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Journal entry - 28th June 2005
Thanks to Kami, we have the last thing from the list! She very kindly sent us a piece of rope, which means we have everything now. Just need to track down Alyosha now..

(( RP with Alyosha here
RP with Kami and Keanu here))

Journal entry - 5th July 2005 (Backdated)
I can't believe it! Osu is a child now! We took the gathered items to Alyosha in the centre. He arranged them in some odd order. There must have been some magic in it though, as Osu was transformed from a wisp when he moved over it. It was truly fascinating. Not even in my years with the Bouryokudan did I see something like that.



Osu is speaking now too. Not much, and he seems to struggle with a lot of the things that he wants to say, but he's speaking nonetheless. I'll have to teach him to read and write at some point. I'm just not sure when you're exactly supposed to do these things. I've never been a father to anything, afterall. Maybe some of the guardians with older kids would be able to give me some advice. I don't think it'll be for a short while yet, anyway.

The kid's taken a few bumps today. He's determined to master walking on two legs. He seems to be getting the hang of things though. He hasn't been falling as much. Most of the time he just giggles and gets back up anyway. Asides from that one nasty fall outside the centre.

We met Kami and Keanu outside the centre just after Osu had transformed. Keanu is getting big too. It was nice to see Kami again - it's been a while since we last spoke. Spent a little while on the beach before going home.

Osu's bed is set up upstairs now. I've had the space cleared for a while. Just, now he's old enough to be able to use it. Tomorrow is the start of the festival. We'll need to be up early to make sure we're there on plenty of time. Should be fun.

(( RP at the Springs here))

Journal entry - 29th July 2005
I'm a few days late in updating this. Again. I'm not very good at this whole journal thing, am I? Well, I said in my last entry that I intended on taking Osu to the hot springs. We did go along for a little while, and met a few people - Syrenrei, Delta, Fae and Pueblo. Osu and Pueblo seem to be getting along much better now.

I think Sy was drunk too. She was acting odd. It was kind of amusing. I wonder if she brought all that drink back with her the last time she went away. She had a lot of it, anyway. I'll need to ask her where she gets all her supplies from.

Anyway, not much to report. Osu's speech is coming along nicely. I'll need to think about starting to teach him to read and write. I wonder how the other guardians with older Aerandir are doing it. I don't have a clue about how to begin with such things... Maybe a few visits are in order.

Ieyasu set down the journal, glancing over at Osu. When the kid saw him take out a book and a pen, he, of course, wanted to do the same. So Ieyasu had dug out a few coloured pencils and given him a couple of sheets of paper torn from the back of a notebook. It wasn't often that the rambunctious little terror was quiet. But now was one of those times. He lay on his front, sprawled across one of the tatami mats, various pencils scattered around him as he scribbled across one of the bits of paper.

Whatever he was drawing, it was unintelligible to the kitsune. At least from where he was sitting anyway. It wasn't entirely unsurprising to Ieyasu, but the kid had taken a liking to the warmer colours. His piece of paper was a jumble of red, orange and yellow lines.

As Ieyasu watched, Osu dropped his pencil, looking up. He was finished! He noticed his guardian watching him and broke into a wide grin as he scrambled back to his feet, the bit of paper clutched in his hand. Rushing over to Ieyasu, he held his masterpiece up proudly.

"Yassu, look!" He beamed at the kitsune.

Ieyasu looked at the jumble of brightly coloured scribbles for a split second before smiling.
"That's very good. You wanna tell me about it?" Well, it was better than asking him outright "what is it".

"Uh huh!" Osu nodded emphatically. He pointed to a big yellow blob on one side. "Tha's you" - and, then pointing to a smaller, red scribble "Tha's me!"

"Wow, that's great. Do you think we should find somewhere to hang it up?" Ok, that was a rhetorical question. Of course Osu would want to put up his picture. When he got the enthusiastic reply from the Aerandir, he grinned again. "Ok. Let's go find somewhere good for it."

The kitsune stood up, following the kid as he charged about looking for the perfect place. Osu might be no artist, but like all kids, he seemed to have enjoyed scribbling out pictures for at least a little while.

Journal entry - 8th August 2005
Well, that was a surprise. Looks like there's now three in this house instead of two. That little keyring that was sent to me - it turned into a kitten several days ago, giving both Osu and I a rather large surprise. He has quite unusual markings for a cat too, with a splodge that looks kind of like a leaf or a bat wing over one of his eyes. I've decided to call him Ilex.

Osu is enthralled with him; the pair seem to have hit it off remarkably well. Although, I do keep telling Osu to watch how rough he is - the cat is only very young afterall, and a lot smaller than he is. It'll be good for the kid to have some company around the house besides me though.

Ieyasu closed the journal over, setting the pen down beside it. The afternoon was drawing on, and some food sounded good right about now. He'd have to gather some more tinder for the cook fire before he could do anything. Stepping towards the door, he glanced back over his shoulder at Osu.

