The Will to Train

[Evan]

Evan had been spending most of his summer traveling the expansion looking for places to train and learn. He had set himself up at the Alamo Inn for a few nights while traveling around Sougen. In the morning, he set out with a bag full of weapons and a smaller pack with a book and a bit of food for later.

Evan walked across Sougen with these two bags over his shoulder, looking for a suitable open space. He eventually found himself beginning to step out onto a large plain of grasslands.

He stood at the edge of the grass and stared across the expanse of grass as he slowly took in a breath and released it. This was the place.

He adjusted the bags on his shoulder and leaned forward slightly. He then began to sprint across the grass until he was a suitable way in where he could barely see anything on either side of him.

Evan slowly stopped in this near center area of the grasslands and placed his bags on the ground. He unzipped his weapons bag and pulled out a pair of nun-chucks first. He spent the next hour or so whipping them around with great skill.

Next, he pulled out his katana. This weapon was the most special to him as it was a gift from his own teacher before they bid farewell. Evan's eyes scanned his sword as he drew it from its sheath. He placed the sheath on his weapons' bag and stood with his sword now held in both hand.

Evan started with a few basic positions and movements before going through the various sword style forms he had learned over the years. His movements almost looked like a dance with his sword as his partner as he moved gracefully along the grass.

There was something special and admirable to him about all of his weapons, but he could not deny that this sword was his favourite. It was a sword passed down to him from his teacher. It held a special meaning to his teacher also because this act of passing the sword down to a worthy student was something of a tradition. As such, this sword had been held in many different noble hands over the years.

Evan continued his swift movements with his sword until he picked up an approaching presence and stopped suddenly with his blade pointing in the direction of the one approaching. He stared at this figure from afar, not sure what, if any, intention they had for approaching. Evan slowly raised himself out of his fighting stance and lowered his sword as he watched the person.

[Ritsu]

A loud peep of the mouse was its last scream in life as Ritsu the Kitsune ended it with a swift and precise bite. Hunting mice in her true form had been a favorite game for her ever since she was a kit and she supposed centuries of lurking around in Kumo never truly took that away from her. A fox she was and a fox she shall always be until the last phase of her eternal life.

I shouldn't think of eternity, she thought, it just depresses me greatly.

She dropped the dead mouse on the grass and deliberated whether she should consume it or not. The furry things were fun to catch, but in the last few hundred years, her fondness for eating them have dwindled due to increased exposure to the human world. She sat her furry golden rump on the grass and simply stared at the rodent, her tail --currently magically combined into a single appendage-- swished to and fro. She pawed at it as she titled her head, mesmerized by its departure from the mortal world. In the end though, she determined that she must still play her part in nature and consume what she has taken from it.

She ate the mouse and scurried under the tall grasses of this vast ocean of green. Ritsu has been stalking these plains for a while now, enjoying its seemingly seamless space. It was so big and fenceless that it made her miss Kumo's bamboos, cherry trees, and asymmetrical mountains. There were no such thing as up and down in this place, only the flatness of the meadows. A mortal man could easily drown in it, get lost, and never find himself again, just like how travelers lose their way in deserts and seas. So it was to her great surprise when she found a person swinging a couple of sticks around like an idiot.

Nunchaku?

She hadn't seen that kind of weapon since she left Kumo. With her curiosity perked, Ritsu lopped towards the bipedal with a soundless stride that Kitsunes were infamous for. She weaved around the tall grasses, her pale yellow fur almost invisible in the green sea. Much to her surprise though, the man had somehow sense her presence and raised a weapon in defense.

Just what does he hope to defend against around here? Peasants? Mice? Well I am here but that's another issue...

Unwilling to make the samurai-- he does have a katana after all-- the Kitsune stopped in her tracks and flopped her rear on the grass. She raised her long tail up in the air until only the white tip of it was visible and waved it around like a flag of surrender.

Hmm... I smell a kitty cat.