Kit's scribbles-comments allowed

[Kitalpha Hart]

"Papa, Papa!" I ran up to him and hugged his leg, making his walking extremely stumpy.
He grinned down at me. "How's my little girl?" He asked, ruffling my hair with his hand.
"Aaah, Papa, you ruined my hair! Mama just made it perfect!" I squeaked, laughing. Laughing himself, he stumped over to Mama.
"The brush is still in your hair, silly," she scolded, "so your hair wasn't perfect yet!" She pulled me off of Papa's leg and started brushing my hair again. "Now remember, there are visitors, so you have to behave."
"Yes Mama." I said, sitting still. She ran over the rules as she brushed and put up my hair.
"Now, put this on and I'll get the rest." She said, helping me into a white long-sleeved tunic and bloomers. I waited as she went to get the rest of the outfit, hearing the strange people arrive. She soon came back with it, a shirt and skirt. Hiking up the undertunic, she wrapped the skirt around twice before putting the cord through the loops of the tunic and knotting it and pulling the tunic down. The shirt, sleeveless, also wrapped around, but only once and had a sash wrapped around it to keep it from getting loose. Geta adorned my feet with knee-high tabi.
Properly dressed, Mama sent me out with Papa, who was wearing his decorative armor, and we went to the festival together, since she was the priestess of the guardian angel's shrine and so was busy readying for that.
I held Papa's hand as we went to the village's square as the strangers roamed, talking to the villagers, people I knew.
One, dressed similarly to me, came up to us and bowed slightly. "What a lovely daughter."
"Lovely but troublesome." Papa responded, which solicited a laugh from the stranger.
"At her age, who isn't continually in trouble or making it?" Was her reply. "I put frogs in my brothers' rooms, and the one was afraid of frogs, so he got the largest."
"Frogs? I use tadpoles when I find 'em." I bragged, which had her laughing again. She then went back to talking to Papa, and others followed.
I met other kids, some dressed similarly, though the boys had leggings and boots and no skirt, while others had far more outlandish clothing. One woman had an outfit that was one piece, a dress, Papa called it.
"Welcome, welcome!" Mama said, silencing all of us. Dressed as the priestess, and with the others surrounding her, she looked more like a goddess. Gasps of awe and admiration came from the visitors, while the rest of us bowed. Mama continued speaking, and I looked around, searching.
There he was, all alone, but for his grandfather: the only boy with brown hair and brown eyes. Odd, but true. I liked him, even though he never said anything and hardly made a sound, at that. He always seemed sad, and he seemed sad now.
I pulled my hand out of Papa's and went over to him, hugging him. "Aaaww, this is fun! Don't be sad!" I said. He looked at me, recognition sparkling in his eyes. I was the only child to really ever talk to him, which saddened me. The others did if they had to, but otherwise ignored him. And he always wore black! Even now, he wore black, a dark spot among all the color.  

[Kitalpha Hart]

Mama was done talking, and the villagers brought out the food. We children were directed to a side table, where our parents brought us food. I ate quickly after the quick prayer, more excited to see the events than anything else.
Finished with my first plate and eager for a second, I saw him picking at his plate and banged my fist on the top of his head. "Wataru, eat! You'll be tiny when the rest of us are up-grown, and I don't want to see you be tiny!"
Rubbing the top of his head, he ignored me and continued picking at his food. Sighing, I grabbed a handful of chickpeas from his plate with one hand, forced his mouth open with the other, and crammed it into his mouth, snapping it shut after doing so. "You know how it ends, Wataru. Don't make me force-feed you in front of everyone."
"Tormenting him again, Anæa?" Mama asked, appearing out of nowhere. "At least you keep him fed, though in an unmannerly way."
"It works, Mama, he eats." Beside me, I heard him swallow and turned to him, now he was eating, his eyes on me. He knew that if he didn't eat, he'd be in a rough spot. He acted like he never needed to eat...
The second set of plates came around, and Mama left, patting me on the top of my head. Wataru ate, more to pacify me than anything else. I ate more slowly, barely managing to finish.
"Oooh, I ate too much..." I groaned. Around me, I could see the others, visiting and villager, agreeing. Waiting for the adults, we chattered, relaxing and having fun. The adults cleared the table, and we kept talking.
Three weeks they stayed, and when they finally left, we were sad but glad to see them go. Sad, because it meant that we would probably never see them again, but glad, because now we didn't have to wear our best all the time and we were tired. I spent the first several days after they left in my night clothes, constantly sleeping in strange places and eating whatever was handed to me and edible. The other village children were the same, and in the middle of the day, we were most likely found together under a tree, talking sleepily, if not already asleep.
Wataru, though, was away. His grandfather had fallen ill in the last few days, and so was busy caring for him, with the village herbalist. From what Mama had said, Wataru would soon be alone, with no one to care for him. He would be forced to wander the streets, waiting until someone adopted him, unless Mama took him in at the shrine, as she always did with orphans.  

