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 Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 7:49 pm
“M-my sister just sighs and r-r-rolls her eyes at me.” Kateri replied. In fact, Kepi seemed to be rather mean to Kateri at first glance. Kateri knew that that was just her sister’s natural grumpy personality, though. After all, her sister could always sneer and walk away, but Kepi always stayed and helped Kateri with just about everything. Kateri also noticed she didn’t stutter nearly as much when her sister was around.
Kateri listened to the male fox, watching him out of the corner of her eye to show she wasn’t ignoring him. What he was saying about tribe guardians was true; they were quite large and Anubis did have bat wings like a Deava. There was only one problem with his description though. “Our t-tribe guardian a-always has the two permas hanging on his legs. They aren’t afraid of him.” And she shouldn’t be either; Anubis looked less than threatening when he had two fuzzy kits clinging to him. On top of that, she had known the guardian her whole life.
Why was she even telling him this? She sounded like an incompetent loser. Feeling miserable, she drew her tail around her paws and stared at the ground. She was going to have to stop acting like a trembling lump of stupid if she was going to continue talking to this Kaleth fox. Kepi wasn’t going to rescue her from this and, darn it, it was just a simple conversation.
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Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 8:40 pm
Kaleth blinked in surprise. Permakits? Like Guardians he's heard of them, but had never seen one before. The mental image Kateri had painted for him was also very amusing, since both species were on the complete opposite ends of the size spectrum. An odd friendship indeed!
"Well that's all very well and good for the permas," Kaleth said after a moment to collect his thoughts. "Sounds like they couldn't have a better friend to keep predators away from them. But it also sounds like they've got some bold personalities on them, otherwise I can't see a perma approaching a creature that could step on it and not even notice."
He hesitated a second, wondering if his next words might seem a bit too forward, but couldn't think of any other way to broach the subject. "I don't think you're really afraid of the Guardian. You've got a really quiet and shy personality. It can't be comfortable to hang out around someone who can intimidate you simply by existing, even if it's not on purpose and you've known them for a long time. You can't help how you feel; feelings don't respond to logic or attempts of rationalization that well."
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Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 9:33 pm
Kateri finally looked up from the ground and actually gave Kaleth eye-contact. She did a quick scan of the other fox’s face, looking for anything resembling teasing, but she didn’t see anything. He seemed to be sincere…but no one had really put it like that before. Not even her sister. Was it really just shyness? Then why did her heart pitter around like it was trying to jump out of her chest all the time?
“But I don’t w-want to be afraid. O-or shy. Or s-s-stutter all the time. It’s stupid.” She blurted, the last word being the loudest she’d spoken for the whole conversation. Kateri’s eyes widened in surprise, she hadn’t meant to raise her voice. Fighting the urge to bury her head in the sand like an ostrich, she looked away again. The tip of her tail twitched around her feet nervously.
“Why can’t they r-respond to w-what I want them to do?” She asked, almost in a whisper. Again the thought crossed her mind as to why she was telling this male all of this. He couldn’t possibly care. Kateri sneeked a peek at Kaleth, her expression crinkling into a confused look. He was still here, though.
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Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 9:47 pm
Kaleth had to work hard to suppress his laughter and keep any hint of it away from his face. Kateri seemed like the type who might clamp down pretty quick if startled or teased, and his laughing might have been taken the wrong way. Still, he would have defied anyone who could have seen that shocked expression and not find it hilariously adorable!
He was silent a little longer than he would have liked, but he definitely didn't want to take the chance of his slipping until he was absolutely sure of his control.
"Maybe it's just a mental block. I used to be a lot more shy than I am now, but I learned how to work past it," Kaleth said, trying to pull up some old memories for reference. "It's really hard in the beginning, because even if you want to change your body is charged to react a certain way. You have to carve entirely knew reactions into your flesh memory, and that takes a lot of time and effort. Things gets easier as you go, though."
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Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:37 pm
Kateri glanced sideways at the male and skepticism flare briefly in her expression. He didn’t seem shy at all. Or timid. Or anything other than a normal fox. At his explanation, though, she winced. Carve? Into something called a flesh memory? That sounded…painful. Time she had and effort…well, she didn’t know how effective her effort would be. She still couldn’t climb trees to her sister’s liking.