Osu giggled as Ilex missed the end of the string again, his tiny, needle like claws scrabbling over the wooden floor. The little Aerandir held the other end of the string, wiggling it around. For some reason 'Lex liked this best, even though it was only a boring bit of string normally.

The little kitten crouched again, his large eyes watching the string intently. He was going to catch that moving thing! He didn't know what he was going to do with it when he caught it, but he knew that he wanted to catch it. Maybe it tasted good. His body crouched low to the ground, the tip of his tail twitching in anticipation, he waited for the perfect moment to str- There it was!

Ilex launched himself forward again, this time catching the end of the string squarely inbetween his paws. Got it! Holding it as tightly as he could (this string was tricky afterall), he grabbed it between his teeth and chewed. Blech. It didn't taste good, but he was going to show this piece of string who was boss!

Smiling at the pair, Ieyasu slipped out of the door. He'd only be gone a moment, and they were both preoccupied. Fetching as much tinder as he'd need, he returned with the fuel moments later. Setting up for the fire, the kitsune patted his pockets and found his book of matches. It didn't take long before he had a little fire crackling down in the pit. He was still kneeling beside it when he noticed that Osu had left his game with Ilex and had come into the kitchen.
"What's up, Osu?"

Osu grinned cheerfully. Yay for fires! They were so pretty and colourful and warm and... well, good. At 'Yasu's question he pointed to the cookfire, and happily replied "Fire!" Then, something happened which he didn't expect. As he pointed at the flames, the fire suddenly flared up to several times it's normal size, bathing the kitchen for a moment in orange light. As abruptly as it flared up, it died down again, the freshly prepared tinder burnt to ashes in the bottom of the pit.

...
...Woah.

Ieyasu hadn't seen it coming. Osu quite often came into the kitchen to ogle the fire. It probably wasn't a healthy obsession. But then, Ieyasu couldn't say much. He did have a predilection for electricity and lightning storms himself afterall... Instinctively as the fire rose up, he jerked back and shielded his face with a forearm. Now that had never happened before. The fire died back down again, the embers all that was left of the monstrous flame. Ieyasu had moved just a little too slow as the fire had leapt up. And for that, his eyebrows had paid the price. Luckily, aside from singed eyebrows, every other part of him seemed intact. Too surprised to say anything, he stared at the Aerandir for a moment. Osu seemed just as shocked as he was. Ilex was hiding under the ladder that led up to the bedroom. Obviously, the kid hadn't meant to do that. But if he was capable of feeding a fire like that now, he'd need to learn to control it. Else, the house was in danger. He'd have to find Acia, like Alyosha had suggested.

"Kid.. I think we need to find you a teacher."

(( Backdated: 22nd October ))

Hearing a knock on the door, Ieyasu stood up from where he was lazing at the table. Pulling the door open, he saw an envelope lying on the porch, just in front of the door. Curiously, the young kitsune picked it up, opening it.




'Interesting.. sounds like fun' he thought, reading the front of the invite. Flipping it over, he noticed the back of the invite had writing on it.



Ieyasu would be sure that Osu would be only too happy to help with the candles. They involved fire, afterall. The little Aerandir had been practicing hard with his candle. He couldn't light the fire on his own yet, but he was able to move the tiny flames about and extinguish them now, albeit somewhat clumsily.

"Yo, Osu?" Ieyasu looked back into the house, where Osu was playing with Ilex. The kitten had grown pretty big now - indeed he looked like he was pretty much full grown. Perhaps these cats grew at a different rate from ordinary cats. He did grow from a keyring, afterall.

Hearing his name, Osu looked up. Dropping the toy mouse, he jumped up and ran over to 'Yassu curiously. What was that paper with the picture on it?

Ieyasu grinned. "Mind how I was explaining Hallow'een to you the other day? We've got an invite to a Hallow'een party. How would you like to be in charge of lighting the candles in the lanterns for it?"

Osu's face suddenly lit up. A party and fire! That would be so cool! He bounced up and down excitedly a few times. "Cool! Can I, Yassu? Can I, can I!?" And, if this was one of those Hall'ween parties, did that mean he could wear a costume too? "Can I dress up!? I wanna be a pirate!"

Ieyasu nodded. "Sure you can. We'll just need to make you a costume, won't we?" He smiled. That was another benefit of being a kitsune - you had illusion, so you could cheat at costumes. It wouldn't be hard to make an outfit for a night.

Journal entry - 28th November 2005
Just a quick progress report here. I managed to pick up a few things in Durem that I think will be useful to Osu in teaching him how to read and write - a few simple picture story books and an ABC colouring book. I think it'll be enough to start with, anyway.
Right now, he seems rather taken with the idea, and has been going through the colouring book rather enthusiastically. I suspect that the novelty may wear off rather quickly though. The books are no fire, afterall..

