Pruned Trees Re-Sprout!! ~ Ragazza Volpe Magica ~

Pacifica laid on the couch, lethargically flipping through channels. It was another Wednesday morning, but she found herself alone. Well, not in the strictest sense of the term. She just felt lonely was all.

Her mother and Taika were in the kitchen practicing cooking while Shouri and Rebecca occupied the backyard, practicing something about the fire ad-Lib. They had gotten up super early this morning and went into town with Uncle Aiden to do some other training too.

The otter was bored, but moreover, she found herself feeling left out. Her foxy companions were both bettering themselves, learning and refining their skills, and here she was just wallowing in the living room, alone.

The longer she remained on the couch, the more her frustration grew, until finally she just got up and left.

She carefully avoided Shouri and Rebecca’s view, just walking around the neighborhood. She buried her face in her tuner, keeping her mind occupied with some mobile games. Of which her current obsession was the popular game: Grace the Great Operation or GGO for short.

“Ah, new event.” Pacifica smiled warmly, deriving a bit of joy from the colorful banner advertising the latest happenings in the game. Shouri had found out she had been slowly spending their money on micro-transactions. Nothing too egregious mind you, a ten roll here and there to scratch the itch.

This revelation was met with harsh disapproval, and she agreed to stop. Spending that is, she never agreed to stop playing GGO. She had to be careful with how she spent the free currency the game provided. Making do with a finite amount of resources certainly made spending the currency a stressful affair. Weeks and possibly months of saving could go right down the drain if she was unlucky enough.

With her mood as sour as it was today though, logic and reasoning went out the window and she pressed that inviting “Summon x10” button, looking for that rush of dopamine. The spectacle and light show the game provided for this process was all just fancy set dressing. Pacifica tapped the screen repeatedly to skip the animations and just get to the results.

“Figures,” the otter sighed, noting nothing of value was gained from the wasted resources. Silently cursing Sahji, she pocketed the tuner, mood ever so slightly worsened for the trouble.

Onward she trekked, having no real destination in mind. Just wandering alone with her thoughts. Being in a gated community, she didn’t need to keep her guard up - she was just safe to brood alone.

And she did so until the sun began to dip below the horizon, turning the sky from vibrant blue to dimming orange. Without really thinking about it, she had found her way home. Just as she reached out to open the door, the knob pulled away from her and suddenly Shouri was in her face.

“Paci! You took your tuner and weren’t answering,” the worry in his voice was palpable. He took her by the shoulders and gave her a once-over. “Are you okay?” he asked with raised brows.

She considered what she even wanted to say for the moment. “Wanna talk about it in the pool?” he asked.

Her Maestro knew her too well it seemed.

“What’s up?” Shouri finally asked once they were settled in the cool chlorinated waters of the Nicchi family pool.

Pacifica averted her gaze and just sank below the water to avoid his question. Wasn’t the most mature thing in the world, but she was in her feelings.

“You gave me back your tuner, remember?” and then his voice rang in her head. She ignored it. Seconds later, he joined her at the bottom of the pool, folding his arms across his chest and regarding her with slight annoyance.

Knowing the stunt her Maestro was trying to pull, she acquiesced and surfaced with him. “I’ve been in a bad mood all day,” she quietly admitted when they were above water again.

“About what?” Shouri asked. It was weird seeing Pacifica lost in her thoughts like this, she was usually the emotional rock of their group.

“Just dunno what to do.”

“About what?”

“Well, Taika is cooking with Mom, and Rebby is training with Uncle Aiden. I just feel like I should be doing something.”

“Why?”

Pacifica lowered her head, refusing her Maestro’s concerned gaze. “I just-“

“You’re not useless.”

“Eh?”

Blue met green as they locked gazes with one another. “We’re leaving here in a few days. I’m taking you away from here again. And I have no idea when we’re coming back,” Shouri told her. “It’s okay for you to relax. This is your home-”

She cleared the distance between them in an instant, pushing him backward in the water. They floated back towards the steps, Shouri in Pacifica’s embrace. “My home is with you Sho and I’m not carrying my weight.”

