Nyaha's Diary

I've been neglecting to upload this series here for some reason for a while. I'm starting now because it might help me get more feedback than just DA alone so I can improve. I'm going to start off with the first two chapters, as well as the third one which I just finished revising in order to balance Nyaha out better as per his current abilities. Any and all feedback and criticism will be welcome, though fair warning, I'm an impulsive person and I have a bad habit of speaking on feeling rather than thought. That said, I'll be putting all my effort into being on my best behaviour and taking any criticism I receive graciously as I push towards bettering myself.

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Nyaha's Diary
Chapter 1



Dear Diary, right?

My name is Naharou, though most people just call me Nyaha. I picked this book and this pen up from an abandoned campsite earlier today. By the looks of it, you probably belonged to a human, or even another neko, like me! Well, not really like me; Nyaha is one of a kind! Oh, I should tell you a little about myself. Or a lot about myself, since you ARE going to be my diary from now on. I hope you don't have a problem with that. Don't worry, I take good care of my things. Anyway, I have fair skin, fluffy, wavy, mid-length, sandy-blonde hair, which I take very good care of. After all, first impressions are important! I have green eyes, and my neko ears and tail fur are brown with white tips. I take very good care of those, too. Is it weird that, as a boy, I still think I'm cute? I mean, it's not like other people haven't told me so. My mom was the first one to implant that idea in my head, and nobody else has said otherwise. Anyway, I wear a green shirt with huge sleeves, white circles and yellow lines. I'll tell you why it's special later. I also wear tan pants, and sandals, too. So that's what I look like, now let me tell you where I came from.

I was born in Nekomura, a village of nekos situated north of Negav, a city where all kinds of people, except for predators, can live mostly peacefully. Oh, and this is a world called Felarya, in case you were unaware. It's a beautiful place, but it's full of creatures that eat people my size for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Don't worry, though. I've been able to survive here in the wild for, what has it been now, two or three years? Something like that. Anyway, I lived with my mom. She was the best mom ever. She taught me lots of things, like how to appreciate the world around me. There's life everywhere, even in inanimate objects. I wager even you, my diary, have a life of some sort. She also taught me to be considerate, which means to think of other peoples' feelings before my own. That also means that if I do happen to do something that upsets someone, I need to apologize and let them know I didn't mean to hurt them. Unlike other nekos, my mom never ate tiny people, and she taught me not to either. I learned things just by watching her, like how to not give in to what others expect me to do, and how to be cunning and surprise people. I also gained some of her character traits, like how she liked to tease her friends and how she smiled as much as she could. But above all, mom always said to appreciate all people for who they are, even if I don't like them much. She told me to love the fact that everyone is different, and she told me not to be angry at anyone for being who they are. I really loved my mom, and I had a really great relationship with her.

So, life was good, I was happy, and so was my mom. We played every day, I had lots of friends, and everyone seemed to like me. Then one day, all of that changed. I was playing on the outskirts of Nekomura, at ground level. Did I mention most of the village is in the trees? It's really neat, you get to run across ropes and stuff to get from tree house to tree house. Anyway, I was minding my own business, drawing in the dirt-- I was still just a kid back then, by the way, only eleven or twelve years old. I was minding my own business when this small naga - the human-sized kind - showed up and attacked me. My mom, being the best mother ever, shielded me from the attack with her body. I couldn't do anything as I watched my mom take the attack in my place. I heard her scream out in pain, as did most of Nekomura, but by the time anyone had shown up, the naga had slithered away. The naga's attack was fatal, piercing my mom's throat, or her jugular or something like that, and when anyone showed up, she was dead, and my heart had been shattered like glass. Heartbroken, I spent the rest of the day and most of the night in my empty home, crying. I eventually stopped sobbing around midnight, maybe, and I thought about my mom. What would she say to me? I closed my eyes, and after a brief moment, I head her voice.


"Nyaha, don't stop living your life because I'm gone. Take it in your hands and make it whatever you want it to be."

That's what I heard. I found comfort in those words I had just made up and managed to get myself to sleep. I told myself that I would make tomorrow a good day like any other, everything was going to be fine. I woke up the next morning a lot later than I usually did. It started off feeling like any other day, which put a smile on my face. But that smile was all too brief as I noticed something missing. Nobody was there to greet me. No, "'Morning, sleepyhead." No breakfast on the table. No smiling face. The realization that she was never coming back hit me like a ton of wood, and I started to cry again. It made me feel pathetic, given how I'd felt before I fell asleep. How could I ever have thought things would be the same? I thought about my mom again, and I realized that even so, my mom would've hated to see me like this. Seeing me cry from up in Heaven was probably putting tears in her own eyes, too. I hated the idea of making my mom sad, even more than I hated the fact that she wasn't going to be there. For her sake, and for my own, I had to be strong, so I stopped crying, put a smile on my face, and went out into the village to live my life as best I could.

I managed to make the most of my life for a little while, with some help from the other Nekomurans, but somewhere along the way, suspicions rose about me. They all seemed to think that, because I only mourned her death for a day, I must have killed her myself! How could they think that about ME?! They all knew I had a mega-strong bond with my mom! They ALL knew how close we were!!! I just wish I knew who started that damn rumor so I could give 'em a piece of my mind!! Well whatever, it's not like it matters now. I'm done with them. All of them.

After t h at f o r th____________________________________________________________________

Nyaha's Diary
Chapter 2



Dear Diary,

Oh, wow! I must've dozed off las last night while I was writing 'cuz I just woke up with a book in my lap! Hehehe, I feel silly. Wow, writing is adictive addictive! Mabe Maybe I'll write a whole story someday, this is fan fun! But I'm making spelling erors errors so I should wake up a litle little first before I kep keep going.

Okay, I feel much better now! Splash some water on my face and bam, awake neko! Mind you, I hate being woken up by other people. Only Nyaha gets to splash water on Nyaha's face. Anyway, I decided to go about the rest of my morning stuff as well. I had some fruity thingies for breakfast, I brushed my hair, then my ear fur, and then my tail fur - After all, it's one thing to not mind what strangers think of you, but it's another thing to neglect proper grooming because you can't be bothered, like my friend does. After all, first impressions are important! So now that I've done everything else, I might as well get back to what I was writing about last night. After all, maybe someone will read this book someday, and I can't very well leave them with an unfinished prologue. Okay, where did I leave off...?

Okay, so like I said, the other Nekomurans thought I'd killed my own mother. Everyone I knew seemed to believe the rumor, too. My friends started avoiding me, and everyone else pretty much shunned my existence. I'm lucky my mom taught me how to get my own food, like fruits and stuff so that I didn't starve! So, suffice it to say, I was alone. I was forced to live in that emptiness for around three months or so, and I quickly grew to hate that loneliness. It felt awful, not having anyone to talk to, listen to, share my feelings and toys with. I thought it would be better if I just died, but I managed to keep myself from those thoughts by telling myself things would get better, somehow. Then, one day, I went to visit the place where my mom had been killed. I was hoping to find...something, I don't know. Something to fill the empty space in my life. But when I got there, I was surprised to find another neko there. A girl maybe a little older than me. She had black fur, and black hair that looked like it hadn't been brushed since she was born. She was fiddling around with some odd-looking contraption, I have no idea what it was to this day. So, I decided, since she'd undoubtedly run away when she saw who I was anyway, that I'd have a little fun at her expense. I snuck up behind her real quiet-like and shouted "hi" really loud in her ear. It made her jump and she dropped her thingamajiggy, which broke upon hitting the ground. She then got really mad and turned around, glaring at me something furious, and she said, "You stupid-head! Look what you made me do!" I apologized, and said it was an accident. I was pretty scared of the angry girl, but at the same time, I was rather delighted that she said something to me. I haven't heard anyone say anything to me other than 'buzz off' in three months, after all.

"Man, now I gotta' start all over," the girl whined. She then looked back at me, and pointed down at the broken pieces. "Pick it up."

I said, "Excuse me?" I was amazed that she didn't just tell me to go away like everyone else did.

"You heard me. Pick it up or I'll hit you," she threatened. Now, I was really more than happy to help, though I wouldn't have had much of a choice anyway. As I got on my hands and knees and started to gather up all the pieces into my shirt, which I was holding out in front of my stomach to make a makeshift basket, the girl stood and watched, pointing out each one I missed. I was a little upset that she wasn't on the ground helping me, but seeing as how I was the one who made her drop it in the first place, I decided that it was fair treatment and kept gathering broken pieces of stuff. Looking back, I really wish I had the shirt I wear now for that moment. It would have made it so much easier. Oh, but I still can't tell you why that shirt's so important. You'll just have to wait. Anyway, after I was done picking up the remains of her toy, I showed them to her, signalling I was done my task.

"Thanks," she said, and started to walk away. I could only assume she wanted me to follow her, so I did. "What's your name, anyway?" she asked. I told her my name is Naharou, though people used to call me "Nyaha". "Used to?" she wondered. "What do they call you now?" I explained to her that I said that because nobody talks to me anymore. "Why's that? You kill someone?" It was then that it occurred to me that she didn't talk much like how other girls did. She spoke like how a lot of guys spoke. But there was something about that that made this girl interesting. Other girls were too hard to understand anyway. I told her that it was because they <i>thought</i> I killed someone. "Oh, a cruddy rumor, huh?" She didn't seem surprised at all. In fact, she turned around and gave me a good look-over, before saying, "Yeah, you look like a killer, too. Those big green eyes of yours just scream 'I'm hiding something'." Those words upset me, and it must've shown on my face, because the girl instantly started telling me not to cry and that she was just joking. I told her if she'd gone through what I have, she wouldn't be making jokes. Her reply was, "Look, I'm sorry, okay? What more do you want from me?"

"Honestly?" I said, "I'd like it if you'd be my friend." She gave me a look like I'd just handed her a can of beans and asked her to open it with her teeth. She then made a face like she was thinking it over.

"My dad says I need more friends at my age, so what the heck? Why not!" I was ecstatic at hearing this, so much so that I almost dropped her whatchamajiggy. "I'm Kira by the way. Kira, uhh..." She seemed like she was going to say something else but forgot what it was. I was about to wait patiently for her to remember, but she said nevermind and proceeded to show me where she lived. Her treehouse wasn't far from my own, and as I approached the door, I realized Kira had made me carry her junk all the way home. Such is the fate of a nice guy like me, I suppose, to be taken advantage of time after time. But then, why should I mind that? I'm proud of how helpful I am! Anyway, as I entered the house, the first thing that came to my attention was a
grizzly-<s>bread</s> -bearded man staring down at us, arms crossed.

"Oh! H-hi dad..." Kira muttered. Well, I could immediately see the resemblance. They both had black hair and fur, and they both had the same stripe patterns on their arms. Their stripes were placed in a way that made them look like black battle scars, with four more stripes on their necks. Kira had them on her stomach, too, though her dad wore a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up so I couldn't see his stomach. Thank god, I thought, I bet it woulda' been really hairy. Ugh. The only differences were in the gender features, the noses, and the fact that her dad's eyes were blue and Kira's were purple. "I thought I told you to be back in thirty minutes?" Kira's dad said to her. His voice was powerful and commanded respect, but at the same time, it was gentle and understanding. Though, that's only from memory. Back then I was too young to appreciate the different tones in his voice.