Ieyasu looked up from where he was kneeling at the low table. On the other side, Osu was sprawled contentedly across the floor, his colouring book open in front of him along with several scattered crayons. A decidedly lazy looking Ilex was lounging on a heaped blanket near to Osu. The kid's tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth in a childish expression of concentration as he coloured an apple bright blue. Ieyasu smiled in amusement.

"What's that you're colouring, Osu?" he asked the child.

Osu looked up at Ieyasu for a moment, before looking back down at the blue apple again. He grinned as he looked up.

"An apple."

"Are apples that colour?"

"Yes!" Osu burst into a fit of giggles. He had decided that the apple would be blue, so it would be! Seeing Yassu raise an eyebrow and grin, he then shook his head. "They red."

"Mhm. Do you remember what letter apples start with?" They had sat down last night, and Ieyasu had gone over the letter 'A' with him as they read the book. The kitsune wondered if he had remembered.

Osu frowned for a moment, and stared at his blue apple. "..Uhm..." After a short pause, he suddenly looked up, grinning from ear to ear. "Ah!" He was quite obviously pleased with himself for remembering.

"That's right. You'll be a pro at this in no time." Ieyasu grinned, and allowed the kid to go back to his colouring.

The evening was growing late when a small, four legged figure made its way to the burned out remains of Ieyasu's home. Ieyasu was hoping to recover what he could of the possessions that had been inside. He didn't have much hope for most of it. But it was worth trying to find what he could. The kitsune had slipped into a vulpine, four legged form. It would be easier to pick his way through the mess if he was smaller. He didn't want to risk bringing down the house anymore than it already was. Also, claws were a definite bonus for digging through things.

The small, pale fox sat back for a moment, scrutinising the burned shell carefully. He had to do this delicately if he didn't want a house falling on him. Deciding on the best place to enter, he slipped under a broken beam and into the house. Inside was a mess. The fires and falling debris had left the house partially open. Most of the textiles were completely burnt, or at least singed to the point where they couldn't be used. Most of his books were irreparably burnt too. However, at least part of his bookshelf must have been shielded from the flames in some way, as a few of them were no more than a little singed. Reaching up, the fox carefully grasped one between his jaws, taking it outside. This was going to be a long process..

When he had retrieved everything that looked serviceable, Ieyasu stopped to look over the items. Out of the books, there was a story book that he had kept for Osu, a few assorted books in both English and Japanese that he had brought over with him when he had moved in and his journal. Ieyasu was glad that the journal was still in one piece, if a bit tattered and singed. It would have been a shame to lose the record he had been keeping since he had arrived. He had also found a few undamaged ornaments, including his battered nine-tails statuette, various kitchen utensils, a couple of (mostly) intact items of clothing and one of Osu's toys. Everything else was too far gone. The kitsune sighed. This was one of the downsides of using paper lanterns, screens and hangings. They didn't bode well in a fire.

Returning to bipedal form, he carefully gathered up the group of singed items and headed away from the ruins again. He was going to have a hell of a lot of things to replace, anyway...

((Post 5000! ^_^))

(( Slight rearrangement here, in order to have things make more sense chronologically. This post was originally made on January 4th, 2 posts above. New entry has now been placed there.))

The journal now looks considerably worse for wear. The covers are pitted, singed and partially missing, and some of the pages inside are torn around the edges. Fortunately, the fact that the journal was hardbacked saved much of the contents.

Journal entry - 4th January 2006
My god, that's not something I want a repeat of. The last few days has been absolute chaos. Earthquakes, eruptions and fires - what a wonderful way to celebrate Christmas. There's a volcano on the next island over from Cetalu which I had thought was extinct. Or at least dormant. But, no. It decided to erupt. Fortunately, most people made it to the centre, which is better reinforced than the cabins we stay in. And fortunately, there wasn't much lava flow. Just lots of ash and burning rocks. We were holed up in there for a few hours before everything stopped. The damage the eruption did to Cetalu really isn't pretty. Fires and ash were everywhere. And the cabin that Osu and I were living in is a complete wreck. What the rocks started, the fires finished.

Nyxa very kindly offered to put us up in her cabin for now. I'm really very grateful to her for that. It's cheered up Osu, who was understandably upset about his house falling down. Now that he knows he can see Luc all the time, he's not so bothered about it. Myself, it's gutting to see something that you've put energy into being swept away like it was nothing. But, hey. I shouldn't be getting so attached to a house and possessions anyway. It never used to bother me much before..

In any case, I've managed to recover a couple of things that weren't *too* badly damaged. I'm surprised this journal made it through mostly in one piece. Something must have shielded it, I guess. I haven't finished sifting through things yet - I'll return to the ruins and take another look later. Now it's just a case of piecing things back together and returning to normal. I hope.