Kichi had spent a lot of time alone this last year.  The young wolf had numerous scars which he accepted as badges of pride, testimony he had survived on his own and gained experience through each trial.  The silver wolf white his white markings had been traveling south for a few days, led by a mixture of dreams and voices in the wind.  Perhaps it was stupid to be chasing the unknown but there was no real reason not to.  Kichi’s home was just wherever he chose to lay his head so did it matter if he chose where to sleep by where the unknown lead him?

He had made his way to a gulley, along the sides of the gulley decent amounts of snow still huddled in the deepest shadows but in the center where he walked there was mushy grass, wet from the snow that had covered it until some point lately.   Along the side walls of the gulley strange crystals were growing everywhere as thickly as maggots to a long dead corpse.  They were strange things and he avoided them.  

The fireflies had seemed to be up above the gulley more with smaller numbers for the moment where he was though it seemed like there was still always a few in his lline of sight.  With Kichi was his little water deer that would pause occasionally to dig past the snow to get a few bites of the damp grass underneath.

It was daytime though no one would know by looking, the moon was still in the sky and the light only managed to cast a greyish cast about them instead of the dark of night.  The wind blew by and in it he heard a long gone voice, ‘you were mine,’ the voice seemed to cry and Kichi had long given up believing he was imagining it.  Mom, his real mom, was in the wind.  Kichi ignored the voice but with another gust he heard another voice, ‘no, you were mine’ and the boy sighed.  Were spirits really going to argue over rights to him?  “Who cares?  You’re both dead,” The boy irritatedly responded to the whispers on the wind.  “I don’t need, nor want either of you.”

He’d gotten over the death of others seasons ago.  Still, he felt the pull of something urging him to come this way and so he walked on waiting to see if there was anything good to come of this little trip.  

Talk

Relm too had spent some time alone since she bailed from Kefka. She had stuck around Rhaegath for a little bit but at some point in her own wandering he seemed to have disappeared. But so did Kefka it seemed and while she was a little upset to be alone again, at least she was put at ease that her father wasn't on a deadly hunt for her at the moment. She had met her uncle too and seen him a couple times since then but she wasn't quite ready for the lifestyle of living in a pack, not yet at least.

Over the last week or so she appeared to be haunted by not just a ghost, but the ghost of Agria. She wasn't quite aware that it was remnant of Agria, but she had spotted the fuzzy pink flare in the shadows and through the trees multiple times. It didn't linger over her long but she definitely felt like she was being followed and watched by it.

She only showed more interest when she was disrupted by the sounds of whispers over the hills, and to her surprise the pink haze floating just around the edge before disappearing into the Gulley. She didn't jump after it, only hesitated in her first couple steps before she wandered over the hillside to spot a familiar face down bellow. She couldn't help the gentle smile from the old friend she saw, and then made her way closer to him. She hadn't caught what he had said, but had heard him talking and when she was close enough she questioned in a bit of a joking manner, "Who are you talking to?"

"Relm"

Kichi remembered far back when he was still small and weak, one of the first strangers he had ever met had told him silly stories about mushroom rings, the power of names, and some other things.  The problem was it was so long ago and he couldn’t remember too much about it.  They were the sorts of things a pup muses on for a while but then fades away.

While he was struggling to recall if there was something about dead stubborn mothers he heard another voice and for a few seconds ignored it.  It was just one more dead voice but, wait, no his glance turned up and to one side where a pink wolf was coming from.  Kichi only knew one pink wolf and last he had seen her was as a pup and farther up north however there was no way it wasn’t realm.

“Relm?” Shocked surprise evident.  It had been forever since he’d seen anyone from back in those days.  He headed over to meet up with her.  However, if Relm thought she’d be greeted first by the wolf she’d be surprised.  The litter water deer torch let out his own cry as he loped past Kichi and charged straight to the wolf.  The little fanged deer ran up to face Relm head-on and let out a cheery bark sound.

Kichi came up behind Torch, “It’s amazing he’s still alive.”  The light-hearted comment aside the silver wolf added in a more subdued voice, “Hey, what have things been like for you lately? You know, since the nights started getting to long and the strange growths started appearing?” He thought of stating straight up he was hearing voices but imagined it sounding crazy if she didn’t have strange observations as well.

Even as he waited he could hear a whisper on the wind ‘it’s all her fault’ and then had to wonder was it in the wind or in his mind.  
“Oh it is not,” Kichi snapped to the wind before thinking about how insane he might have just sounded.  The boy had grown to use it just being Torch and the voices as his travel companions and then there was the disturbing notion he considered the voices traveling companions.