"It's not my fault, okay? This guy made my drop my stuff," Kira retorted. Back then, she had a problem with taking responsibility for herself.

"I see," her father, who's name is Caldswell, by the way, replied. "And 'this guy' is...?" I took that as my cue.

"My name's--"

"His name's Nyaha," Kira interrupted. She had a problem with that, too.

"Kira's my new friend," I butt in. I then added 'sir' to the end of that statement; I was raised to respect my elders.

"Ah, so my little Kira has finally made a friend?" Caldswell said, mussing up Kira's hair like dads are supposed to do (though really, there was nothing he could possibly do to make her hair look worse).

"Buzz off, dad!" Kira said, pushing his hand away in embarrassment. I could even see her face turning red. Both her dad and I chuckled at her, and Kira made a fist at me, and said, "What are you laughing at?!" I got scared again and I dropped her thingy pieces on the floor, making it break into even more useless pieces. Kira, realizing it was now beyond salvation, pretty much freaked out. "THIS is why I don't have any friends!!" she exclaimed furiously. "Everyone else in this village is so STUPID!!!" Kira then stormed off to what I assumed and later learned was her bedroom and slammed the door. I found that both jarring and amusing. My house didn't have any doors. Anyway, I decided to get to work cleaning up the mess.

"Don't worry about it," Kira's dad said. "You've already made a great first impression. You don't have to do any more." I was relieved to hear that, but I still wanted to help clean up. "You have more important things to do, like make your new friend feel better. I'll take care of the mess." As Caldswell cleaned up my mess, I went into Kira's room. It was a gigantic mess. There were machine parts everywhere, some on the floor, some in boxes. Nothing too fancy; some metal scraps, a few gears, lots of bunched wires and a number of springs and even a few magnets, which I used to think were totally the coolest thing. Her bed was nice and clean, though. The next thing I noticed was the absence of any bright colours anywhere in her room. Her bedding and her windows had the same dark red fabric covering them, and the curtains made it really dark in there. Kira herself was nowhere to be seen. I called for her and I was shocked when something grabbed my ankle. It turned out to be Kira's hand, coming from under the bed.

"Who said you could come in here?" she asked, still holding my leg. I told her her dad told me to, and that I wanted to apologize for breaking her thingy. "Forget about it," she said, "That thing was a piece of crap." Back then, I was really quite appalled when she would use that kind of language, but I got used to it after a while. "This is gonna' be so much cooler!" I guess that, looking back, despite what she said about me being stupid, she wanted a friend as bad as I did, which was why she was so eager to make up. Anyway, she dragged this metal box with an open top out from under her bed. It had more wires and gears in it, and on one side, a small actinite crystal. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, even more so than magnets, though I had no idea what it was. Kira explained that it was an energy-producing machine she and her dad were working on. Apparently, they were building a machine that amplified the electric energy discharged by an actinite crystal without increasing the rate at which the energy was discharged. Though, it wasn't until years later when I finally figured out what THAT meant. "It's not finished yet, but when it is, it'll be able to power a whole house for like, two months on just ONE actinite crystal." Back then, I didn't know what electricity was, either, so I asked her to explain it to me, which she seemed more than happy to do despite how she tried to hide it under her irritated demeanor. We spent the rest of that day in Kira's room, bonding over machines and electricity, and and the next day we spendtbonding over stuff that I was interested in, like making drawings in the dirt. I think she was really impressed with my work, though she tried to hide it, I did hear a good 'wow!' slip out once, which she quickly tried to cover up. Later that week, I found her drawing in the dirt herself, getting frustrated over the fact that she couldn't make hers look like mine.

Over the days we became very close friends. Though the two of us were very different, we actually shared a lot of the same opinions about stuff, like how unhealthy it is to worry about what strangers think of you, and how much the concept of 'fitting in' stinks. We became pretty much inseperable, and we stayed that way for about three years. I think, after my youth in the time when my mom was still alive, that that was the best time of my life. But then, this one day, some guy showed up in Nekomura, a human, and saw Kira working with one of her mechanical thingies, something she'd become quite good at by that time. He offered her a job working at a place called 'Safe Harbor'. She accepted, to my disappointment. I mean, I was happy for her, but at the same time, I knew that meant she had to leave. I asked the man if I could go, too, but apparently I didn't have the right 'talents' for a job there, so he said no. Kira said goodbye to me and her dad, and left the village with the man's convoy. I remember-- Wait, what's that? Dammit, I think I hear preds. I gotta wrap it up, but don't worry, I'll keep writing the next chance I get!

Till later, dear Diary.

Nyaha's Diary
Chapter 3



Dear Diary,

Sorry about that. Turns out it was a false alarm. Just a group of adventurers, off to find some treasure or get eaten trying. I just hid up here on my nice, relatively low branch. Felaryan trees are huge, though, so even low branches are still pretty high off the ground. Anyways, they went off somewhere, I wasn't really paying a lot of attention to them. Anyway, let me continue my story...

I remember watching Kira leave. I sat there on the ground, and just watched her walk away. I was still there, long after I couldn't see her anymore. I mean, there were trees all around, so I lost sight of her pretty fast, but still. Long time. Now, I admit, I was pretty depressed. Kira was the only friend I had back then. No one else cared about me (except maybe her dad), and I didn't have anyone to care for myself, or even just have a fun time with. I thought about what that meant for me, and I knew that it would mean having to go back to living in that empty loneliness. I didn't want that. I wanted anything but that. And then I felt something new, a feeling that I hadn't ever really felt before. I'm not sure if it was determination or courage, or maybe a mix of both, but I knew that I wasn't going to stand for living like that again. Looking back, it was a pretty big change for me; I had always been rather timid and shy and stuff before that point. But I think perhaps the death of my mom, or maybe just hanging out with Kira for so long changed me, and I think it was for the better. I decided that if I followed Kira, I'd at least be able to escape my lonely life by sticking with her.

Later, as I was at home having trouble trying to pack things for my journey (and by that I mean I'm such a hoarder I couldn't stand to leave anything behind), a thought occurred to me. What would Kira's response be to me following her all that way?


'Blah blah blah you're so stupid, blah blah why did I ever become friends with you?' Basically the usual derogatory crap she always directed to the nearest sentient trash receptacle - which was usually me for those three or so years - whenever she got pissed off. Really, looking back, Kira was one of the worst people a guy like me could have gotten stuck with for a friend, but at the time, it was either her or eternal emptiness. Besides, not only am I possibly a better, more sociable person for getting to know her, but she's not like that anymore. She's toned down her attitude tons since it began to cost her. A lot of preds out here don't like being spoken to that way, and a lot of people around her paid for her mistakes. A harsh lesson to be sure, but one that made her a better person. ...What was I talking about again?

Oh, yeah, packing. Well, after Imagination Kira yelled at me that, even though it was a super-mean thing to say to me, and I'd have to get her back for it later, that she had a point. There were boatloads of people out there for me to meet and make friends with, why limit myself to just a few? I had bet that, with my newfound confidence, politeness, and all-around charmfulness (I decided that was a real word at the time I said it. Silly Naharou!), I could make friends with anyone-- no, everyone-- in Felarya. I remember doing a really embarrassing dance of joy at that point, before resuming my attempts to fit everything in my house into a sizeable bag left behind by some common adventurers.

Around that time, an elderly neko sir came to my house. I found him really strange because I was under the impression that I knew everyone who lived in Nekomura at the time, but he didn't look familiar to me. I assumed it must have been because he'd recently gotten old, y'know, like when I wasn't looking or something. He told me to follow him up to his tree hut, which I did, because packing wasn't going anywhere and I could use a distraction to help me think of an idea. It turned out his tree house was really high up, and there was a lot of climbing involved, but we eventually got there after an hour or something ridiculous like that, and the elderly man showed a very tired Nyaha into his home quite welcomingly.

The man was quite nice to me, and he let me rest for a little bit. He then told me he had a reason for bringing me there, and went off to another room. When he came back, he was carrying this big green shirt that was at least 3 sizes too big for any average neko, and it had these weird oversized sleeves on it. He laid it on the floor, which I'd noticed was quite bare. In fact, his house seemed to lack a lot of the necessities most nekos had come to use in daily life, which just made things weirder. Anyway, he laid it on the floor and began to chant something, and this circle of light with a bunch of complex-looking designs and symbols appeared on the floor under the shirt. Okay, pay attention; this is where I clear things up about my abilities.

After a few moments of watching the man chant what I could only assume was a magic spell of some sort, the circle split into two small ones, which took places under the sleeves of the shirt. They then shrank into their centres and disappeared. I asked what that meant and the elderly man told me that it meant the enchantment was complete. I responded with a confused look. He chuckled and explained what he did. Apparently, he'd just performed a high-level dimensional magic enchantment which gave the sleeves of the shirt the ability to store a near-infinite amount of items inside them, with no restrictions on size or weight. He picked it up off the floor and handed it to me.

"Go on, young one. How does it fit?" he said to me. I smiled and eagerly took my shirt off and put that one on right in front of the elder. It was, as I thought, much too big for me, but something about that felt right. My arms looked close to nonexistent in its sleeves, and I had a little fun with that. The man explained that in order to get something that I've put in the sleeves out of them, I just had to imagine getting it in my head. I thanked him about five or more times for the gift. I then had to ask him why he was helping me. After all, I supposedly killed my own mother. I was a degenerate. He told me he was helping me because that's the role he was meant to play in my life. He also told me this:


I mean, that sounds really profound, right? That's the thing about elders, they always have these really deep speeches prepared. I wonder what sort of deep speeches I'll come up with when I'm that old? Assuming I live that long, of course. Anyway, later when I was back at home packing everything in my house into my sleeves-- and I mean EVERYTHING! Sandals, tables, a pan that used to be my bathtub when I was really little, some food that was lying around and others that were in the cupboards, and lest I ever forget, my stuffed duiker! So soft and plush~ and I still have it, too. Look, see? Wait, you're a book, you don't have eyes. Ah, whatever. Dammit, I keep getting sidetracked!

Okay, so later when I was at home, I thought about what they elder said, that profound article. I already knew it had to do with destiny - it said so right in the lines - but it also talked about something else, too. I thought about it, and I realized that something was the concept of individuality, something I've always thought important as far back as I can remember. Incidentally, my first memory is being lifted out of a mud puddle by my mom, who wiped all the mud from my face and calmed me down. Nyaa, those were good times. Anyways, as I was saying, I always wanted to be different from everybody, especially my father Never mind, he's not worth mentioning. 'But the elder's speech couldn't have been meant just for me, could it?' I thought. I had to know for sure, so after I was done packing up, I went and started climbing back up to where I thought the elder neko's home was. I must have been wrong or something, because no matter where I looked, I couldn't find his house again. More weirdness. I got fed up with the creepy weirdness. Most weirdness is fun and unique, but this weirdness just made me sick to my brain. So, I finally left Nekomura that day, and I've been out here living in the wilds of Felarya for about 3 years or so since then.

