Fox Child Bullying Form
On the road to Lookshy
Somewhere past Nexus
Rising Wood, RY 763
I strode forwards- quickly but softly, careful not to break my stealth and alert the last one to my presence as well. Though, in all likeliness, it looked like I wouldn't need to keep up this facade of stealth anymore, because he wasn't noticing my approach. Not even when I stood right in front of him, less than a meter away.
I tapped him on the shoulder, and he looked up.
ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ ゴ
"W-what?" The sudden atmosphere of my menacing aura was almost palpable. He tried to push himself back, farther into my furs. I could see his eyes widen to the size of dinner plates before me. "I-I-I-I-I-I-"
I stepped forward one step, and he scrabbled backwards some more, staring not quite at me in terror. He seemed to be staring at something right over my shoulder, like I had summoned a monstrous asura or something of that sort.
I think I heard a cracking of knuckles, but I hadn't moved a digit.
"Let's talk." I told him, and smiled thinly. I saw tears begin to sprout in the corners of his eyes.
=][=
I worked my way through a bowl of soup as I watched the kid run around the camp hauling stuff back and forth. All my stuff was re-arranged in nice neat piles or was soon about to be, and this bowl of soup was pretty good. I didn't know what root was, but it was a good idea to put this in here. The starch really stiffened up the broth in lieu of oil from a fattier animal- the trap meat that I had gathered tended to be rather gamey and not all that rich in oils or fats. Some of my bad mood dissipated.
"Hey kid." I called out.
He stopped in place and slowly turned around, still shiver. I guess I had really scared him or something. "Y-y-y-yes?"
I held up a full bowl of soup, still warm. "You want some?"
"Me-?" He pointed to himself questioningly, and I nodded. After checking around to make sure that there was no sudden other kid standing behind him that I was actually pointing to, he nodded eagerly and hopped over to take up a bowl. "Yes!"
I poured another bowl for myself. Now that I had forced him to clean up my camp, what other sort of thing should I force him to do? Based on my experience- in exchange for the food, I should now force him to be engaged to my daughter- but I didn't have a daughter and he didn't seem like the sort of kid who would grow up into an extremely strapping and also extremely handsome martial artist, who incidentally happened to be the best at martial arts in the world, unmatched in his field....
...also it was dumb. Really dumb. It made me feel kind of stupid for even considering it after I had thought about it, and almost nothing made me feel stupid so it was a really special sort of dumb.
"So kid, what happened to the other little thieves who took off with my food?" I asked him. "They ran you off all alone here. They going to come back for you?"
"I- I think so." He nodded. "Well.... the others sort of have a short memory, so I don't know if they'll remember- and we're not thieves!"
He suddenly turned around to me with an indigent expression on his face, anger overpowering fear for a short time. "We are divine messagers of her mighty grace, who was entrusted with us as her loyal retainers by the Lord Who Prowls at the Edges of the World!"
"Mighty grace huh?" I noted, spoon halfway to my mouth. "She send you to steal my camp?"
"No!" He refuted resolutely. "We were merely sent to deliver a message.... and were distracted by such an array of food before us... because it looked very good... and we hadn't had anything to eat that wasn't caught in the wild for a long time."
He finished and sort of just trailed off embarrassed apparently by his lapse of discipline. He looked off to one side. "Her grace tries to provide, but it is hard... on all of us."
Right. So basically what he's been saying is that he's been camping out in the woods, and wasn't used to it, so he just made a grab for my food. I kind of understand. I've been through similar circumstances. He and his friends were hungry for food that didn't taste like game and the wilderness.
I could understand that.
I took another sip of my soup. "What message were you supposed to send anyway?"
"Oh-!" He lit up. "We were supposed to inform you that you have been partaking too much of the land! On behalf of the local nature spirits, the lady has requested that you reduce your hunting! In doing so, you unbalance the nature cycle of nature, and threaten the bountiful nature of the land!"
I nodded. Hm. It looks like some sort of divine retribution really did come after me for wasting food. I feel like someone just went 'I told you so' at me but I couldn't figure out why. It irritated me. "Yeah, I guess I should cut down on that a bit."
And he really did have a point. But, still... "That said, you did still go through my camp and steal my supplies."
"Yes.... that is true...." His expression dropped. Is this kid a fox spirit, or a dog spirit? I got the impression that his tail just stopped wagging.
"And I do need to find a way for you to repay me." I pointed out.
"Yes.. that is true..." His expression dropped even further.
Hm. What do I normally want out of people? He doesn't have food, and I don't really trust fox magic to help try to cure my curse. "You have any martial art techniques?"
He shook his head. "No..."
....well, bummer.
I wondered what I should do...
[ ] Just take this in stride. It wasn't like it was that big of a deal really, I'd been hungry for real food plenty of times before and I would really commiserate with him too. Let him go, and keep on going to Lookshy.
(Weight x1.25)
[ ] If this 'grace' is his benefactor, then maybe she could repay me for her underlings mistakes? That seemed like a reasonable thought. Yeah... maybe I could get something good out of her.
(Weight x1.0)
[ ] Well, I still have this fox kid. Maybe I could
use him as a lackey train him in martial arts as a way to correct his obviously incorrect way of living life. Yes, definitely. I certainly could feed another mouth.
(Weight x0.75)
[ ] I can definitely come up with a better idea than those!
(Weight variable)
Note: Short update, but this is the splitting of your current quest and a sidequest. I really don't recommend you pursue this sidequest until you're stronger, it's going to be fairly tough to tackle it as a mortal, even one as tough as Ranma. Also, on an unrelated note I'm using Terrifying Argent Witches as homebrew for this quest.
