"Already out of breath? I haven't seen that before!" Michael laughs as follows. This was felt so good. To be back home in the trees instead of surrounded by stone. Okay, so he was starting to be okay with stone, but it was nothing compared to 'walking' through a forest. He could feel the air, hear the animals... He skids to a stop and listens intently for a minute.
"No, it couldn't be..." He said when he heard it again. "Hey, Kitty! Stop for a minute!"
Aananda smiled. "Endurance is definitely something we're going to have to work on with you. But for your first session you did remarkably well. Get cleaned up, grab a quick lunch, and get to your next class, dear. I know you're tired, but if we don't continue to push your limits then you can't expand them."
Vai shakes her head, trying to clear the foginess of sleep from her mind. The shaking causes her wave locks to fall in front her face. She brushes them back and looks up at Aananda. "Thank you Professor." Vai hugs Aananda, squeezing her tight and holding on longer than strictly nessecary.
Once the hug is done, Vai will curtsy in a manner reminicent of Fei's bow and leave the classroom, heading for the cafeteria for some lunch.
"Alright," she said after a few more minutes practice. "Fei, you need to go discharge your cuffs. You're making good progress though."
"Vai, are you feeling better? You did well today, but we still need to do a lot of work on your endurance. Still, it's a promising start."
"Yes, sabumnim," he replies, bowing deeply before heading down to the workshop to discharge the energy cuffs, then heads to his Alternate Health and Medicine class.
Kitty swiftly pulls out more shuriken than it should be possible for her to have hidden away, tying them into a bundle with an extra 'sash' she just happened to have that looked a bit suspicious around the edges and then tied the bundle to a branch.
"Okay," she whispered, "that's everything that's explicitly a weapon anyways."
"You don't have to whisper. If the stories are true they already know we're here. Follow me."
Michael takes a wicked hunting knife out of his sleeve and sets it next to Kitty's bundle before jumping down to the lowest level of branches and then making force fields for them to get down to the forest floor. He takes a moment to look around and then gestures toward what looks like a herd of horses at first glance.
"Alacorns." He says when light bounces off the pearl horn of one and another ruffles it's wings. "No one in Anderail has seen them in centuries. Tapio be praised, this is a wonderful sight."
"Everyone thought they left after a forest fire that nearly wiped out Anderail. I can't believe they're back." Michael breathing stops when one looks in their direction, and he sighs when it goes back to grazing. "I.. I think we can move closer." He says shakily.
Slowly, he begins moving closer and after what seems like an eternity, he and Kitty are only a few yards away from the alacorns. They get a few glances from the alacorns, but they don't seemed bothered at all.
Seeing the offered hand, one foal hurries over to see if there is anything in it. Not finding anything, it goes about trying to figure out what these two new creatures are. This one had horns. Was it a member of a different herd? If so, where were the others and why didn't it have wings?
At one point the foal brushes Kitty's hand. It's hair feels almost impossible soft, and she feels a tingling sensation spread from her hand throughout her body.
Michael reaches out tentatively and gasps faintly when he feels the jolt too.
Kitty was completely enthralled by the foal, staying perfectly still as it examined her. She smiles as it sniffs at her horns. This might very well be the first time that having horns was a good thing. She gasped as the tingling sensation spread through her. On impulse she picked a very green bunch of grass and held it out for the foal.
"It's... it's okay." Michaels says, feeling the alacorns eyes burrow into him. "They would have left by now if they were going to. They know if someone is going to hurt them or not."
Still, the gaze of the lead alacorn is not something Michael is ever likely to forget. It almost felt like it was looking into his mind to see what was there...
Kitty still looks stunned. "Alacorns," she said as if savoring the word. "I'd never even heard of them before. Oh! They were sooo beautiful!"
She grabs her bundle of stuff and hands Michael back his knife before quickly retying her sash and stowing all of her shurikens.
"Come on! Something that wonderful....I want to tell someone about it, and the only people I know here besides you are your family. Hurry up!" she said, laughing and bouncing with excitement before taking off back towards the Dacamara house.
"Kitty!" Michael calls out as he chases after her. "We need to go east and you're heading south!"