I've learned a lot of things during that time. Harsh lessons, like the fact that I can't save everybody I see about to be eaten. Fun things, like how to walk up walls at ninety-degree-plus angles. And useful things, like archery, and how to disappear in a cloud of smoke. Yeah, Nyaha is a smart neko. That's what mom always

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Okay, I think I'm finally safe. Phew! That was horrible! Gawd, I hate neko fur hunters soo much!! I know, hating things sucks and it ruins your mood, but when it comes to neko fur hunters, people who lie to me and-- well the third one's not important, I just LOSE IT!! Okay, so there I was sitting there on my branch writing in you, my diary, when all of a sudden I hear a gunshot and see a hole go through the edges of your pages! I mean, how rude! Don't they have any respect for personal property?! I mean who does that?!? Still, I guess I'm lucky I'm not dead, though. Wouldn't be the first time my luck saved my life, and it probably won't be the last. After I saw the bullet I hid behind the trunk of the tree I was sitting in - I knew where the gunners were because I heard the gunshot. I decided to make a quick escape by using one of my grappling claws - it’s this three-pronged claw thing attached to a firing mechanism/grip via a strong cable. I aimed my sleeve towards an adjacent tree as I got up to run from the hail of bullets that came at me, and fired off the grappling claw. It flew through the air and latched onto the underside of a tree branch about thirty-something feet away from me. After that I activated the reeling mechanism in the part I was holding onto and it did most of the work for me, pulling me up into the air as I put you, my diary, back into my sleeve. Around that point I felt a pain in my ankle. Apparently one of the bullets just grazed me, but enough to shatter the bone, and it hurt like -- no swearing Nyaha. It’s ungentelmanly...ish.

So while I was rising up and heading toward the underside of the branch, I stopped the reeling mechanism, which stopped my ascent and put me into a swinging motion. I aimed my other sleeve out to the side and fired off my second grappling claw (I got it a long time after the first one, saved up lots of money for it) and it latched onto the trunk of an adjacent tree. I grinned then, I was proud of my spot-on aim. It took a lot of practice over many days to get good with my grapplers but it was TOTALLY WORTH IT!! Booyeah, I feel awesome.

Anyway, since they couldn’t get a clear shot at me around the tree, the hunter guys began to chase after me, throwing grappling hooks around the branches of the tree I was swinging around and climbing up. By the time they got up to it, I had pulled myself to the trunk of the tree and was holding myself there with my grappling claw. I had to let my right leg hang down, my ankle was still freaking painful. They began shooting at me again, so I released the lock on my grappling claw. That let me propel down the trunk of the tree, and I managed to keep myself falling just fast enough to stay ahead of their bullets. With a bum ankle that surprised me, too. I guess I’m just fatter than I thought, ha ha. Anyway, one of the hunters noticed the claw on the tree and shot at it, knocking it loose and sending me into a free-fall. Which would have been so extremely awesome if I had it under control and wasn’t falling to my death. I’ll have to remember to set a session up later, ‘cuz that rush was pretty sweet. Anyway, I again managed to save myself by firing off my second grappling claw to another tree branch below me. It latched onto it just fine, and by that point I had fallen too far for the hunters to shoot at me. I pulled myself into another swing and, well, resisted the urge to yell at the top of my lungs in joy. I mean, swinging on stuff is seriously fun. If it weren’t for the fact they were trying to kill me I would’ve had the time of my life today. Ugh, stupid neko hunters.

In a matter of mere moments, I'd given my would-be pursuers the slip, but just as I thought I was in the clear, an arrow whizzed right by my head as I was swinging! I mean talk about close calls! That's, what, twice today I've come within an inch of meeting my death! No, wait, uhh...The bullets were one, then the free fall, then the arrow, so three. I fell and landed hard on a branch, face-up. When I opened my eyes, there was a female elf standing next to me, holding a drawn arrow to my neck.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to come with me," she said in a serious tone. As if the arrow to my face didn't alert me to the overall seriousness of the situation. I could only guess she was working with the neko hunters from earlier.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline your request," I replied. I didn't smile, I was kinda too scared too, but I tried to be polite just the same. The elf seemed irritated, or maybe insulted by my levity, I guess? I wasn’t trying to be funny, though. Actually, it just occurred to me now that what I said there made me look like a total smart ass...Whoops.

"I'm afraid you don't have a choice," she retorted. She seemed to be carrying along with the joke I didn’t mean to start, and I even saw a small smile flash across her face.

"Well, it's like Kira says...." I began. I then lifted my arm just a tiny bit and made the claws of my claw gauntlets - these sort of open glove-type things that each have five thin, ten inch-long steel claws jutting from the knuckles - I have a pair of them, just like the grapplers - emerge from my sleeve, threatening to scratch up the elf's leg. She hopped aside and avoided my claws. She had good reflexes, I thought. I took the opportunity to get to my feet, doing so with a backwards somersault. At the same time, the elf fired off the arrow she had drawn, but my quick movement caused it to miss me. As I got to my feet, I put my gauntlet claws away and fired off one of my grapplers from the opposite sleeve. I wanted to get away without hurting her too badly, if possible. The elf leapt out of the way, moving further down the branch, and then fired a small slew of arrows at me as I reeled in the grappler. After it returned to me, I quickly positioned my sleeve in front of me, holding it open. I managed to catch two of the three arrows she fired in my sleeve, the third hit my bum ankle and I yelled out in pain before tumbling off the branch we were on.

I remember seeing the elf leap down after me as I fell. I think her intent was to catch me, but I didn’t want to let that happen knowing that it meant capture, so I fired off my grappler to the side of me in the hopes it would catch onto something. I passed by a branch right then, and my grappler fell down the opposite side I did, making it pull back around underneath it. It hit me, and I managed to grab onto it before it went away. The result was my descent stopping and me hanging from the underside of the branch like a basket from a nice lady’s arm. I got pulled out of the elf’s way, too, and she got surprised. In her confusion, I guess whatever plan she had for landing safely was forgotten (either that or she had no plan in the first place) and she hit a branch hard, fell off, and hit another one. I think she was out cold because I had enough time to climb up the cable of my grappler, dig one of my gauntlet claws into the bark of the branch, and use it to climb up to the top of it, without coming under a hail of arrows again. After that, I used my grapplers to get the heck out of there before anythin

anything else happened. Which in retrospect I guess it did.

Ughh....I feel soo tired....it's like the middle of the night, I think. Uhh....I remember, I got snuck up on by those hunters again while I was writing. Stupid assholes. I want to swear so much right now. I remember them shackling me - well, not with iron shackles or anything, shackle was my attempt at a new word. "Tackle" and something else. It didn't work - while I was writing the last line in that last paragraph. So they tackled me and tied me up with rope. That bastard leading them was like, "You keep getting distracted by this book of yours." He said that he was going to do me a favour and burn you, Diary! I couldn't let him do that, so I fired one of my grappling claws. It ricocheted off the ground and snatched you from his hand before reeling back into my sleeve. The lead hunter guy said, "Hmph. Makes no difference. Wallow in your stupidity for all I care. Besides, as long as your arms are tied to your waist like that, you can't bend them far enough to cut the rope with anything." The guy crouched down and looked at me face-to-face. He was a young guy, probably about my age. He was by far the youngest person among the six-to-seven person hunting group. He appeared to be blonde, like me, but his hair was less wavy from what I could tell under his wide-brimmed hat. I noticed he had what looked like a sword with two parallel blades sheathed at his hip. "And," he continued, "you don't look anywhere near strong enough to break 'em yourself. So good luck!" I struggled as best as I could, but he was right. None of my sharp weapons could get to the rope from my sleeve, and there was no way my wimpy arms were going to be of any use.

They picked me up and made their way back to a camp they'd made. I got really sleepy along the way, but I couldn't get to sleep. I hate it when I can't get to sleep. The ropes were too uncomfortable. A little while after we arrived at their camp, I was really starting to get agitated about not getting any sleep, and then I blacked out. Probably one of the hunters got annoyed by my restlessness and gave me a good clonk on the head. Though I don’t remember my head hurting. Maybe he just hit me too hard too feel it? Anyway, I just woke up a little while ago to see that I've been set free from my ropes, and all of the hunters appear to have been killed. They all have claw marks on their bodies. Even I'm covered in blood from whatever happened! Hmm....when I think about it, Safe Harbor should be close by. It's this small settlement in the forest that I've been headed to the last few days. I'm going there to visit my friend Kira! So maybe Kira saved me? She doesn't have as many qualms about killing as I do, and that would make sense of the claw marks, too. The rope looks like it's been torn, not cut. Kira's stronger than I am, too, so she probably did that to avoid scratching me with her claws. Nya, Kira is such a wonderful friend! I'll have to remember to thank her when I see her later! Although, I don't see the leader guy anywhere. It's not like Kira to let people off easy. And why'd she leave me out here in the forest? Huhh....Maybe she was too tired from the fight to drag me back to Safe Harbor? Nyu, I'll have to ask her about it later. For some reason, I still feel really tired, so it's beddy-bye time for Nyaha.

Goodnight, dear Diary.

PS. I just realized I never finished my sentence when I was fighting off the elf earlier. Whoops. Blah, now I can’t even tell you what I was going to say because I can’t remember!

Have I forgotten to mention that fact in the story? O.o Because he is a neko.

EDIt: I just checked it; he says that he's a neko right there in the first paragraph of chapter one. >:3 Did you read them all or just chapter three?

okay I got round to reading it, though I am not sure if any comments will be of any use, as this isn't my kind of story. So at least beare it mind that my comments might be somewhat baised and you don't have to listen to them. but feedback is still feedback right?

Not really a fan of dairy stories (there's that bias coming up) I always feel like I am missing something because of the fixed perspeitive and the fact everything is past tense. There's no thrill because I know Nyaha is going to be fine because he is clearly writing the dairy after the events had happened.

I kinda thought the killing of the mother was a bit cliche, a typical plot device allowing a young character to leave home without having to worry much about parents. Personaly I would of avoided that (again, bias) It's also hard to sympathize with a death of a character you barely knew. Granted in my story my character Winona also has a deceased loved one established quite early, but that was handled differently because it's mainly used to explain why Winona is the way she is, and we won't find out how her husband died until much later when he's more esablished through flashbacks.

I liked Kira as a character though. Always like those kind of characters. her line "Pick it up or I'll hit you" amused me XD. I hope to see more of her and see how her relationship with Nyan develops.

The bit where Nyaha thought he heard predators, I find it hard to beleive that he actually took the time to write that. If I heard predators coming I'll drop everything and run and just continue where I left off later.

Don't think I can comment on much else at this early point, you're clearly still introducing characters, so I'll just see where the storyline goes from here

Thank you for that, Dark. ^.^ The first thing you've said I've already heard, and I know it's a con to writing in this format. I plan to switch things around on some entries, though, so I hope you'll keep reading. :3

Actually, I was also attempting to explain the way he was with his mother's death, too. I may have meant to rewrite that chapter and forgot. Thank you for your honest opinion, though.

I enjoy Kira too. Lately I've been getting a fair number of requests to use her in RPs, too. XD And yes, she'll be back later. If all goes well, she'll be getting her own story spun off from this one, not written in first-person perspective.

I see your point at the end there. I'll try to keep that in mind for future writes.

The comments and a sweet 'good job' will suffice, Agato.

Venom Agato wrote:

Nyaha wrote:

The comments and a sweet 'good job' will suffice, Agato.

Sorry when I can tell a good fic I tend to overflow with the praise. XD Guess it covers up whatever I lack in that department. >_<

No-- I'm not saying you said to much, I'm saying I appreciate what you did say! >.< Also Welcome back.

