This is why you should pay more attention to the local wildlife.. ;)
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*Trees, so many trees!* thinks Rebecca as she ambles her way through the forest, dressed in a beige smock over her usual clothing and toting a hip bag, and a book on herbs. Recent events had led to a rapid depletion of her store of hers, and rather than wait for the gatherers to bring more, she impatiently resolved to obtain her ingredients herself. Science did not wait for silly things like worker's schedules! But nonetheless she still retained a hefty fear of the outdoors; she wears a large hat with camoflage on the top and carries a knife in her belt, though it is doubtful she would be able to even use on to defend herself. She sniffs the air several times as she walks, suspicious of even the smallest leaf.

There is of course, that rustling in the leaves of the forest floor not far from Rebecca. Something, hidden from view by a pile of overturned foliage, appears to be digging at the center. "C'mon c'mon c'mon! I know I left it down here... somewhere. Xan? Where did I leave the super-shiny technicardassial modulaflickinator thing? It's -supposed- to be in with my nuts!"

Rebecca stops breathing and cranes her neck very slowly towards the source of the noise. Slowly, she steps to those leaves, her hand reaching for her knife on several occasions but never actually grasping it. As she draws closer she recognizes the voice. Was it...that guy? "W-w-w-who are you and what're you doing here?" she utters.

"Xan! I really need you to help me find the --oh there it --wait that's just a rock." says Kaelin, tossing the rock over his shoulder. "Really I thought it was down here with my WAAAHHH!" Kaelin squeaks as he hears Rebecca's voice, tail and fur poofing up ridiculously as he jumps backward in surprise. "Wh-what are you doing, get away from my nuts!" The squirrel sniffs the air a bit, seeming to trail off afterward, a strange expression forming on his muzzle. "Nnngh.. wha.. hmm?" he squeaks, disoriented.

Rebecca keeps to her expected character and squeaks loudly, leaping several inches in the air...and having her hip bag swing onto her face. She topples backward in a heap, her tongue lolling out. If this her a cartoon her eyes would be squiggly circles with birds flying over her head.

Kaelin blinks, nose twitching. "Mmm?" he squeaks, peering up from where he's found himself, just outside of the leafpile. He spots Rebecca and tilts his head, seeming concerned and atypically calm, though his obvious dizziness may have something to do with that. "H.. Hey miss? You uh.. are you okay? Wh-whoah!" The squirrel pushes himself to his hind paws to look around, promptly losing his balance and making a running stagger straight into a tree. He then groans, falling flat on his back in the center of the small hole he had been digging.

Rebecca suddenly leaps to her feet and gasps loudly, her head darting left to right as she tries to spy her 'aggressor'...Nothing, no one in sight, but what was that soung, that scent? She creeps into the bushes and gasps a little when she sights the supine Kaelin in his hole. She blinks, then with a single deft motion reaches into her hip back and produces something like a tongue depressor, kneeling over Kaelin and examining him with scientific thoroughness. She attempts to lift his eyelid and peek into his ears, for one thing, though whether Kaelin regains his senses during that time is an unknown factor.

Kaelin's ears flick, the squirrel's eyes blinking open after a moment. "Hugh?" he chitters as he begins to register the blurry form of Rebecca kneeling over him. He tenses momentarily, nose atwitch. "What happened? Wh-who are you?" he asks, seeming alarmed. "Xan? ... Xan?!"

Rebecca continues her 'examination' by attempting to gently prop open Kaelin's muzzle and observe the inside of his mouth. Smells....acorny. "Who is this 'Xan' you keep talking to?" queries Rebecca. "Is that your imaginary friend? I hear that such phenomena are common in creatures like you." So far she could find nothing unusual about this squirrel apart from him being more hyperactive than normal...or was /this/ their normal behaviour? Hmm...this required further study. She advances this 'study' by trying to gather some scent samples from his head and forepaws with what looks like a large q-tip.

Kaelin blinks, ears folding back as Rebecca looks into his mouth. "Wha-au-ou-ooing?" he tries to asks, shaking his head vigorously afterward. "Blech! .. Hey! Xan is real. He just keeps 'imself hiding from everybody but me." the squirrel retorts, starting to try and get up. A strong smell catches his attention again, however, and he stumbles back where he was, seeming disoriented again. "Wh-wha did you do to me? What's that for?" he asks, trying to bat the 'large q-tip' away.