"Don't worry, you'll eventually get a good sense of direction up here." Michael tells Kitty as he catches up and gets them back on the right route. Now that she can use the branches like springboards(somewhat), it doesn't take nearly as long to get back to Michael's house as it did to get away from it. Cait Sidhe greets them when they walk onto the roof.
"Cait, you're not going to believe it! We saw alacorns!" The large black cat perks up at this, and rubs up against Michael's hand. "I know! It's like they were just waiting for me to come back, you know?"
With a brief scratch behind the ears for Cait Sidhe, Kitty dashes inside.
"Anthony-kun! Anthony-kun, where are you? Guess what? You'll never guess," she bubbled as she practically skipped into the dining room where she hoped he'd still be, but instead found Michael's parents.
"Oh. I guess he's not here....but it was so amazing! We saw alacorns!" she exclaimed her cheeks flushed from excitement. "It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And I got to feed some grass to an alacorn foal and when it touched me it was like a tingle through my whole body and they sounded like tmeple chimes, except Michael said he heard something like a flute and a harp, but that it's supposed to sound different to everyone," she blurted out all in a rush.
"Whoa there, Kitty. Slow down a bit." Jerak urges. "You said you saw alacorns? Are you sure? Horses with wings and a horn like a unicorn?"
"Jerak, do you really have to ask that after what she just said? Besides, Michael knows the old stories better than either of us. If anyone could identify an alacorn it would be him." Sylvia says, before turning to Kitty. "Please, tell us everything! You said you actual touched one?"
"Yes," Kitty said excitedly. "We were allowed to get pretty close to the herd and there was a foal and it was really curious about us, especial me. It sniffed at my horns like it was trying to figure out whether I was some sort of strange alacorn or not and it sniffed at my hand, and it was soooo soft, even softer than silk. And I fed it some grass, and then the lead alacorn noticed us and he looked at us like my obaa-sama inspecting a troublesome child so I bowed and he actually bowed back! And then we left because we didn't want to overstay our welcome, you know? But it was magnificent! They're so beautiful....the feathers on their wings kinda sparkled in the light, mostly white, but shimmery, and their horns were like seashells, all delicate looking, but also really sharp."
Kitty pauses, confused, trying to piece that information together with what she learned in History of Agartha. 'I knew I should have paid more attention in that class,' she thought to herself,shrugging it off and moving on.
"Well, now that they're back, maybe you will get to see them at some point," she said cheerfully. "Oh, I bet they look truly breathtaking in the sky!"
"Well, not really. We were pretty high up, but actually we were kinda all over since we were sort of playing tag so I guess we did drop down a bit right before Michael heard the alacorns. So he said we should leave our weapons, which we did, and then we climbed down and approached them very slowly. I think I'm really starting to get the hang of this tree climbing thing. It's more different than I expected climbing on something springy as compared to rooftops."
"That's because the branches have more give than a rooftop, at least away from the trunk." Michael explains as he enters the room. "Mom, it was unbelievable. I honestly say it was one of the best experiences I have ever had."
"I should hope so! It's not everyday you get to see one alacorn, let alone a whole herd!"
"Well, there is that old copy of The Guide to Fantastic Creatures." Sylvia says after a moment's thought. "I think Michael had it last. Michael?"
"I'll go get it." He says with shake of his head. He leaves for a few minute and returns carrying a dusty old book covered in drawings of creatures. "Some of the animals in here aren't real, like the cabbit, but we know the chapter on alacorns is talking about the real thing." He hands the heavy book or to Kitty.
Kitty eagerly opened the book, flipping through it until she found the section on alacorns. She is completely oblivious to the world as she is totally focused on reading.
"I bet you could make cabbits and we could sell them at our pet store someday," she said absent-mindedly, not entirely aware she'd spoken out loud.
"What pet store?" Jerak asks.
"Oh, um..." Michael's face goes red. He hadn't planned on telling them about the pet shop for a while now... "Well, after Saffire, we kinda thought it would be a good idea if we open a pet shop. We'd sell stuff like, well, Saffire."
"Something else you were keeping from us?"
"We only thought of it a few days ago..."
"Huh?" Kitty said, surprised to see Michael blushing and trying to remember what the conversation had been about right before that.