Sorry for the late reply Nayha, I've been immensely busy >.<. I thought the story was quite enjoyable, the PS ending was a nice addition

Well, thank you both. Hell, why don't I post up the next chapter. It's still in progress but I need some good feedback.



Nyaha's Diary 4

Dear Diary,

How are you? I'm pretty sure neither of us got a good sleep last night, but I thought it'd be polite to ask, despite that and the fact that you're an inanimate object. I hate my ankle right now. I hate guns. I hate whoever invented guns. Guns hurt nekos. Though besides the ankle pain, I’m happy. Kira’s couch is nice and comfy.

Anyway, I arrived in Safe Harbor today, it's a settlement on the eastern end of the central forest, so that's good news at least. It's guarded by a friendly-- Well, maybe not friendly, but safe-- well, as far as predation is concerned, anyway -- -- giantess named Jade. She's a real serious person most of the time, but in a relaxed way. She's got a really badass reputation as a fighter around here, so most of the smart predators around these parts steer clear of the area around Safe Harbor. The ones dumb enough to get too close usually suffer a beat down at Jade's hand. As I said in my last entry, I'm here to visit my friend Kira. She and Jade get along quite nicely, and Kira helps protect the Harbor when it's in trouble a lot of the time. Kira once told me that Jade wanted to tell her a personal secret, but Kira refused to listen on the grounds of her not being a good secret keeper, due to her scatterbrained tendencies and her bad habit of giving too much information when she gets flustered.

I actually saw Jade earlier today as I was heading into Safe Harbor. I had been kinda hobbling along with a nice stick I found, to support my broken ankle. She was sitting on the ground, resting with her back against a tree. She noticed me coming, but just kind of looked at me until I said 'hi' to her. She greeted me in return with a simplistic, "Hello Naharou." She doesn't seem to like using people's nicknames, when I think about it. I asked her how she's been recently and she looked towards the corners of her eyes in thought.

She then said, "Kira almost hit me with a lightning bolt the other day." I told her I was sorry to hear that. She ignored me and continued, "I was assisting her with her target practice." I let out a sheepish mutter, embarrassed that I'd interrupted her.

"Her aim has gotten a good deal better since she first learned to fire lightning as a projectile," Jade told me. "I'm also quite impressed at her ingenuity. Her ability to use the electric charge of her Lightning Arrow spell for other things is very creative." Overall, she seemed to be quite proud of Kira, that's all she seemed willing to talk about with me. That or she thought that's all I'd be interested in hearing. I told her that I was glad she was doing well. "Likewise," she responded. With nothing else to really discuss with her, and the situation about to become rather uncomfortable, I continued into the settlement.

When I got into Safe Harbor, which technically happened as soon as I passed by Jade, I made a beeline towards Kira's house. Her place is pretty hard to miss. It's one of, if not the most modern buildings in the place. It has one story, with the main room being shaped similarly to half an octagon, with six sides, the longest one being the front of the house with the door and a window. There are three more, square-shaped rooms built onto it, two connected to the outward-facing sides in the back, and one more connected to one of those. I remember back when Kira's house was a cozy hut like some of the other homes here. But, as Kira began to make money by fixing tools and various things mechanical and not, much of which was owned by people travelling through the area and using Safe Harbor to rest and resupply. With that money, she began to upgrade, changing the materials her house was made of from wood to metal. Eventually, she developed the special work gloves she wears, which apply the power of enchantments, usually stat-based ones like physical strength or endurance, cast on metal plates to the wearer of the gloves. They're useful, Kira says, because enchantments usually last longer on inanimate objects than on living beings, and they're better than normal accessories because the plates on the gloves can be changed quickly and easily to give different enhancements. Also, she says the gloves suit her better than emblems or rings. She always says she doesn't care what other people think of her, but things like that make me not so sure. According to her, it's not to make anyone think anything; it's just a personal preference. Anyway, Kira usually wears strength-enhancing plates on her gloves, which lets her deliver powerful blows and lift heavy things. She's not strong enough to match a giant predator's strength, at least, not yet, but it's still pretty useful.

Anyway, after she made those gloves, she became more useful around Safe Harbor, helping to guard supply convoys between Safe Harbor and Negav, which she made even more money for and made upgrading her house easier. Eventually, she added the three extra rooms, and after that, she funded her research into electrical wiring, eventually setting up a system of it in her own house. After that she hooked up that electric box thingy her dad and her built - you remember, the one I told you about in the other diary entry when I first met Kira, the one that takes the power output by actinite and amplifies the amount of power if gives without accelerating the rate at which it gives it or whatever she said it did - and now uses it to power her entire house. And then, as if that wasn't enough, she went and started learning rule-based lightning magic from her dad Caldswell, becoming even more useful. She started making trips between Negav and Safe Harbor on her own, and started making money by making deliveries and picking up things from Negav for people in the settlement. After that she developed plumbing in her house. She uses a system which uses aquanite, a type of stone that absorbs magic power and outputs water, to get running water from faucets, heated water, and even built a shower, too! She also has something called a toilet, inspired by something from another world, basically it takes her, uh, bodily waste and puts it into this system in her house, and then flings it out into the forest where everyone else goes. I think that's just so she can be lazy and not have to leave her house to do her business.

So, back to today! I made my way to Kira's super-special-awesome-techno-house, but as I approached it, I saw the door open, and out flew Isham, a really nice guy I know who also lives in Safe Harbor. He landed face-down on the ground outside, so I hobbled over to help him up, though I don’t think I was much help. I laughed as I asked him what he did.

"It's not my fault." he replied defensively. "She's the one prancing around half-naked in there." I attempted to help him to his feet, only doing half the work I could have been doing, and he brushed his clothes off before he continued.

"All I was doing was dropping off her hiring register for tomorrow's convoy and she walks out of her bedroom wearing nothing but her shirt and undergarments, and then throws me out for 'being a pervert'!" He paused, wide-eyed at that point, then said, "Then again, it IS her house. Perhaps I shouldn't have entered uninvited, even for something that important?"

I told him, "You just never know with Kira. It seems to depend on her mood."

"Which almost always seems to be a foul one,” Isham replied.

I looked at him with concern, and then got an idea. "Does someone need a hug?" I asked, trying to use a concerned, but still slightly teasing tone.

Isham looked at me blankly for a moment. I think he opened his mouth and was about to protest, when he reconsidered. "Well, I know how much you like them, so sure, hug away."

Delighted, I gave him as tight a hug as I could with my sleeve-covered arms. I think I made him carry me, though, ‘cuz I let go of my stick. Y'know, as much as hugs rock, they have the downside of not really working for giants in this world. I hope someday I find something that'll let me hug all my giant friends. Well, there's not that many now, but I hope to make lots of giant friends soon! I'm an optimist. Anyway, Isham said he still had some important things to do and, after getting my walking stick back to me, he walked off.

I went up to Kira's door, and I got a bit of a naughty idea. I gave the door a rather stern knock rather than my usual rhythmic one. From inside, I heard Kira yell, "Isham, if that's you, I'm gonna' shove my foot so far up your ass, you'll get--" And then she opened the door and saw that it was me.

Now, not that I'm a big pervert or anything, but my eyes were kinda drawn straight downward to her lack of pants, or even the plaid skirt she usually wears over them. Kira noticed me looking and instantly slammed the door on me, and it hit my forehead. I managed to use my stick to keep from falling on the ground, lucky me. It was painful, but I'm kinda' used to that treatment from her. Luckily she'd been wearing the black t-shirt she likes, that's torn at the torso. It shows off her toned muscles. At least, that's why I think it's torn. Although I have to say, looking back, the white and blue striped panties were something I wasn't expecting. I'd always imagined her liking darker colours, like black and red. Okaaay, so maybe I'm a bit of a pervert, but at least I have the decency not to show that side of me to everyone! And besides, it also gave me something to tease Kira about.

Anyway, a few moments later, Kira opened the door again, this time in full clothing, torn blue jeans and plaid skirt in all. I actually gave her those jeans myself as a present the first time I visited her in Safe Harbor years ago. They didn't have the tears back then, though, those came from lots of fighting and wearing out. I also suggested the plaid skirt, both to complete the tough-looking outfit, and to help her hide her rather nicely-developed behind. She was constantly complaining about guys making passes at her for it. I don't know why it makes her that mad; I guess that's just her tomboyishness.

"You know, I always thought your underwear would be darker colours like red and black," I said teasingly.

"Shut up," she retorted toughly, if unimaginatively, as usual. "I mean, most of it is, but--" She stopped herself before she did that thing where she gave too much information when she got flustered. "I mean - I don't have to explain myself to you!"

I laughed as I entered her house, and she slammed the front door behind me. Kira is actually pretty fun to make fun of, as long as you're one of her friends, or else she'll totally beat you up for it. But the point is, her honesty clashes with her embarrassment and need to save face, and she ends up blurting things out that she didn't mean to. It's hilarious.

"I know you can get a little scatterbrained," I said to her, "I didn't know you had a full-blown short-term memory loss problem! I mean, you'd think you'd have put pants on BEFORE answering the door."

Kira growled in frustration, then grinned at me and replied, "How do you know I didn't do it on purpose?" It seemed she got too focused on defending herself from what I said to think of what doors that excuse opened up for me.

I said to her, "Good point. I mean, you never even hit me or anything for it." I continued teasingly, "Maybe you discovered your true feelings for me and wanted to show your friend a good time."

I was promptly punched lightly in the shoulder as soon as I finished saying that. Now, don't get the wrong idea; for someone as strong as Kira, 'lightly' still means pretty hard. It’s not too bad, though; the bruise should go away in maybe an hour or so. It is Felarya, after all. Anyway, after that, Kira went back to her work desk against the left-hand wall.

I should mention the layout of her living room. Basically, looking in from the front door, the left-hand wall is where her work bench is, with a little rotary stool and a wooden desk she made herself. The back-left wall features the doorway to her bedroom, which has a wooden door on it. The back wall features the main control panel for her house. That's also where the box that helps power the whole thing is. The back-right wall features the doorway to her, uh, 'kitchen' she calls it. It doesn't have a door. In there, she has this box she calls a 'freezer'. She says it's made with some boralite stones that keep in inside of the metal box cold and lets her store and preserve food. On the right-hand wall is a drum set she likes to play on. She says it's fun to bang on the drums and cymbals, but that the neighbours really need to start minding their own business whenever she plays it. I should also mention that there are a few lights in the ceiling, and a dumpy couch in the middle of the room that faces the back wall and has a coffee table in front of it. Also, the whole place is a huge mess, with metal parts and junk strewn about all over, even in piles in certain places. As far back as I can remember the house existing, I have always been afraid of stepping on a wayward nail or other sharp object that'd go right through my foot.

Sorry, I got sidetracked again. Anyway, I hobbled over to Kira at her workbench and asked her what today's project was. She started going on about this thing called a 'trans-dimensional radio' or something. I'm ashamed to say that my attention kinda faded in and out, and I just barely got the gist of what she was saying. Apparently it's supposed to create a dimensional shift in the space around itself in order to pick up radio waves from other worlds.

So, right now I'm just kinda laying on the couch writing now while she works. My ankle is going ot take some time to heal, so I don’t know if I’ll be doing much of anything. If nothing interesting happens, I’m probably not going to write in you for a while, fair warning. I hope that doesn’t make you get lonely.

