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 Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 5:50 pm
 Miki sighed quietly to herself as she looked around at all the...green around her. It had been a long time since she'd left her snowbound home---the time she met her son, in fact--and she found herself anxious in the dense green foliage around her. There were too many places for strangers to hide here.
Not to mention, she had no idea where in the world she was. All Miki knew was that she had wandered off Kousetsu lands with Loki's permission some three days ago, and had until early this morning known where she was. She'd been following a star each night, but the clouds had obscured it last night and she'd guessed. Wrongly.
Of course. This was what she needed on top of everything else. She couldn't even be a proper mother and tribemate, now she couldn't even navigate.
Miki grunted and flicked her tail about, trying to ignore the way grass on her fur felt. It was another reminder she was too far from home. For all she knew, the vixen was on some other tribe's home. She looked aorund again, trying to find something familiar. She had a general idea of what grew in what climates, it might help her decide if she was north, south, east or west of home. She saw strange....pale sticks? growing in bunches, with bright green leaves on them. Miki had never seen those before.
"This is hopeless," she muttered, before deciding to sit down for awhile. Tired feet weren't going to help her think anymore clearly. She'd figure it out eventually.
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 9:47 pm
 Sparkio sighed to himself as his great red tail brushed up against the familiar bamboo plants--the things that had made his home liveable for as long as he could remember.
And yet, home seemed to be falling apart all around him, despite the stalks still standing up right?
Lost in his own, now-familiar, line of self-pity and self-deprication, he barely noticed the soft whisper of a complaint that came from the other side of the trees. But he was an Elder, and whether he had many tribe members or not, an Elder was programmed to listen to others before the voices in his head that told him what a screw up he was.
As he rounded the particular outcropping of plants, Sparkio's eyes lit upon a red female--beautiful, he noted, but seemingly quite sad.
"Is there something I can help you with?" he asked automatically, tilting his head lightly in concern. Sparkio certainly didn't recognize her, which gave credence to the idea that she wasn't from around these parts, which he had guessed from her jumpy demeanor.
"What's hopeless, if you don't mind me asking...? Maybe I can help you."
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:01 pm
Luckily for Miki, she decided to turn and look at the stranger speaking to her before very rudely saying they could nothing for her to get them to leave. Being lost was the least of her issues right now, and she wasn't going to sit her and pretend to be friendly to some stranger.
But, all her unusually caustic remarks promptly die don her tongue as she realized the stranger was in fact a bright red Elder. Sullen lately or not, Miki had had lived under two Elders before; she knew better than to be disrepectful.
Especially because this must mean she was on tribe lands. Oh hell.
Pushing away her bad attitude for the moment, Miki forced herself back up onto tired paws and dipped her head in a quick, but respectful greeting. He had offered help, but he didn't seem to Miki to be in the best of moods either. At over a foot taller than her, and likely able to summon help from his members instantly, the vixen wasn't going to take the chance of upsetting him. She had to be alive to make sure Eos didn't trip over a cliff, after all.
"My apologies, Elder," she said quickly before glancing up at him. Despite the sunlight, she could make out amongst his black markings something familiar--the Bamboo Tribe's tattoo. She had seen it on vistors to her tribe before, and the knowledge that she was amongst a tribe on decent terms with hers made her relax slightly. "My name is Miki, of the Kousetsu Tribe. I was wandering for a few days to clear my head, and I seem to have become lost and accidentally stumbled on your home."
Bamboo or not, she was still going to be cautious: "I can leave now, however, if my being here in unwelcome."
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:10 pm
Even as she spoke and explained, Sparkio noticed her tribal tattoo, connected it to her tribe and to her Elder, and nodded as she finished.
"Sparkio, the Bamboo Tribe's Elder." Such as it and I am. He offered a semblance of a smile, reminding himself that once upon a time, a lifetime ago it seemed now, he had been charming.
How had he managed that again?
"Stay as long as you wish," Sparkio assured her, sitting down and wrapping his long tail around his paws. He wasn't the most groomed he could've been--he was sure he had more than a few bamboo leaves in his tail, but he figured that his rank as an Elder bought him a little leeway.
"None of my tribe will cause you harm," he added as an afterthought, shrugging one shoulder indifferently. "Are you looking for the way back to your snowy home? You must have gotten very lost indeed," he finished, chuckling slightly.
Belatedly, the tired Elder realized that if she was half as exhausted as she looked, she would probably want to be left alone...but this was the first contact he'd had with a fox in days; he didn't know where his tribe had gone, but he knew they were alright, at least, and so he allowed them their freedom, no matter how much it pained and frustrated him.
