A/N: Wrapping up the Kitsune side of things, so Lupus can finally start getting some family bonding in.
Also, #bestchaptername
Canon name = nickname.
Velouria = Vella. Keaton = Keaty. Hinoka = Hina. Setsuna = Seta. Corrin = Lupus. Sakura = Saku. Ryoma = Red. Azama = Monkundo. Subaki = Superman. Selkie = Silky. Kaden = Ka-da. Lastly, only Selkie/Silky refers to Corrin/Lupus as Lu-pu.
Consort: I know, poor Lupus. She'll understand why the humans aren't as fit as her. They don't run around in high altitudes daily, weaving around all of those obstacles a forest and mountain provides. ANd let's not forget that the amount of oxygen is lower the higher you get, so Lupus would obviously have an extremely strong pair of lungs on her.
Right, finishing off the Kitsunes for now so she can get back to her family. I agree with starting with Hinoka, but I also can confidently state that I know how her familial bonding with Takumi will go… which is a surprise how easily the idea came, considering he is my least favorite.
Curse of Whimsy: Filler isn't necessarily bad, it's nice to have a moment or two that doesn't really go anywhere plot-wise.
It's always the quiet ones that speak the loudest, yeah? The ones who point out the least things knows the most.
Frankly, Lupus is like, a more toned down version of Yasei. Er, not as intense, rather. The traits still line up to an extent, but they aren't pushed as much… It's a wonder how different they turned out, and it's all really because Lupus has been living with that mentality her whole life, rather than with them popping out of nowhere.
Half-beastdragonsoul2013: Seta has a keen eye for combat AND casual observances.
...At least Lupus didn't end up calling Takumi 'Pineapple', or Ryoma 'Lobster'. There are a number of worse nicknames they could end up with.
Silky led Lupus to a nearby lake, to which she eagerly lapped up the cool water. It would have been better colder, but the sun prevents that from happening. Regardless, she drinks her fill, before turning to Silky with a water-drenched face and smiling. Her throat isn't dry anymore, though her legs are still a bit sore.
So, now all that's left is playtime!
"Hey, Silky?" Lupus starts off, "Would it be okay if we played… y'know, in our shifted forms?"
"You sure?" She asked, "Are you gonna be okay?"
"I have my Dragonstone, so yeah." She raised her necklace, with the blue-ish stone held inside its clasp. "Besides, I need to learn how to use it properly."
"Right, because you shifted without your Stone." Ka-da brings up, narrowing his eyes on her, "I'd only say yes to watch you stumble around."
"Ka-da!" Silky retorts. "That's mean." She puffs her cheek out.
"You forgave her, not me."
Silky's ears drooped down, "Then it's a surprise you are even still here." Lupus counters. "If you're thinking I'm just going to be a shifter and listen…"
"Perhaps I just don't believe you won't try anything again…" Ka-da declares.
"Really?" Lupus pouts, "Why?"
"You nearly killed us, Lupus. You chose to…"
"We've already been over that! Find a different reason!" She growls, narrowing her eyes.
"..." Ka-da glares.
"Oh, I get it." She slightly relents, "You think that since I'm a good choice for a mate, that I'll just bend over and obey and agree with whatever you have to say. Well, I'm not that type of bitch. I'm part human, part dragon, raised as a Wolfskin."
Ka-da smirks and his eyes light up, "Alright, we'll play in our shifted forms." He speaks up, "Just you and me."
That is, his eyes lit up with a glint. Unlike his interest, however, Silky huffs and backs off, "If you're gonna test for 'that', then Imma hunt." She puffs her chest, turns around, and walks off… almost childishly muttering complaints.
Ka-da keeps his gaze on Lupus, the former with his Beaststone in hand, the latter with her Dragonstone slightly glowing. "I got your interest, then?" Lupus asks, "so now you want to pin me down?"
"I want to see how deeply rooted your Wolfskin habits are." His Beaststone glows as he shifts, "And if you happen to prove yourself capable in your dragon form? Then yes, I'll pin you down and mate with you."
She shivers, before shaking her head and focusing on her own Dragonstone, "Good, I wasn't going to roll over and spread my legs, anyway. I'm gonna make you work if you want me." Smiling, she shifts. "And… even if you do end up claiming me, I'm not going to remain a submissive like a bitch in heat. I'm going to keep fighting back."