"Well, it would take years to finish learning all the stuff we'd need to know and then save up the money to buy a building, and all of that stuff, so it's just in the early planning stages now anyways," she said before going back to reading.
"So.." Sylvia starts, "you've know each other less than a week, starting dating, and have plans for a business that will take years to get up and running?"
"Um... yeah."
"And you don't think that's moving a little fast?"
"No." Michael says firmly.
"Jerak, talk to your son."
"Why is my son when he does something you think is bad?" Jerak asks. "Yes, that might be thinking a little far ahead, but she was the reason we came home. From what we learned yesterday, that's a pretty big deal."
"So you're okay with them already having plans for a business?"
"You said we would always be together after a month." Jerak points out.
"Fine." Sylvia relents, unable to think of a good comeback. She looks back to Kitty and Michael. "Do you have any names for this shop yet?"
"We haven't thought about that part yet."
"Well, it's more that we haven't come up with any good ideas for a name yet....the topic did come up. But like I said, we have lots of time before we need a name for it because it's going to take so long to get it started. I...I know it probably seems really rushed to you, but for me this is a really big deal. Admitting that I don't want to be a ninja even though my whole family are ninjas and I was always expected to be one too...that was really hard. And it's because of Michael that I discovered that what I really love to do is work with animals....and now I'm actually starting to be visible again which I was starting to worry would never happen. I don't think making plans is moving too fast. They're plans. Everybody makes plans," she said stubbornly. "It's hard to take risks and put out there what you really want even though people will tell you that you're being silly or that's not what you should do, and I won't apologize for saying what my dreams are. I can't. I'd vanish again."
"I really like Michael. I don't know if things will definitely work out for us, although I hope so. But even knowing that our plans might not ever come true, that's no excuse to just abandon them. nobody ever really knows about what might happen."
Silence takes over the room. Even Michael is surprised by Kitty's speech.
"A seer would know." Anthony says from the doorway, where he's munching on some grapes.
"Thank you for ruining the moment, little brother." Michael sighs.
This gets some muffled laughter from Sylvia and Jerak(apparently Anthony's done that before).
"Okay, Kitty, you have a point." Sylvia admits. "I can see you're really set on getting a pet shop with Michael. Just make sure nothing happens to my son, okay?"
"So if I stitch his arms and legs together you'll be okay with it?" Anthony asks. He takes a step back as Michael goes to punch him. "Ah ah ah, we still have to hunt. Any injury you inflict upon me will be cheating and you'll lose."
"Someone's started using big boy words." Michael grumbles as he backs off. "To bad they won't help you hit your target."
"You're aim is so bad you could through a rock out the window and miss every tree!"
"You'd miss the window!"
"Boys!" Sylvia almost-shouts firmly, putting an end to the argument quickly. "I thought we went over this last time you argued. As I recall you both got in trouble for the broken window. We're not going to have a repeat, are we?" *withering glare of the Mother*
"No, ma'am." They say in unison.
"Good, now why don't you two go hunting now? Get it out of your system and we'll see what I can make with what ever it is you end up bringing in. Don't hunt anything you can't carry back."
Kitty smiled and shook her head as Michael and Anthony started arguing again. She found a quiet corner to curl up in with the book about magical creatures and went back to reading until they were done with their hunting competition.
Edit: Kitty stopped reading, torn between her desire for learning and her desire to spend time with Cait Sidhe. Naturally Cait won. She set the book aside for now.
"Yes, that would be great."
"Don't worry, we can take the book back with us tonight." Michael says, noticing Kitty's hesitation. He goes to his room for a moment and comes out carrying a dusty crossbow. He checks the wire to make sure it's still good before heading up to the roof.
"Hey Cait." He says to the large cat laying in the sunlight that filters in through the leaves. "Do you want to hang around with Kitty for a while? She wants to go around on the branches but needs a guide." Cait Sidhe rolls over, seeming to ignore Michael. "I'll bring you back a river fish..." Michael offers slyly. Cait stands up, stretches, and gives Kitty a look that seems to say "Okay, we can go now."
"I knew that would work. Have fun, Kitty, and don't fall, kay? I like you in one piece and breathing too." With a kiss, Michael takes off across the branch roads of Anderail, already on the lookout for prey.