Talk

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Torch did little to surprise Relm, but she still lifted a paw and pulled back into herself just out of sheer reaction while the tiny deer jumped forward. But as Kichi spoke, she let out a small amused grin about how the deer was still alive. Though it seemed Kichi himself had taken a good care of it and that would be the sole reason it was still here today.

Her head went crooked as he asked, a small squint in her eye. It was a strange question, though it was obvious the strange happenings were all around them and she knew it wasn't only her who was seeing them while she had interacted with others, "Oh it was-" She was cut off while he blurted out a near snarl and Relm had almost taken offense to it but she had realized that maybe he wasn't talking to her since his focus was elsewhere if only for a few seconds. She continued on, "A pink ghost and some whispers led me down here to you. Don't know if it's uh, fate or whatever. You know, like maybe put us together like something is coming." She wasn't sure of anything happening around them, but through her short life she had known it wasn't normal. She moved forward past Kichi, her head lifted as she scanned the area for the pink ghost, or maybe something else that was going to draw their attention.

"Relm"

Kichi looked to Relm as he realized he had cut her off, listening to her own explanation of what she was doing this way.  “Oh Yah?  I’ll follow you a bit then if your ok with that.  I’m curious what will happen,” the silver wolf hedged.  A few days back talk of a pink ghost would have shocked him and probably gotten a reaction of disbelief but not now.  Kichi accepted it, what that one wolf had told him of a year ago was true, spirits and fae’s and stuff like that must all be real.

“So, I’ve been listening to two wolves who would label me their son’s arguing over who I belong to.  Sometimes my dad cuts in but not very often.  Anyway, I know two of them are dead and I figure safe to assume Lurid is dead as well.” Lurid was dead or just ditched him, either way it had been betrayal as far as he was concerned.  To go off and leave him with a promise to return and then never returning.  

Kichi’s ears pulled back as they were still there in his mind.  Did they want to drive him insane?  It felt like sanity could be a fragile enough thing as it was some days.    ‘Stay with me Kichi, no one else.  Leave her here and come back north,’ The voice of Lurid demanded.  It was followed up by his dad, ‘Be wary of ghosts boy,’ and then his blood mother, ‘Kichi she’s cute but come to me first farther south’

“Quit acting like I’m some prize to be fought over,” the boy whispered softly, “you all left me so just go away.”

“I wish they’d all just go away,” spoken more directly at Relm this time, “I heard once not to tell spirits your name but they already know it so that’s no good.”  Would the arguing moms want him to meet up with Relm? Would a pink ghost want her to meet up with him?  Kichi couldn’t fathom why but if there was a reason at this point he doubted it was a good one.  “Maybe your pink ghost will chase away these spirits before they drive me insane.  At least a distraction.  Any guess who it is?”  Kichi still hadn't seen any other pink wolves so he guessed blood-related if ghost colors matched the color wolves had been when they were alive?

Talk

Relm was more focused on the dark plains ahead of her but kept an ear on Kichi as he explained what he had been hearing. She nearly rolled her eyes at the mention of Lurid though. She really disliked the woman but because of the attention and the allegiance Kefka had given her. Relm wanted to live down in Auster, not the freezing temperatures of the north. But Kefka kept around Lurid for her time in the spotlight, but that seemed to never come around she supposed.

Through Kichi's talking, and even his own blurt outs to the voices he kept hearing between his owners, Relm was trying to tune into her own whistling whispers that she couldn't make out real words to. Her gaze had moved up to the fireflies in response, like maybe the whispers were coming from them. It was strange that they sounded quiet so she couldn't understand what they were saying, but so many voices at the same time that it felt loud through Kichi's words.

Oh was he... talking to her? She hadn't really been tuning in to either the dead voices, or Kichi's own live one. It was hard to focus. She stopped to think for a second, the obvious answer to his question in broad daylight now. "It's probably just my dead uh... birth mother?" It was nearly a question because Relm didn't really have a mother, or at heart at least. "Though if it is I'd suppose she's pretty angry and wouldn't be nice enough to help us out."

"Relm"

Relm

As you stare up at the fireflies, struggling to tune into the voices around you, your vision suddenly blurs. In the place of the firefly cluster instead another very familiar wolf is staring you down. Is that your mother? When you blink, the specter vanishes.

Maybe you shouldn't have done that...

Kichi

As you're wishing the voices would just leave you alone, you suddenly lose consciousness. You awaken just a few minutes later, but you're gripped by a deep fear you can't seem to shake. At least they're done arguing over you.

One moment Kichi was trying to ignore the voices of his dead parents while listening to Relm, the next moment everything blacked out and he fell down.

Kichi felt awareness come back shortly after. He lay there confused and disoriented for several seconds. What had happened. Spotting Relm helped him remember what had been going on right before he passed out. As awareness set in more so did an unexplained fear. His heartbeat picked up as his eyes searched for something to be worthy of this fear he felt.