At that, the distinct smell of musk hits the air and Ka-da's… 'fox' ends up pitching a tent in his pants. "Uh-huh. Let's see how well you can back up your words, Lupus." He growls, "You ready?"
She returns his growl with her own, "Yep."
With the speed Lupus expected from him, he pounces, slamming into her side, before using it as a ramp of sorts, jumping from her, to a tree trunk, and back to her… though this time his claws scraped against her scales. Scraped… not ripped into. If her dragon form could smirk, then she definitely would be smirking. Shaking off the Nine-tails, Lupus moves to hit him, but, he's of course, already gone from that spot. Too slow, too slow. She growls as he goes for his next pounce, but she manages to weave around him this time… and he ends up hitting her wing.
Oh, that's right, she has two of those…
She manages to land a weak back-hand of sorts, though it's enough to stagger him. She goes for a swipe next, but he's already recovered and gone by that time. She turns in place and meets his next attack head on. Perhaps he wasn't expecting her to keep up that quickly, and instead of landing that attack, he instead jumps off of her, before immediately turning around in the air to pounce off of another tree…
At least, he would have, if she didn't accidently knock the tree down.
...She forgot she has a tail, too.
He fell to the ground in an ungraceful manner. So, he must not be used to sudden changes in an environment like she is. Keeping that in mind, she attempts to strike him with her tail, but being as uncoordinated with the extra appendage as she is, she ends up missing him completely, and down goes another tree.
She's pretty sure Ka-da is snickering at her right now.
Then she gasps as he lands on her once more, this time with his claws digging into her. She went to shake him off again, but this time two of his tails anchored themselves around her wings. With his body secured, he restarts his attack, clawing into her again…
So she rolls over, forcing him to jump off, lest he gets crushed by her now-massive body. She manages to quickly get back up, before turning towards him, faster than last time.
She can do this, she's getting used to her new form…
But then again, she's fighting someone who is completely used to their form. Not to mention Ka-da has obtained the superior Nine-tails form. If he were just a normal Kitsune, then this playfight wouldn't be giving her such a hassle.
...Is this a playfight anymore? Lupus can clearly tell he meant it when he declared that he'd mate with her.
But, that would only happen if she proves to fight well enough in her dragon form. Ka-da charges her this time, instead of leaping. Unlike his jumping, however, his ground speed proves to be far better. If it weren't for her dragon's superior eyesight, then she'd never even seen him coming in the first place. If she were just a human, she wouldn't have been able to react in time.
Neither of those are true, however. So, as pitiful as it was, she swiped him as he approached, though due to his speed, it actually ended up hurting him quite a bit. He grunted as his body was sent skidding across the ground, akin to how his body skipped on the lake. Just like last time, he recovers before he would have naturally stopped, then jumped in again…
Off course.
At first, Lupus thought he missed due to just being hammered into the ground, but that thought was immediately proved wrong as he twisted his body mid-air, and jumped from an entirely different angle. Much to her discomfort, he landed on her once more, looking to end this fight.
This isn't a playfight, that much is proved once he bit the back of her neck, claws digging into her back, and those two tails wrapping themselves around her wings. He's looking to force her to submit… and as much as she wanted to experience mating, she also wasn't about to let it happen so easily.
This, was frankly, exciting her. She rears her body skyward, before completely flipping backwards. He jumps back off… as she finished off the backflip. He clearly wasn't expecting such a large creature to successfully pull that off, as she pinned him to the ground with her own hand. He struggles, though due to the sheer force of her grip, he's pretty much stuck there. "I win." She giddily declares.
He relaxes his body, and the two shift back. "...Still haven't recovered completely." He ends up making an excuse.
"Uh-huh, sure." She smuggly smirks, "Just admit it, you can't pin me down." As he got up, however, she tackles him to the ground, their eyes staring each other down, "You lost to me."
"Yeah yeah, you won." He scoffs, "I was unable to hold you down… happy?" He looks and sounds genuinely annoyed. It doesn't help his 'fox' hasn't gone down, either. He was truly confident he would have won.
"Of course." She smiled, even when her breathing came out ragged, whew she's really tired now. "I liked that fight. I held my own against a Nine-tails! Oh… I can't wait to tell Keaty and Vella that…" That pain of being unable to see them hits her again.
