Miracles and Maple Leaves IC

[TheAmishPirate]

"They also have legs. And wings. And more than two teeth." Keitaro chimes in from his bag. "Snakes only have two teeth because they've gotta learn how to use two before they can get more." A friendly snake had told him so when he'd asked. And then the friendly snake showed him how its teeth worked. And then his thoughts had gone all fuzzy and he giggled in the grass for a long time.

That was a very friendly snake indeed.

[Trobby]

Tami thought about these facts for a very long time, before coming to a serious conclusion.

"I'd probably be the wizard who made the dragon kidnap princesses."

Tami imagined herself, a great and powerful wizard covered in robes, wearing a sleeping cap for some reason, cackling madly as she turned a tiny snake into a dragon.

Her tail twitched. She liked the idea of having magic to do all the things for her.

"Yeah...a beautiful, powerful wizard..."

[Atreli]

Wolf laughed and laughed. clutching at his sides before he regained his composure.

"Oh no Tami! Don't do that! Then I would have to defeat you in a duel!"

[Trobby]

Tami's eyes flashed for a moment clearly spurred on by this challenge.

"Then a duel we shall have, for I am the greatest and most powerful wizard of all~!" Tami declares, using her bags as a cloak to 'mysteriously' cover her eyes.

Of course, Tami would probably concede to a real duel and break for a nap, but let's let the girl have her moment.

[TheAmishPirate]

Keitaro leaned back to Hisano. "Don't worry Missy Miss Hisano. I don't want to duel you so we don't have to duel just because they do." he reassured her.

It was very important to make ones intentions clear, especially as a guard dog as big and scary as himself.

[Deme]

"Why, thank you, Keitaro, dear. It's a great comfort to know that,"

She uncovers her mouth just long enough to say before hiding it to suppress a laugh. They were all taking it so seriously, after all! She eventually composed herself enough to join in on the fun with,

"Of course, Tami, you'll want to be careful; I won't have any kidnappers over for dinner. It's not polite to make dragons kidnap people."

She waggled her finger in Tami's direction, having not had the mind-reading powers to have heard her place in Tami's little fantasy, which she might have objected to a bit more.

"Especially not since the only dragon you could find around here... Would be the dragon of the river my grandmother told me about when I was a little girl. But if he's that old, then he deserves your respect far too much to be made to kidnap princesses, so I won't allow it!"


((A dream for everyone for this great bit, besides your excellent patience.))

[Trobby]

Tami considers this, while looking up at the darkening twilight sky, her eyes flashing against the sunset as her little legs carried her forward on automatic drive.

"I don't really know any dragons Ms. Hisano." She says, showing that she does in fact know how to remember names. "But I don't think I'd ever make one kidnap a person. Not really. It's just fun to pretend."

She considered this awhile longer, and then added

"But I think you'd make a pretty princess all the same."

[Deme]

"I'm glad to know you're not plotting wickedness," She said, entertained by how seriously Tami was taking all of this. With a dangling from her arm, she ruffled Tami's hair.
"But you don't need to worry -- I never really thought you were."

They walked a ways down the street by the river, until they came to a short little house with a wide, low blue-grey roof, set in a fairly large yard with a tall white fence. The house was raised slightly, from an age -- and it may have well, in design if not in details, been that age -- when the flooding of the river was a very real concern.

"Ah, here we are."

She went up to the front porch and opened the door (this is the sort of town where people do not lock their doors regularly), reached down to remove her shoes and put on some house slippers, and entered, gesturing for the rest to follow.

She paused in front of a small alcove and prayed silently, then -- hurrying a bit, with the burden of bags almost over -- down a hallway.

"The kitchen's this way, you can put the groceries in there."

The alcove she left behind, with them left in the entranceway with it, was a memorial. A stick of incense, which was not lit at just that moment, a few fresh flowers in a vase... And a picture with black ribbons around the corners of the frames. The photograph itself was of a white-haired man, somewhat tan from years out-of-doors, with thin-rimmed glasses and a warm, affectionate smile. The picture must have been taken at some formal occaison -- the man's shoulders, barely a part of the picture, had him in a nice-looking suit.\

Also in the entryway were two sets of cardboard boxes. The first set was open, empty, and neatly stacked inside one another. The other set were full, closed, sealed, and naturally disorganized. They had labels with things like "Old clothes" or "Children's toys" or "Books."

It seems things were happening at Hisano's house.

((Alright, one last round of posts before we switch scenes.))

[Atreli]

"This place is great Miss Hisano! " Wolf yelled as he slipped into his slippers and ran around the house excitedly.

After a few moments he down long enough to try to peek in the box labeled ' children's toys. '

"You know it's almost like you were hoping we'd show up. " he knew it was probably a coincidence but he loved getting to smile.