Write to you later, Diary.
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Jade used with permission from Ravanna3K.
Isham used with permission from FrenchSnack
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I don't know how long it would take for Nyaha's injury to heal. This chapter was originally much longer, and with more happening, but that had some flaws so I edited it. I also had to edit this to reflect the edits to the earlier chapters. Now I don't know how to continue the story, if Nyaha needs to take a few days to heal or if I can add on what happens later to this chapter.

Yes, more might be added later, if I can get the feedback I need. So far I've asked a couple people, and we determined that it might take maybe a week for a shattered anklebone to heal. I don't know if I should add on what happens after that onto this chapter, write it as a separate chapter, or having him go out with a cast or something instead and add that on.

You'd have to talk to Ravanna 3K about Jade. Oh. O.o I should put that in there.

He needs ankles to do anything worth writing about. -.- Also, I can't do everything for you, Agato. Find Ravanna yourself. If you look Jade up on the Felarya wiki you should be able to find a link at the bottom of her page and if not, try looking around DA.

I will make this clear now: This story is NOT part of Nyaha's Diary. It's a short that I wrote up to help me practice some stuff and get myself back into the writing hobby. :3 For the rest of you out there stuck with writer's block, remember: Writing is basically RPing by yourself. ^.^

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A Dance of Warriors



Still as the ice she weilded she stood, staring her opponent dead in the eye. Even though her eyes were hidden from view by the bangs of her spiky, verdant, needle-like hair, Taihaku could tell the yamarashi was doing the same. They were warriors. Kinara, spear in hand and taking her low-to-the-ground, hunched-over stance, moved her body up and down, both to keep herself limber, and to contain her excitement; the strong-silent type, stoic warriors were always the best at building up anticipation before a good brawl. And though it didn’t show as much, Taihaku was excited as well; it was smart for a warrior to constantly test, assess, and develop one’s skills every chance one recieved to do so. Even the most seasoned warriors should--

Kinara leapt high into the air, almost thirty feet straight up, using her innate magical ability to create a sudden updraft around her. The fur-lined hood of Taihaku’s long, blue coat fell back as the neko raised her head, keeping her eyes locked on the airborne yamarashi, who lifted her legs upo to her chest and rolled her body forward. The resulting ball of green spikes came crashing down towards Taihaku, propelled by a sudden gust of wind. The snow leopard threw herself forward, hitting the ground in a roll as her opponent slammed into the dirt behind her.

As Taihaku began to get to her feet, she performed a simple spell which took barely a thought for someone with her level of skill. Pressing the palms of her fur-covered hands together, a small circle of magic, filled with mystic shapes and symbols and glowing a pale blue colour, formed between them as the jewel-encrusted golden ring on her tail began to glow. She separated her hands, dividing the circle into two, and between them formed a thin, growing cylinder of pure ice as her body rose up on her feet. The pole continued outwards as she spread her arms further apart. and soon, the shape of a snowflake emerged from the magic circle at her right hand, its many points and edges sharp and smooth. As the yamarashi, just beginning to get her feet on the ground, came into view, Taihaku completed the formation of her Icicle Spear, giving it a dexterous twirl to switch its tip closer to her left hand as she began to turn around.

Kinara was only just rising up on her feet when she felt a strong blunt force hit her in the left shoulder, throwing her off balance and forcing her to stumble sideways. The snow neko stood shocked and perplexed as to why her weapon had not cut through her opponent’s hair. Kinara, on the other hand, was was thankful for her race’s natural means of defense. The neko’s shock gave her just enough time to regain her equilibrium. Yet another sudden gust of wind created by Kinara’s magic power blew from in front of her, whipping her deadly mass of hair back at her opponent, who had, thankfully, felt her use of magic and was already jumping backwards, and was able to get out of harm’s way. She didn’t have time to think of her next move; Kinara turned and leapt at her full-speed, performing a wide, one-handed swing of her more primitive spear and letting out a powerful attack yell. Taihaku was forced to defend. She blocked Kinara’s attack, meeting the shaft of her spear with that of her own, but Kinara was not deterred in the least. The moment their weapons touched, Kinara turned around, whipping her hair around at the neko and threatening to slice her into ribbons. Taihaku once again leapt backwards, but was once again met with a wide slash from Kinara’s spear, and once again was forced to defend. The power of the yamarashi’s swing threw her off, allowing Kinara the chance for another attack. Taihaku kept her guard up and blocked it, but was once again thrown off balance. This continued on, with Kinara keeping Taihaku on the defense; vertical swings were met with horizontal guards, horizontals with verticals, and thrusts with twirling parries as the snow leopard neko continued to take many more steps backward.

As this went on, Kinara grinned ear to ear; she loved to get her blood pumping, and performing consecutive attacks was just the thing that could get her riled up. Taihaku noted her expression, and though her life may very well have been on the line, a small smile found its way to her face as well. Being a challenging opponent was something that always made her proud, but she felt like she was falling short. She ceased stepping back, and attempted to lock her weapon with Kinara’s.

Her tactic worked, but only for a short moment. Kinara suddenly changed her stance, gripping the wooden staff of her spear with both hands instead of only one, and thrust the butt of it at the snow neko’s right-hand knee. Taihaku, in her disapproving self-criticism, failed to see it coming and took the hit, losing her balance. Kinara took the chance to score another hit, whacking the neko’s blond-haired head with the other end of her spear’s shaft. She attempted another hit, once again with the back end of her spear, aimed for Taihaku’s midsection, but this time she was stopped as Taihaku forced herself to focus, and managed to take up her defense once agai, halting Kinara’s attack with her spear of ice.

The neko began to imitate her opponent’s style, and struck a blow on her shin using the back end of her own spear.

“Ow, fuck, oww!!” the yamarashi shouted. She held her bare shin and hopped up and down on one foot. “Time out!!”

Taihaku’s white and black-ring-spotted ears flattened against her head; she hadn’t meant to cause her so much pain, at least not with such a cheap tactic. She had meant to land a blow on her knee as she had done her’s. She supposed the difference in their heights - Kinara bieng six-foot-three and herself only five-four - caused a discrepancy between where her attacks hit and where she intended them to hit if she didn’t watch what she was doing carefully.

“I apologize from the deepest recesses of my being,” Taihaku told her, bowing respectfully. “I assure you, it was not my intention t--”

She looked up, and quickly had to raise her spear, once again blocking another sudden attack from Kinara. “You talk too much!” exclaimed the needle-headed warrior.

She attempted to begin another round of consecutive attacks, still gripping her weapon with both hands, but was surprised to find that her opponent kept up much better this time around, and, after a few moments of attempting to get through her ice-solid defense as Taihaku used movements similar to those Kinara was using to attack, found herself on the receiving end of an attack and was herself forced to defend. Taihaku began attacking nonstop then - though her attacks were somewhat slower than Kinara’s had been, they were very precise, and between avoiding and blocking swings and thrusts, and getting faked out by the twirls of the Icicle Spear, Kinara couldn’t find her rhythm, and was constantly being thrown off-balance. After a few moments of defending, she finally got a good foothold after dodging a horizontal swing, and attempted a counterattack. But her thrust somehow wound up way off the mark as Taihaku seemed to dodge and attack at the exact same time, twirling her body and her spear around in a circle as she moved around Kinara, her movements flowing together like a chunk of ice being carried along by a river.

The Icicle Spear sliced through flesh. It created a long, though not particularly deep or really all too threatening cut across the side of the porcupine woman’s torso. She jumped back.

Kinara stared at her blood-covered hand. Her face wore a look of perplexed concern at first, but it soon shifted into a wide, feral-looking grin.

“This is what I’m talking about!” Kinara yelled, raising her bloody fist up to the sky. “This is what a real fight is like!!”

Kinara wiped her hand on her grass skirt, then readied her spear and charged at Taihaku. The neko took her own stance and thrust her spear as her opponent approached. The yamarashi abandoned the ground and leapt over both the Icicle Spear and its weilder. She landed with her back turned to her opponent, and attempted to strike her over her shoulder. Though Taihaku’s ears weren’t as good as a normal Felaryan neko’s, there were sufficient to let her determine where Kinara was moving in this instance, and she raised her spear to block the incoming attack. Kinara repeated the attack once more on the opposite side, and was blocked yet again.

The two warriors proceeded to clash furiously, attacking and blocking, thrusting, parrying, swinging, kicking, jumping, twirling, hair-whipping. They persisted without end for at least five minutes. Somewhere in that time frame, their movements began to mirror each other as the two became synchonized. They performed a dance of warriors together as they fought, meeting each other blow for blow, block for block, turn for turn, and twirl for twirl, until finally....


Kinara looked to the side, sitting and resting on the large root of a tree. “I really am sorry, though,” she said, watching a drop of blood run down the snow neko’s cheek. “You really are a pretty woman. Feels like such a shame to mess up a face like that.”

Taihaku looked back at the yamarashi. “I am likewise apologetic,” she told her. She saw a drop of blood run down Kinara’s cheek, and said, “I have damaged the artistic design on your face. I presume that it held some special meaning to you?”

Kinara chuckled. She tossed an arm around the neko’s shoulder and pulled her close. It felt good to chum it up with someone outside the tribe for a change. And thought her face was perhaps in somewhat uncomfortably close proximity to Kinara’s rather round busom, Taihaku had to admit that it felt pleasant to have found a kindred spirit in which she may confide, a fellow warrior with whom she may practice, and a good friend she may perhaps be able to get ‘cozy’ with. Kinara took a deep breath and sighed.

“Why’s it so cold around you?” she asked.

“Sorry,” Taihaku replied, a little solemnly. She was still somewhat preoccupied with her thoughts, so it took her a moment to explain to her friend that keeping the air around her cold prevents her from overheating while wearing her coat. The two then sat in silence for a few more moments.


“Wanna’ have sex?”

“...No.”

Dear Diary,

Diary is such a weird word, don’t you think? “Diiiiiiiary.” Hehe, it’s fun to write what I’m saying aloud. Hold on, it’s not just a word, it’s your name! Sorry, it was mean of me to insult you. Anyway, I apologize for not writing in you more often, Diary. This last week or so has been suuuuuper boring. I’ve been stuck on Kira’s actually-quite-comfy-despite-its-less-than- appealing-outward-appearance couch. Kira’s been getting one of the local doctors to help my ankle heal once a day, but there’s not a great amount he can do because he’s all inexperienced and stuff and just filling in for the regular doctor while he’s off somewhere practicing new healing spells on animals. It’s really stupid but whatever. Kira’s also been trying to keep me company as much as she can, but it seems I picked a bad time to visit injured; she’s been pretty busy working on the transportation for the upcoming supply trip to Negav. Which is interesting, ‘cuz like, I always thought that Safe Harbor pretty much ran itself, but there’s still certain materials for building and alchemy and stuff that they can’t find, or haven’t yet found, out here in the central forest so they need to import stuff from Negav, which as you can probably guess is a pretty big and dangerous deal having to cross that much ground with that much stuff. That’s the thing Isham was dealing with at Kira’s house a while back when she kicked him out? But when I showed up injured she had them push the date back until I was all healed up. I don’t know if it’s because they like me or that they’re just scared of Kira. Maybe it’s both. Anyway, right now I’m just sitting back, eating some breakfast fruits Kira left me (I could go for some meat, actually - my fish supply ran out a couple days ago), letting my ankle heal the rest of the way up.

