Bring You Home

The door to Tej's place was slammed open and Tej was surprised. Aries barges in with his little hooved friend in his arms, "Hey Tej get a load of this little fella!" 

His drink spilled on to the table, Tej quickly grabbed some napkins to quickly clean it. "Aries! I gave you permission to come over anytime, but is violently opening my door like that necessary?"

Aries gave him an apologetic grin, "Sorry Tej, I just wanted to show you this fella here!" He shoved his hooved friend to Tej's face. "It followed me home! Can I keep em?"

"Keep 'em? Keep who-" his words was cut short when he saw Aries's new critter fella. "Aries..."His voice was more serious, which means Aries might just have done something bad. "Aries where did you find him?" His voice was more serious, which means Aries might just have done something bad.

The fluffier woolyne looked down, holding the fawn closer to him. "I just... I was in the forest-"

"-Skipping training again-" cuts Tej.

"-and I found a clearing. So I napped and well, this guy here just," the fawn looks at him with his big ol' eyes, a questioning look, "... stole my flute."

Tej looked at Aries, then to the fawn, then back at Aries. He raised his eyebrows and folded his arms. "Okay, that's fair," he says as he throws his hand up. "But you can't just take a critter away from their family, Aries." Tej scratches the back of his head, "Worse yet, a really magical one." 

"But he was the one that followed me back!" Aries said defensively. He doesn't like being accused of kidnapping a critter even though it looked exactly like that. "And what do you mean 'really magical?"

Tej laughed, "You can't be serious? You don't know who your friend is?" The head tilt from both the fluffy woolyne and his fawn friend has Tej laughing more awkwardly. "Oohh... You're serious."

"Oh ya think so?" Aries said sarcastically. Tej ignores Aries's sass and points at the fawn. "What you're holding over there is a Kiritsune."

"A what?"

"A Kiritsune. They're creatures with strong magic in their blood." Tej walks over to a shelf and takes out a book. It's filled with pictures of creatures and monsters and long blocks of text that Aries can't read much. Tej flips through to find a page with a picture of an elegant white Kiritsune with golden scales. Aries hovered over the book and the fawn struggled in Aries's arms, as if he's trying to see the insides as well. "These guys usually lives deep in the mountains between Fenmoore and Aldlight." Tej boops the fawn's snout, "So you, little guy, are very far from home." The fawn yipped at Tej. 

Aries scrunched up his face, "Wait, if he's supposed to be from those mountains, how did he get all the way to Orilon?"

Tej gave him a shrug. "That's why I was asking you how you got him."

Aries holds up the kiritsune fawn up so they could see eye to eye. "Where the heck are your parents?" The fawn bleps at his question.

Tej laughs at their interaction. "Well, he'll probably tell you how one day but for now you both should rest, you got a long journey ahead of you." Aries turns to Tej confused.

"Long journey? To where?"

As Tej places the book back in its place, he answers, "To wherever that fawn's parents are." He faces Aries, hands on his hips, "He did follow you back, after all." The fawn yips. Aries feels oddly betrayed by his little friend. "Or would you rather stay and do even more shifter training, since you did skip today's lesson?" offered Tej, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

Aries's holds the fawn tighter, "Nope! I'll bring him back home, Tej!"

Tej pats Aries's shoulder, smiling. "Very good! I hope to see you both up and ready tomorrow morning then."

Aries could only give Tej a weak smile.

When the next sun rises yet again for a new day, Aries had saddled Torra with a pair of baskets. One for travel necessities and the other a blanket and the fawn. He waved goodbye to Tej and sets off to the mountains.

By the time Aries, Torra and the fawn have reached the end of Orilon's borders, they stopped. Aries takes in the view outside of his home lands and is taken back by the beauty of the world. "Heh, I've never been outside of Orilon..." His breathing became quick, "I-it's kinda scary to travel alone don't you think?"

Torra nudges her head onto Aries's arm. It's like she's saying, 'you're not alone, you big baby'. Aries pats her head, "Yea, yea, I got you guys with me."

So the three sets out their journey to the mountains. 

Tej wasn't joking when he said it would be a long journey. 3 days have passed and they're still by the green fields just beside Aldlight's bridge. Aries is getting rather impatient with the travel, but with the fawn and Torra constantly nudging him and keeping him company, Aries can't help but cool down. He's too soft and weak to, not only the fawn but also Torra's, puppy dog eyes.

"I guess it's not that bad when we got each other," said Aries as they stopped for a moment to rest, just outside of the forest that leads to the mountains. He looked up the sky, sun still quite high but not right above him. "I think we can go in forest safely." He turns to Torra and the fawn, whispering, "I heard there's some spooky stuff in here." The fawn yipped an answer and Torra shakes her head. They're not really buying Aries's spooky taunt. Aries pouts at them both, "Oh boo, you guys are no fun."

Aries got on top of Torra and they entered the forest. Even though the sun is still set high, it was quite dark in the forest. They followed a dirt path that leads to nowhere. "Hey, where's your home little guy?" Ask Aries to the fawn. The kiritsune looks around and yips, pointing his little snout forward. "Straight on?" Aries scratches the back of his head, "Uhh, alright I guess."

They continued on, the forest starts to get darker and Aries more wary of his surroundings. It's odd that he hasn't heard a single bird chirp since he entered the forest. Torra and the fawn seems content, so he's trusting their instincts. A rustle from a nearby bush has Aries's ears perked up. His gut tells him that there's something not right in the forest and they should probably start leaving. Aries was about to pat Torra to tell her to turn around when he hears a cry for help. It sounded like an old lady croaking. 

