sounded a little doubtful. How was I able to stay on?

Petey had absolutely no idea, and he told her so.

Before they could get any further, the anuran leading them turned around and croaked, "Here we approach the elder's den. Only Petey may enter then."

Once again, Petey felt like maybe the anuran was straining to make the words match each other, but he shook it off. He could try as hard as he wanted!

The building - or more accurately, the series of buildings - they were in front of was attached to the largest tree out of all of them. The base of the tree ballooned outward a few feet above the ground in a sort of fat teardrop shape, with a lot of green-tinted windows set into its sides. A complicated array of ladders connected the big main part to a bunch of smaller parts growing out of the higher constructions. It looked very fancy as far as Petey was concerned, and as with everything, he was excited to see what the inside looked like.

Walking forward, the anuran gestured for Petey to follow him, and most of Petey's hoomans suddenly jumped on him, trying to make him stay. He was familiar with Stay, but he really wanted to see what was waiting for him in this cool-looking building. Firmly and carefully, he extricated himself from their clutches and turned to face them. Most of them looked a little panicked, glancing around worriedly at all of the different anurans. Petey gave them all licks to make them feel better, and then began to follow the leader frog-person into the big building.

He held up a webbed hand. "My apologies, oh dog of such great strength. But your spider may not follow us-"

A complicated expression crossed his face as he realized he had to make a word match with 'strength', so Petey woofed at him. Interrupting was normally a Bad Thing, but if he was making the anuran feel better than it was probably okay. "Don't worry! Leula is my super-good friend!"

The anuran blinked in confusion, and Petey realized to his shock that the anuran couldn't understand him. Did that mean his hoomans couldn't figure out what he was saying either? Like Dave? But Leula knew what he was saying! Why could only she understand him!? He wanted to give hugs and kisses to everyone! Sometimes the best hugs and kisses were made of words!

With a somewhat hesitant mental cough, Leula told the anuran with her mind-voice, Excuse me, but I do not believe Petey is able to converse without me. Consider me his interpreter for the time being.

The anuran's gigantic froggy eyes narrowed. After a short moment, he sighed. "Very well. Leula the spider, you are also welcome in our dell."

Now that was a good match, Petey thought.

With a tiny bow, the anuran easily hopped up the seven-foot distance to the dome's ledge and opened the round double doors. Petey looked at the gap doubtfully. He wasn't sure he could actually jump that high. Regardless, he bent down, wiggling his butt as he prepared to jump. Suddenly, Leula shouted in his mind, Wait! Your strength is-

She didn't make it any farther than that. With all the strength he could spare, Petey jumped.

And suddenly the trees were underneath him, a giant splash of water following him into the sky. Petey's fur was whipping straight down, and he could feel a mental groan of agony from Leula. Petey began to panic as he realized that he was moving upwards far too fast, and frantically thought of moving slower.

How could he move slower in the air!? He wasn't touching the ground! Now Leula was going to feel bad and it was all his fault and he hadn't hurt anyone on purpose since that time all the way back when... he wasn't moving anymore?

There was a sensation as though someone was holding him by the middle of his back, keeping him still in the middle of the sky. He couldn't see her, but he could feel her shake her head as she recovered. It was like the area inside Petey's glow was... well, he couldn't see it. He wasn't sure how to describe it with his limited vocabulary, so he stopped trying.

Turning awkwardly, Petey looked over his shoulder and tentatively asked, "Spooder? Are you okay?"

There was a short, terrifying moment where she didn't respond, but finally, her shaky voice came into his head. Petey. I... I am not... The odd sound of a mental swallow of terror filtered into Petey's mind. He wondered how that worked. Leula continued after a few seconds. I do not like being... up this high.

According to his glow-sense, she had all eight of her eyes buried in his fur, legs clutching at him. He blinked, trying to figure out what she meant, and then looked down.

Far, far beneath him, a little carpet of green waved, a bunch of tiny sheeps creeping across its surface. Petey squinted, wondering why the grass was so far away, and then realized that those were actually the super-huge trees he'd just been underneath, and that the sheeps were clouds. Not small clouds like the puffs that came out of Petey's mouth when it was cold, either - these were the gigantic clouds he normally saw soaring above the sky. It took him a moment to realize that this meant he was above those. Way above those.

Raising his view, he saw the vast forest of trees stretching out, getting foggier and foggier the farther they went. Encircling the forest was a ring of miniature mountains, poking out of the ground like the snow-covered teeth of some giant animal. Behind those was a great big yellow expanse that Petey could barely see.

It took him a moment to figure out how to turn around, but once he had it down he found that he could use his tail to make him rotate. Looking down, he saw the city full of hoomans he'd found the not-dog and the CAT!!! in, and further away from that the giant meadow he'd found all the balls in. There was a minuscule brown dot marking the place where Petey had made a big hole, and he felt a tiny stab of guilt as he saw how big it was.

Leula's voice was faint in his head. I... I don't feel... well...

Her voice trailed off, and with a slow, toppling movement, the spooder fell off his head, legs curling as she twirled to the ground miles below.