We start walking back home silently, my mother with a defeated look in her eyes, me still trying to get used to the awkward walking speed of my mother. Did you know that the human walking speed is one of the worst speeds for a medium sized dog to walk to ? Because it's exactly too quick to walk normally one paw after the other, but also too slow to trot. So I need to awkwardly "speed walk" to not either distance my mom or get distanced by her.
I didn't realize that at the start, and simply walked the way that felt natural, but I was too slow. Then I tried trotting, but I distanced my mother enough that she called me to slow down. So I tried to walk at her speed, but fell down after a couple steps because I messed up… Yeah, my dad doesn't call me clumsy for no reason, I guess…
At least that made my mother laugh a bit. Sadly, she didn't (and still doesn't, B2W) get why it's hard to walk at human speed. So I had to alternate between trotting and walking, never quite at her foot but never far. I'm so focused on that that I don't even have time to think about the consequences of the elder's decision. At least not without tripping in the most impossible ways.
I even managed to do a front roll. Like a human. The one where you do the armadillo thing and roll like a ball, with the butt coming over your head and everything. Except that I ended up on my back, and I have absolutely no idea how the heck I did that. My mom even asked me if I was trying to dance or something…
Anyway. About half way through the forest, a wild beast tried to attack me and my mother. I insist on the "try" part, because my mom literally crushes it, under 2 small boulders the size of a big boulder. No, that's what you get on the news. 2 small boulders the size of horses. There wasn't even something that could be salvaged from that. We weren't attacked after that, which is not surprising. It was more surprising to be attacked on one of the paths of the forest. This zone was supposedly one of the safest.
After getting home, my mother narrated what happened to my dad. I could smell more and more anger as the story progressed… Wait, since when could I differentiate emotions ? And smell them at that ? Will I be able to better differentiate my emotions now ? Whelp, anyway. Because I don't want to witness that, I head into my bedroom.
And when I get there, I realize that my tablet is simply on my nightstand. Why a tablet when I have a phone ? I got used to the bigger screen to do most of my work, and it's definitely better to watch videos on it than on my phone. And I don't want to borrow the family computer for that either. And now that I think about it, I'm not sure how the heck I would've been able to enter my password on it with those paws of mine…
I grab it the best I can, and awkwardly throw it on my bed the best I can without damaging it. I try to turn it on, but the button is extremely hard to reach for a fox. And then I try to enter my pin code. I can tell you, that's a whole other level of "hard". Even if the tiles are big, I still manage to hit the wrong number two times out of 3… Fortunately, I still unlocked it, but that took me almost 10 minutes. And I can't hear my parents anymore. That worries me, especially since I'm pretty sure I got a better hearing than before, and by a lot.
Because I'm practical, I go into the settings of the tablet and turn off the password and the auto sleep (I don't want to struggle with the password ever again) before heading back to the kitchen. Of which the door is open. And the one that leads outside. I still smell my mother's shampoo somewhere leading outside, and that's when I realized that maybe I got a way better sense of smell than expected. I say that because on top of a smell that I attribute to my dad, there's what smells like someone else. I'm not sure if I'm correct, because I'm still new to those sensing capacities.
I take a look outside the door, to see if they are not just on the doorway, but no one is in sight. I then try to follow the scent of my mother (with the snoot on the ground like a dog because I cannot differentiate smell that well), and end up at the closest road that can be taken by a vehicle where I can see both my parents talking to someone.
They are both talking to someone I do not know. He has a very big sword in his back, almost bigger than him, while there's 2 more people a bit further on the road. And the little I can catch of their conversation is talking about an increased number of beasts that have been discovered in the forest. Way more than what was recorded in the last decade. My dad responded that if their claims were true, it's even more than what he has ever seen in the past 40 years.
Then comes the interesting part. The group claims to be adventurers and want to settle in the forest. They need a base of operation though. And my parent's house seems perfect for that, as it is at the border of the newly established dangerous area. And because it would be sad to just take over the house, they ask my parents nicely to take their stuff and the money they throw at them and get out of their sight.
I inwardly sigh, because that's not the first time a small party of new adventurers try to steal my parent's house for one reason or another. It's not that common, but it still happens once in a while. And generally after that my parents buy something fancy, like my tablet or the family computer. (Fun fact: I only realized now after recalling those events what that means…)
My parents "agree" to their demands, and ask them to follow them to one of the cabins so they can help them pack everything up. I went back into my room the quickest way I could by cutting through the bushes, and discovered that my tablet was still on. I go on my favorite video service app and watch videos for more than an hour before my dad calls me for lunch. Neither me nor they talk about what happened to those so-called "adventurers".
