Balder swats aside the spiders fangs with a backhand, and thankfully with his short sword still in his hand, he stabs down with it towards the spider.
'Giant spiders! Gah...ugh...I hate...oof...giant... spiders!"
Yorikata slowly calms down. Once she has caught her breath she sneaks back through the shadows.
Oh, these pesky bugs who scare away the night faeries! Watch out for the poison and webs dearies..
Lanneth pulls out her longbow and using the training from many years ago launches an attack at the spider
Balder and Lanneth both land solid blows on the spider, The spider bites again at Balder hoping to poison him.
Dain charges in, but can't get to the spider yet.
The spider's giant maw comes forward to bite Balder and he throws his left arm up to protect his face as the spider bites hard into his forearm.
"AAArgh!! Dammit! Eat iron you eight legged freak!" he shouts in a mix of pain and anger and tries to show his short sword through the spiders head.
Through the door comes a small fox that scurries past Dain, under the bed and behind the spider. It takes a hearty bite into one of the spider's legs.
Fluffy cheeks! Must fluff fluffy cheeks!
The creature makes an awful noise as Yorikata bites into the creature bringing it to near death.
Yorikata really hopes that one of the big guys ends this monster, before she ends up wrapped in spider silk as a liquified snack for an arthropod.
Lanneth Moves to take her shot.
The shot goes wide as the frames of the bed deflect the arrow. Balder takes a swing but the poison running throw his veins slows him down enough that the spider can easily move out of the way.
Lanneth looks calmly at the group trying to deal with the large spider.
Hmm, Odd, I would expect this to be someplace where more small creatures to wander by. There's not enough food for a creature this large.
Gran't come running back inside. As he runs up to the spider a stone flies into his hand and becomes a blade.
Gran't finishes off the spider, the hairy abdomen of the creature oozes foul smelling blood all over the ground.
Lanneth comes over and examines the spider.
Nasty thing... but it probably controlled other bugs around here.
She looks around to see if she can see where it had it's web.
As she looks she notices that Balder is hurt.
Ahh. I can help that a little, but you should probably have that looked at.
Then she reaches over and without asking lays her hand on the wound.
As she does this the wound begins to close.
As the spider is dead Yorikata sticks her tongue out and tries to wipe off the goo and the spider's leg hairs off it with her paw.
Once cleaned up, Kuma sits in front of Lanneth with puppy dog eyes.
Balder groans, blood and venom oozing out of his firearm where he was bitten. Then Lanneth comes and helps heal his wound.
"My thanks Lady Lanneth. That was a nasty one." He says as he stands and grabs a bed sheet and wipes off the remaining poison and looks as his wound as it closes.
The spider lays dead and the ghostly images continue to spout ghostly fire and ash into the air. Everyone agrees to head back to town for the night.
Kuma leads the way back to the rambling house, where Lanneth has her room. On the way she suddenly becomes aware that someone might miss Yorikata and she starts to run ahead.
Out of sight of the group and not yet in sight of the guards, she changes her shape...
... and quickly moves on to pass the guards.
Once inside town, she walks to the park, searches an unobserved spot, where she can change once more into a fox...
... and sneak into the ramblinghouse to wait in front of the door of Lanneth's room.
Balder heads back to the ramble house for an ale or two before turning in for the night. The burn of the poison still irritates him and he thinks the ale might dull the irritation a little.
Dain heads back as well, he is rather embarrassed to have been sent fleeing like that by the ghosts
Lanneth heads back to the ramble house and sends the feeling of hunger through the bond.
There she orders a bit of food, whatever the tavern has.
She separates the meat from the Vegetables. The meat she pushes to the side, hoping her fox will join her and she eats what is left.
Then once both of them are done, she heads back to her room being sure to open the door for Yorikata and closing/locking it firmly behind her.
Then she fixes a firm stare at the fox and says:
So a Kitsune. Why would you not tell me? What more do I need to know?
Kuma of course joins Lanneth for the meal, indulging the offered meat. She then moves in high spirits to the room, but that changes quickly. With the door locked and Lanneth starting the interrogation Kuma's tail gets tucked between her hind legs and she disappears under the bed.
Lanneth percieves shame and fear from Yorikata over the link.
The fateful night comes up in front of Yorikata's mind's eye. The shouting mob, her screaming mother, her desperate father. What will happen now? And how does Lanneth know she is a kitsune? She has never seen her as such.
