Anima (Arcadia and Ermine)

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Arcadia

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Blake Griffin smiled. He had been cast out of the Kestrellia Reservation as a rite of passage into adulthood. He had to find a familiar. However, it was part of the ever looming adventure. He stretched, taking in a breath of the fresh air of nature, the birds chirping, the grass whistling in the breeze. He was ready to find his familiar. Finish his journey of self discovery and prove to his tribe, his reservation, that he was truly a worthy adult to become their leader when the time came to pick a new tribemaster. He sat in the middle of a nearby forest, nature a constant force of peace and tranquillity, giving him a Zen like meditation, which was well deserved he believed in order to be able to strive toward his own goals. Now he just needed to move. A new direction. A new life course. He moved his feet. His journey began.

@*Ermine
 

Amaya was the last in her family to begin her quest. She had found her familiar the fastest of any of them, though. As a result, she was halfway bonded with her fox, Ten, by the time her brother even found his. She always spent at least an hour a day just training Ten, usually more. It occupied an entire day the week before. She was curious about life on the outside, since they usually didn't get all the new technology others could have. But she wondered how they could live so far apart from nature, and how they could stand not bonding so closely with a familiar. What did they have to look forward to, if not the ability to sense through another?
 
Blake headed into the depths of the forest, the trees eradicating what was left of the light he had. The darkness of peace and eerie calm awaited him as he set forth on his journey. He walked through the undergrowth until he reached a hill, his view expanding by a mile. There was a lake a mile or two ahead of him, with a small, what seemed like, a jetty. He could set up camp there for the night. As he headed north toward the lake, he heard a small rustle in the bushes, turning and seeing nothing was there, he continued on his journey. It might have been a ferret or something. Probably wild.
 
Amaya sat with poor Ten on her lap, looking into eyes. She hoped it would speed up the bonding process, but it just seemed to annoy the small mammal, and eye contact didn't seem to help at all. Within a few seconds, she ended up letting go of Ten, who decided hunting a squirrel was more productive than staring at some weird human. Or...at first, that's what Amaya thought Ten must have been thinking. But it didn't really feel right.

The fox caught the squirrel and ate it just in front of Amaya's lap. This wasn't the most pleasant thing for Amaya, but once the fox finished eating the front half of the squirrel, Ten stopped eating. She picked up the other half and offered it to Amaya.

"No." Amaya was firm in her tone. She wasn't going to eat raw squirrel. Ever. Ten looked curiously, and set the half-squirrel down, nudging it forward. "I said..." Amaya sighed. "Fine." She picked up the squirrel and takes a small bite. "Happy? Eat berries or something from now on."
 
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Blake moved down the hill at a steady pace, careful to not trip over overlying roots and avoid muddy puddles where he could. He didn't have a change of clothes with him, assuming he could have just gone without for his spiritual journey. Acorns, maple leaves, and pine needles littered the forest floor, the wind picking up the maple leaves, the helicopters, as children would name them, and, like a ballerina, would make them elegantly and slowly dance across the thin breeze.

He could see the edge of the water was in sight. However, he heard the rustling again. Something was following him. Maybe it was a racoon or something, smelling the food that he'd brought with him. Berries and the like. Some chocolate. The hill was less of a downwards descent now as he reached the lake. He was here. His moment's respite, the lake. He headed out of the tree ridden alcove and into the fresh sight of the water, the jetty nearby what seemed to be an abandoned log cabin. The rustling came again. Something was definitely following him. He turned. A nearby bush was rustling. He threw out a berry to found out what it was.

(Suspense)
 
Having not packed any food, and having a difficult-to-please fox both added up to Amaya doing the exact opposite of what she wanted to do, and violating her own beliefs: she skinned the squirrel and ate it right where she was, making sure to not eat the guts. It wasn't as bad as she thought, but she really hoped it wouldn't have to happen again. There was plenty around here that both her and Ten would eat that didn't involve...that. "You're one lucky fox. I can't see anyone else ever doing that for you."

Ten just curled up in Amaya's lap and slept.

"It's...not exactly nap time." She sighed. "But if you say it is, I can sit here a while." She looked around. The sun was barely visible, thankfully. She enjoyed the shade. She heard that the outside world was all tall houses, so tall they blocked the sun. She'd never left her land, but she doubted this was true. After all, the ones spreading the rumors were people her age, so they probably hadn't seen it yet, either. It didn't seem entirely improbable. The people out there did tear down trees that "got in the way," and didn't bond with animals. She wondered how they could live like that. And it's what she had to look forward to. She hoped she wouldn't have to be in it long, but she had heard of people who never came back. Did they CHOOSE to stay away from nature? Amaya was now uncomfortable mentally, as well as physically.
 