All the same, manners were manners. "If you would like to rest, I can lead you to our main home. The beds we have made are more comfortable than what nature provides," he explained, chuckling a little bit again. As he eyed her more carefully, though, he recognized that she was truly tired and upset, and she seemed to be shaking a little on her paws.
Maybe moving her wasn't the best idea...
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:24 pm
"Half-looking," Miki replied with a wry smile. She had no cause to be rude to him since he was offering to let her stay here, so she tried to find the old Miki who others had liked so much. "I'm not supposed to be back for several days at least, but I guess I followed the wrong stars last night. Very lost indeed," she said with a quiet chuckle.
Miki was the observant sort, even if she wasn't quite as good as the scouts where. She saw leaves sticking out of the Eld--Sparkio's fur, and little bits of hair that were mussed up. Either he was the incredibly active sort--didn't seem likely, given his current demeanor, or he wasn't fairing much better than she was.
"No, thank you," she replied to the offer to move her to his tribe's center. Not only did that seem rude on her part in Miki's mind, but she wasn't really up for any kind of journey. For all she knew of Bamboo, their main home was an hour's walk from here. "Grass is already more comfortable than what I'm used to. Cave floors in the winter, holes in the snow all the rest of the year. That's the bad thing about snow, it does a fine job of hiding all the sharp rocks underneath you." She offered a smile to say she was joking.
Miki paused for a moment, then hesitantly ventured to ask him a question. "I'm sorry if I seem rude, Elder Sparkio, but are you alright? You seem...tired as well." For all her moodines slately, Miki had always cared about others, probably even more than she did herself. This Elder would be no different.
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:33 pm
"Well, the offer's open," Sparkio said, nodding as she denied the offer; he hadn't really been expecting her to accept anyway. "Seems to me like the bad thing about snow would be the freezing quality of it," he returned, bringing a smile to his lips again and a chuckle, though this was less forced than its predecessors had been.
Then she asked if he was alright.
Dammit.
Sparkio opened his mouth to say 'yes, I'm fine, quite alright, what would make you think otherwise?' but he stopped himself, because that would be a lie.
"Mm, I've been better," Sparkio admitted after a moment, shrugging again. "As has my tribe," Sparkio looked around and sighed through his nose, a frown wrinkling the space between his gray-blue eyes. "And my tribemembers. They wouldn't harm you because they're not here," he explained, a wry smile coming to his lips. "And it's not rude. Thank you for asking," he added, sincerely meaning that.
However, as much as he was enjoying the interaction, it wouldn't be prudent to unload all of his travels onto a wayward, weary traveler. "May I ask what happened that you need to clear your head of?" he asked, tilting his head lightly in concern--she wasn't the only one who put others before themselves, even though for the Elder it was a learned behavior, rather than natural. Anything to drive a vixen from her home must have been rather large and upsetting--even though at that moment to the Elder, taking a few days to clear his mind of Bamboo did not seem like such a bad idea at all.
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:49 pm
"We've got thicker fur than you lot," Miki said with a small smile. "It's not so cold to us, except in the true winter." The one season of the year Miki loved and hated simultaneously. The winter was the time their Modeity was at his most powerful, and the beauty of his work was spread across their territory in the pristine white conditions. But it was also remarkably dangerous, even for the Kousetsu foxes, filled wiht blinding blizzards that obscured vision and landmarks, and hidden dangers and avalances. It was no small wonder they admired the Modeity of Winter's work from inside caves during those times.
She realized Sparkio was speaking again, and the koi-patterned vixen gave him her full attention once more.
Bamboo was falling apart? Miki frowned concernedly at that. Was it happening to all tribes?
"Kousetsu's numbers have dwindled lately as well," she sighed. "Enough that you can have company, but still. We once numbered in the fifties, perhaps more. No one's sure anymore how many we have left. Even one of our Elders is never there. Perhaps this is some unforseen cycle all the tribes are going through." Miki had spoken with Loki after his return from the Elders' ggathering some time ago. Many of the tribe members had. It was no secret that the vast majority of the tribes his dwindled into nothing. It was an unsettling idea.
Before she could get lost in such thoughts, though, Sparkio was asking about her.
"Oh," Miki started lamely. "Personal issues, I'm afraid. My accidental children, even if they've long been adults." She wasn't afraid to the Eos, Ixen and...her other daughter's existence. The vixen knew many had experienced these accident breedings before, that it was nothing to be ashamed of. The way she had handled it, however...that was something to be ashamed of.