And what will Lanneth do? Leave her as her father left her mother? Or bring in a mob with pitchforks and torches to drag her in front of Halgra of the Blackened Blades? And what will she do, if she is accused of being a kitsune? Deny, and flee like her mother did?
If there were a god that cared for her, a hole would open in the ground for her to disappear in. But instead there are these eyes staring daggers at her. Not that she could see them from under the bed. Until this morning she saw a steady gaze that radiates confidence and causes trust. But now she doesn't know if she could hold that gaze anymore.
Feeling the odd emotions over the link Lanneth tone hardens:
Come back out here Yorikata. I will not tolerate my familiar being ashamed of who they are.
The link reflects back determination and slight irritation
Her tone softens a bit as she continues:
Clearly someone taught you to hide what you are, the Idiot. We don't have enough bridges between the Human world and Nature. Maybe if there were more of you, the Humans and Fey wouldn't be in conflict as often.
But I digress. You deceived me girl, and this partnership will not work if we do that to each other. Now come back out here and explain to me why.
She waits calmly for the fox to look out.
Being kitsune is not the problem? Is she trying to trick me? No. she thinks. Yorikata isn't willing to give up her cover yet, but she can't answer in fox shape. Which leads to the bed being violently hit from below. "Oww!" Yorikata voices as she hits the bed frame with her figure.
"It's easy for you to say 'don't be ashamed'. You're a proud elf. Your people are looking down from your hundreds of years of life-experience on the other races. My mother was so 'proud' of us being kitsune, she didn't even care to tell me what we are! You're a human girl and don't you dare being something else, she said. You may have met more kitsune than I have. And I've never seen one in it's original form. I don't even know how I look myself as kitsune."
"And I didn't deceive you." Yorikata adds meekly, not quite persuaded herself. "You met a fox, and that is what you got. It is not like it was my choice to meet you. But I liked it. I decided to live as a fox and that way I got a shelter and food that I didn't have to hunt myself."
"And now, that we live in a town, and no longer in the woods, it becomes impractical to not be able to speak. So you get to know a new side of me that you haven't encountered so far. It isn't like you took the time to tell me your whole life story." Yorikata is aware, that this last sentence is a really weak argument. Who would tell their life to a fox. But Lanneth never cared to ask why she owned a rapier and a set of keys. She simply shrugged and went on, pigeon-holed her as fox and nothing more.
Human father most likely and no guidance. No wonder she hides.
The link transmits, sadness
Well now, most foxes don't really care to hear a few hundred years of history now do they? And yes, you are not the first shifter I have encountered. Where I grew up those who are touched by the fey are far better accepted. Of course being fey myself we are a bit more open to things like that.
Child, I don't care that you hide from others, but the fact that you hid who you are from me and yourself is a problem. You can never reach your potential if your spirit is not in harmony with your body. Being the life partner with someone that is working with one paw tied behind her back is not something I will accept.
Now come out and really introduce yourself to me, and I will let you know all you want to know about me.
Yorikata shifts back to fox form to get out from under the bed. Jumping on a chair she sits down and transforms into her human form again. "What do you mean really introduce myself?" she asks "You know Kuma. I'm a nosy fox, interested in everything, sticking my nose into stuff that is not my business and collecting things for no obvious reason. I like to eat meat, and don't like the vegetables. They are really a pain to eat and don't taste well. I like that most people ignore me when I'm Kuma and even those who wouldn't I can easily hide from. I don't need much space and a pillow in a dry room is all that I need. I can sense things with my nose you could only dream of and it is a simple, but happy life. And with you having all the responsibility it's even better."
"I am Yorikata. This is how I was raised. I'm much like Kuma as Ilove to stick my nose into other peoples business. I wasn't allowed to do that by my mother, but here in Trunau today - it was marvellous. All these people listening to me. It is like a new life. And I'm able to talk to you now."
"To be honest, I didn't miss that. You are not a person of many words. And I didn't want to talk about me. Sometimes as Kuma I saw something I would have liked to share. But the important things to warn you worked without words. And when I saw a beautiful strange colored butterfly, words wouldn't have helped. And that's all that there is about me."
Not that there is much room for interpretation. Lanneth wants to see her Kitsune form. But she hasn't been in that form since she were two or three years old. Please don't say it, please don't say it, please don't... runs through her mind against all odds.
Lanneth bows her head formally and recites.
Kuma/Yorikata, Your name sings in my ears and echos in my heart. For you there will always be a place at my side that you may find peace and rest.
The words seem to have a formal cadence when they come out as if they something long practiced.
