It was another beautiful day in Kyendi, the low clouds of pale purple and pink mists weaved their way through the rounded hills of the landscape. And on one particularly tall hill, draped in old ruins crumbling slowly into the rounded landscape, a pair of kittoms raced. One a pale blush pink fading to white at the tips of her ears. Her pink eyes, gilded green horns, combined with her soft blooming rose markings and rounded canopy tail made for an eloquent depiction of natural beauty. Her small paw, touched the edge of a strange ruin column with a crumbling statuette at the top. She grinned and blew her hair out of her face "I win!" she proclaimed with an exhale of pride at one of her rag-tag motley crew. "Only by a couple seconds, Fuu. I... would've gotten you... if I hadn't misstepped!" the other kittom panted, blowing her own small tuft of black and gold hair out of her minty seafoam green eyes. This kittom sported peculiar markings in the shape of green sea waves foaming at the tips, golden cracks line her body like the japanese art of kintsugi on a broken teapot. They meet together creating a beautiful red flower along her back, with small petals floating across the ocean waters lined with gold. Underneath her markings lie a base of half midnight black, and a soft white underbelly of fluffy fur. Her steppe tail flows gracefully behind her as if floating on a breeze, one of the few signs of the featherlight mutation she inherited from her parents. Fuu, finally recovered from all the running leaps up with a deft paw, and swings around the column holding out her other front paw in front of her as if searching for treasure. "Come on, Hiroka! We're almost at the best picnic spot! Jin and Artemis will be there! We need to discuss our future trip to Enmir it'll be epic!" Fuu exclaims.
"Hell yes! Trip to Enmir is going to so chicka-licken epic!!!" Hiroka says back her mint green eyes sparkling in the sunlight. "Man, I just can't wait to blow Kyendi away and head to the swampy marshes down south! You can just smell 'adventure' from that place near the Shaedmoor" she says, while imagining in her head all the antics they'd come across. "Maybe we'd even find a rare alchemical plant! Something.... bioluminescent!"
"And shiny! Like... a rare swamp rose!" Fuu adds, hopping down off the column and following Hiroka as she walks on ahead through the ancient ruin. "Maybe, it's special! And only blooms once every blue moon! Or! Or! Maaaybe, a hidden ruin! All invisible to the naked eye until suddenly..." Fuu runs up to Hiroka stopping her from running ahead much further, "Jin trips over a root! And tumbles below to the rooty growth underneath discovering an ancient ruin at the foot of shaedmoor!" Fuu exclaims wondrously, clutching Hiroka's shoulder close and making a grand gesture with her paw, as if the ruin was right in front of the pair of them.
"Pfffft, Jin? Trip over? Fuu, that guy's gonna be the one who'll be pointing out the root and telling us to 'watch out and mind your step'. It's more likely going to be you or me who does the tripping and falling" she says with a smile and Fuu, in turn, giggles, before the two girls burst into chortles of laughter at their own inside joke.
"Okay, okay. But in all seriousness I can't WAIT for this trip to start. Ever since we met that one time at the Inn when I was telling you about my great trip around Faerindell, I just had a good vibe about you Hiro! We're going to have such fun, just you wait and see!" Fuu says, while trotting ahead of Hiroka and walking backwards and chatting amicably.
"FUU LOOK OUT!" Hiroka calls, and runs up to her friend grabbing onto her. Fuu quickly turns her head and catches sight of the small tributary running off the side off a cliff into streaming waterfalls landing far down below.
"HOLY SUNLETH!" Fuu exclaims as she scrambles back away from the edge "Man, that was close. Heh... maaaybe you're right. We're probably going to be the ones to discover an ancient ruin first."
"I'm sure if Jin were here you'd be getting an earful right now." Hiroka said with a wink.