“Paci, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Well, they-”

“I haven’t asked you to do anything.”

“But I-”

“If anything this is a failure on my part. I could have you doing something, but I’m not.”

“Sho!”

They hit the stairs, remaining there for a moment in silence.

“It’s not your failure.” She squeezed him tightly, resting her head on his chest.

“Right, so stop beating yourself up.” He patted her head. “Knowing our luck some stupid shit is gonna happen, so I need you rested up,” the Maestro whispered, stroking her hair.

Pacifica nuzzled his chest, enjoying the affection. “I just, I dunno what you see in me sometimes.”

“An earnest girl who loves her friends, maybe a bit too much for her own good,” he chuckled.

“Sho…”

…

Later that night.

Pacifica exited the bathroom, teeth brushed, and in her favorite baby blue pajamas. Out of the darkness, her mother appeared. “Good evening my little otter,” the elder Maestro spoke with an ominous air about her.

“M-mom!” Pacifica jumped, hands quickly moving to calm her racing heart. “You scared me.”

“Sorry, I was just appreciating my new wallpaper.” Priscilla flashed one of her three tuners to her daughter.

Pacifica stared for a moment, eyes widening as she realized it was a picture of herself and Shouri. Taken earlier when she was lying on him in the pool whilst he scratched her ears.

“You have excellent taste, my dear daughter," the elder tittered knowingly.

“What’s THAT supposed to mean?!” the otter-girl hissed back.

“Hee hee hee hee…” Priscilla refused to elaborate and slinked back into her room.

Blue eyes fluttered open on Thursday the 28th of June. Taika was wide awake this morning, alone in her state of consciousness as the three other warm bodies that occupied Pacifica’s massive bed remained slumbering.

Speaking of the bed’s owner, she was nestled into Shouri’s arms this morning. The otter had vanished the day prior and came back that evening an emotional wreck. Shouri advised them to leave her be but give her affection at the same time – a confusing request.

At any rate, Taika excused herself from bed. There was more she could be doing. Her mind was abuzz, probably thanks to etuding with Shouri overnight. Either way, she couldn’t calm the storm of her mind and decided to take to the kitchen.

Priscilla had taught the young fox a lot in the past week of cooking. She had a grasp on the basics but wanted to experiment on her own. Especially with the sweets. Making her own sugary treats sounded like a dream come true for the dessert connoisseur.

With that in mind, she had scoped out a recipe in one of the cookbooks she had been reading and as fortune had it, Priscilla Nicchi had her shelves constantly stocked with a wide variety of ingredients. Big fluffy chocolate chip muffins. The vixen’s mouth watered at the prospect of the light fluffy chocolate-infused treat.

Starting with the oven, she set it to preheat. While that began to warm, she began to gather together her tools and ingredients.

With all of the stuff gathered, she mixed the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips in the quantities described in the book.

Melting the butter in the microwave, she grabbed a bowl and mixed it with sugar, milk, and vanilla. She noted the presence of eggs and rushed over to the fridge to grab the two as requested by the recipe. Mixing all of those ingredients left her with two mixed bowls: one wet, one dry.

She dumped the dry stuff into the wet bowl and vigorously mixed them for some time. Next up was the baking sheet. Thankfully the Nicchi family did indeed have a muffin pan. The oven beeped at that point, signaling the preheat was done. Taika, feeling pressured by the sudden noise filled each of the twelve cups, though she noticed she didn’t have enough batter to fill all of the cups. How odd – she had followed the recipe to the dot.

That was something to be investigated later. She slid the filled pan into the oven, setting a timer for twenty minutes.

With that out of the way, she focused her efforts on cleaning the kitchen. Her tail wagging as she couldn’t wait to sample the fruits of her labor.

