Melody of Ice

▀▀Takayama, a peaceful village that lies in the valley of a large mountain. Within the mountains lies a dense forest, said to make the best navigators loose their way inside this forest. In this forest, lies a ever flowing river. The river flows down a waterfall. A little ways away from the waterfall's peak, on the river, lies a old.. abandoned house. In the middle of the house, in a courtyard lies a Sakura Tree. The only Sakura tree in the entire forest. This house though, isn't abandoned much, but rather...inhabited by fox spirits that watch over the village of Takayama.

Xen was by this point in her eventful - but quite unfulfilling - life quite used to the watchful stare of suspicious shopkeepers as she skulked past their stalls. The creature's head was sunk low before her shoulders, in the unnatural position of someone undesiring of the attention they received. Were a passerby to spend too long pondering that this could not be comfortable, their wayward gaze would be quickly shot aside with a rancorous glare of warning through bright yet deep set eyes.

Her bland expression of total disregard for the rest of the human race probably didn't help her case, but this was her first and perhaps most effective line of defense. It was an intimidation tactic, and solitary Tal'he survival instinct #1: 'A mountain lion needs only bare her fangs, so that the wolves may leave her be.' Essentially, nobody fucks with you if you look like you're going to fuck with them first.

▀▀Kori had fallen asleep in his tree in the courtyard of the house, snoozing away while Minori slips away to go into town, she had taken a form of a female male child.

▀▀Meanwhile, in the village, Minori was playing around in the park with the kids. Sunset had reached the valley and she decided to skip through town, aimlessly with her eyes closed, she bumps into a female and gets startled a little bit as she gets knocked over, looking up at the womens left arm. She gets up and turns to run away through the buildings, a large gust of wind follows after she leaves, but leaving no way to find where she went. However she had went back home to find Kori upset and eventually gets punished by him.

Xen feels the breath knocked out of her as some irksome ball of giddy excitement smacks into her gut, before she can respond the child is gone. She immediately slips her right hand into her cloak, grasping for her satchel. Still there. Still full. She'd notice if her coin purse had been even a little relieved of its contents.

Glancing down the street there is no sight of the child amongst the crowd, presumably having disappeared down a cramped alley not 100 metres away. Xen tugs her hood further over her head and continues on her way.

▀▀Irked by the fact his little mess of Kit ran into someone, Kori and Minori left their house in the morning, to have gotten to the village at half past noon. Minori had taken her human child form once again in hopes to find the lady. Kori still furious at the little kit, for he actually showed his regular form without his tail or ears. Still quite cold around the area he was at.

Her target sighted, the hunt is on.

Cast under the blushing sunset light, the marketplace is busy with noise and activity. The life and movement of the scene so much so that the average person's senses would commonly be overwhelmed by such an onslaught of chatter and conversation. But Xen was well used to working in this place; the city had long been her home, and the currently bustling market her hunting ground. Her focus was set on her goal, wavering only on brisk occasion to see that she was not being watched.

Xen drew close now, and recalled in the depths of her mind that the expert theif needs no vast menagerie of treasure and gold to prove her skill, for she can lift any object of desire at a moment's notice. And for an outsider such as her, thieving as many of those juicy green apples as possible - carelessly piled so high on the makeshift table - should be no measure of trouble at all.

Nearly looking all day...Kori gets upset and lies on one of the houses, out of site of the normal human populous. Minori sitting close to him.

After a hour of so of studying the regular movement of the citizens of the town he yawns and gets up, to only spot a slightly different movement then normal so he gets down and heads to a nearby bread stand to get some bread for the little Minori with him. However a female passed by him, nearly shoving him. so Kori lets out a small puff of cold air in response. Kori shrugs off the feeling and then heads back to the sleeping Minori to wake her up so she can eat a little

As Minori eats, she points down at the crowd and yells out "thats her!"

As Xen draws in close, she reaches out for her target. Just an inch more...

As she does, a male who had been chattering amongst a small group behind her clumsily backs into the thief with force enough for quite a thump. Her body is flung forward, and she curses repeatedly to herself as her open hand flies forward into the precariously balanced pile of apples.

Her palm thrusts itself haphazardly through the stack, sending the delicious prize scattering all about the stall and tumbling onto the floor and leaving Xen, stood there, quite a fool grasping the stallholder's ripe green stock.

"What?" replies Xen with a bite of the apple, a nonchalant utterance in the face of the spectators' accusing glare.

"oh you can see me?" he replies in shock. Minori coming down in a hurry to help pick up the apples, since Kori cannot in his current form. "I apologize for bumping into you, i wasn't paying any attention. However could you please follow me over to the park. There's a giant tree there i wanna talk to you at." he eagerly awaits a answer as he watches Minori put the apples in a neat stack again.

