Out from beneath the watchful eyes of their family, Riptide was usually a troublemaker. Mischief was in their blood, and sometimes that made it unavoidable. This time, they well and truly had not set out to cause issues, and yet...

Riptide didn't even know what the hissing creature that had chased them was. It had the soft pitter-patter of feet, first four and then two, and so they had ruled out snake. It had almost gotten close enough to bite them, and had tried, which ruled out some sort of bird, but other than that they had no idea whether it was mammalian or a reptile, venomous or not, dangerous or...not. Riptide had scrambled back away from the den where it had been hiding, but it didn't seem deterred at all, following them until they ran almost head-first into a tree.

Instinctively, Riptide had begun to climb it, which was great; they were now out of reach of the Maybe Terrible Creature. The bad news?

They had no idea how to get down, and no idea how far up they'd gone. Clinging to the trunk was all they could do, tail lashing anxiously, just barely out of reach of the creature below and growing more tired by the minute. Fortunately, though, they hadn't traveled far from the group in their totally-innocent-really-I-swear-it-this-time explorations, so it took only one call to summon help.

{"Cuuuuupiiiiiidd!""}