4:19

From beneath the low-growing juniper directly in front of him Edward heard a slight rustle.

“Oh, do you need a moment alone?” the beaver’s voice mocked in a sarcastic tone. “I wouldn’t want want to disturb you and your… Well, bless my soul, I actually have no idea what you are doing to that poor little tree.” Edward watched through droopy eyelids as the beaver stepped into the small clearing. “Please,” the beaver seemed to purr, “enlighten me.”

Edward abruptly stood up and shook his head vigorously, ears making loud thwacks as they flapped back and forth. “Now, now. No need to take that tone. I can only assume from your presence and the lemon’s that you are no more immune to its charms than I appear to be. Most peculiar. I wouldn’t have thought I would be susceptible to something so … visceral.

“But now that we are all gathered, shall we continue our sadly interrupted conversation?”

The only response from the beaver was a slight tilt of his head and a faint noise that sounded remarkably like a snicker.

Edward moved around the lemon tree toward the smug beaver and visibly ignored the sweet citrus scent that tempted him backward. The beaver watched him approach, the mocking smile on his lips growing tenser. “Do you really think this is appropriate place for a discussion of such great import?” The beaver’s tone was awash with snideness. “Really, I thought you had more of a sense of decorum than to air your dirty little secrets in a dirty little copse. For shame, Sir Bunny, for shame…”

The biting tone was just the thing to dispel the last of the lemon’s allure, and Edward’s head quickly cleared itself of all distractions. He locked his gaze on the pestiferous beaver’s grinning face and replied. “I suppose you must grasp at your straws like like one of the Titanic’s survivors, but you didn’t abandon ship soon enough, my little buck-toothed friend. Not nearly soon enough. And I am not going to rescue your soggy little ass until you cough up a few facts. Believe me, you want me to be the rescuer, not those others I’ve noticed sniffing around your little mess.”

The beaver’s ears, such as they were, perked up. “Oh, are there new players, then?”

“No, not new players. But then you’ve never recognized that this isn’t all about you, have you?”

“Pwah! No one else is equipped to deal with matters on my level, and so no one else is entitled to an opinion. Including you. And who the hell are you to be throwing out ‘buck-toothed’ as a epithet? Looked in a mirror lately, you dentally challenged varmint?”

“Ah, taking refuge once more in insults. Things never change, do they?” Edward sat back, not taking his eyes off the beaver. “Now, shall we begin? Again?”