Lesson Number One (Solo)

[Fari]

Timestamp: 8th and 9th of Fall 511 AV Time: Early Evening The eighth day of Bijou's new Icewatch combat training had finally ended. After the first few days she'd simply gone and collapsed on her bed and woke up even more sore every subsequent day. Until an older bear caught her gingerly ambling down to the training area, he helpfully informed her that the best way to relieve sore muscles was to work them more. At first Bijou had believed he’d been making her the butt of his mean joke or maybe it was some strange adage, but as days went on she found she was less and less sore. Upon waking up this morning, Bijou noticed she wasn’t sore at all! But this nonsense about being exhausted all day right after training was very annoying; she wanted to go see Avanthal! They were only allowed out with escorts but she was a big cub, she should be allowed out alone. Bijou weighed as much as most Vanthas and if she stood on her back paws was almost as tall. Besides they were training her to fight now she could take care of herself. Bijou crept up towards the front door, trying to walk on the very center of her paws to keep her claws from clicking. She accomplished this feat with relative success but as soon as she looked up to see if she could get through the door unnoticed, she realized she’d become a spectacle. There was at least two bears watching her, she let out a low whiny growl and turned to head back to her room. On the ninth day of training though Bijou’s expeditions were met with success. This time she padded up normally to the door and waiting for a messenger to arrive and seek entrance. This gave her enough of a distraction to sneak out behind the guard and plow a trail through a snowdrift. As she emerged from the other side of the drift Bijou looked around, the guard had yet to notice her trail, they expected intruders not escapees. Strutting down to the road Bijou wiggled her tail happily, definite success! Bijou followed the road for a few feet but as soon as she was certain she was out of sight of the guard she broke in a clumsy run. Her journey down the road involved many pit stops for sniffing and a few tastings. Along the way she took the time to belly flop into large snowdrifts, they never let cubs do that with escorts, no instead the chaperones always clear out a path and you have to walk through it like it’s just a road. Speaking of the road, Bijou meandered back down to it she had places to see, there’d always be snow to play in. Eventually Bijou reached another building, although it was very possible she’d missed a few in her playing she didn’t think it was all that far from the barracks. As she marched up to inspect the building, she found another snowdrift and it was just asking for a jumping. One more snowdrift couldn’t hurt anything right? It wouldn’t take all that long. So in pounced the little bear! Unfortunately the little bear also sunk, and she sunk far.

[Fari]

Looking up, Bijou realized that the snow drift had been much deeper than it’d seemed, it was at least 5 feet from the bottom to the top. Even if she stood up on her hind legs she could only barely get her muzzle over the edge, she would need to be careful getting out. Placing her forepaws against one side of snow that she believed was towards the road, Bijou pushed with all her might. The result although was not what she had expected; the snow pact against itself becoming even more solid with her application of strength. Additionally awful was that her rear end had been pushing against the back half of the cub shaped snow hole which was packing that side in too. Now she had a problem, her attempts to free herself had made it even more difficult to get out. Her next course of action was to dig, that’s what claws were good for anyways. So she began to dig her way out, a tunnel ought to work just fine. Once again Bijou’s inexperience showed because as she began to tunnel out her escape route collapsed in. Quickly back tracking into her original hole, she avoided being buried under the snow. It was at this moment that Bijou noticed her tunnel had two interesting effects. First the snow she’d displaced had filled in a foot at the bottom of the hole making the hole shallower. Second, when the cave in had occurred the piles of snow above it had also collapsed making the original wall of the hole much shorter. Now her hole was quite escapable, her plan had worked just as intended. Climbing out of the much reduced snow pit, Bijou shook out her fur splattering the nearby building with somewhat dirty snow. Finally out of that most treacherous of snowdrifts, Bijou was ready to continue her journey. So far she hadn’t really even seen anything of note except that evil snowtrap, it was practically 8 feet deep and she was lucky to be alive really. No, a bear must persevere there was much more to see today. Skirting the horrible building of devious traps, because she was certain it had more deadly snares just waiting for her to tumble into, Bijou returned to the path and continued onward. Where the path brought her next was incredibly unexpected but certainly something she was ecstatic about finding. It was the market. She’d never actually seen the market except for quick glimpses when with an escort; they said it wasn’t a safe place for cubs because we could easily get in trouble. Well since there was no one here to scold her Bijou couldn’t possibly get into trouble, so she decided it must now be ok to go into the market.

