-Break-

The next day

Location: Orb’s mansion

Φ In Orb’s mansion, hiding in a dark corner without any light in the library. Is Suzuka.

Hearing people walking outside, I say, “It must be time to get up.”

Moving out of her corner, she says, “Oh darkness I will miss you.”

“Now the real challenge begins,” Suzuka says as she stares at the other people in the library.

“There is so many of them but I have a foolproof plan for avoiding all contact with each and every one of them.”

“Fox art; Unko.”

Suzuka takes all of her white tails and wraps them around her body, in a space that looks like a dog poop.

“Now no one will notice me dressed like this!” I let out a little laugh completely thrilled by my genius.

As I walk through the library I do so with a smile on my face, because no one can even notice it is me.

But then suddenly a bunch of little boys start to grab and poke at my tails.

These boys are so weak that I can’t hit them away, and this room is too small that I can’t run away. I am trapped.

Feeling woozy, I say, “Too, much, contact!”

The parents of the kids come towards me, and pick all of the kids up and then say, “Please don’t bother the nice girl.”

“Ok, buy poopy,” The kids say waving at me.

I wave back and then dash out of the room. “Mission successful. Now where is Maple.”

Looking through the crowd of people going out, I don’t see Maple. So I move over to her room and look inside, where I see neither her nor her husband.

Shocked, I say, “They're gone!”

Freaking out I say, “But she is never gone, did she wake up early today. Now I don’t know where she is I have to look for her, or how else am I going to stalk her!”

I instantly run out of the mansion and start to look around for Maple.

“Where is she, where is she, where is she.”

But as I run around, in a fervour I sense something composed of spirit energy coming towards me.

So, I release my 5 tails from the disguise and use one of them to block the arrow.

But as I do five more come towards me, so I use my four other tails to swat them away as well.

An attack from where I can’t sense any spirit energy nearby so they must have come from far away, is Atalanta challenging me to a fight. How exciting. I told her to attack me whenever, but I didn’t think she would do it now.

Suddenly I start to panic. Wait, I am supposed to be looking for Maple, but if I engage with Atalanta I might end up losing her, but fighting would feel so good.

As the two sides of my brain fight over control, another volley of arrows comes towards me, so I dodge all of them while moving back, then say, “I want to fight.”

“Fox art; leg breakers,” I say as I wrap my tail around my legs boosting their ability.

As the arrows come towards me, I dodge and then start running.

Atalanta is only using spirit energy to shoot, and not to move so I can’t trace her back.

Due to the spirit bow properties of getting heavy when no spirit energy is being used on it, she has to be constantly using tiny amounts of spirit energy on it, but not enough for me to trace.

Still, I have more than one way to trace someone’s possession, my mind reading. Right now most of the voices are from the crowd of people leaving the mansion, but if I do my best to suppress those voices.

There are three in the area ahead of me. From the position of one, I know it is Cyrus training like he always does, and from the unreadable level of thoughts going on in the others, it must be Orb, so that means this third voice is my target.

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“So you're over there,” I say, as I run towards my target.

The arrows then start to come faster, but they are all so accurate that it becomes easy to dodge them, almost like a rhythm. It feels like I am dancing with my mother.

But then as I start to dodge, I get hit with an arrow. There is no way I messed up the timing, I can read spirit energy almost perfectly. In fact, it felt as if the arrow just started to move slower in the middle of the air.

“You really are a monster Atalanta now I am excited.” As I get up I try to move but then I say, “My body is moving slower.”

As more arrows come towards me, I use my tails and knock them away, “Whatever, this should just make the fight fair now.”

As I start to move towards her again, I see something in my peripheral vision. Maple the 2nd, the Tiritrex from Jedidiah.

Using its lighting horn, it shoots towards me, so I block it with my tails, and say, “That was close.”

But then from the two giant blue horns on its back, it shoots water that combines with the lighting and hits my tail.

The water added way too much pressure to my tails, in a battle of attrition I will lose at this point.

Well, I might as well risk it if I am in such a dire situation.

I convert one of my tails into spirit energy, then start moving forward bringing me closer to the tiritrex. “This should be enough.”

Then bring them all to my right and as I do I release my body and fall to the ground dodging the fusion of water and lighting that was coming towards me by my hair.

Then while still in that position, I say, “Fox art; boundless hand.” Which turns all of my tails into one giant hand, and I smack the tiritrex with it while still on the ground.

Hearing something sneaking up behind me, I turn around and prepare to hit it with my fist. But to my surprise it is Maple, and seeing her causes me to stop and moments later I am grabbed by her.

