A new mystery

     Van hovered closer to the pair, staying high enough to be out of reach. They didn't react. Moving closer, they looked at him, regarding him coolly. "At least they didn't run." Van thought. On a whim he moved over right next to them, still high in the air, and called out to them, "uhhhhm, heya! Not going to try an eat us are you?"

     What happened next was to going to take its place in Vans memory as one of the creepiest things to ever happened to him. The two animals glanced at each other, nodded, then looked back at Van. Then one of them spoke!

     When I say 'spoke' of course, it is subjective, as it was merely an attempt, a sort of facsimile of speech, where the thing repeated several basic sounds in such a way to brilliantly mimic speech, even with added inflection.

     Van froze, his platform backing up instinctively. "Ooookay," said Van, exhaling in the same breath. "My apologies, but... I'm not the language guy. Sooo... don't wander off too far, or get closer, and uhhh, we'll get back to you." He floated back, watching them over his shoulder, as they in turn watched his retreat back to the camp. He built up the fire and checked on everyone. He paced and worried. Should he do something? Shouldn't he handle this situation himself instead of getting Oolah involved? What if this is a similar situation as before? It's definitely something unnatural!

     In the end he decided to keep an eye on their strange visitors, and consult Oolah after she'd had a good rest. The erlokas were still on edge, only able to rest as someone else was alert and on guard, so Van had to reassure them occasionally if they began waking up. As evening approached, Oolah roused to the smell of food and the sound of Van retching. Hearing her, Van let her know, "There's some stew, help yourself." 

     "What's wrong with you?" she asked him.

     "I had to taste the food, to make sure it was ok. My body seems to be rejecting it."

     fighting down a flash of anger, she reminded him, "It's your own fault. You'd better start eating again. If you care enough to make me food just because I didn't sleep well, you can care enough to eat meals with me! It hurts my feelings that you don't eat my cooking anymore!" There, she said it.

      "OK." he answered, then, "I'm sorry. I didn't feel like eating for a few days, then... I dunno, it just sort of happened. I was being selfish. I'm sorry," he said again.

     "This is actually pretty good," She said, tasting the stew, "I'll leave some for you so you can practice eating. Then we can both try to sleep tonight and let the Erlokas do their job."

     "Well, it might also be worthwhile to use the flower oil." If nothing else it'll  make us feel more confident." Van wanted to see how the gibbering animals would act. Strangely enough, they didn't. These were different from the typical animals they'd interacted with. As for Oolah, she spent the night restful, but mostly awake, only napping as morning approached. She was hoping for an uneventful day.

     Van managed a few mouthfuls of breakfast, and it's deliciousness made him want more. However his stomach was already full. He waited for Oolah to finish, before gesturing to the two animals, now only slightly closer, one sleeping while the other looking at him expectantly. "Those two animals tried talking to me yesterday." he said simply, wondering if he sounded as crazy as he felt. Immediately he wanted to take it back, thinking maybe he'd imagined it all. Oddly enough, the news didn't seem to phase her as much as he thought it would.

      Oolah just nodded, "So maybe that's what I heard the other night," and looking at them, said, "It's less spooky when you know where the sounds are coming from."

      Van blinked in surprise, "I kind of had the opposite reaction. Anyways, I was hoping you'd understand them better, or something..." He looked down, shuffling his feet. "I think it's safe just to walk right up to them." he added.

      That's what they did, walk right up to them. The strange babbling they'd both heard before was repeated. Van looked at Oolah expectantly. "I don't know what you expected," She said, "but gibberish is gibberish. It's like they're just copying being people. I mean they're smarter then normal animals..." She trailed off, not knowing where to take her line of thinking. The something unexpected happened. The strange animals tried to lead them somewhere.

     They repeatedly walked off a few steps, and looking back spat the same gibberish at them. They did it several times. "We have to break camp and get our stuff," Van excused. 

      As they begin packing up, Oolah questioned Van, "Do we have time for this? It's not in the direction the trail is going."

      "It might be related," said Van, then, "Will you be able to pick up the trail again, if we leave it?" She nodded in affirmation, and soon they were walking with the two creatures, who had grown quite 'chatty'. They seemed to understand what was being said despite being unable to communicate a sort of clear verbal message. They enjoyed pretending they could, however, happily gabbing away, even seeming to get better at it as they went along.  Around midday, something started revealing itself in the distance. Details couldn't be made out, but smaller figures could barely be seen at its base. The scrub desert had grown eerily quiet and emptier the usual.

     "Shall we stop for lunch?" Asked Oolah, secretly happy Van was eating her cooking again. 

      "Sure." he said, looking forward to it. As she set up a cooking fire, Van commenced to feeding the Erlokas, who were omnivores, but really loved the meat and bone filled dishes they'd been getting on this journey. They were lucky to be traveling with such strong companions. As Van poured out some food, he heard some gibberish being spoken and turning, noticed their two visitors had approached and sat before him expectantly, as though it were perfectly natural. He poured them each a pile, and called over his shoulder, "Get the big pot ready, looks like we'll be needing twice as much Erloka feed, at least for a while.