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 Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2011 9:11 am
 A tan and white vixen trotted along the springy ground of the sparse forest, humming cheerfully to herself. Large, bright gold eyes seemed to be fixed forward on her current path, and only brief flickers to the side betrayed she was aware of all her surroundings. Unlike most of the females on her kind she did not have a long, whip-like tail ending in a giant tuft of fur, but rather a short, fluffy one that curled over her back. That, and the dark red harness she worn, marked her as the subspecies of a dog-fog.
Most of her kind tended to live in the mountains. Indeed, a tribe had been formed that spent a good deal of their time pulling sleds or getting involved in races, especially in the winter. They even helped out the human population when needed.
Shani wasn't anti-social by any means, but she wasn't sure enough about the course of her life to want to join a tribe just yet. Anyway, the majority of that tribe was made of females; she was sure she wouldn't mind dating a female, but her preferences tended to be straight.
Today she was hunting for spring. It was just around the corner, after all, what with everything now sprouting buds and new bits of green tentatively poking their collective heads up from the brittle brown. It would be another month or two before it all went into full swing, but no reason why she couldn't try to scout out the best spots for foraging or grazing, for whenever she needed to hunt.
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Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:08 pm
 Static wandered though the forest, looking for a suitable shelter. The prey around his last home had decreased in number significantly, so the logical choice had been to move. His feelings on the matter were irrelevant, and it wasn't right that he should be feeling this knot in his stomache. Stifiling his homesickness, his eyes came to rest on someone alone in the forest. "Interesting..." he muttered under his breath. He wanted to get a closer look but his coat, a tecno-looking combination of grey and yellow, would make it difficult to not be spotted. Curiosity got the better of him, something he would never allow again, and he snuck up behind the stranger. She was beautiful, by modern modifox standards. Her bone structure suggested female, in her adult years. Oddly, her tail wasn't at all like a standard vixen's tail, and the harness she wore was very curious. Static hadn't seen anything like her, and watched her, transfixed. His heart rate sped up, meaning that he was either afraid of her, or he found her attractive. No, it couldn't be that he liked her, he had not even met her. And besides, he was driven by facts and logic, not barbaric instincts. Static remained lost in thought, pondering and completely tuned out to the rest of the world
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Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 10:16 am
A steady breeze had been passing by Shani, ruffling her fur and bring interesting smells to her. Thus far she had scented cool air mixed with earth, old pine needles, damp and decomposing vegitation, and, when she was very lucky, the tinest scent of new growth. She had been breathing in these scents of new life like she intended to gain nutrition from them.
At present Shani had her nose in the air, hoping to catch another whiff of fresh green that could spring up at any moment, when another interesting scent caught her nose. Fox, one of her kind. Well, a normal Modifox, most likely. Males of her subspecies were rare, one of the reasons why that tribe up in the mountains was so full of females.
With these thoughts on her mind Shani turned her head to see who exactly was following after her, though they'd probably just stumbled on her scent trail by chance and were curious. She thought she caught a glimpse of something yellow, a bright color a bit out of place with the drab winter hues of the woods, but she couldn't be sure.
Her eye twinkled in it's customairly mischievous way. Shani found a spot next to a tree with somewhat pale bark and a bush that had held on to half it's foliage, and waited. If the male, and she was pretty sure it was male from the scent, was following her trail he'd pass the spot. Startling strange foxes was usually not the best idea, but Shani did love a bit of excitement every now and again.
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Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 12:34 am
Static watched the female move out of his line of sight. If she hasn't seen me, I should be able to follow, difficult as it is to stay hidden he mused to himself On the other hand, I do stand out against this terrain,and the wind may have given away my sent...so I could be falling into a trap Static was way too smart to fall for it, so he decided it would be best to try an evasive manouver and walk slowly and as far away from the trail as possible. He couldn't see the female anywhere though, she had much better camoflague. Why was he even playing this game of hide and seek? It was ridiculously illogical. Static decided to give up and go back to what he was doing before, looking for a home. That's when he spotted it. Something red among a dead bush and a white tree. It was the female's harness. Static could just make her out among the foliage. Oh, she was good. Doing something that was uncharicteristically sneaky of him he snuck up behind the female. "Boo!"