Kichi stood up, noticing no one was trying to tell him what to do and that would have been a great relief if not for the fear. Kichi had spent a large portion of his childhood in fear and, sometimes outright terror. Shivering the silver wolf forced himself to focus on Relm. He had been passed out when the ghost had been visible.

“Relm? What happened?” Maybe she would know what had caused him to go out cold. His eyes skimmed the area and all the fireflies. Nothing made sense these days and while the dark was fine everything else was too strange. Maybe he should find someplace safe and lodge up until the strangeness ended. Or was that just the strange fear talking.
Torch was looking at him worriedly but the deer didn’t seem fearfully himself.

Talk

Just as she was finishing what she was saying, her gaze flashed back to Kichi but everything turned fuzzy. She didn't feel woozy or anything, but she almost felt like she was under water.

There was this obvious figure of pink that had been standing behind Kichi though her brain somehow didn't acknowledge that the figure was there until her vision blurred. She tried to focus on it though maybe she wasn't all that worried, the ghost had been following her for a few days after all.

But just as she was trying to anchor everything around her, Kichi just fell straight to the ground. It was almost like this weird haze had come over her, and once the Agria spirit was gone, everything went back to normal. It even seemed that way for Kichi. "Hey?" She had called as she approached him, tapping on his shoulder and listening for his breath. But after a few moments, he came back to. Though he seemed to be in much disarray, a way she hadn't seen her old friend before. She tried to blow it off though, she wasn't much of a comforting figure after all, or at least physically. "Well I uh- told you she was angry." She tried to force a joking laugh though it was probably much more creepy than warming. "Come on," She reluctantly offered her shoulder to support him up and walking but Relm didn't like being touched by others. "You can come with me for the night, until this settles down."

"Relm"

It Continues for Relm...

Huh? It doesn't seem like anything happened... Well, maybe that's for the best...

Firefly Shoppe- Kichi

A firefly draws your attention nearby to reveal a cloaked figure with a small wooden table in front of him. On the table lay three items, with their prices beside them. "Choose wisely, and only choose one," the figure says. "If you can afford it, that is." Perhaps he accepts cŕ̷̕y̵̍͊stals and mushrö̸́̀ō̴̉ms... or perhaps its worth bargaining for something greater...


Inventory:

• Shrink Potion- 1 /
  This bottle is shaped like a pear and within it swirls a sparkly gold liquid. The label shows a crudely drawn image of two wolves of vastly different sizes, with a green checkmark over the smallest one.
  
• Grow Potion- 1 /
  This bottle is shaped like an upside down pear and within it swirls a sparkly gold liquid. The label shows a crudely drawn image of two wolves of vastly different sizes, with a green checkmark over the largest one.
  
• Serious Steriods- 1 /
  The cloaked figure assures you it’s not really steroids but he does say it’ll make your body more resilient, he won’t tell you what’s in them though.
  
  

Kichi wasn’t sure what was going on and he didn’t like it.  Shivering away the fear he looked to Torch who appeared anxious but even as he was going to talk to Relm more he watched a stray firefly and his eyes followed it, to a figure that didn’t seem it could be real.

Well, there were a lot of things that weren’t feeling real but, this took the cake.  Was this what had caused the fear he couldn’t shake.  Kichi walked up cautiously to the unnatural figure and to his table of stuff.

Kichi shrugged, “I don’t have anything,” Kichi glanced curiously at the different objects and back at him.  He still felt the fear but since it was a common feeling it was pushed aside, “I could go grab you something though,” the wolf offered as a bargain. Were those fireflies in the cloak or surely there was some real form in there.  He didn’t look like someone who ate meat but another thought came to him, “How about this,” the boy tried to bargain, “Give me time and I can grab you plenty of tasty mushrooms, any sort." His brow furrowed, “Or resources for a newer cloak, that one seems a bit frayed.”

Kichi eyed the objects then looked up at the firefly fellow, “What’s this thing do?” pointing a paw at the steroids, “or whatever else you got worth the effort.” Kichi didn’t have to trust the guy to make a bargain.  An offer of something for nothing was generally a trap but two parties both giving up and getting something, that made more sense.

Talk

Firefly Shoppe- Kichi

The man responded that they didn't have anything, but offered to go grab some items. She reached for an idea of something that might be useful to him and he nodded, "I will wait." He reclined slightly, as if sitting in the air, waiting for the man to grab some items.

When he returned, the figure bestowed upon him the potion and vanished with the goods.


You gain:

• Serious Steriods- The cloaked figure assures you it’s not really steroids but he does say it’ll make your body more resilient, he won’t tell you what’s in them though.
  

You lose:

• Various items- Resources for cloak patching and some mushrooms.