"Alright, I get it. Now, can we…" A pause, "Lupus?"
"I'm going to see my family." She gets off the ground, allowing Ka-da to finally rise up. "Thanks, I had fun. I hope we can play again sometime."
The nearby leaves rustle as Silky makes her return, though there seems to be some blood around her mouth. "You're going back?" She frowns, "Ka-da, are you sure you don't wanna stay with Lu-pu?"
"She's with someone." He flatly states. "It must be a human thing, since I don't smell any musk. But… I'm not going to bother." He turns and walks away, "We don't have a hamlet anymore. So, if you want to stay with her, go ahead."
"But, I want you here, too!" Silky pouts. "Weren't you the one leading the hamlet on improving relations with humans?"
A pause. "I've been thinking it over, Selkie. And I'm not going to bother. I won't put another hamlet at risk."
Lupus looks between the two, "You're being dense." She finally speaks, "I don't know how the rest of the Kitsunes act, but I think you guys can make a difference for the beast-races. We can make a good relationship between Kitsunes and Humans and Wolfskin, but it's not gonna happen overnight. We got to work towards it." She knows Seta is right.
He seems to think it over… but, she wonders what caused him to change his stance in the first place. Both he and Silky had a firm view on making a better bond between Kitsunes and humans. The only thing Lupus ends up thinking of is that something happened in the clinic. Or, is it really only because she had sex with Seta? "Selkie? Well?" He asks.
"Lu-pu is right. We're not gonna fix problems by…" She couldn't even finish before he already started walking away. "Stupid and dense Ka-da." She pouts. "Can we go, too?"
"...Yeah." Lupus nods as they walk back towards Shirasagi. She would run or even jog back, but she isn't exactly in the mood for that. "Silky, I'm sorry I caused that."
"I thought he was really gonna go through with it, but…" She starts off, "Alright, fine. Lu-pu? Ka-da had a really bad dream in the clinic. Like, his Beaststone glowing and he partially shifted bad dream."
He can partially shift? She's never seen any of the pack members do that. "What was it about?"
"The hamlet." She simply replies. "But, I think something happened to him while we were separated… but he keeps being stupid and dense and he won't talk about it. I get that neither of us can't completely 'get' all of the human things, but he clings onto beast-shifter thinking more than he should. I don't think he'll ever actually recover until he leads another hamlet… but I also don't think he can lead another hamlet until he fixes it. We aren't good at these things, Lu-pu. Y'know, talking things out. Ka-da's really strong, he makes a good alpha, but he can also be so dense. I'm trying, but I can't always get the right words out."
"Well, I don't really know how, either." Lupus nods, "But my family has been really patient and helpful, and I'm learning. Sure, I still don't like some of the things they do, like with 'etiquette' and stuff like that, but they also introduced me to things I did end up liking. I dunno if you or Keaty or Vella would like them, but I'd appreciate it if you tried."
Silky looks back once more, though Ka-da is already well out of sight, "Let's go, then. I need something to distract me." Her ears droop down. "So, watcha got planned when we get back?"
"I'd like to bond with my family some more. But, that's about as far as it gets." She admits, "Hey, Silky? You said Ka-da partially shifted, is that something Kitsunes can do?"
She nods, "Yeah, should be something any shifter can do… buuuut, there isn't an advantage to doing that, so we don't use the energy for that."
"I suppose you all just don't have a good enough set of all-around things to shift in the first place, 'cause I can form my wings and glide for a bit."
"Yeah, you're right. Well… I suppose we could just shift our tails, but even that might end up more a hassle." A wave of silence follows. Lupus notices that Silky occasionally glances behind them, even sniffing the air. She feels guilty about it, but Ka-da and Silky made their own choices. One Kitsune sticks to the 'norm' while the other fights to change how she acts.
Lupus also really hopes Ka-da will come around.
A/N: Well, I gotta admit… it originally wasn't going to end in such a somber manner. But, like with the chapter on Lupus's first dragon transformation, the other version of this one didn't mesh well. The happy and good nature of it felt forced.
But hey, at least this means that Lupus can finally have those weird moments with her family again! And maybe Silky will even end up causing some strange things to happen.