“What shall we do today, Lonī? Lonī, wake up!”

Lonī opened one eye, slowly. The snow-draped peak in the horizon had just started to blush at the touch of dawn. But Quillo was refreshed after a warm night in Lonī’s fur, and was all excited to meet a sparkling new day.

“Good morning, Q.”

“You aren’t fully awake yet,” Quillo tried to push Lonī’s closed eyelid up with his tiny paw.

“I am now, I am,” Lonī yawned, stretched. “Why the rush?”

“There’s so much to do, with you!”

Lonī smiled, nuzzled the prickly ball, “Tell me what your heart wants?”

“Heart? What is heart? Where’s my heart, Lonī?”

The wolf laid his nose on the point of Quillo’s chest where he felt the beat. “Here, feel the throbbing? That’s your heart’s music. It says I am. I am.”

Quillo briefly felt his heart. Then dismissed it, pointing to his stomach instead. “This is where it hurts, Lonī. It means I am hungry. That is most important. What are we eating today? You get to choose.”

“Are we ready for a long hike?” Lonī asked. “Then I could treat you to rhododendron juice.”

“Rhod-o-denden? What’s that?”

“It’s a flower that grows around this time of the year. Higher up in the mountains, there is a beautiful valley. It is a long, uphill walk.”

“I don’t mind a walk,” said Quillo.

Their path ambled among many tiny rivulets and dense green grass. They stopped often, to drink the cool water. Cream, round boulders carried down the mountain ranges by the slow-moving glaciers were now warming up to the sun.

Quillo learnt to hop across the smooth, smaller boulders. It felt good to sit down on them occasionally, and look at the tiny yellow flowers peeking through their sides. Bright red dragonflies with translucent wings hovered over them jerkily, as if they could not make up their minds which to choose.

The first rhododendron tree was a young one, not as tall as its sisters. Deep pink blossoms hung low from its proud branches. But Lonī and Quillo were not the first to reach.

A leaf hopped up from one branch to a higher one. Lonī looked at it in surprise, for he had never seen a leaf hop like that. Then the leaf turned, and Lonī saw that it had a tail the colour of a burning log, black beady eyes and a tiny beak.

The green bird, for that is what it was, flapped its wings at them: “Who are you two strangers?”

“We are no strangers,” replied Lonī, “only friends you haven’t yet met. I am Lonī, and this is Quillo. What’s your name, bird?”

“I am Ignis,” said the bird, “I am a fire-tailed myzornis. Are you here for the yak?”

“Yak? What’s a yak?” Quillo, who had been quite taken aback by first, the abundance of rhododendron blossoms, and third (his counting skills were new and awry), this beautiful bird piped up.

“There’s a lone yak that has been wandering around here for a couple of days,” replied Ignis. “I thought you had come to get it.”

“Well, we are here for the rhododendrons,” said Lonī. “If you don’t mind sharing.”

“Not at all! There’s always enough for everyone. Here, have some.” Ignis plucked a couple of flowers and dropped them over Quillo. Lonī lightly plucked them off the quills, and offered one to the hoglet, while putting the other in his mouth.

For the next half hour, the three of them fed in perfect bliss and silence, Ignis sucking the sweet, heady juice out from the flower core, Lonī and Quillo eating the flowers whole.

When their tongues were the colour of flowers, Quillo wiped his lips, his mouth still full. “Mow we mo fee yak.”

“You want to go see the yak?” Asked Lonī.

“Mmm.”

“Be careful, though,” Ignis called out from behind them. “She looks angry.”

Lonī and Quillo went deeper into the verdant valley. The air was crisper, colder. Rows of rhododendron trees in full, varied bloom rose to their left, and on their right was a blue mountain range, the peaks still heavy with snow. Little pink flowers with bristly round heads were blooming among the grass under their paws. Quillo tasted one.

“Those are primulas,” Lonī told him.

“Nob as gub as rho-denden,” said Quillo. Lonī noticed that the hedgehog sounded like his head was fuzzy. His gait was slightly wobbly, too. Lonī smiled to himself: he, too, had been drunk on rhododendron juice the first time around.

“Come, Quillo,” Lonī sat down, “Climb up on my back? We can go faster.”

Lonī started to trot. Quillo sat on the fur around his neck, grateful for the warmth.

Just where the valley dipped slightly, they saw the yak. It was a full-grown young adult, with thick black strands of hair all over her body, but a cream face.

Quillo stared, awestruck. Too many new things had happened to him in one morning. He was overwhelmed.

Lonī took one more step towards the yak, hoping to strike up a conversation. He had an ease about him, which made most animals and birds relax in his presence.

They were very startled when the yak suddenly lowered and shook her head at them. Her dark eyes were red.

Quillo clutched Lonī’s fur tight. The yak was now shaking her head from side to side, and pawing the ground with her front right hoof.

“Lonī,” Quillo’s voice was barely a whisper, “Run!”

Excerpted with permission from The Dandelions Have It, Sohini Sen, Penprint.

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