((This RP is for not-yet-completed Ninetails!
Ninetails uses it/they pronouns.))
Ninetails prowled the shore. It was still sore and tired from its desperate swim to shore. This was not how the plan was supposed to go. The plan had been to ride upon Lord Akiyama’s boat and infiltrate his kingdom in the new home he built when they landed. The plan had been to lie low in hiding in its feral form, not letting anyone spot it and riding along with no one the wiser. It had been an excellent plan, all until the storm hit.
The boat had tossed and turned in the storm. The barrels that had been Ninetails’ hideaway were thrown out of place. It had searched for a new place to tuck away, but then it had seen the mare. “Oni” she called Ninetails. She’d risen the alarm before Ninetails had a chance to silence her. Amidst the tempest, the humans of the ship had come running.
Ninetails realized it was too late to hide. They fought with the humans then, slaughtering the guards and servants of Lord Akiyama as they rose up to fight. They fought as the ship was tossed one way and the other. They fought as the rocks came and the crew realized that they had been too distracted by battle to keep watch for danger. Ninetails, thinking itself a god in flesh form, fought even as the nose of the ship shattered, tossing half of the combatants into the water where they would never rise from again.
Ninetails’ fury could not be quenched even as the waters rose to choke them. After all their work at putting themselves into position, it all would be for nothing. They had spent the better part of a year stalking Lord Akiyama, knowing they could kill him at any time and yet it would be so much sweeter to wait and scheme. They had hidden in the damp dark hold of the ship for weeks, eating rats and listening to the merry humans onboard. All of this was for nothing, crushed to splinters in the chaos of the storm. It snarled in rage as it was tossed into the water, not knowing if Lord Akiyama had drowned already, or perhaps had managed to get onto one of the ship’s few lifeboats...
It had fought for its life in the storm-strengthened waves. Its tails were too many, they weighed it down and almost dragged it under. Ninetails was close to drowning when it saw her, the mare that had spotted it, swimming away with more speed and ability than a pampered flower like her had any right to. Ninetails had known pure rage then, rage that kept with them as they glared out to sea from the banks of the shore they were stranded on.
For all their scheming, they were now trapped on strange shores with no idea what to do or where to go next. Behind its mask, Ninetails seethed. It would find new ways to restore its powers. It just needed time to recover, recover and plan...