On the ground, she has me in a tight hug, so I say, “M-M-Maple what are you doing?”

“I want to talk to you.”

Struggling, I say, “NOOOOO! LET ME GO!” While facing away from her.

Suddenly Maple starts to cry, and says, “Don’t you want to talk with me?”

This causes me to go into an even deeper panic, and I say, “PLEASE DON’T CRY I WILL DO WHATEVER YOU SAY!”

“Good,” She says as the tears disappear.

-Break-

Sitting on both my knees, I take a glance across to Maple who is doing the same.

We have just been sitting here for minutes now, I want to leave so bad. I should read her mind, and figure out what she wants, no my mind is too much of a mess right now to focus. I can’t differentiate between all the voices.

Feeling the sounds of the voices increase, I shout, “SHUT UP!”

Realizing how weird I was just acting I feel my heart about to explode, so I put my mask on and say, “What the hell are you doing you idiot, stop wasting my time and speak.”

With a calm expression, and a stern voice, Maple says, “Never talk to me like that again.”

In a neutered voice, I say, “Sorry.”

“Now take off the mask as well.”

With my head hanging low, I glance upwards and ask, “Why?”

She glares at me, which causes me to say, “Sorry for my impudent question.”

“No I was just confused, obviously it is because I would like to see your beautiful face, I wouldn’t want to deprive myself of that.”

Vibrating furiously, I say, “Ok then.” And take off my mask.

I then try to maintain eye contact with her, but it is too much and I go back to avoiding her face. “S-Sorry.”

“Don’t worry the glances I am getting are good enough for me.”

“So why do you want to talk to me.” I know she is about to scream at me for always watching her, I messed up so badly. I just wanted to make friends.

“What’s your favourite colour?”

“What?”

“What is your favourite colour?”

Is she serious, this must be some kind of joke, right? She doesn’t look like she is joking.

“Purple.”

“I see, good to know. Mine is black.”

“Huh, I thought it would be either white or blue because of your clothes colour.”

“My mother's favourite colour was white, so I wear it to make my dad happy. But mine is black, everything in Fimbulwinter is always white, our clothes, the predasaurs, most of our hair, the sights, so the colour black which is the opposite of that is far more striking and beautiful to me. Though I only ever get to see it when the blood of predasaurs lines up.”

Under my breath, I mutter, “Would you like me more if I dyed my hair black.”

With a strong tone, she says, “No. I think your hair is beautiful the way it is.”

Holding up a strand of her hair, she says, “And thanks to my legacy one colour on each of our hairs matches, makes us feel like sisters.”

I start to turn red, and then I say, “Yeah it is cool.”

“I like it having matching hair with you rather than Orb, but then I guess Orb matches with everyone.”

“Why?”

Quickly she responds with, “Because Orb is gross.”

Confused, I say, “Huh?”

Enraged, Maple says, “He is always either playing a prank on me or being too overprotective just like my father. Orb is kind to everyone, but with me it is extreme, I have caught him checking on me about seven times one night.

The fool treats me like he owes me or is indebted to me despite the fact that he isn’t on any level, and it pisses me off. He says I am like his little sister, but he makes me feel like his daughter instead.

I just don’t know what goes on in his head most of the time, sometimes I don’t even think he is human.”

Interjecting, I say, “I understand what you mean, but I think Orb is also very kind, he is like a pillow nice to hug but if you do it for too long it starts to irritate your skin.”

With a kind and happy expression, Maple says, “I know all of that, and I want to understand him better so I can help him. But unlike Willow, Atalanta, and Avram I don’t think I fully know what goes on in that boy's mind. Though I hope I will someday.”

Shaking she says, “Though I doubt this creepy feeling he gives me will go away anytime soon, especially when I am wearing his hair like this.”

“But it is so smooth and keeps us warm.”

“About that, why don’t you wear his hair like the rest of us? Your clothes are completely different?”

“They are made from Orb’s hair, I crafted them myself since I can’t wear my usual clothes up here.”

“Really, I couldn’t even tell, but how is it different colours.”

“Oh I learned if you infuse a piece of Orb’s hair with spirit energy and feel a certain emotion, it changes to said colour, then it was simply just a matter of knitting the clothes. I don’t really work well with people so I have just been doing this beside Cyrus as he trains.

With a curious face, she says, “It looks amazing, can I touch it.”

Proud and full of life, I say, “Go ahead, I can assure you of its quality.”

Preparing myself mentally, I await her touch. But instead of simply touching just a single part of my clothes, she grabs and hugs me.

Which causes me to internally start to die.

“It really is soft.”