“Chin up Taika, everyone makes mistakes.”

The tenish muffins that sat on the stove were not only hard as a rock, being slightly burnt, but also were impossible to remove from their cups without destroying them.

“I followed the recipe!” Taika insisted, motioning to the failed project while Priscilla examined the mess.

The teacher hummed. “I can probably guess the mistakes you made,” she mused. “The most obvious one: did you grease the pan? Cause you sure didn’t use any cups.”

Taika paled. “I forgot…” the vixen admitted quietly.

“How long did you mix the batter for?”

“I dunno, does it matter?”

“If you want airy, soft muffins, yes. You beat all the little air bubbles out of it.”

“Oh.”

Looking over the muffin sheet again, she noticed what should have been round tops were flat escaping masses. “You also filled the cups to the top.”

“Isn’t that what they’re for?” Taika questioned.

“Not all the way to the top – the muffins rise as they bake. The top becomes solid enough to hold together as it rises out of the cup. If it starts at the top, it’ll spill out before it's solid.”

“Aw…” Taika’s ears wilted as she frowned at her sad, muffin-flavored rocks.

“Also, you shouldn’t let them cool in the pan, it’ll overcook them. You cool them for just a little bit and then take them out to let them cool properly on a cooling rack.”

“I tried to do that! But they wouldn’t come out of the pan,” the fox-girl pouted.

Priscilla patted Taika on the shoulder. “It’s okay. Syrus can go grocery shopping later – that boy needs to get out of the house anyway. I’ve been running Aiden ragged all week.”

That didn’t seem to cheer up the deflated vixen.

“Relax Taika, no one expects you to master a brand-new skill overnight. You’re going to make mistakes – the key is learning from them." The older woman regarded the ruined muffins with a smile. “Come on, we’ll try again using what you’ve learned.”

“S-si…” Taika slowly nodded.

...

Shouri entered the kitchen a little bit later in the morning, Rebecca and Pacifica in tow. “Buongiorno Sho!” Taika enthusiastically greeted her Maestro, tail wagging joyously.

Awaiting them at the table was the usual accompaniments of the day’s first meal, with a plate of large chocolate chip muffins towering over it all.

“One more time Rebecca.”

Despite the sun coming up, it was growing cooler outside on this Friday morning. Shouri and Rebecca greeted the rising sun by attempting to at least perform the one trick Aiden had been able to show them.

Rebecca ran at the tree before them. According to Aiden, trees were perfectly safe to use in pankour and were what the art was intended to be used on. Even in a dry season, it wouldn’t cause any damage.

But that simply spoke volumes to how powerful their control was. Rebecca was a runaway train by comparison.

She hit the tree and made it up one, two, three-

And then blasted off the tree, leaving a small scorch mark in its wake.

“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” Rebecca cursed, punching the ground where she had landed. They had been at this for three days now and she hadn’t shown any signs of improvement.

“Hey hey hey…” Shouri rushed over and slid down on his knees in front of his frustrated fox. He took up her hands in his own and held them tightly. “Shhh shhh shhh, just think about it for a moment.”

The fire Resonator bitterly closed her eyes. His rhythm was so nice; her brain fog that clouded her ability to understand and retain even rudimentary topics faded away, giving her clarity to her thoughts. “Sho…” Without realizing it, she pulled him into a hug and gripped him tightly, soaking herself in his rhythm.

“Focus, I need to focus,” she repeated as she had said over the past couple of days of their training.

“You’ll get it. I know you will.” He returned her hug, taking in and dispelling her negativity, replacing the harsh emotions with positive thoughts and logic.

“Muscle memory, I’m undoing years of muscle memory,” she whispered back.

After a moment she released him, wiping away the frustration that had flowed down her cheeks.