Rebecca ignores Kaelin's protestations and seals the 'q-tip' into a paper bag which she secures in her hip bag. "I, my good sciurid companion, am conducting a scientific investigation. I'm trying to determine whether your neurosis is normal behaviour for your species, a question that has sadly been neglected by the present literature." She adjusts her glasses and looks at Kaelin like one would regard a misbehaving child. "Now, what exactly is this hole for? I thought you squirrels hid your hoards in trees."

Kaelin blinks, ears splaying back as Rebecca explains. "What's a 'noo-roses'?" he asks, peering around with a nervous expression. "Xan told me to bury 'em, to make 'em harder to steal. This is not my only one. But don't tell anybody.." he chitters, in a hushed voice.

Rebecca stares at Kaelin, her inquisitive purple eyes greatly magnified by her large spectacles. She was no expert in biology, a subject which was indubitably the ken of her elder brother, Benjamin, but she knew enough about squirrels to see that his behaviour was qutie odd even for a hyperactive squirrel. Since when did they have imaginary friends? She thought they and other ferals didn't have the cognition for that...or did they? Didn't Mrs. Brisby...oh so many unknowns. "Um...what else does 'Xan' tell you to do?" she asks, producing a notepad to scribe her observations, his answers.

Kaelin giggles slightly, pointing to Rebecca's magnified eyes. "You have some big eyes. You see good at night?" he asks, flicking his tail oddly as she poses another question. "Uhh... he tells me when I'm supposed to run, and hide, and stuff. And he says I should collect the shiny stuff, if I find it. It's -really- hard to find, though." the squirrel chitters, eyeing the notepad. "Whassat thing for?"

Rebecca doesn't care much for Kaelin's questions. /She/ was the one asking questions here! When he spots her notepad, however, she blinks and mutters for a while, finding part of the 'wall' between the examiner and examined breached. "It's...none of your concern!" she declares. "Just tell me.../why/ are you collecting shiny things? What use to they have for your overall fitness?"

Kaelin splays his ears and chatters in response to Rebecca's dodging. He snatches the notepad, peering at it upside-down. "No-no, lady. I'm not sayin' nothin' else until you tell me what it is you keep doing to me..!" The squirrel then puts a paw to his head, panting slightly. "Ugh.. I think I need to lay down." he says, staring blankly up at the Rat, appearing to be completely unaware he's -already- lying down.

Rebecca gasps as Kaelin brazenly obtains her notepad. "Hey! That's not yours; give it back!" She leaps to her feet and glares at Kaelin. "You are a very difficult subject, you know that? No, you won't be written about very well at all." Seeing Kaelin tire himself out, she slowly reaches for the pad and attempts to gently pry it from his grasp. *Hopefully this subject's apparent limits of endurance are as real as his delusions* she thinks.

Kaelin twitches, ears folding back in response to Rebecca's actions. "I'm nobody's subject. Why won't you tell me why your scent makes me dizzy?" he squeaks, a certain degree of fear in the squirrel's voice. "Did the h-hairless aliens send you?" He peers up at Rebecca, staggering slowly to his feet. "Xan why aren't you answering?!" he chatters, looking up into the trees.

"There is no such thing as aliens," says Rebecca confidently, scribbling in her recovered notepad. "You shouldn't even be worried about the....hairless aliens?" She swallows, having a feeling that she knows what these 'hairless aliens' are. Her tone shifts dramatically from 'rational' disinterest to emphathic involvement. "W...where did you see these 'aliens', K...K...what was your name again?"

Kaelin blinks, seeming to shrink back slightly. "It's.. not something I like to remember. It was a long time ago, not here, but close. The hairless aliens came into the trees. They were looking for something, and they put shiny boxes all over and covered them with leaves and stuff." He pauses, eyes squinting shut as a shudder seems to run down his spine. "I-I don't wanna remember anymore." he blurts, hastily.

Rebecca gazes at Kaelin with crazed interest. Now /this/ was important! "C'mon, you nameless squirrel, you /have/ to remember! THe future of augmented rodentkind is at stake!" Indeed, she was pretty close to shaking tthe information out of him, so eager and panicked she was.