Huh. Sorry for the wait, Isham just came in to tell me the supply convoy would be leaving later today. Which I guess is fine, after all, the doctor said my ankle should be all better by the end of today/beginning of tomorrow as long as I stay off it, so I won’t have to be alone here too much. Sucks that I won’t get to say bye to Kira, though. On the other hand, while she’s not around might be a good time to lay out some hidden pranks around her house. Then again, she probably has like, security cameras or something in this place by now, so there’d be no point. So, this week; first day of incarceration: Kira and I sat around and chatted up most of the morning. We debated who would win in a fight, Jade or the naga Crisis who lives at the Giant Tree not too far away from here. I was on Crisis’ side, ‘cuz I hear she’s totes adorable and fun, and Kira took Jade’s side, I guess out of obligation? Or maybe because it was Crisis I think who ate Kira’s mom before she even knew her? I dunno. Day two involved me screwing around on Kira’s drumset most of the time. I can’t play for ghost poop and eventually the neighbors came by and asked me politely to stop. Day three: I decided to go through the piles of junk Kira has lying around the main room of her house. Did you know sh




Okay, I’m a little scared here. In case I don’t get out of this, I’m going to get my things in order here.



Holy butterbiscuits, today was awesome!! -ish. Awesome-ish. So, I was just sitting writing, right, and out of nowhere this actually kinda cute Felaryan fairy showed up out of nowhere! I think she probably snuck into the house when Isham had the door open. Anyway, I got shrunk down to like, 3 inches or something and then was reaching down to grab me, but I couldn’t run ‘cuz of my butt ankle right? So I used one of my grappling claws on the arm of the couch and pulled myself to the side, but then I was still just stuck on the couch. The problem at the time was that, other than those rather structurally-unsound-looking piles of junk metal stuff, there was nothing to grapple onto because the room is mostly smooth metal, not wood like the other houses. So I ended up taking a chance and grappling onto the pile at the back of the room, ‘cuz that’s where the couch faces, and lucky for me it was either heavy or stuck enough that I could pull myself towards it and out of immediate fairy-related danger. But then I touched the pile and it all started crumbling to the floor so I had to jump off it and I landed kinda roughly in an attempt to keep off my ankle. In my daze I was captured by the fairy!

Gasp! Nyaha in danger! Will he be eaten?! Or will someone save our hero?? Read the next chapter to find out that this is a big fat joke. Haha, you fell for it! Of course I’m okay. I mean, I guess to anyone that might read this later, that kinda kills the suspense, I guess? But hey, it’s not like you can’t figure it out with pretty much any other story, really, so whatever. The joy is in reading what happens and HOW the hero escapes, which is where you put the interesting stuff in as a writer. I know what I’m doing! Anyway, I was caught in shrunken form by a cute, naked fairy, and I’ll admit I was a little turned on, but I managed to focus and keep my peeking minimized. Sadly, the fairy looked at me and said some kinda’ lame, cliche capture phrase like, “looks like you’re all mine, now” or something in her cute little innocent voice (like they all seem to, bluh). I tried to keep calm-ish as I was raised over her face, ‘cuz I’ve been there a few times and knew about what to expect and what to do, but it never is a comfortable experience looking down a maw so my heart was kinda’ going at it hard. I looked around and noticed a loose screw sticking out of the frame of a door of a panel on the back wall. As she dropped me into her mouth, I shot my grappling claw at the screw, but unfortunately for me it was too loose and I just pulled it right out of the wall. I wound up inside the fairy’s mouth with my grappler hanging outside, and obviously, that’s when my heart started going critical. I pretty much thought it was the end, but obviously it wasn’t. While I was in the mouth, the world seemed to shake suddenly, and her mouth opened up underneath me and I dropped out. As I was falling, I reeled my grappler back in and shot it at the couch cushions, then swung down under the couch and hit the ground with, like, a ragdoll roll. Now that frickin’ hurt. I managed to get to my hands and knees, and crawled out a bit to see what’d happened; apparently the wall panel door that I pulled the screw from already had lost another other screw, and ended up falling right on the fairy’s head. I crawled back under the couch as she got out from under the panel door, leaving it to hang upside down on the wall.

“Where’d you go?” I heard her ask aloud. Like I was really just gonna’ come out and tell her. I mean, not that I wasn’t tempted to; I’ve always seemed to have a way with fairies. I find them a lot of fun to be around, when they’re not hungry at least, and they usually seem to enjoy my company, too. Anyway, I was snapped back to reality by the telltale sign of the fairy’s stomach growling in hunger. Really bad sign; not something anyone wants to hear. Or any neko at least. Any neko, human, inu, tomthumb, neera, uhh...seagull harpy, maybe....That’s all I got. Anyway, it didn’t take her long to think of looking under the couch. I saw her knees hit the floor and that’s when I knew it was time to scram. I took a deep breath and braced myself, then got to my feet and dashed out towards the back end of the couch, heading for a kind of archway-looking space in the bottom of one of the junk piles in the room. When I got there, I realized a little too late that it was just big enough for the fairy to probably fit her hand into, and it had a back wall, meaning I was pretty much trapped until she came to get me, which again, didn’t take that long. I decided to resort to one of my more ingenious traps: the smoke bomb. I broke open two of the smoke pellets I had in my sleeves and let the sight- and scent-blocking substance pour out of them, filling a good area. The fairy, who had knelt down to get me, backed off. I once again took a deep breath (inhaling a bunch of smoke - not my smartest move but oh well) and took off running. I headed towards the door to Kira’s bedroom, which had a space under it juuuuust big enough for me to slide under. I didn’t get very far with that; the main room floor is smooth metal but her bedroom is carpeted. So I had to scooch my butt under the door half-an-inch at a time, which was painful. Gosh darn rug burn.

After getting into Kira’s room, I grappling clawed my way under her bed, which is where I wrote that message on that other page. Now that I think about it, maybe I should keep all my stuff for me when I die. Then I’ll be like a legendary treasure trove! That’d be cool, right? I could be totes posthumously famous! Ooh, even better if I haunted my dead body.

Anyway, the fairy eventually found me again, reaching under the bed to catch me, but I managed to stay out of her grasp because of all the junk under Kira’s bed as I was crawling deeper under it. It’s so weird because her bedroom, for the most part, is so much cleaner than the main room, except for everywhere under her bed, which looks almost exactly the same as the main room with gadgets and junk underneath. Like, what the hell, Kira? What are you hiding under there that can’t go in the main room? Anyway, the fairy shrunk herself down and came under the bed after me. I heard her saying she knew where I was, but I didn’t know if she was just bluffing to get me to come out or if she was using that fairy predator sense to find me. Looking back, it might have been both? I dunno still. Anyway, I was able to stay ahead of her, even while limping, due to my sensitive ears and sharper dark vision. I eventually decided I needed to stop her before she caught me, so I took another deep breath, and snuck up on her. I managed to ambush her and attach my grappler to her midsection. After that I started running around her as fast as I could, wrapping the grappler’s cable around her body. I made sure to raise it up and lower it down to get her arms and legs wrapped up, too. Luckily my ambush stunned her for a couple moments or it probably wouldn’t have worked. By the time she started struggling against the wrapping, I was already halfway done.

After I was finished wrapping her up, the fairy seemed to get a bright idea. She tried growing out of the cable, trying to break it I guess? I wasn’t sure why she didn’t shrink herself instead, but looking back, I think it was because she reached her maximum shrinking height. That’s a thing fairies have, they can’t become bigger or smaller than certain sizes, which are different for every fairy. It’s either that or she just didn’t think of shrinking. Anyway, I managed to keep her wrapped up; along with the fact that the cable is very strong, I stopped it from getting too tight and breaking by letting a little more of it out of my sleeve as she grew. She soon hit her head on the bottom of the bed, only being able to grow maybe an extra inch or two. I think that’s when she decided to try shrinking, because when it didn’t happen, she exclaimed, “Darn, I can’t shrink!” Turned out, she’d bent and cracked her wings all to heck when the cable tightened around her during growth.

So, with that whole debacle over with, I untied the fairy since she couldn’t use her magic anymore anyway and wasn’t big enough to make a meal of me. We headed back to the main room, grappled up to the couch, and sat around together, shared some of my leftover breakfast berries and chatted it up for the rest of the afternoon. Don’t get me wrong, it’s always a bit uncomfortable talking to someone who was just trying to eat you, at least for the first little while. But what am I going to do, hold a grudge against someone for doing what comes naturally to them? I don’t think so.

By the time Kira finally got home that evening, the fairy - Kureen - and I had become well-acquainted with each other. Kira came in saying something about having convinced whoever is in charge of the supply convoy trip to let them leave tomorrow morning instead of tonight, then realized I wasn’t on the couch. She started looking around for me, so I thought it would be fun just to stay quiet and see how long it took for Kira to find me, and Kureen was up for some fun, too, so she played along. It took her nearly three minutes of searching her entire frickin’ house before finally almost sitting on Kureen and I with her big and still shamefully-admittedly sexy butt.

After we avoided that catastrophe via grappling claw action, Kira and I had our usual debate over making “pally-pals”, as she called it, with random predators. This consisted of her making totally lame and baseless points fueled by her frustration with a long day at work and her underlying jealousy of my ability to make friends with anyone I meet. At least, that’s how I see it. She’d probably say something silly, like I was the one making empty points. Kureen said we sounded like squabbling children. But what does a fairy know about neko business, huh?

Anyway, Kira gave Kureen a potion to heal her wings (which was made using her actual damaged wings, which I think is really cool and, like, karmic or something), and then Kureen returned me to my original height. Which was an ordeal in itself - trying to get a fairy to understand how tall I was supposed to be because she doesn’t know what “feet” and “inches” are. We eventually settled on the fact that I am “half an ear taller that Kira”. Kureen then flew off, and Kira and I chatted the rest of the evening away, me telling her pretty much the story I just wrote in you, Diary. She also gave me a set of welding tools that she’s not using anymore ‘cuz she made a cooler set. Neat right? ....I’m asking. I don’t know how to use welding tools. Eh, maybe I’ll be able to trade them for something.

So yeah. Goodnight Diary.

right, kept meaning to comment this story as late.

I know I've already gone on about the first person perspective, but I thought it was more noticeable in the fourth chapter where Jade is menctioned, because it's essentaily Nyaha telling the audiance something that Jade told him, which distances the audiance too much from the event being described, or at least that's what I think.

I quite liked the bit where Nyaha writes his will, makes a reason why he would write in the dairy at time of danger and quite funny, "To Kira’s dad: thanks for your semen" XD

I think 'Dance of Warriors' should be menctioned, as I said before I tend to favor the third person perspective so it probably no surprise I was able to get into that story more, but still I thought it was written quite well, can't really find any fault with it other than it's short, but of course it was practice so that critism doesn't really count.