Aries gets more cautious and drops off Torra. The fawn was about to yip but Aries covers his snouth gently and placed a finger up to his lip, signing it to be quiet. He covered the kiritsune with a blanket and held Torra's reigns to lead her to the cries.

As he followed the sound, he found a cloaked figure on the ground holding their leg. They looked like an old and fragile granny, with their basket of fruits all fallen and damaged on the ground. "Oh, woe is me. Fallen and cannot get up," sobbed the figure. Aries signs Torra to stay and Aries walks up to the figure cautiously, "Hey gran? Are you alright?"

The figure stops their sniffles, "Oh dear, I'm alright but I think you won't," as they shifted to face Aries, he catches a glimpse of a silver dagger from under the cloak. Aries jumps back quick as the cloaked figure dashed forward with their dagger. Aries had his shifting stone ready by his side when suddenly 4 masked figures drops from the high trees with daggers on their hands. They have surrounded Torra and Aries was faced with the cloaked figure. 

They took off their coat and underneath was an old looking bandit with a giant scar across his face. His snaggletooth grin creeps Aries out. "Well now kid, don't yer parents tell ya to not talk to strangers?" He brandished his other dagger right in front of Aries's face. Aries flinched, but he couldn't move from his spot, terrified of what would come next. The leader, Aries assumes, laughs and his fellow bandits followed.

The bandit leader held a fist up and they all stopped. With a snap of his fingers, the bandit came closer to Torra, who's mooing in distress. "Check what's in there and take any and all gold!" commanded the leader.

"Hey you can't do that! You're scaring Torra!" Aries shouts. He tries to run towards his beloved nikyak but was held back by the leader by the neck. He picked Aries up like a kitten, with his feet dangling above the ground. "Let go of me, you buttface!" Aries thrashed around. The leader barks a laugh, "Or what? What's a kid like yous gonna do?" The other bandits have had their nasty hands on to Torra, who wants to run but is too terrified and confused to do anything.

Aries hates being called kid and being treated like a sack of potatoes, but he hates it even more to see his big wooly friend distressed. Aries glares at the leader. "You wanna know what I'm gonna do?"

The leader looks down at Aries, which was a mistake, as Aries grabs onto his hands and hooved him hard on the face. The leader fell hard on to the ground, dropping Aries to his feet. He turns quickly to his nikyak while all the bandits were still in shock to shout, "GO HAM, TORRA!"

With those magic words, Torra's demeanor changes. She moos in rage and swings heavy left and right, throwing some bandits to bushes nearby and another fell on their backs. Aries whistled at her and she came charging forward where Aries stood for him to jump onto her back as they fled the scene.

Through the thick forest, it was hard for Torra to run at her usual speed, so Aries could hear the fast coming hoovestep of the bandits from behind. The fawn, who had been quiet the whole time in the basket, peeks his head. He yips frantically at Aries, desperate to gain his attention. Aries told his little friend to stay still in his basket but the fawn won't listen. He's yipping and yapping, trying to tell something to Aries but he can't understand what the fawn is saying. So the fawn took it to his own little hooves and dropped out of the basket.

Aries pulled back Torra's reigns harshly, making her skid her brakes. The fawn began running left from where he dropped and Aries screamed at him to come back. When an arrows shoots right pass his head, he growls in frustration and have Torra ran after the fawn. They were lead to a cave on the foot of a mountain. The fawn stood in front of the cave, yipping feverishly at Aries and hopping on the spot. Aries dropped off Torra and scooped up the fawn, who whined in confusion,  and was about to run back to Torra when a bunch more arrows came aimed at them. One of those arrows had shot through Torra's hind legs and she mooed in pain.

Torra, in her pained and panic state, have pushed both Aries and the fawn into the cave with a dead end right in front of them. Aries thought it would be the end but the walls of the cave never reached him. Instead, the three of them tumbled down onto a patch of soft grass. A giant hole where the wall used to stand appeared in front of his very eyes. Aries saw the bandits charged after them with their daggers and they're running straight at him when the walls grew back and the hole was no more. All he could hear was a very loud and painful slam from over the wall.

The kiritsune fawn stood on his shaky little twig legs and yipped at both Aries and Torra. "What the- how did- I'm-" but his sentence was never finished as he sees Torra's left hind leg impaled with an arrow. "Oh gods, Torra!" Aries scuttles quickly to his nikyak, who was mooing in pain.

He rummaged through the basket to find a healing salve and gently rubbed it on the wound before taking out the arrow in a painless way. "I can't believe you'd just run off like that!" said Aries to the fawn as he rubs on an extra layer of salve on the wound. The fawn's ears droops and he yips apologetically. Aries gave him a stern stare. "That was very dangerous, you could have hurt yourself."

All the kiritsune could do is just look at Aries sadly with his big ol eyes. Aries sighed, "Geez, I'm starting to sound just like Tej..." He got up and petted his fawn friend on his head. "I'm sorry bud, but I was just worried for ya when ya just drop like that." The fawn nuzzles into Aries's pet. Another fuzzy friend nuzzled Aries on his side. Torra stood by his side, albeit a tad bit wobbly.

Aries laughed, "Heh, alright you guys, that's enough." Aries finally was able to look at the view in front of him. A lushes forest of unnaturally coloured trees and and the loud sound of whatever critters that reside in it. Aries stretches his arms, "Alright then, let's get you to your family."