"Yeah, but he ain't! Heh, there's a reason I wanted to head to the picnic with you and not the boys." she said, rolling her eyes. The pair continue slowly climbing up the sunlit mountains, traversing the tributary on large rocky stepping stones placed into the water by some unknown civilization of years gone by. As they continue climbing Hiroka can't help but admire the view and how far up they'd come! Nearby the very fringes of Sulapei's enormous sprawling city of various little towns spread out below. Like small dollhouses, some even the size of an ant's house, with little elnin and kittoms, like ants crawling about and doing their daily business. Further in the distance, Kyendi's eldertree can be seen, it's slender long branches reaching up into the sky and billowing out into soft green willow withes gently swaying in an unknown breeze. At this distance it almost feels like if you reached out you could touch the tree trunk and lean against it, but in actual fact, the tree itself is so massive that if you stood at the foot of it, you'd have to cimb for a day and a half just to get up one of it's small roots! At the foot of the large eldertree, a lake spreads out and away. The blue waters half shaded by the glorious willow, and the other half barely glinting in the sunlight. Tendrils of mist, lightly hover above the lake, barely touching the surface as if scared to get any closer to the beautiful deep blue of the majestic lake. The mist continues to duck and weave upwards between the branches of the great elder tree, before snaking all the way down through the mountains and tapering off as they come to the capital city of Sulapei. Hiroka turns her gaze north and looks at the magnificent mountain range above and in the far distance. The Rasjana mountains. A craggy steep surface, whose mountaintops are so far off in the distance, you can barely make out the top of them. The great border between Kyendi the desert country of Zevija and the mysterious country of the nightmarish Val D'sari. So many nin have gone missing in that peculiar barren land, it's practically taboo to even think of going there! But maybe... maybe one day, with Fuu and the gang at my side we might become one of those legendary adventurers who visit the mysterious swirling wastes. Vaguely Hiroka becomes aware of someone calling her name softly and from a distance. Her white ear twitches, before a blush pink paw waves past her view of the mountains. Blinking twice, she turns away from the tall landscape and nearly headbutt's Fuu in the nose! Surprised, Fuu doubles backwards and falls over onto her rump. Hiroka shakes her head,
"Whoops, sorry Fuu! Got distracted by the thoughts of our future adventures together." She leans down and offers Fuu a paw to help get her up, but instead Fuu splashes her with a pawful of water, which soon devolves into a splash fight. As the sun begins to set, the pair finally make their way to the top of the rounded hill. An old ruin terrace paved with ancient inscriptions and drawings, gives way to the beautiful scenery of Kyendi, and it's eldertree, below. Resting atop the stone dias are another pair of nin. One stoically tapping his dark purple foot against the stone, and staring at his watch with a scowl on his face, and the other nose deep in a book with stars across the cover. As the dark purple nin, with the flowery markings and peach colored hair looked up he breathed out a sigh of relief, and his blue eyes narrowed at the duo climbing up to the picnic site. "You're both late! The sun's practically setting! I was so worried about you both, especially you, Fuu!" he exclaims before gently holding Fuu by the shoulders and checking that she's intact with no cuts or bruises from the grueling hike. Fuu smiles at Jin's antics and rolls her eyes before winking at Hiroka. Hiroka stifles a laugh before she too is inspected by Jin, and she ducks away from his grip after a couple minutes.
"Don't worry so much Jin! We're both fine! I just got distracted by the scenery, and then Fuu and I had the most epic water fight"
"WATER FIGHT?! You're both going to catch colds!" Fuu and Hiroka both roll their eyes again. Typical Jin, Hiroka thinks to herself, always worrying about the slightest thing.
"Oh, leave them be Jin. They made it here anyways! We can have an evening picnic! It's all the better to see the stars anyways!" The nin with the book in his face says, carefully bookmarking his spot before heading over to greet the two latecomers. This nin was pale blush pink, with markings that seamlessly flow into a deep blue like the ocean, a crescent moon marking sits atop his left shoulder.
"Yes, yes, Artemis. We planned to see the stars anyways, just double checking but you didn't forget to tell your Dad where you were going, did you Hiroka? You know how he worries when you disa-"
"OH CRAP! DAD! I KNEW I FORGOT SOMETHING" Hiroka exclaims with a loud groan and holds her head in her paw. "Oh man... he's going to be freaking out by the time I get back... he's such an overprotective pain in the ass!"
"Oh, he's not THAT bad Hiro!" Fuu exclaims shaking her head at her friend's disdain.
"Ohhhh trust me. If it ain't 'it's too dangerous to go alone take this!' or 'don't forget a compass in case you get lost' or 'i'll tail you myself and bring you home if I have to'. Ahh crap he's going to come to our picnic isn't he?"
"Oh look there he is now!" Fuu said with a grin before pointing to a rather blue elnin, attempting to hide in some bushes. At being found out he stands up and rubs the back of his head sheepishly, his attempt at being stealthy completely foiled. Oh typical Dad. Hiroka thinks to herself. I shouldn't be surprised by now. He just needs to learn to let go, like I'm big enough to go on my own adventures now. Oh no... I wonder if he heard our plans about going to Enmir. Oh I hope I get to stay at least late enough to have Artemis show me the stars and tell us about the constellations.
