RAW KINGDOM ENTERTAINMENT

                     The Masterful Surgeon

 When he found himself alone at last, Yoshi slipped quietly into the forest’s shadowed ways. Hunger gnawed at him, and he set about searching for whatever small food the stones and briars might offer—for in such places a lizard or a fat grasshopper could often be taken with little trouble.
He came upon an anthill and paused to listen.
 From somewhere close by there came the faintest squeak of a mouse. The little hedgehog pressed himself low beside a thorny shrub and waited.
 A rustling stirred the neighboring bush, and the sharp, whiskered muzzle of a mouse peered out. It tasted the air, blinked its tiny bead-bright eyes, and vanished again. Yoshi understood at once that he had been seen. He leapt into the thorn, hoping to cut off its escape, but the mouse had already darted away.
Then he heard, behind him, a voice—thin as a needle and sly with laughter:

“Bad jump, bad jump.”

 Yoshi flinched, and before he could steel himself, he jumped again by sheer instinct.
Two greenish eyes flickered behind him. At first Yoshi took them for the marten’s; in an instant his quills bristled like a little thorny barricade. But when he peered more carefully into the moon-washed dark, he saw his alarm had been for nothing.
 For the creature was marten-like indeed—slender of body, quick of limb, and clad in a coat of sleek, shining fur that in the silver light seemed almost black. Yet its tail lacked the marten’s proud plume, being shorter and far less lively. And so Yoshi understood at last: this was weasle standing before him. He had glimpsed the wanderer from afar on other nights across the fields, never close enough to know his face.

“Good evening,” said the weasel, repeating with a sharp little click of amusement, “Poor jump, poor! Had I been in your paws, I’d not have let that mouse slip away—but no matter. Hardly a hunt worth fretting over.”

 Yoshi stared at him, uncertain, still half-ruffled, unsure what reply such a creature expected. The weasel trotted nearer and brushed his muzzle clean with one narrow paw.

“Look here,” he said, as though he had been acquainted with the young hedgehog for seasons. “We won’t find anything worth chasing in this place. Come down to the water with me. Frogs gather there—plump, slow things. They are easy to hunt.”

 Yoshi wished at first to turn the weasel away, for his heart pulled him back toward the forest and the task the Nightingale had set for him. Yet at the mention of catching a frog, a sharp and gnawing hunger rose inside him, so sudden it near stole his breath. “There will be time, he told himself. I can hunt with the weasel and still return before night settles on the trees.”

So he nodded with agreement, and together they followed the stream.

“The water runs deep and clear here,” The weasel remarked, peering into the swift, stony current. “No place for frogs. They love the soft mud, where they burrow in winter and sleep away the cold. But farther along the bank the ground eases, and small meadows open out. At night I take as many frogs as I please from there… a dozen in a single venture.”

“But why gather so many?” Yoshi asked.

“For winter stores, of course,” The weasel replied.

 An unpleasant scent drifted on the air, faint yet persistent. Yoshi wrinkled his nose. “What a foul odor hangs about him,” the little hedgehog thought, edging a step away. “It seems he is most terribly unclean.”

 The two of them came upon a meadow, narrow and long, damp with the morning’s lingering dew. Each blade of grass shimmered with tiny droplets, like a host of tiny stars scattered across the earth.

“You go from here, and I will go from down below,” said the weasel, and silently slipped away.

 Yoshi, meanwhile, stumbled upon two frogs entangled in the wet grass. He had been about to call for the weasel when a distant, plaintive croak reached his ears. Following the sound, he came at last to a pool of water.
 There, a slender water snake held a frog fast between its jaws. The frog’s belly bulged where the teeth had pierced, and it lay on its back, croaking in pain. At the sight of the hedgehog, the snake vanished into the dark water with a flick of its tail.
Yoshi returned to seek the weasel, but the companion was gone.
“He must have gone down,” he murmured, recalling the Nightingale’s command that he must be in the forest by morning. So he left the weasel behind and climbed the meadow, soon reaching a ravine, carved deep by torrents long past. He walked along the dry bed, the steep banks rising on either side, their clay interspersed with protruding bearded roots, scattered rocks, and fallen branches, dragged by the rains.
 Towards the middle of the ravine, Yoshi caught again the heavy scent of his chance‑met companion and halted, he lifted his nose, to reckon whence it drifted. Glancing along the banks, he spied a narrow burrow, no more than a dark bite in the earth. He padded to its mouth, listening, and tasting the air.
 From within came a muffled scrabbling. Earth shifted and crumbled, as though some creature were burrowing with great haste. It was clear that the weasel was inside.
Drawn by curiosity—as strong in him as the pull of running water—Yoshi slipped quietly into the hole.
 he weasel did not see him at first. He was digging with his forelegs, earth flying in soft showers behind him. At the bottom of the pit several frogs leapt in panic, their eyes wide and gleaming in the dimness; they bounded into each other and tumbled about in the cramped space.

“Ho there! What mischief are you up to?” Yoshi called, bright and cheerful.

The weasel whirled around, with his small face twisted in anger.

“Who told you I was here?” he snapped.

“No one,” said Yoshi lightly. “I stumbled on you by chance.”

The anger in the weasel’s look faded, though a shadow of mistrust still glimmered in his eyes.

“Listen well,” he muttered. “I’m laying in food for the winter. If you breathe a word of my hiding‑place, I’ll sink my teeth in your throat.”