[Fari]

The market was incredible. Bijou rarely got to see so many Vanthas together and there were kids to play with. Some of the kids were a little dirty, but she didn’t like her baths either so she understood. To her dismay though when she reached the market she was given a wide berth, when Bijou tried to go up to a child to play with him the adults pulled him away. She wasn’t dangerous or stuffy like the big bears why couldn’t they see that? She wouldn’t hurt another kid. For awhile Bijou lumbered unhappily looking for a playmate. Her mood was worsening because in addition to not being able to play there was this feeling that kept poking her right between the shoulders blades and it made her fur stand up, it felt like being watched. Although it did make sense she was being watched, she was very cute and fluffy. Well if children weren’t going to play with here she wanted to explore some shops. So she strolled right into the first one she could get someone to let her into. It had a lot of colorful oddly shaped balls in bins on the wall. It must be a toy shop. Bijou perused the bins looking at all the colors. At the end of the bins she found a wall with several bags and long pointy paired sticks. They looked like terrible toys, but Vanthas were weird you could never tell what they might play with. Returning to the bins Bijou selected a lovely pink ball and grabbed it in her mouth. It was a very strange ball it absorbed the spit in her mouth and seemed incredibly too squishy for a good play thing. Placing the ball on the ground Bijou shoved it with her paw to make it roll, only to discover that it left a trail behind it of the same color. Ok she had to hand it to the Vantha that was really neat. She went and retrieved the ball again; she wanted to buy it but realized she hadn’t brought any money. Turning to go to the shop attendant, she waddled up and placed the ball of yarn in front of her. Using her nose to reposition the ball a few times, she tried to give the impression that they should hold the ball for her and she would return and purchase it. She determined this to be success and turned to amble out of the shop. Behind her she’d left a very confused attendant. Back on the street, Bijou approached one of the dirtier children since they didn’t seem to have any parents around. At first the young boy was nervous, she could tell but when she touched her noise to his, he seemed to gain confidence. This confidence led to a good back scratch. As she was just about ready to try to play, Bijou noticed someone in the crowd from the barracks. If she hadn’t been so focused on the children she would have seen him much sooner, it wasn’t a guard but the errand boy out placing the orders for supplies. And he had spotted her there was no doubt; the messenger stared at her just a moment in confusion and then bolted back up the road to the barracks. She was caught. Letting out a low cry of bear distress, Bijou fled back up the road towards home. She only caught a glimpse of the messenger once; he was much faster than the polar bear cub. When she grew up she’d easily be able to beat him but for now her only hope was to get back before they sent out other bears to find her, then she’d be in a heap of trouble. Galloping up the road as she was it took her several feet to skid to a stop. Turning back towards the market for a moment Bijou was overtaken by an emotion she couldn’t explain. It felt like she’d failed to see something in the marketplace today even though she thought she got a pretty good look around. For a moment she just stared in complete confusion, what could she have forgotten to find? Oh well, the little bear shrugged, there’d be many more exploration days to find this unfathomable thing. Executing an about-face Bijou continued her trek back home. Half back to the barracks she was met by a very large and annoyed male bear and his partner. So much for getting back quickly. The partner looked even more annoyed than the bear which was strange; she had something in her hand too. As Bijou approached the partner bent down and dropped a large loop of leather around the cubs neck, at the end was a large tinkling silver bell. Well that was unexpected, she was sure she would be scolded but instead she got a gift. They made her walk in front of them back towards the keep, Bijou jingling with every step.

OOCThe bell is actually her heirloom item, this is just the explanation for her having it. Promise I'm not just giving her stuff. XD

[Cheshire]

Character: Bijou Experience: Stealth +1, Running +2, Digging +1, Observation +1 Lore: Traveling Avanthal Without Supervision, Additional Note: Very cute thread. I was practically D'awing the entire way through. I cannot wait to see more adventures of little Bijou! PM me with concerns.