[Trobby]

Tami, who was not used to hard physical labor at all, rested her body against the nearest available piece of furniture to catch her breath, acting like she'd just run an Olympic marathon by how exhausted she was.

Then she saw the picture, and peered at it very carefully.

Something about it caught her interest, and made her forget how tired she was for just a moment. He looked very much like someone important, if not to her, then to...

"This must be Ms. Hisano's husband." Tami said with a childlike innocence.

[TheAmishPirate]

"Some persons have husbands, but other persons have wives. I think they get them to have people to talk to and to help keep the bed covers warm." Keitaro nodded sagely. "Things are warmer when you have twice the persons warming it up and it makes for much better sleeping ins." Not that he'd ever finagled a night off of his post to sleep with a family all warm and cozy under the covers.

At least, not more than once twice several was necessary.

[Trobby]

Tami's eyes brightened at the idea of being able to cozy up with two big warm bodies inside of a comfy human bed for sleeping. Had she her tail, it would be thumping back and forth on the ground.

"That's very important information Keitaro. Thank you." She patted the boy on the back in a way that one might pat a dog. Exactly in a way one might pet a dog.

[Deme]

And now we'll cut away while Hisano cooks dinner!

Between Scene Business
((I don't have enough dreams to make any connection upgrades, but does anyone else?))

[Trobby]

Between Scene Things

Tami's connection to Hisano has been upgraded from 1 to 2.

((Also, as a very belated gift, I'd like to give a dream to Hisano, just for being a great first character for Deme's first story in this RP.))

[Deme]

((For the start of the scene, Wolf gets 7 Wonder and Feeling. Tami gets 8 Wonder, 7 Feeling. Keitaro gets 10 Wonder, 7 Feeling.
You will need to spend wonder again to take human-ish form.))

Scene #2
Time: Evening
Place: Hisano's Dining Room


We cut to after dinner's been prepared, though it's only starting to be served: the table's been mostly set, and Hisano's starting to move small bowls of rice from the kitchen: dinner is the rice, some miso soup, and tonkatsu (She apologized, jokingly, for not having shredded cabbage to go with it -- and then realized Tami was probably sincerely disappointed, and tried to distract her with extra rice). It's taking her a while, since there are 4 plates of each, and she's the sort of person who generally doesn't want to ask for help if she can get away with it. The dining room's a fairly-sized place, clearly more suited to visiting family than to Hisano alone, with a long table and room enough to seat about 6. There's an antique-looking teaset on display in a cabinet nearby.

[Trobby]

Spoiler

Show

Tami will be spending 4 Willpower to maintain her human form

Tami has always enjoyed cabbage. People always buy a whole head of it and, for some reason, never finish the whole thing, so she tends to find large amounts of it thrown out and ready to eat...for a Raccoon Dog at least.

But she's just as pleased by what is being put in front of her, which largely consists of things she isn't that familiar with, but which her nose is telling her is definitely food.

She recognizes rice, which people always make too much of and throw out. And she recognizes the pork, even though she doesn't usually get it all cut up and in whole pieces.

The miso soup however has her perplexed. She has poked her finger in it and blown on it frantically to cool it off. And she has sniffed at it and determined it is very good-smelling, but as far as she can tell, it is simply very hot water with some leafs and weird white cubes in it.

"Grandma Hisano, what are those little white thingies there?" She asks with childlike wonderment that she can still pull off as worldly unknowing, as she points at the hot soup.

[Deme]

As Hisano's finishing up with the table, she chuckles -- children never think of a question about an old thing until they're in a new situation (everything else, presumably, they will think questions about -- and then they'll think of new things to think of questions about. But when you saw it often enough, young enough... Of course, she was wrong, but this is a leap of logic.)

She places down another bowl of soup -- meaning that she's done putting down the soup, and just has to finish placing the rice with the last bowl in her hands, and move to putting down the cutlets.

"That's tofu," She answered, in the tone of voice of someone who has spent the past little while answering every question imaginable, and could now probably write a book... And yet, that still was dwarfed by when her little ones were growing up, and she'd get the same batches, staggered across the years, 3 separate times.

[Trobby]

Tami's eyes brightened up at the mention of Tofu. She knew that word at least.

"Ooooh my friend Aki loves Tofu. If she were here I'm sure she'd love it too."

Tami tries to reach in to snag the tofu by hand, but when this only causes the tips of her fingers to be burnt slightly, she instead tries to take a veeerry careful sip of her soup, directly out of the bowl.

[Deme]

Hisano tapped her on the shoulder and pointed at the soup-spoon insistently. This is a house, not a ramen shop, young lady, said her expression.

"I'd say you should invite her next time... But I'm afraid that won't be possible."

She said that last bit softly, so that the clink of the plates on the table nearly overshadowed her voice.


((I'll give Tami a dream for some gentle universe expansion.))