Nyaha’s Diary 6


Dear Diary,

Okay, I know I was writing in you multiple times as each day went on, but that got a little hard to keep track of for me. I think I’ll go back to just writing in you at the end of each day. Which, yes, I know I haven’t been doing that either, but having been a sorry, laid-up, mummy-footed couch potato for the last several days, not much interesting was happening. But that all changed today! The doctor came by Kira’s place this morning and told me I was finally ready to go! I’m just glad she trusted me enough to leave the front door unlocked after she left. That was several days ago, by the way. She said she had volunteered to head a trade mission to Negav. I guess as great as Safe Harbor is, there’s still stuff they need that they can’t get themselves. Which makes sense, actually, since this place doesn’t have its own dimensional gates like Negav does. This town really trusts Kira, though. It’s really been cool to see how much they respect her, and not just because she’ll try to pound the crap out of anyone who pisses her off (and usually succeed), though that does seem to be part of it. Oh man, there was this guy who came over one day a while back, and he started ordering Kira around like a jerk, hounding her to hurry up on the repair work she was doing for him and talking down to her because she was taking too long. I think she was working on his pistol. She did fix it up and everything, but after he paid her, she grabbed his shirt, picked him up, and threw him through one of her front windows. It was hilarious to listen to him scream like a woman! Anyway, that’s just part of why everyone around here respects her. The other part is, even though she’s irritable and violent, she always does her best work no matter what, and she’s always ready to help out with things around town. Any time she wasn’t in her house, it was because she was helping with construction in town, or better, actually helping Jade protect the place from a predator or two! I’m not sure if the scariest thing about that is that Kira alone can measure up to a giantess in terms of protective ability, or that there are things out there Jade can’t take care of on her own…Yikes, right?

Okay, so, I was cleared to leave Kira’s house this morning. She gave me the keys to lock her front door and told me where to hide them before she left: on top of her house. Her house has a flat roof, so you can’t see anything on top of it from below, and there are no buildings tall enough to see the roof from around her house, either. She also seemed pretty sure she’d be the only one capable of getting on top of it, too. I guess if she jumped really hard, maybe. Anyway, I left her house, tossed the keys onto the roof, left the town, didn’t see Jade on my way out so I couldn’t say goodbye to her, and headed out into the forest. I’ve decided to head northwest now because I feel like going to see Chordoni Falls. I’ve wanted to go there for a while, but before I got there last time, someone I met in the wild told me there was a very…mature naga living up there. I didn’t feel confident enough in myself back then, but I think after all this time I’ve matured a good deal myself. If I can say so myself, I’ve also become quite a hit with the ladies, y’know? Or at the very least I’ve mastered the art of looking at their eyes instead of their chests. Which actually wins you a lot of points, by the way. Anyone reading this should take note of that. Anyway, I think I’ve got enough maturity and skill at avoiding hungry predators to get by this naga so I’m going to give it a try and see what happens. Plus, I’ll probably get to see one of my fairy friends going this way, too!

So, I headed up northwest. I was happy to finally be up and about, so I was really haulin’ ass, using my grappling claws to swing from branch to branch. I was probably out of Jade’s territory by noon, which is when I decided to slow down and gather up some food to store away. I kinda’ ate through most of my rations during my stay at Kira’s house. So I was picking fruits and whatnot when I looked down to the ground and saw something interesting through the brush. I moved over to a branch directly above it and looked down to see a really strange-looking, bright yellow symbol inside a circle down on the ground. It was at least as long in diameter as I am tall! I used one of my grappling claws to lower myself down to the ground beside the symbol. I knelt down at touched it, and found out it was yellow paint. It was still wet, too. The other thing I found out was that it was a trap of some sort, because after I touched it, I couldn’t take my finger away from it. In fact, I couldn’t move any part of my body at all!

“Omigosh, thank you so much!” was the next thing I heard. To be honest, I wasn’t so much scared at that moment as delighted. Her young-sounding voice was so rich, clear, and delighted-sounding that it was contagious. I couldn’t help but reply, “You’re so welcome! Uh, for what, though?” I tried to look around but I couldn’t turn my head. That was when I realized I could still move my mouth but that was pretty much it. But then I saw a really cute, smiling face move into my vision from my right side. It belonged to a girl with big, brown eyes and long brown hair. Looking up with my eyes, which I could apparently also still move, I saw that she was wearing a black…I think it’s called a beret or something, it was some kind of floppy-looking hat -- on her head. “For falling into my trap!”” she said to me, still smiling. “By the way, I love what you’re doing with the fluffy blonde hair and the big-sleeved green shirt. They go together really well!” I thanked her for the compliment, and told her that my hair is usually cleaner. I didn’t get many chances to wash when I had my ankle injury. “But we need to do something about your pose,” the girl said, pulling her face out of my field of vision. I then felt something wrap around my waist. It didn’t take me long after that to realize she was a small naga. She used her strong tail to lift me up off the ground, which was interesting because as soon as I was no longer touching the painted symbol, I was able to move my body again. That didn’t last long though because she set me right back down in the middle of it, standing up this time. She then used her tail to pull and push my limbs and torso. Apparently, even though I couldn’t move my own body, it was still susceptible to outside force while still being able to hold itself in whatever position it was left in. Because of that, she could pose me in whatever position she wanted. That and the painted symbol on the ground led me to believe she was a painter. I turned out to be right when she slithered back into my field of vision and started setting up a collapsible easel she had in the large, brown bag at her waist, held up by a strap across her body and over her left shoulder. Even though she was a small naga, she still had a good couple feet on me. I was also able to get a look at her tail. It had an unusual blue and red alternating bar pattern. I wasn’t sure if that was natural or if she painted her scales like that herself, but if it was the latter, she did a really good job keeping the bars evenly-spaced and straight-edged. On second thought, I think it was too perfect to be cosmetic. Oh, and like most of the people living in the wild, she was topless. That strap of her bag wedged between her perky bare breasts was, well, eye-catching to put it mildly. Nyu nyu, know what I’m sayin’?

Anyway, she set up her easel, and then her jars of paint, and then something interesting: she took out what appeared to be a paint brush except instead of a straight handle, the bristles were on a metal ring. She attached the ring to the tip of her tail, and then went ahead and took out two regular paint brushes, each held in one hand. Then she went to work painting, uh, me, I guess, using, literally, all three brushes at the same time! I was-- no, I’m still really amazed by that! I can barely keep track of my two hands doing individual things! For her to be able to coordinate both of her hands AND her tail all at once…that just blows my mind! I tried to tell her how impressed I was at that, but she shushed me as soon as I started talking, saying I was going to break her concentration. Which I understand, but it also kinda’ irked me because I really can’t stand being interrupted. After asking me to stop pouting my lips, which I did, she got back to work.

It probably took her around…five minutes for her to shout “Done!” After that, she spun the easel around and showed me her work. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call it the best painting ever! Then again, I might be biased due to being the subject. But still, it was really good. Even though she only took a few minutes, it was really well-detailed. I had been posed in a sort of, like, uhh…I guess friendly nice-guy pose would be the best way to describe it. She put my hands behind my back and tilted my head up and to the side, and I was smiling in the picture. Still it looked really good, and I told her so. I also got out that part about being impressed at her dexterity from the last paragraph. She was really grateful for the compliments, and seeing her so gleeful made me smile, too.

“Now that that’s out of the way, I can get to making you my lunch!”” the naga said. That made my smile disappear. I was stuck without movement still. I couldn’t even fire off a grappling claw. She dipped her tail brush in yellow paint and started moving it toward me. I noticed she still made sure not to touch the symbol on the ground. She brought the brush reeeally close to my left cheek, then stopped and slowly pulled it away. I could feel my eyes going wide. I knew, or more accurately, guessed that if she painted a symbol on my skin like the one under my feet, I would be immobile even when lifted off the ground and into her mouth, which would be really bad. I heard her giggle as she moved the brush close to my cheek again, then pulled it away.

“You look so scared!” she exclaimed. She sounded surprised about it. I found out why that was when she said, “Not a lot of guys show their emotions as openly as you. Really makes me wanna’ paint another picture. I don’t suppose I could get you to hold that expression?” I told her that was unlikely since I’d probably relax when she pulled her tail away and used it to paint. “Daw, you’re right…” she said. She lifted her right up to her face, still holding the paint brush, and plastered green paint on her cheek as she made a thoughtful expression. My guess is, she was trying to think of a way to keep me scared-looking. I told her I’d be happy to make a scared expression for her in exchange for letting me go.

“Aww, but it’s been so long since I’ve been lucky enough to catch a neko!” the naga whined. I told her I could sweeten the deal, and that I know how to make lots of expressions. See, I’m the kind of guy who both wears his heart on his ludicrously-oversized sleeve and is also really self-aware, which makes me a great actor. Or, I like to think so anyway. I told her I’d be happy to the subject of as many paintings as she wanted. “Hmm……It would be nice to have a willing subject for a change…”” she thought aloud. “Buuuut painting the same guy over and over again would get boring, so I’m going to have to pass.” I saw the tail brush coming back toward my cheek. I closed my eyes and tried to think of a way to get myself out of this. But because I couldn’t move my arms, I couldn’t even reach anything inside my dimensional sleeve pockets!

It was around that time that I felt a huge amount of heat move right past my face. I opened my eyes just in time to catch a glimpse of the tail end of a fireball. It incinerated the naga’s tail brush. Her expression was one of shock as she looked to her left. I heard a familiar male voice say, “Back away, naga. This neko belongs to me.” I watched the naga quickly pack away her paint jars and fold up her easel. She then took her bag of art supplies off and used her tail to place it between the roots of a tree nearby. “I caught him, I get to eat him,” the naga told…whoever it was. She pointed at herself with her thumb for emphasis. I liked that part ‘cuz it was kinda’ badass even though she was trying to eat me. I then watched her go wide-eyed and duck under another fireball. She was pretty quick about it, too, which was impressive for someone so huge. Well, huge for me, anyway. The next thing the naga did was slither her tail off to the right of my vision. I could only follow it so far with my eyes. Whoever it was she was fighting against was off at the edge of my peripherals. He tried to hit her tail with fireballs but she was too quick, and moved it out of the way of each one. She then let out a grunt of effort and lifted her tail. I watched her lift the guy up and slam him into the ground beside her with her tail. She also got him into my field of vision. It turned out - get this - to be one of those neko fur hunter guys that caught me several days ago! It was the young guy, too, the one with the wide hat. Though he didn’t have it anymore. In fact, he was pretty beat-up-looking, and not just because of the naga beating him into the ground. His clothes were all scratched up and he had bandages wrapped around his limbs. Maybe he just got away from Kira when she saved me. Shoot, I just remembered I meant to thank her for that! Augh. Stupid Nyaha. You get around your friends and your brain turns to mush.

Anyway, yeah, so he didn’t look great but it seemed he either got away from Kira or she let him live to tell about it. I kinda’ feel bad about it actually. If I didn’t get caught, Kira wouldn’t have gotten pissed enough to kill all those guys…Um…Okay, getting off topic here. The naga slammed him into the ground. She was starting to pin him down with her heavy-looking tail, but then she recoiled while shouting “owww”. She held her tail up, and I could see that she had a gash in her belly scales; the hunter guy was holding a dagger in reverse-grip. He then turned his attention on me, standing up and brushing himself off.

“My name is Alden Aisley. You killed my men. Prepare to die.”