But her concern for Sparkio overrode the self-deprecation for now. "You seem as run down as I do, Sparkio," she told him, deciding to drop the title for now. Miki didn't think it likely that he would care. "If you would like, you can certainly tell me what roubles you and your tribe. I may be tired, but my ears and my mind are still working." She offered him as close to a warm smile as she could, given the circumstances. "I am certainly no Elder, but I'm sure confiding to someone outside your tribe and the other Elders would take a weight off your shoulders."
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Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2011 12:41 am
Not one to brush off any idea too quickly--anymore, at least--Sparkio considered her question and noted her concern, then eventually shook himself out of his head and decided that he might as well give it a shot.
"What troubles my tribe is that my tribe is in shambles," Sparkio admitted, frowning more definitely now. "Kure and Panda-chan, when they were in charge, when Bamboo was at its prime...things were good and happy and we were a...family. I only came toward the end of their time, though, until Kure went missing and Panda-chan checked out..." Sparkio sighed heavily, unable to keep the bitterness, the resentment out of his voice. At least he was trying, dammit.
"So one day, the Modideities chose me," he summed up. "But by then, most everyone had wandered off the lands and gone their own ways. I was able to round up a few of the old members and even recruit a few new ones, but we weren't as close as we had once been." Sparkio's ears drooped slightly, and his gaze fell to his paws.
What a resounding failure he was.
"And we still aren't," he finished. "Nobody is as happy as they should be, and nobody's even here to try. I wasn't ever planning on being an Elder of anything, maybe the 'Deities made a mistake."
In a way, Sparkio figured, it felt kind of...good, to get what had been swirling through his mind for who knew how long out in the open, to someone he didn't know and held no responsibility for. Though he knew that she was probably, with at least some part of her person, judging him, he didn't care--anything she thought couldn't be anywhere near as harsh as what he thought about himself.
"Thank you," he ventured after a moment, bringing his gaze back up to hers. "You were right, it did help," Maybe it didn't fix anything, and maybe he was no closer to having a tribe that was half as grand as it had once been, but he at least felt less like throwing himself onto the nearest pointed bamboo stick, and that was something.
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Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2011 5:56 pm
Miki listened patiently and attentively to the Elder's problems, nodding and frowning at the right times. She had no room to judge people anymore--not that she really ever had been the judgmental type anyway--and she found herself more feeling sorry for Sparkio than anything else. She knew full and well what it was like to hate yourself because you thought you had failed at something.
"The 'Deities don't make mistakes," she reassured him, gently but firmly. "At least not with who they choose to raise as Elders. They see us all for what we are, Sparkio, and therefore they saw something good in you." Had Miki always been this much of a motivational speaker? Absently she wondered if she was channeling the motherly instincts she hadn't been able to use on her own children on Sparkio. "But they cannot make you believe in yourself, Elder, not if you cannot yet see what it is they did. I don't think it's your fault Bamboo is falling apart. Perhaps that is part of their test to you, perhaps it is all because of the other Elders' failures. I cannot say for certain. Regardless, I think the 'Deities knew what they were doing when they chose you."
Miki was a pretty good judge of character, usually. She had been inaccurate before plenty of times, but she had a feeling she wasn't wrong about Sparkio. He had offered her help and assistance despite her trespassing on his homeland--to Miki, that wasn't the mark of a failure at all.
"Besides, you're talking to a Grade A failure over here, so you're not exactly the bottom of the barrel," she said with a wry chuckle. "Kids on accident with a vixen I don't even know was a great way to start being a mother." Miki snorted and shook her head. "One was taken from me and raised by someone it sounds as if I would never even talk to, because he thought the BCR was lost. I was only out hunting. One was taken by the other vixen. I don't even know my daughter's name. I was left one because somehow my son's adoptive father missed her, and she left my tribe lands as soon as she reached adulthood." She tried, and mostly succeeded at keeping the bitterness out of her voice, both at Veraya and at Ixen's 'father'. Veraya had left without another word after they realized they were parents, taking away one of Miki's own and seemingly uncaring about the other two. And as much as she knew she shouldn't be angry at Ixen's father, she hated him. Passionately. Who took BCRs because 'they were lost' without ever even looking for th eother parent? Without smelling for traces of the other parent? She hadn't been far away, he could have found her. And now she was reduced to barely knowing her only son and her grandchildren.
But truthfully, Miki had to admit, she more hated herself for allowing it to happen. She never should have left them behind that day. The red vixen sighed softly and looked away from the Elder, trying to push back all the guilt and anger and everything she felt when she thought of her children. It wasn't Sparkio's problem, and she wasn't going to make it his problem. It was her doing, she had to live with it.