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Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 4:35 pm
Only the faintest of crunching noises from the dead foliage gave Shani a clue that she was being snuck upon. Well, maybe it had more to do with the male vanishing from her line of sight so she'd relied on her ears more. Modifoxes had quite superb hearing, what with such large ears and all, but if Shani had remained focused on her sight she might have missed the small audio clues.
All of this accumulated, not into, unfortunately for Shani's pride, a detection and reversal of the trick being played on her. All it really meant was Shani gave a comical squeak as she whirled around, rather than jump five feet in the air like a startled cat. Maybe that was good for the male, since Shani tended to cause accidents when she was startle-jumping around the place.
Her golden eyes narrowed and there was a child-like indignation to her expression as she looked at the male. "What was that for," she asked accusingly.
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Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 10:13 pm
A smile flickered on Static's lips as the female gave off a noise similar to a mouse. For a minute he worried that he had scared her, but why should he care?"That, was for trying to startle me. Which you made obvious by the way you were hiding and waiting." He retorted. Pride filled his voice "You shouldn't have bothered with someone of greater intelligence, it was easy to tell what you were up to" Ok, so that last bit hadn't been the whole truth, but he wasn't going to admit that. He glanced at her, wondering if she could see right through him, not literally of course. Static studied the female, his gaze pausing for a moment on her eyes, then moving down until they came apon the strange, short tail. He stared at it. "Has your tail always been... He paused "...like that?"
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Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:31 pm
"Course my tail's always been like that," Shani replied, in an absent way though as she was marshalling her brain for words for a retort of the male's previous sentence.
"I wouldn't say it was obvious either. How would you know what I was doing? I could have been hiding, or looking for something, or wanting to take a nap in a secluded little spot. Which argues that you have no proof and simply scared me for giggles, rather than come up and ask me like most rational creatures would!"
The fact that she hadn't been doing any of those things was irrelivant in the face of the debate. Shani could never pull of the lecturing tone successfully though, for there was always a twinkle of laughter in her eyes that showed she was enjoying herself more than trying to defend her actions or make excuses.
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Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 3:46 am
"Hmm...so, was it a birth deficiency? I have never met a Modifox with a tail such as yours" Static listened as she argued. But you wouldn't really call it arguing, she was enjoying it too much. Oh. He had jumped to conclusions, without properly analysing the situation. He paused for a moment, taking his time to think. "If you were trying to take a nap, you would have shown signs of wariness and be resting or asleep when I found you. You were watching for something, your focus on a spot in these woods. You were looking for something, wern't you?" or someone he added silently. It would be best if he ignored the probability of her hiding, in case she had seen him following her. An idea bloomed in his mind. " I must admit, I did 'scare you for giggles' and for that I am sorry. It is very unlike my usual self and it will not happen again. To show my apologies, I will help you find what it is that you were looking for" Now she was caught. If she had been looking for something, then he would stay true to his word. However, If she wasn't, than the lie would come undone.
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Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 3:11 pm
Shani looked over her back and wagged her tail. "It's not a birth deficiency," she said, giggling at little at the absurdity of it. "There's a whole group of foxes out there with tails like this, and we aren't directly related or anything. We're just a sub-species. No idea why our tails decided to grow like this, but it's totally natural." She glanced back over at the male.
The entire time he talked she had her head tilted to the side in a bird-like fashion, and was having to resist giggling again. The formal manner in which the male spoke was quite amusing. "Well, now that you mention it," Shani said, and here some of the humor was probably clear in her voice, "you can help me. See, I'm looking for Spring, only it's really hard to find. It likes to happen all at once instead of gradually, and I'm trying to find good foraging or amubush spots before Spring acutally gets here."
She stood, waiting, still very amused and wondering how the male would react to her words.
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Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 12:20 am
Wow, a whole new subspecies that Static never new of. But why was she laughing? Finding out about something as big as this was nothing to luagh about! And then there was the matter of finding Spring. How was he ever going to help her find a season? This female was by far the strangest he had come across. But still, Static always kept his promises, and this time was no exception.
"Hmmm...are you sure you mean the season? There is no true way to predict the exact moment a season arrives, but the spring equinox will be the exact middle of spring. Therefore the start of spring will be sometime between now and the equinox." He paused for a moment " You arn't suggesting we stay here and wait, are you? Because that would displease me very much...However, I am looking for a new home, so while I help you look for...spots to... ambushSpring, I would also be able to look for a new home" Staic couldn't believe what he had gotten himself into, the very idea of finding Spring! Ridiculous!