Kaelin shudders, eyes getting a little misty. "I'm -not- a nameless squirrel! My name is Kaelin.." He looks up at Rebecca, expression pleading. "I was doing my usual nut-collecting, and I spotted something shiny in one of the boxes. I c-climbed in to see what it was, and something snapped shut behind me! I couldn't get out!" He takes a gasp of air, holding back tears. "I h-had a rat friend like you, once. He found me in the box, and somehow he managed to get it open long enough for me to get out, but it shut again with him inside! Th-there was a blinky thing on the top, and he told me to try and take it and run off with it, but I couldn't! The aliens came back, and they took him away..." Kaelin pants, bordering on hysterics.

Rebecca scribbles furiously onto her pad, her handwriting starting to diminish in quality from her speed and excitement. "You have...those things...the humans...oh my oh my oh my..." She gibbers and utters various sayings under her breath, pacing around Kaelin's little burial spot and wringing her fingers together. "So many variables...but perhaps not here...but he doesn't know how /close/...KAELIN!" She jumps up, reaching a peak in her anxiety. "Kaelin! That's your name, right!? I, well, I think you should see some of the rats who live with me, in the big rat colony. They'll be very, very, /very/ interested in what you have to say!" As usual, Rebecca's response to dire situations was to lay it off on others who were less fearful.

Kaelin squeaks, startled as his name is suddenly called out, backing out of his cache-hole and leaning heavily against a tree, still panting and sniffling. His head seems to clear a bit as he's not too close to Rebecca, and he seems to regain some of his balance. "That's my name, yeah. Who -are- you?-- A blinky thing! That's what I was lookin' for.. but I don' remember where I put it..." The squirrel paces, trying to remember. "Darn it all, Xan said that thing was important!"

Rebecca blinks. If she helps this creature find his 'blinky thing', whatever it was, then maybe he'll be willing to help her later. Hmm.. "Kaelin, maybe I can help you find your blinky thing? It's the least I could do after my examination," she says, staring at him expectantly.

Kaelin tilts his head, peering at Rebecca with a twitch of his whiskers. "You'd really help me find it?" he asks, surprised. "J-just.. uh, don't get too close. I dunno why, but your scent makes me really dizzy." he reiterates with a flick of his tail. The squirrel sighs, pacing in circles, then freezes, looking up in the tree. "Xan! There you are... do you remember which hole I put the blinky thing in-- what do you -mean- it's not in a hole?" he chatters.

Rebecca feels rather offended. Her smell? She smelled quite fine, thank you very much! She smelled herself everyday and found nothing wrong, so why should he? As Kaelin suddenly addresses someone above, she squeaks and looks up. "What? Who're you talking to? THere's no one there!"

"You don't see him 'cause he's an amazing invisible flying catfish! Nobody sees him but me." Kaelin says with a smile, nose twitching. "He's saying that the blinky thing is in the ultra secret hole, and that it's really important that it stay there. I dunno why." He seems to pick up on the variation in scent Rebecca's change in emotion has caused, and tilts his head, looking confused. "What?"

Rebecca grasps her head, the frustration mounting. This squirrel has some very important information, but he was distracted by silly flying catfish that don't exist! It was enough to drive her mad...well, madder than she already was. No...this required a much more different approach. "You know, Kaelin," she coos, smiling slyly. "If you come with me, I'll take you to a place that has /lots/ of blinky and shiny things, just for you!"

Kaelin gasps, a horrified look on his muzzle. "No! We have to hide the blinky things under the ground, or the aliens will come!" The squirrel paces rapidly, and once again, he suddenly freezes. "Yikes." With a twitch of his whiskers, he explodes into motion, bounding quickly towards the waterfall.

Rebecca squeaks as Kaelin suddenly escapes! "Wait! Where are you going!?" She tries to give chase, but she's really not in the mood nor has she the energy to give chase after the hyperactive squirrel. "Little twit! Come...back!" She puffs and takes a breather against the side of a tree, clutching her forehead. That Kaelin was going to be...well, she didn't know /what/ he was gonig to 'be' to her but he was certainly trouble. More troubling, however, was what she just learned about his encounter with humans. Picking herself up, she starts to make her way back to the colony, intent on spilling the beans on this secret...