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Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 1:45 am
Sparkio listened to what this vixen said--in the back of his mind and in the bottom of his heart, he found himself hoping she was right, wanting the 'Deities to have seen something good in him, that this was all just some ridiculously cruel test.
And hoping that he was good and right for being an Elder was a big step up from being convinced he wasn't.
It was Miki's turn to talk, though, and as was only fair, Sparkio paid close attention, even though he got mildly confused at the whole 'my son's adoptive father' bit, he managed to get the whole story.
Poor girl.
A sympathetic smile rose to his face, and Sparkio found himself realizing that maybe her problems sucked worse than his did. "I'm sorry," he said, meaning it. "That all sounds...awful. Who would simply take a BCR?" he wondered, snorting.
"Want to know a strange thing, though? I have six children myself, and four of them just...wouldn't hatch for the longest time," he recalled, frowning lightly at the memory. "Felicia, my former mate, left after a while--I don't know why, maybe she couldn't take it that they didn't hatch on time--so the two that were born don't really know her," he finished, shrugging lightly. "And then, just a little while ago, out they popped." He smiled then, the strangeness of it fascinating him. "Maybe they just grow more slowly than everyone else, I don't know, but in nearly double the time that it took Lila and Fiyero to grow completely up, they're still kits,"
Was it possible for two normal foxes to give birth to those strange children that never grew up? The possibility had played in his mind more than once, but he had faith that some day, somehow, his children would reach physical adulthood. After all, they'd hatched, right?
"However, none of that really matters," Sparkio said after a few moments' silence, offering a sheepish smile. "Perhaps while you are away from your homeland you could find your daughter," he suggested, tilting his head to one side. "It's never to late to get to know your family, and I bet she would welcome the opportunity."
Or she would hate Miki, and Sparkio didn't want that, but he didn't voice the concern--she was down enough as it was.
"Not yet, though. You need your rest before you start on some great adventure," he explained, offering a little smile again. "I've always thought the bamboo and the sun had a lovely way of relaxing the muscles," he said, glancing up at the slightly-cloudy sky. "Usually, the sky's so blue you can see it through the leaves. It's beautiful. I hope you get to see it before you leave."
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Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 2:56 pm
Miki blinked at the strangeness of that. She had never heard of kits that took that long to grow, save permakits. But she doubted that Sparkio had somehow fathered permakits, mostly because she didn't know how that worked. "I'm sure they'll grow up eventually," she said reassuringly. "Maybe the 'Deities don't want them growing up until things are sorted out here?"
But Miki couldn't really say, so she didn't offer more hypotheses. Instead, she sat back down, and then after a moment of consideration flopped onto her side; she could still see Sparkio like this, but it was far more comfortable.
"Mm? Oh, I know my daughter," she chuckled. "She left, but Eos is still mentally a child. A very happy, naive child. The common sense of a rock, that one." Miki shook her head fondly. "She comes to visit a lot still, but she stays off tribe lands to stay with her mate. A Modidaeva, by the way." Only Eos could have such strangely good luck that Tatsuo was the kind of 'Daeva that didn't eat normals. From what Miki understood, Eos had never comprehended when she met him that he might be dangerous.
Where Eos had gotten this...Eos-ness from, Miki would never know.
"Unless you meant my other daughter?" Miki finally realized. She really was tire dif her brain was being this slow. "Mm. Her mother was a member of Akatsuki, if I remember correctly. I doubt she would be interested in seeing me." If her daughter wanted to meet her, Miki owuldn't object of course; but she figured it would be best to let her make that decision, the same way Ixen had.
The vixen stopped talking to look up at the sky. "I'm sure it is," she nodded. "Maybe the sun will come out soon."
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Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 5:23 pm
"I hope so," Sparkio agreed, chuckling some. He wasn't actually all that worried about them--someday, someway, it would all work out. If they stayed kits forever, that just meant he would never have to worry about grandchildren from them.
"A 'Daeva?" Sparkio repeated, raising his eyebrows. "She must not have much common sense," he said, actually letting out a laugh before he realized that that might have come off a bit insulting. "Sorry." He offered an apologetic smile, knowing he wouldn't take it well if someone insulted one of his babies. "If she's happy with him, then maybe she has more sense than the rest of us," he said, eyerolling at himself.
Sparkio's smile faded slightly as she mentioned Akatsuki; he didn't exactly love that dark tribe. "I hope it does," he agreed, tail swishing lightly behind him. "It hasn't been sunny here for quite a while." Maybe the 'Deities were just punishing him or testing him extra hard by making the color of the sky match the timbre of his mood.
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