"I suppose introductions are in order? My name is Static, I am in my adult years, though even the stupidest fox could tell that, and I am, if you haven't already made the connection, tribeless. Anything else you want to know?" He brought the subject up...why? Because he was curious about this female? Of course, it was of no significance, it was logical he would be curious, it was in his nature...right?
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Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 4:02 pm
Shani was tempted to comment on the adult appearance bit, but figured it would be a bit too much silly teasing for a first meeting. She wasn't even certain the male had the best grip on what teasing was.
"Name's Shani, also fully physically matured," she said, and though she had now decided not to comment on the adult thing there was still a gleam of wicked humor in her eyes. "Also tribeless, though always open to joining one if the right tribe came along."
Now that the introduction stuff was out of the way, Shani began pondering over how to answer the male's question. The idea of sitting in one place for a long period of time was ridiculous, because she was a fox of action; sitting was out of the question! Besides, she wanted to find Spring before it got here, not just wait for it to creep up.
"We're looking for signs of Spring," she said. "Ya know, little bits of green starting to appear here and there. New growth and stuff. It always starts real slow, then as soon as the weather gets warm....BAM!! Green everywhere!" Shani had smacked the ground to add more emphasis to the bam, then as she finished speaking nodded her head in a "know what I mean?" way.
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Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 10:42 pm
"Shani...that means Red" Static said with a smirk. Oh, the irony "So what do you propose? That we search for saplings in this forest?" Static said as he looked around. " You mentioned foraging spots beforehand, are your species herbivores or are you just looking for medicinal herbs? I happen to know quite a bit about the uses of various plants" to demonstrate (and possibly show off) , Static seached the ground. Ah! There it was! moving the soil carefully away, he exposed a tiny seedling. " This, for instance, is an Anemone, meaning daughter of the wind. It has no known beneficial qualities, but in some cultures it is thought to bring health and healing." He bent down to study it. It would probably be in full bloom by the end of spring. He had always had an illogical attachment to Anemones, no idea why though. Interrupting that thought, he got back to that topic at hand. " Could you be more specific in what you are looking for, it would certainly help me understand you"
Although Static had a feeling he would never understand Shani.
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Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 9:50 am
Shani tried to cover a laugh by turning it into a cough. "Saplings aren't small," she said, a couple more small coughs pushing out from her lungs. "I mean stuff like grass and plants. New stuff. Trees aren't a whole lot of use to me, they don't get full grown for a looong time." She thought she'd been pretty clear on all that. Maybe not.
Now she turned her attention to another question he'd asked. "Nah, omivores. Sometimes it's good to have plants to eat. But if you find good foraging spots those can also be good hunting spots later when green stuff grows," she explained.
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Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:01 am
Ugh, sprouts, not spalings. Shani was messing with Static's head somehow. It was definitely not his fault.
" Well, we can't just stand here if we're going to look for plants" he said, picking a random direction and walking off. Glancing back to see if she was following him, his gaze locked on her eyes. Too late, he looked back and ended up walking into a tree.
"Oof!" Static was pretty sure a bruise would form on his face. What are you doing, you idiot?! he scolded himself mentally. Blushing and pretending nothing had happened, he continued forwards, scanning for bits of foliage.
"Here's a blackberry bush" he said, motioning to a pathetically small, and slightly wilted sprout "it's food...and a symbol of wealth and protection"
Searching some more, he came across a tiny, tiny Tulip "That's a Tulip...it's not food...and it, um, means eternal and perfect love. To give someone a red tulip is to declare their true love" Oh great, Static had butterflies in his stomach, and to top it off, he was blushing! "There should be more around here, Tulips are one of the first flowers to bloom in spring"
"Why do you wear that harness?" he said, hoping she wouldn't notice the abrubt change of topic.
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Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 1:22 pm
"This," Shani asked, looking down at the dark red harness where it crossed over her chest. "It's something all my kind have. We have closer relationships with humans than normal foxes. Usually we hang around cold places, where humans rely on sleds and dogs to pull them. Sometimes we help out." She shrugged; it seemed perfectly normal to her, even if her life currently wasn't like that. She had grown up that way, though.
"You seem to know a lot about different plants," Shani remarked, eyeing Static. She knew the various names and stuff for plants, but not all the symbolism stuff. You'd have to be an idiot not to know the meaning of roses, but most other stuff was more obscure.
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