“Carving sounds p-painful.” She voiced her main protest against the idea. She wanted to tack on that she couldn’t climb trees, but Kateri wasn’t stupid. She knew that would be a completely random comment out of context, not to mention she really didn’t want to mention another failing of hers.
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Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:50 pm
"Metaphorically speaking. It was the best term I could come up with." Kaleth thought for a moment. "Maybe, think of it in terms of a river. Your personality if already flowing on direction, but now you're trying to make a new streambed for it to follow. Trouble is, rivers don't really want to change how they flow. It takes a lot of work, and even then it doesn't always succeed." He tilted his head a fraction to the side. "Does that make it sound any better?"
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Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2012 9:28 am
Kateri nodded slowly; that imagery was much nicer. It still sounded difficult. But Kateri did want to change and she knew it would be hard...if she even accomplished it. If she couldn't change, though, it would be just another failure. Her ears dropped at the thought. Then again, if she didn't try at all it would be a bigger failure. She looked up at Kaleth, not giving direct eye contact, but a fairly direct look other wise.
"W-what's step o-one?" She asked quietly. If she was going to change, she'd have to be the one doing it. Talking wasn't going to help, but doing might. She was determined to give it a shot at least. She was hoping Kaleth would at least tell her the steps before he left. Then she'd have a starting place to try and figure the rest out.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 2:54 pm
“Step one is having the desire to change,” Kaleth replied promptly. It was weird, him being shy and hesitant around strangers when his brother wasn’t around, but when people began asking him questions his scholar side kicked in and banished all his shyness. He smiled a little at the thought, then pulled his mind back to Kateri.
“Without your genuine desire for change, anything you or anyone else tries to do would be useless,” he continued, explaining. “Step two is to do some soul-searching. What exactly do you want to change, what do you want to change it to, and, most importantly, why do you want to change this part of yourself. It’s difficult to break old habits and put new ones in their place, so having not only the desire to change but a good reason that you can hold on to will help on days when things seem impossible.”
Kaleth pondered his words for a moment, hoping he hadn’t left anything out or overcomplicated things. He didn’t think he had, but sometimes he couldn’t be sure. “And step three-,” he said, mentally shrugging and continuing with his mini lecture, “-is to put your ideas of how to change into action. That’s really all there is to it.” He gave Kateri a small smile. “Such a short guideline for something that takes quite some time. It’s funny how that works.”
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Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2012 4:02 pm
She listened to everything Kaleth said, and chewed her lip lightly. Desire to change? Kateri had that, at least. She wanted to not be herself anymore. The vixen thought about that and frowned; no, that wasn’t quite right. She wasn’t totally insecure; she liked…her markings and she was nice. Or she thought she was nice. What she wanted to change was how uncomfortable she was around others. She wanted to be able to hold a conversation with her tribe members and join in on the activities without stuttering everyone into a coma. And maybe she didn’t have to change all the way. She could still go off and have her alone time, so long as she got less socially awkward.
“I do want to change. I w-want to be able to interact with my t-tribe and talk to o-other foxes without s-s-stuttering all the time, and I want to do that be-because I want them to be a-able to d-depend on me.” That was a lot of ‘wants’. Kateri hoped she wasn’t being selfish about the change, but she was trying to do it for her family, her tribe, right? Her ears did a nervous, twitchy dance on her head, but she grabbed hold of her determination.
“Now a-all I have to do is figure out h-how.” She said, catching Kaleth’s smile. She blinked but smiled back automatically. She was beginning to think he was going to stay and help her through what he’d just told her. Social awkwardness made her slow on the uptake in conversational clues.
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Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 2:12 pm
Kaleth nodded understandingly as Kateri started listing off what she wanted to change and some of the reasons why. “That all makes perfectly sound, reasonable sense,” he commented, feeling a surge of fondness for the shy female who was so determined to be less shy. “I’m sure we can both reason out some methods or reasoning for you to put into practice, even though I don’t think you’ll get consistent results for some time.”
Kaleth went silent for a moment while he mulled over various ideas. It wasn’t like he had a ton of experience in helping people with their problems, he was just a nerdy guy who enthused over learning new stuff. But he could empathize with Kateri’s shyness since he himself had problems with the emotion, just not nearly as strong and he’d managed to grow out of a lot of it.