I kid you not, that is exactly what he said to me, word-for-word! I don’t know why he thinks I was the one who took those hunters out. Maybe he just mistook Kira for me ‘cuz it was so dark or something. Or maybe the guy just thinks all nekos look alike. Racist. I was still stuck in the naga’s paint circle thingy so I could only watch as Alden lifted his hands up to a little octagonal pendant thing around his neck. Actually it was probably more like a talisman or a necklace than a pendant. Anyway, he lifted his hands up to either side of it, and the motion seemed to activate it, causing it to glow. But then the naga hit him over the head with her tail right as the flames poured out! His little trinket shot a jet of flame across the ground, making a scorched line just to the left of me. I fell to my knees. My whole body felt numb right then. I smiled, realizing I could move my body again because he ruined the naga’s symbol on the ground. I heard Alden growl in frustration. Seems he wanted me to be a nice easy target. I shakily forced myself to my feet and looked up. He had his back turned to me and looked like he was readying a blast of fire for the naga. I had to act quickly: I moved my right hand into my sleeve pocket and grabbed the grip of one of my grappling claws while raising my arm at Alden. I squeezed the grip, pressing down both triggers under the leather padding, causing the claw to fire out of my sleeve. It latched onto Alden as soon as the button in the middle of the three claws pressed into his back. I lightened my grip on the…grip, while pulling back with my arm. The combined strength of my arm and the reel of the grappler pulled Alden off his feet. I turned around, swung my arm, and pressed one of the triggers on the grappler, pulling him around me while locking the reel. I then pressed a button on the back of the grip with my thumb, un-latching the claws and throwing Alden into a tree trunk.

“Whoa! Nice one!” the naga yelled, slithering over to me. “Thanks for helping me! Especially since I just tried to eat you. You wouldn’t believe how many people would have held that against me.” I told her I knew what she meant, and that so many people seem to take having their lives threatened really personally.

“I would be one of them!” Alden growled, having gotten up off the ground. He put his hands up next to his artifact again and fired off a jet of flame. The naga acted quicker than I did, pulling me out of the way as she dodge it herself. It was pretty cool, too, she kinda twisted the base of her tail around and did a twirl kinda’ thing. Really coordinated naga. I turned to Alden and told him I wasn’t the one who killed his coworkers.

“Even if I didn’t see you committing the act yourself, I’d know you’re lying!” he shouted. He raised his hands to his talisman again. I then heard the naga shout, “Keep him busy!” I glanced behind me to see her taking her two paint brushes out of her bag, dripping with black paint, and ‘kneel’ down. I looked back to Alden just in time to see him shoot another fireball. I raised my left sleeve up in front of me, using my hand to throw the cuff outward, then pulled my hand back behind the doorway to the dimensional pocket. I managed to catch the fireball with the pocket without burning myself, though my sleeve cuffs caught fire. I quickly dove to the side while raising my right sleeve, making the same motion with my hands and opening the front of that sleeve’s portal, throwing the fireball back at him. I watched him dive to the side as well just before I hit the ground. Both my sleeves were alight at that point so I did a stop-drop-and-roll to put them out. By the time I was done rolling, Alden must have already been up on his feet, because when I started getting up I saw another fireball heading my way. But then something black and hollow leapt in the way and took the hit, getting blasted apart while stopping the fireball. I got splatters of what I discovered was black paint all over me. I looked to the naga just in time to watch her finish painting something on the ground, then raise her hand over it.

“Rise!” she shouted, and in response, her crude painting came to life from the ground. It was wolf-like in appearance, but it just appeared to be a hollow outline. Despite the rush job, it still looked halfway decent. “Bite!”” was the next thing she shouted. The drawing leapt forward in response. Alden seemed to have been as surprised as I was, because he didn’t even react until the naga shouted, and by then it was too late for him to shoot another fireball. I watched in awe as the wolf knocked him over with its shoulder when he tried to hop out of its way, then turned and went for him with its mouth. Alden raised his arm in front of him, then shouted in pain when the paint wolf bit it. ““Yeah! Good wolfy!” the naga cheered.

I decided to take the opportunity to attempt to disarm Alden. I finally got to my feet and ran up beside him as he struggled against the naga’s living drawing. I grabbed my right sleeve with my left hand and pulled it open, then pulled it down over Alden’s head to block his view, which seemed to make him think to calm himself down, finally. I grabbed onto his talisman with my left hand, then quickly brought it away because of the heat coming off that thing. I grabbed the string it was wrapped around his neck with instead. But he felt that and managed to get a hold of my wrist. At the same time, he kicked the underside of the naga’s wolf, which somehow made it lose its liveliness and caused the paint it was made of to just fall to the ground. He then started getting to his feet while I tried to wrestle the talisman off his neck. We started swinging each other around in circles, him trying to throw me off and me trying to swing him hard enough to snap the string the talisman was on. By then we were both using both hands to hold on, meaning that my right arm was going right past his face inside the sleeve. I actually felt him trying to bite my wrist, but with all the movement, he couldn’t get in a good position to do so. Eventually we stopped spinning around, and I decided to put my foot on his stomach to help me push him off, but he tripped me up by moving backwards right at that moment and I had to put my foot back down to stay standing. A few moments after that, I got another idea: I started pulling as hard as I could, then when I felt him pulling the other way, I let go and spun around, making him lose grip on my wrist. He stumbled backwards, and bumped, as luck would have it, right into the naga. She caught his shoulders and then swiftly slammed her tail into him from behind, knocking him face-down onto the ground, and then, for good measure, she lifted her tail up and slammed it into him again while he was still down. I winced at that one; I remember hearing a nice loud snapping or cracking noise. The naga left her tail on top of him for a few moments, then raised it up.

“I think I knocked him out,” she said, looking down at his motionless body. I told her I sure hoped so. I then added “nice one”, “Thanks! I practice,” she said. She then extended the tip of her tail towards me. “I’m Beryl, by the way. Pleasure fighting off hunters with you!” I shook her tail with my sleeve-covered right hand, and asked, with intended incredulous tone, if that was really her idea of fun. I knelt down in front of the unconscious Alden and carefully removed the talisman from around his neck, and stored it away in my sleeve. “Anything can be fun if you want it to be fun,” Beryl said. As I stood back up, I saw her adjusting her floppy hat thing. I liked her perspective, though I wasn’t so sure I could agree. There are things in life that I just don’t think are fun. Then again, even if I don’t think they’re fun, someone else in the world probably thinks they’re fun. Heck, there’s probably a wacko out there who actually thinks being eaten is fun. I mean, it probably would be fun without the “dying horribly” part, but how do you get around that? Actually I have heard of plants that slow down the digestive process. In the end I guess it’s like mom always told me, to each their own. Actually, when you think about it, the fact that everything in life has the potential for enjoyment is pretty cool, even if not everyone can enjoy everything. Except maybe Beryl. She’s pretty bombastic. I have bad days sometimes, but her? Nothing ever seems to ruin her good mood! Not for more than five seconds anyway. Except she got really mad when I tried to swipe her hat for fun. Apparently it’s a memento her mom gave her when she left her tribe to wander on her own.

Anyway, after chatting for a little bit, Beryl decided she was gonna’ eat Alden, and was leaning in to paint a paralyzing “hex mark”, as she calls them, on his neck. See, apparently, the reason why she paralyzes her prey before eating it is because her mom was cursed before she was born, and that curse was intended to make her offspring, ie Beryl, an outcast by preventing her from eating live prey, doing this by making her spontaneously upchuck whenever anything moved inside her body that wasn’t supposed to be there., ie any living thing she ate. But she found a way around this after learning her paint-based magic from a neera artist/mage called “Master Typhos” which is a pretty badass name for a miniature person. Or at least I think it is. Anyway, Beryl was going to make a hex mark on Alden, but as soon as she got close, he kicked her arm, making her throw her paint brush right into my face. As both Beryl and I recoiled, he swept my legs out from under me as he got up, and I think he elbowed Beryl in the face, and then dashed away. Either he’d been faking the whole time or we chatted too long and he woke up without us knowing. To be honest, I’m kind of glad he got away. I don’t really like to watch people get killed, especially when it’s my fault, but at the same time, I couldn’t just deny Beryl a good meal. After that disaster, Beryl and I went hunting together, and caught her a tiger with one of her paralyzing hex mark traps. Yes, she ate it whole. After that she showed me some of her other hex marks. She can make different marks with different colours to make all sorts of nasty effects, like itching, burning, itching and burning, tunnel vision, drowsiness, and excessive sweating!

I have to tell you, Diary, I really like Beryl. She’s so energetic and fun, silly and…fun. Just fun, fun, fun, a fountain of fun! I also found out she’s really into boobs, too. She didn’t mention it until after I tripped over a rock and fell on top of her while she was rooting through her art bag, making several rolled up sheets of paper to scatter all over the ground. I picked one up and it was a painting of an elf with huge gazongas! She had her arms in that v-shaped, hands-cupped position that pushed them out further, too. Not to mention she was shirtless. I nearly had a bloody nose! But then Beryl swiped it out of my hands and put it away, and told me she wasn’t supposed to let anyone else see that. Apparently she’d promised the elf in the painting. Whoops. I asked her why she had a painting like that anyway. Cue Beryl going on about how great boobs are for, like, five minutes. She talked about everything, including the sizes, the shapes, elasticity, areola diameter, nipple shape. Of course I agreed with her on every point. Seems like it didn’t matter what kind of breasts a woman had, Beryl absolutely loved them. Then she asked what kind of breasts I like, telling me that men she met generally had one type they liked the best. I could almost feel my face getting beat red as I told her, honestly, that size doesn’t matter to me as much as shape. I prefer breasts to be as round as possible, all the way around. She told me I seem like the kind of guy who’d like that. She also told me that my preference of breasts showed that I’m the kind of guy who wants to like everyone, but has high standards that not everyone can live up to. Which is actually right on for me, because, y’know, I expect people to at least be courteous and respectful of me when I am of them. But there’s people that come along every so often who just don’t, and I can’t stand them, and yet I still wish I could be friends with them. What impresses me is that Beryl can actually divine traits about people through their preference in breasts. Oh, and after she told me that, I decided to be kinda’ bold. I said to her, “speaking of breasts, your’s are pretty nice to look at, too.”

“Well of course they are!” she said, making a very serious face. “I trained mine to look exactly the way I want them to look, and I work them out every day so they stay strong and perky!” She then emphasized that by putting her fists on her hips, closing her eyes, and flexing her pectoral muscles, making each of her breasts bounce one at a time. It was…mesmerizing, I think is the best word to describe it. Is it wrong to perv over my platonic friends? Well, I don’t think there’s much consensus on social convention in the wilderness, so I’m going to say it’s okay. It was embarrassing when Beryl wiped the drool from my chin with her tail though.

So, palling around and goofing off brought us into the evening. I shared some of the fish I caught earlier today with Beryl and we watched the sunset alongside the Shard River. All in all I had a really great day, even if that Alden guy did try to kill me. But I got his artifact, so I don’t think he’ll be any threat to me or Beryl anymore. Maybe I’ll give the talisman to my fairy friend. Seems like something she’d be interested in. And speaking of Beryl, I told her where I was headed to, Chordoni Falls, and she put her hands on the sides of her face and gasped, and then told me she’d been thinking of going there herself to practice landscape art. She decided right then and there that she’d travel with me to there. I happily agreed. I mean, even though she’ll probably slow me down during travel, it’ll be more fun with a friend, so why wouldn’t I agree?

Anyway, I’ve been up way past nightfall writing this. Beryl’s already fast asleep. I’m gonna snuggle up to her tail and stuff. It’ll be so super comfy. I’ve slept on a naga’s tail before. Wow. I really miss Unmei. Maybe I’ll write about her in you some other time. I’m too tired to do it now.

Goodnight, my Diary.