Lanneth looks up with a smile.
Well now, it if finally nice to meet you inquisitive one. I knew there was something special about you, but I must say never expected this. Although given your bag, I should have suspected.
The bond displays a sharp spike of irritation when she says the last before it returns to the usual calm you normally get from the witch
To reciprocate your honesty, know that I am Lanneth, only daughter of Ettrian Valar the former ambassador from Kyonin to Lastwall. I am a blessed follower of Mother Moon, a scholar of Giantkind, a lifelong vegetarian and inadvertent sage. But then I suppose that happens when one is surrounded by children who do not even remember the last age.
I have been at various times in my many years: a student, a guardswoman, a herbalist, a medic and a teacher before I set out on my current effort to study the giantkin.
But most of all I am very glad to make your acquaintance Yorikata.
A huge stone falls from Yorikata's heart and a feeling of relief washes over her. "Thank you." she mutters.
Taking a deep breath she has to address it anyway. "Thank you for accepting me and thank you for not pushing me. You know that there is more to a kitsune, don't you? Another form that is neither fox nor human, or is it both? I don't know. I don't know her, she hasn't a name and she is not me. I'll introduce you to her, once I get to know her myself."
With that out of the way to not have that Damokles Sword hanging over her, her mind starts running through Lanneth description of her past. "You were a guard? Like Balder and Dain in armor with a sword?" is the first thing she asks, as she can't wrap her mind around that.
On the way back from the plague house Gran't' watches for Yorikata. He asumes that she just ran all the way back tot own, and as they pass the guards at the gate he stops to ask them if they have seen her.
He then heads back towards the inn, where he intends to collapse onto the bed. First though he heads to the smith and purchases a large steel shield.
Night falls and everyone takes to their beds with eager enthusiasm.
Lanneth hears a noise and wakes, as she rolls over Lanneth notes someone in the room whom she does not recognize.
Yes believe it or not, I was. As a matter of fact, I actually trained in this very town, many years ago when Lastwall still controlled this area.
The bond carries the feeling of amusement as she continues.
Not that I was really good at it. I used to get in trouble constantly for making up reasons I couldn't do this or that drill. I think my patrol leader only put up with it because of who my father was. But I spent many a night bored out of my mind as I was standing gate duty and many days training for when I had to take my turn as an archer on the Hordeline. I didn't serve long, just a few years. But looking back my father was correct. Some of the things being in the guard taught me have served me well in the time since.
She smiles as she looks back at Yorikata's face.
What did you think I was always some hermit woman in the woods?
"Yes." Yorikata replies truthfully. "I had no reason to believe otherwise. Now that I think about it, it is totally logical that you didn't sit in the wood for how many years? Hundreds?"
"That's like..." Yorikate takes her fingers to count "eight, ten, a dozen lifes? We can make a habit of you telling me one of your lifes every evening and within a month I've heard of all of them. How is that getting so old? Do you get bored of your life, and because you have the time start something new?"
Zzznnorrreee
The door, creeks open to the room of Yorikata and Lanneth, in step 2 women in leather armor, they appear slightly shocked that you are still awake.
Yorikata is pretty sure that these people have no good intentions. She jumps up and shouts at the top of her lungs "What are you doing here in the middle of the night! Tell now, or bear the consequences!" hoping to wake as many people as possible.
Her hands slide into er pocket.
"We are the cleaning service They carry no weapons
First the wolves and now this. How stupid do they think I am. Cleaning service in the middle of the night in our room, without bringing cleaning equipment? "BALDER! GRAN'T'! DAIN! HEEEEELP! COME HEEEREE!"
snnghhhhhh a sound like rocks rolling down a hill can be heard
Lanneth stands up and steps back in the room.
A cleaning crew in the middle of the night in armor, in a place where there was a murder last night. Sure... Why don't you sleep on that and dream up a better story!
Lanneth calls the night faries to do their work on the woman closest to the door.
Then she draws her rapier to defend herself.
Dain bolts upright We got trouble!
One of the "cleaners" slumps against the wall asleep, the other looks at her companion and draws something out of her bed, pulling it apart it forms in to a shimmering blade of pure liquid.
This a liquid blade a weapon of assassins since it can house poisons in the container that the blade comes out of.
Dain wakes up to find someone just coming into his door as well, with the flick of a wrist the person at his door has a blade suddenly appear in their hand and they close the distance to his bed.
"Zzzz... Balder smash puny giantsszzZZZ..."