“I guess we should try to figure out the source of your nervousness, as a starting point,” he mused aloud, then focused back on Kateri. “Is there a reason for it? Like did anything happen to you as a kit to make you shy, or have you just always been really shy?”
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 4:10 pm
Not get consistent results? Was it because she was so.... No. None of that. Kateri's personal first step was to stop putting herself down. "Okay, I w-wont get discouraged. I know I can't change o-overnight." She looked down at the sand and drew a circle with her paw. She should ask Kaleth if he'd let her practice anything they came up with on him...but she couldn't quite get herself to ask.
The source of her nervousness? She thought about it and the only thing she could think of as an outside source was her dad. But she didn't think that it was just him or even mostly him. He may not be too warm to them, but he wasn't a horrible parent either. "I think it's just h-how I've always been. I a-always wanted to stay out f-from underfoot as a k-kit. And I was quiet, s-so I got overlooked."
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 7:48 pm
Kaleth nodded. The story was again similar to his own. With a big sister whose personality had the force of a tornado and left similar results behind and a big brother who was strong, confident, and outgoing, Kaleth had been the quiet one who would hang back and didn’t often try new things. If it hadn’t been for the strong, almost twin-like bond between him and his brother, he might very well have ended up as shy as Kateri was now. His mother was a kind and loving vixen, but she’d been in a bad place at the time and had been a little more distant as a parent than she was now.
“Eye contact might have to be one of the last things to try for,” he murmured, thinking aloud again. “Maybe the stutter or voice volume is a better place to start.” His bright green eyes lit back on Kateri and he gave her a smile with an apology in it. “I don’t know if I’ll be much good to practice with since you don’t know me that well. It’s bound to add a bit of extra nervousness, and it seems unfair to have to put you through that.”
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Posted: Sat May 18, 2013 8:21 pm
Kateri was silent for a bit, twiddling her paw through the sand again. If she didn't start with Kaleth, who would she start with? Kepi? Kateri kinda wanted to surprise her sister. Her dad? The guardian? Kateri shuddered at the thought of even asking them to help. Compared to that, maybe Kaleth was better after all. "U-um, I think maybe I'll be less n-nervous. I...asking my family to h-help is i-intimidating." Did that sound horrible to say? Her voice dropped to a miserable whisper, "I'm not scared of my family, I just...having to ask them...I never ask them for anything. Except Kepi. I ask her too much."
With a visible effort, Kateri squared her shoulders, "Could I please try on you before I try on them?" Ha, a direct question...even if she'd avoided eye contact. Progress. Yes? Maybe? "If...if you want to." She amended.
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Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 10:23 pm
“You’re already starting,” Kaleth said with a kind smile. “We can practice as we have a conversation. Your stutter already seems to come and go. It seems worse when you’re talking about something that actually makes you uncomfortable.”
He turned this thoughts over in his head, trying to think of a way to stop a stutter. It wasn’t something that was usually under someone’s control, which was kind of the point of a stutter. “Maybe,” he said slowly, still thinking as he spoke, “if you spoke slower. Make sure you know what you’re going to say, have it firmly in your head, and take the time to say it. It might come out a bit slow at first, but speed could come with time.”
Kaleth smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I’m having to make most of this up as I go. It seems like it would work, but I have no idea if it actually will or won’t.”
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Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 7:18 am
Kateri ducked her head in embarrassment. "Y-yeah, it gets really bad when I'm t-talking to the g-guardian or my Dad. I-I've actually just stopped talking before. I literally c-couldn't make noise." Deities that was horrible to admit. Pushing away the bit of her thoughts that liked to tell her how stupid she was, Kateri took a deep breath and tried to follow Kaleth's instruction. Think before you speak, speak slow.
"At least it's a start." Kateri replied, slow as molasses, but free of stutters. "I'm willing to try anything to s-stop my s-s-stutter." Slow, Kateri, "Stop my stutter." She repeated with deliberation. Kateri smiled happily, almost two whole sentences without a stutter, her tail stopped its nervous twitching and waved gracefully with her success.
Her tail froze again when she realized she'd only been talking about herself. Her eyes widened and her smile faded and she tried to blurt the first thing that came to mind. "D-d-d-did," She was stuttering again. Kateri took a deep breath and tried again. "Did you use to stutter? When you were shy?" Better.
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