The bystanders turn their attention to the new speaker; "Oy! Thieves!" cries out a deep voice from the crowd, apparently assuming the newcomers her accomplices come to help her slip away.

"Given the timing... I ought to decline." hisses the female, as if intending the crowd not the hear.

Kicking off abruptly from her hind right foot, she darts past Kori, shoving into his shoulder with most likely enough force to bruise as she goes and picks her way -shoving and pushing - through the crowd at a pace and leaving the furious shopkeep in her wake.

he sighs and darts out of site, turning into his fox form, darting back out with Minori on his back. Minori now in her regular form, bringing her fans out of the kimono to open a path with wind. Kori now running up to the mysterious girl, running along side of her. "Get on, we'll help you out of town."

She glances at him, still at full pelt, one foot before the other pounding in hard rhythm  against the dusty ground.
"What the heck are you pair?"

Kori sighs again "Just get on, we'll explain on our way to the shrine"
Minori chimes in after Kori "In a word, Deities. Now get on, please"

No stranger to these unusual situations - although, admittedly, this was one of the more peculiar ones -, Xen really didn't feel she had time for this. So she was, truly, interested; but feeling a degree of humiliation at her failed robbery, had little desire to be tailed and in such situations endevoured to slip away down some inviting side-street or alley.

She rolled her eyes, veered abruptly to her left; sleek, metallic tail snaking past in her mimicry of her swift evasion in a great swoop towards the pair.

Kori instinctly moved out of the way, but then catches up to the woman "We're delivered food every day up at the shrine as donations, most of it we just feed to the animals, but we can't eat it, and since its turning to Fall, most of the animals are hibernating. Therefore we have a 'overstock' of food, you're welcome to it if you come with us" Kori intently bargains with her, hoping that'll suffice enough for her to come with them.

"..." she pauses.
Okay, bribery works.

What did you expect? She's a dirty thief, after all.
With no real communication either way, Xen outstretches a hand for Minori to pull her up.

Minori grabs her hand, and with the assistance of wind, she gets her onto Kori and he darts right out of the villiage into the forest going up the mountain "Theres a shine to this vallies deities---" "us" "The citizens of this town is believed that when it snows, i'm upset, so just before it snows they give me food. Honestly its the seasonal period here to snow, but this town lives off of grown fruit, like that apple you're eating. Anyways Minori and i watch over this little village, we're just two spirits that happen to live in a old house they turned into a shrine for us."

after the story book, he slows down "They shouldn't be after us anymore, im sure we could rest"

Xen eyes the pair with suspicion, particularly Kori. Her head raised to slight angle, she casts her eyes down and upon him.

"You do not look like the 'mightee deities of old' my culture always speaks of."

he stops off by some trees, laying down to let the ladies off. "yeah thats the thing, we're not. we're just two spirits that govern a certain element. oh i apologize, my name is Kōrinoseishin, however i prefer just Kori." bubbly little Minori comes over and bows slightly "and i'm Minori~ pleased to meet chu~~"

Kori stretches and turns back to his spirit form, sitting down by a opposite tree "Anyways, we're just two foxes that happened to had died up here years and years ago. The Villagers just happen to call us Deities"

"Well, I thank you for the escape but..." she pauses, as she wonders about the food one of the odd pair had mentioned and begins to move away "...I must be going."

he pauses for a moment and reaches into his satchel, and brings out a fresh loaf of bread "Here, its what i brought with me, there's more at the shrine" he stands and starts walking. "please come, its not too far from here. There should be a lake just a little north from here"

"You're showing an awful lot of interest in a stranger." she half-laughs, taking the bread from him with no hesitation.

"Honestly, its Minori that sees good in you, but i can see it as well. also, i needed to pay you back to embarrassing you in town" he laughs a little, coming out to a big lake. water fall at one end rushing down into the water "and here's where i live. However may i ask your name?"

"Yes, some good, I suppose..." she trails off by the end, words a little quieter than her usual tone.

Xen continues silently for a moment, as they arrive at the lake. A sight that would draw a gasp from most a traveler; the glistening lake at its height in the midday sun cascades into the pool as it crashes in shards, like cold crystal-ice rushing over the edge and tumbling down the rocks below.

"You were watching me." she states. An accusation, suspicion forms a pit in her stomach. "The girl from earlier."

"Oh? so you noticed me then too? hmmmmm odd...i wasn't trying to stalk you or anything, just never saw you in the town. we don't get many travelers but Minori had mentioned someone new was in town and she had bumped into you" he turns to Minori slightly, she hides a little "so i had to bring her back to town, Minori! don't you have something to say?" she comes out and walks over to the lady and bows a little "i-i'm sorry for knocking into you"