A ferret jumped out of the bush, biting quickly on the berry he had dropped to lure it. Suddenly, it looked up at him. His head began to swim. Suddenly, everything began to fade away as flashes of images appeared in front of him. Forests, mountains, lakes, rivers, caves, prey, predators. The flashes were one solid continuum. "You. Blake Griffin." A booming voice spoke, like the voice of god, from all corners of this pocket universe he had been placed in, the images of nature streaming into his mind like a searing brand. "I am your familiar. Arvengus. Tame me, bond with me, and you shall use my power." The universe he was placed in began to now swarm with colours of all the spectrum, even ones not visible to the human spectrum. Ultraviolet, infrared. He could see it all. He was a pulsating form in a never ending river of existence. But he was seemingly fading. Fading to white.

He woke up with a start. The ferret was beside him, crawling in through his sleeve, up his arm and onto his shoulder. They were now a team. Go human. Arvengus stated matter-of-factly. Go forward and fulfil your destiny.
 
It had been about half an hour, and Amaya's legs were falling asleep from sitting cross-legged with a sleeping fox on her lap. She almost wanted to just lie down and nap so she'd at least be asleep and not thinking about her legs, but the far better option, to her anyway, was to wake up the annoying creature with bad timing. She prodded Ten gently in the shoulder blade a couple times before just uncrossing her legs and standing, dropping Ten to the ground about a foot in front of her. "I love you and all, but...nap at naptime."

Ten just bit her ankle. Gently, but hard enough to get the point across.
 
Arvengus was perched on his shoulder, and Blake decided one way to bond with the ferret, like any normal animal, was through food. "Arvengus?" He asked of the creature, fetching his small rucksack with the berries. Yes, Blake Griffin? What do you require? Arvengus asked of him. "Have a berry." Blake exclaimed with a smile as he fetched a small handful of berries, giving one to Arvengus who seemed to eat it thoughtfully. Berries, you call these, Blake Griffin? Very tasty.
 
Ten seemed to be doing the leading as the two walked through their home forest. Amaya noticed this, but didn't really care. Since Ten was a traveling companion, she desperately wanted to talk to her, but obviously, Ten wouldn't be talking back. So the whole effort seemed kind of pointless. The forest was big, though, and big places tend to magnify loneliness. "So, Ten. Let's talk." She started. As predicted, the fox didn't respond, nor even seem to really care. Instead, Ten just bounded zig-zaggedly forward, fully rested from the earlier nap. It sort of made Amaya regret allowing that, especially since her legs were still sort of weak from sitting in one position so long. "At least watch out for traps."
 
Arvengus curled around his neck as he headed down to the log cabin, the ferret seemingly tired from the endeavour of first contact with it's human to-be partner. Picking Avengus up by his underbelly, Blake put him down on the forest floor, the ferret heading up the drain pipe of the house and onto the roof. "Come on, get down here, Arvengus." He exclaimed as the ferret slid down the plastic tubing, and ran back up his arm, the fur of the being tickling Blake. It was time to rest. And try to bond.
 
The fox continued bounding back and forth as if she was hunting something, and Amaya could only watch. It's not like the fox would listen to her. Soon, Ten was too far ahead and Amaya had to run to catch up. Ten stopped and waited, with a look of annoyance. "Don't look at me like that. You ran off."

"And you don't move fast enough." Amaya heard in her head. "Your legs are how much longer than mine? And look how much ground I can cover while mostly sideways." She was pretty sure...wait. In her head? Then again, no one else was around. But that would mean...
 
Blake Griffin, let us go inside. I sense foreboding cold in the breeze. I want to stay warm. Unlike some. Arvengus spoke sarcastically, a little bit of humour in the familiar's voice. "Okay Arvengus. First we need to check for wood." Surely enough, there was enough wood to last for a day or so. He'd need to cut some down after his self imposed deadline had passed. Smiling, he poured some oil on the wood, before setting them into the stove, lighting them with an overhanging torch nearby.
 
Amaya looked at her fox skeptically. Ten just looked back. Amaya's head was soon flooded with words. "Yes. Is your mind as slow as your body?" She hopped back and forth for a bit before running ahead again. "I've been talking to you this whole time. You're just a bad listener." The fox walked a little slower, and in a straight line, from this point on. "How do you even feed yourself at that speed?"

At first, Amaya kept silent. She wouldn't give Ten the satisfaction of getting on her nerves. But she couldn't really avoid it. "I can take a bird out of the sky with two sticks and a bit of sinew. Or I can make you do it." She smiled ahead at the fox, who stopped to look back at her. "Besides, you don't even know where we're going. Not that we can even really go there yet. Not until we can share our senses. Can't have you getting killed for fur." She caught up to Ten in no time, and they soon walked next to each other. Not because they're friendly or anything. While Ten would never admit it, it was so she didn't get hunted. And it wasn't in Amaya's best interest to let the fox get killed.
 
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