<div class="floatleft">(https://tokyobling.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/fox_shrine_foxcloseup.jpg)</div><strong>Character Name/Alias</strong>: Kitaka Tori (Kit)<br/><strong>Location</strong>: Eastern continent, Pan-Asia, Seashore headed towards the din of the eruption<br/><strong>Current Action(s)</strong>: Traveling, grumbling, plotting<br/><strong>Tagging</strong>: Wukong<br/><div class="floatright">(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_rMjEML5yj4w/TMY9t4IPiJI/AAAAAAAAACU/D1JS6X-E5C0/s1600/japanese%20woman.jpg)</div><br/><br/><hr/><br/>At first, everything seemed ready for the long journey inland. The volcano stood as a beacon, beckoning her onward and taunting her with all the half-remembered mythos of the creature she sought. She remembered flashes of legends, from those which would have the world believe in feats of strength and skill that couldn't be physically matched, jumping miles in a single bound, flying on clouds and carrying a stick that weighed as much as a building. Didn't matter to her how large the building, the point was that it simply couldn't be true.<br/><br/>Still, every myth, every legend had a basis in truth, and whatever the truth ended up being, it was a damned sight better than standing at the edge of the water and hoping she'd somehow come face-to-face with a man-monkey. After all, this world in which she lived made it difficult not to put at least some thought before drawing the line between truth and tale. And if they were, to a one, all true, then so much the better for her. She tried to recall them as she ran.<br/><br/>Defeated an army of a hundred thousand single-handed.<em>Ow.</em><br/>Jump twenty thousand kilometers in a single somersault.<em>Ow.</em><br/>Seventy shapes he can take with relative ease.<em>Ow.</em><br/><em>Maybe he can get this damned thorn from my paw, for fu-</em>Foxfire flamed all around the little ball of frustration and pain, flaring on the desert sands as she suddenly threw herself to the ground and jammed her teeth around her paw. The pain was driving her mad, not with the intensity but the constant, ever-present nature of the irritant. She whimpered her pain as she gnawed, driving herself into despair as she pushed herself closer to the edge of insanity by shoving the thorn deeper between the pads.<br/><br/>She considered, briefly, switching her forms, but knew that there would be no use to it as of yet. She could only imagine the disaster she would have to dig out of her hand when she came able to use tools and thus forcibly foiled by the circumstances of her change. From the position of the thorn now, giving herself an opposable thumb would only guarantee that the thing was driven beneath the flesh as a splinter. From the side of it, the thing would be very thin and almost impossible to dig free without causing more damage than it was worth. She would have to severely gouge the flesh.<br/><br/>She had similar experiences in her past, when switching from one form to another might have seemed much the easier route, and on more than one occasion, she took up that belief wholeheartedly. But with age came a measure of wisdom, namely that villages were a bad place for a woman to become a vixen, children were best befriended by animals, a hunter could never be trusted, a good deed never goes unpunished and a myriad of other struggles that had carved Kit from the identity she`d had a birth. For generations, now, the people of this world had looked to her for advice, failed to heed her words and attempted to kill her in turn for them. Most blamed her for the way their lives went when they were incapable of looking at a problem from more than one vantage point, and her nature being what it was, most saw her as Yako Kitsune, worthy of exile. Even those who swore to recall her good deeds eventually gave her no mind as her days lingered on, even going so far as to drive her away.<br/><br/>Those she trusted tended to hire hunters and warriors and scholars alike for their expertise in trapping the Kitsune, leaving Kitori with a desperate need to be anywhere that people weren't around. Trust was hard to earn, easy to break and the pattern was supposed to be that it left those who broke with her in remorse. Generally speaking, they eventually did, but also not generally because of anything she did. Her warnings unheeded were meant for the benefit of people who had already betrayed her, and yet, when it came time to dole out punishment, words of warning were often seen as the precursor for intent.<br/><br/>Frustration welled up in the vixen, causing her to snarl, her tails to writhe as the rest of her squirmed in the sand, grunting and growling and sending spires of the foxfire spiraling up into the air from the place where she sat, defeated by thistles many leagues away.