Once more she rushed to the tree

One

Two

Three

She kicked too hard off of it, scarring the bark once more. Teeth were ground as the frustration welled back up again. Even if her strength of rhythm was emotion, it didn’t only bolster her social sense but provided her with much more vivid and intense emotions than her contemporaries.

However, every failure just pushed her one step closer to that control Aiden demonstrated. The positivity that flowed through her Maestro’s hand and into her heart calmed her mental wildfire.

Again and again and again, she ran full sprint at the tree, only making it up two steps before the third ejected her from the surface. Each time her frustration mounted until Shouri stepped in and reminded her this was training.

Because it’s okay to fail – that’s why they continued to train.

Because eventually

Step step step… step

Step step step step step!

“I’m doing it Sho!” Rebecca exclaimed, though the realization caused her to get a bit too excited at the sudden burst of progress, and ended up losing her footing. Thinking quickly, she jetted off the trunk and grabbed hold of a large branch that she had managed to climb up to. Hanging there for a moment, she let out another burst of fire, swinging up to where she could stand properly on the branch.

“There we go.”

Shouri turned to find Aiden standing next to him. “She already has the acrobatic skills to be a pankour master, she just needs the mindset and control,” the red panda man observed. “Keep training her, she’s got the drive.”

The Maestro nodded. “Of course. I’ll always stand by them.” He smiled warmly at his Resonator, who remained high in the tree, celebrating her win.

That evening

Dinner was had and the house had moved to retire for the night. Tomorrow was the big day; Priscilla and her three Resonators were to leave for their conference.

“What are we gonna do Sho?” Pacifica asked the pertinent question as they began to get ready to head to bed themselves.

“Oh.” Shouri perked up from the board game they were playing on Pacifica’s bed. “Right, I never did let you all in on the itinerary,” he realized.

“I was thinking we could go to New Draxgow next. They have a crazy big intercontinental airport there, which I figure we can hop from there to wherever we feel like,” he explained.

“So we’re going to just leave tomorrow morning?” Taika questioned.

“The full plan is we would go to Canolapra O’Naer Airport with Pacifica’s mom tomorrow and see them off. There’s a bus service from there to New Draxgow,” he explained.

Rebecca laid back, thinking about their future travel plans. “New Draxgow… wow, that’s the biggest city in Lybertera,” she breathed out.

“The biggest?” Taika asked, wonder passing her lips.

“I’ve never been there myself, but Mom and Dad have. They told me it’s nothing like here,” Pacifica told the others.

Rebecca sat up suddenly. “I heard it’s so big that they have to have hunts that take place underground.”

“That’s true,” Shouri chimed in. “At night it gets so bad that Scherzando start appearing in the underground subway systems and they have to send Maestros down to clear them out,” he revealed, enrapturing the three girls with the prospects of their possible future travel prospects.

“Wow,” Taika gasped in amazement.

“That’s crazy,” Pacifica muttered, wide-eyed.

“The world really is a big place, huh?” Rebecca mused in awe.

“Heard the underground hunts pay pretty well, so if we do a few of those we can probably get set up with some nice seats to the Kalanichi Nationals,” Shouri told them.

“Already planning our next vacation, eh sly boy?” Pacifica grinned coyly, elbowing her Maestro.

“A little bit,” he chuckled. His brows descended, lips curling down. “I read they’re taking place in Naiza this year.”

Pacifica furrowed her brows. “Naiza? Why does that sound familiar?” she wondered aloud.

“It’s where Lutera is-” before he could elaborate, the Maestro yawned loudly. “I’ll explain it later, tired now.” He rubbed his eyes, looking around for which set of pillows they’d be resting on tonight.

Rebecca too caught the ever-contagious yawn. “Sleep sounds good,” she agreed, starting to pack up the board game.

Taika had laid down already. “Long day today.” She also got a case of the yawns.

Finally, after putting away the game, Pacifica succumbed to the yawn pandemic spreading around the room. She turned out the lights and joined the cuddle pile that formed on the bed. “Sleep time.”