[Atreli]

Wolf quietly ate his food. He was familar with all this due to his own family so he just tried to focus on eating the way they usually do instead of like a puppy.
This is harder then it looks...
"Why not Ms. Hisano?"

[TheAmishPirate]

Keitaro, meanwhile, had immediately made it his mission to gnaw on each individual piece of pork for as long as possible. Such a rare, meaty treat, the little dog-boy couldn't afford to waste even a morsel of flavor.

"Is it 'cause you won't have food?" Good manners demanded he store his current pork piece in his cheek. "Having people is good but having not-food is even more bad. Do you need more bag-carriers? I can carry lots of bags especially when they're bags with food. Those are the best bags."

[Deme]

What a single-minded bunch... And joined them at the dinner table, since she'd not even had time to put it all down before they descended upon it like, well, like wild animals.

"Ah, it's not like that...Please, don't worry." She paused and considered it, sipping a spoonful of soup. "Well, it might be a little like that, depending on who you ask. Since my husband passed..." It's still clearly a fresh, painful feeling -- she pauses again, longer this time, pretending to busy herself with her soup, but just staring for a moment at the bowl of the spoon. After a moment, she considered, and softer this time. "After that... My children don't feel comfortable leaving me all the way out here, so far from anyone if I needed help." With a shake of her head, as if scolding them for worrying too much about their old mother, she continued. "They insisted, though; I'm beat. You saw the boxes in the hall, right? In a few more days, my oldest son is picking me up, to bring me to the city to live with his family."

[Trobby]

Tami let her bowl back down to the table, wiping a few drops of the broth off her face, with her shirt sleeve of course.

"But you're already here. Why doesn't he just come to you and help you carry food so that he can get good meals?"

This seems like a fair exchange to her that has no problems whatsoever. As she actually uses her spoon properly....to scoop up the rice. Ah, points for effort, Tami.

[Deme]

For a moment, she was startled by the simplicity of the question. She laughed and shook her head and said,

"It's not that simple, dear. After all, my son has his work, and his children have their friends and their schools. What sort of mother or grandmother would I be, if I asked them to give up their lives for me -- when really, it ought to be the other way around?"

She said this with a bit of iron firmness to her, a strong light shining in her brown eyes; this was something not only that she believed, but considered something of a point of pride to believe.

[Atreli]

Throughout the latter conversation Wolf had been nodding off. Not out of any intention to be disrespectful but puppies did not stay awake long. Go go go then crash! That was the life of a puppy and currently the crashing part was definitely his.

That said, this completely explains what happened next. Sploosh! With the clapping wet sound of soup hitting flesh, Wolf face planted into his bowl.

[Trobby]

Tami was lightning quick with her reaction to this unfortunate incident.

"...Oh...Wolf fell asleep."

Lighting that has been taking on a few pounds and sleeping in lately, that is.

"Wolf, I know sleep is good for you but it's rude to sleep when someone's talking. Aki would be really cross with you if she were here." Tami says, poking Wolf's cheek every second or so to try to wake him up.

((A Dream to Wolf for breaking the dramatic tension, and the post drought))

[TheAmishPirate]

For a moment, she was startled by the simplicity of the question. She laughed and shook her head and said,

"It's not that simple, dear. After all, my son has his work, and his children have their friends and their schools. What sort of mother or grandmother would I be, if I asked them to give up their lives for me -- when really, it ought to be the other way around?"

She said this with a bit of iron firmness to her, a strong light shining in her brown eyes; this was something not only that she believed, but considered something of a point of pride to believe.

"I'm not you and I'm not him and I'm not her and I'm pretty sure I'm just me, but if I were me - and I think I am - I'd like it best if nobody gave up their life for anything." Keitaro stated with firmness and a decidedly more chubby nod.

A bit of soup splashed on his face. He lapped it up with his tongue without taking his eyes off the elderly person-lady.

[Deme]

She sighs a bit, a faint smile on her face.

"I may have been putting it a bit dramatically there, but there is --"

Then Wolf's head splashed into his soup. He'd probably wake up pretty quick, since it is pretty hot soup that's on his face, but not quick enough before Hisano rushes over to him, trying to pull him out of the bowl.

"Oh, wake up, Wolf! You're going to burn yourself, dear!"

[Atreli]

Wolf sprang up, startled by the temperature of the soup. "I am completely and utterly wake. Always was." He said quickly. He then reached for his napkin to clean himself off.

[Deme]

"...Of course you were," She said, resisting -- for now -- the urge to clean him off herself. Ooh, that little pale hair was soupy, and he wasn't getting it, and she just felt the overwhelming urge to fuss. But it could wait. Let smaller children try and manage for themselves... She counted in her head, slowly.

"What have you been doing all day, that you're worn out just at dinner, hmm? I won't be getting angry notes from your folks for keeping you out late, will I?"