And I eat on the ground directly I guess, seeing that there's now a towel with 2 plates and a bowl of water on it… Not that it would surprise me, but I guess I'll have to get used to it, knowing that I can't reach a plate on the table, as proved this morning. The funniest part is that there's a chair ready for me when I'm done eating, although I will not be able to take part in the conversation. That won't stop me though.
After I'm done eating, I jump on the chair the best I can and try to sit on it while not having my paws or other part of my body dangerously dangling over the edge. How the heck can cats and dogs manage to sit on those small surfaces without falling over ? Anyway, my mother looks at me weird as she usually does when I eat too quickly the whole time. What, 7 minutes to eat a full plate of food isn't that quick for my standards, especially because it was so hot that I couldn't chew on as much as I wanted at a time. My parents were only at half of their plates when I finally managed to sit on the chair at their level, but still.
- "You know you don't need to stay here looking at us as if you want to steal the meat on our plate, right ?" That my dad asks me after I just stare at their plates.
- ? (I tilt my head to the side and make a sound similar to a squick)
- "I don't want you to fall off the chair" my mom says to me. "And seeing how hard it was for you to simply get on it, I would feel safer knowing you're in your bedroom."
I don't add anything, seeing how my parents went straight back to eating, and do as they say and go back to my bedroom. Not like I could argue or anything… And I do admit that it was starting to become a bit boring to look at them eating like that. Anyway, I turn my tablet back on, still struggling to reach the power button, and start catching up on my 4847-video long "Watch Later" playlist. Fun fact: did you know you can't have a playlist of more than 5000 videos ?
Also it's annoying for a fox to stay on his back. The back is not flat, unlike my belly. Or on my side, I've seen cats and dogs stay on their side before. Maybe it will be more comfortable to watch videos. As long as I manage to make my tablet's screen facing my way, I should be good… Some fidgeting with my pillow and one of my old plush that was on a shelf in my bedroom later, and I set my tablet somewhat straight and secured enough so that I can control it with my snout without it toppling over.
About 2 videos later, my mom calls me outside. I stop what I'm doing and carefully climb down the stairs (yes, "climb down", seeing how difficult it is to walk at a near 45° downward pointing angle) and end up tripping and tumbling all the way down. Ouch… My dad gets here first, somewhat smiles at me as he checks to see if I have a broken something. Except my ego and my balance, nothing is broken, so he lifts me and drops me outside right in front of my mother.
- "It's good that you got down on your own, I was about to call for you anyway." she starts with.
Oh, I'm here for a lecture I feel like… Just hope I will be able to follow along, otherwise it will be painful…
- "So, now that you cannot go to school anymore, I'll teach you some of the advanced magics that you were supposed to learn later this year. In particular, sound magic, so that you can speak to us again.
"Now I know that complex spell isn't part of your normal cursus, but it's because it's not a very suitable magic for us humans. Except for some musicians and especially singers. But you still need to show either a bi-elemental spell or a complex magic at the end of the year. Now it's true that your superspeed spell is already a dual-casted bi-elemental spell, which isn't even required to be considered a great mage, but you're here to learn something new.
"So for now, I'll teach you the basics of complex spells. Luckily for you, you seem to be attuned to wind and electricity, the 2 elements needed for sound magic, so you should be able to pick it up fairly easily. We'll start with how each element can create movement and sound in general."
And there she goes on a lecture about how each element can do vibrations that can then become audible vibration. She starts with wind, because that's the one I'm best at handling. Only problem, my form. To do magic, unless you are very attuned with a particular element, you need to sing and sign the magical runes one by one. I do not have hands to draw the runes in the air, and I do not have the vocal cord, larynx, thong and mouth to sing them either. She doesn't realize the problem until…
- "Now try it for yourself. You'll need to draw those runes and sing those ones to…" (she finally realize my form) "Oh…Nevermind. I forgot you cannot chant magic like that… Well, no problem. We'll just do it the other way. Can you free cast that spell ?"
And she shows me a spell that vibrates a sheet of paper so that it makes a weird sound. I try to reproduce it with a wind guts, but the whole paper flies away. Just as a precision for those who never managed to free cast a spell: for wind, it's like I can hijack any and all air current that exists without a will by flooding it with mana and making it my own. I do not create spells per say, I more or less amplify whatever elements exist already. After a couple minutes, I finally managed to do something approximating the spell she showed me.
- "Good. Now that you can create sound out of air, we'll create sound out of electricity. For that, we'll need a wire."
The lecture continues, but I gotta admit that it is way more entertaining than any of the classes I ever took at the academy, and don't even get me started on formal lectures. At least here I can reproduce what I see without being looked at weirdly. Yes I really did that more than one time, and I even once got reprimanded by the lecturer herself, saying "don't play while I'm explaining". I even lost the argument of "But I'm just trying to reproduce what you're doing!" because she said so…