[Kitalpha Hart]

I knelt down next to Wataru. I had found him on the riverside, in his crimson mourning, hiding his face, though the way his body shook meant that he was crying.
"You miss him that much?" I asked softly, wrapping an arm around him. "The others have mourned, and moved on. Please, this won't get you anywhere, and you need to eat and grow big and strong, as he would have wanted." I gently managed to pull a hand away to see his hand bloody.
"Are you hurt, is that why you cry?" I asked, worried. He looked up at me and I realized that he was crying blood.
I scowled. "All right, crying's not gonna help, stop that mess." I grabbed his hands, avoiding the blood, and shoved them into the river. Beside me, I could see him blinking rapidly, forcing the flow of tears to stop as I scrubbed his hands. I then dunked in his head, scrubbing the blood off his cheeks.
Now that he was wet and no longer crying, we stared at each other. "All right, crying blood isn't normal, but it's cool, so don't cry in front of anyone else." He nodded, and we stood.
"So, you gonna go back to your usual black, or are you gonna wear colors? I say colors, you look boring in all black all the time." I grabbed his arm and dragged him to the shrine, to see what they had to offer.  

[Kitalpha Hart]

I'm back~

Wataru ended up in black again, as the other colors looked very strange on him. I did manage to get him to eat, at least. Behind the shrine, the ruins of a hut was rebuilt, and he moved into it, residing alone. As we grew, I became busy with my parents falling ill to a sickness that wiped out many people, reducing our population. My parents passed on, leaving me an orphan, and the shrine without a high priestess.

I wandered outside the village, a young teen needing to get away from all the sorrow. Being the face of positivity wore me down, and I would start crying, unable to stop, at random times.
"Lookit the pretty girl! Grab her!" I jumped, to be grabbed by bandits. Startled, I froze, becoming stiff, unable to cry out as they started dragging me away from home. In shock, I was unable to do anything.
"What is that boy doing?" One of the two asked. I turned to see a male charging on all fours. His hair was silvery-white, and when he jumped, I saw his blood-red eyes, tiny horns and knew that this was someone hosting a demon.
He landed on one of the bandits, his clawed hands ripping out the man's throat. The second died a similar death, and he charged off, clearly headed for the bandit camp. I tilted my head slightly, puzzling out why he looked so familiar.
Sighing, I got onto my feet, and dusting myself off, headed back to the village. If bandits were out and about, then I'd be safer at home.  

[Kitalpha Hart]

The bandits came more often now, but it was always Wataru gong to the rescue. Watching him always had my head buzzing over the strange host. Was it him? He came back while I was making dinner for myself, and I tilted my head slightly, comparing the silver-haired host to him. They were very similar, but was it him? I wanted to shrug it off, but I had no experience with imps. How would I know if the host was Wataru or not?
We remained in the village grounds, only Wataru leaving, and the occasional merchant group coming through. Slowly, my face of positivity was not needed, and I spent more time in my home, allowed to relax and be sad on my own time.
"Anæa! There's a merchant group coming! I think they have more practical things, and everyone knows we need more cloth and stuff!" Grinning ruefully, I left my home, to see that yes, a merchant group, one wagon clanging with pots, pans and other cooking tools, another loaded with bolts of cloth, a third with already-made clothes of several styles and sizes, and more that held other practical items. We waited as they entered the square and set up before swarming.
I was able to replace all my cooking equipment, as well as get cloth and other practical items from them. Having a pretty face helped, paying with sliver did as well.
Still, these merchants had hard faces, ones hardened by rough times. Their whispers were of bandits everywhere, and famine in some areas. Some villages were destroyed by bandits or worse, leaving no one alive. My home was almost untouched by this, and we were lucky for it, since it seemed that the guardian angels were disappearing, and some places had demons watching over instead, and others no one at all...
Unable to listen to the whispers any longer, I took my purchases and went home, trembling. "Demons? Disappearing Guardian Angels? A Great Angel going bad? What is going on?" I whispered to myself, putting everything away. I had no answer, nor did I really want to know...
And Wataru. He hadn't shown up recently, past bandit attacks. Just hid in his hut behind the shrine...
"Heavy thoughts will ruin my face," I muttered, "but I cannot help them. I am almost a burden to my home, rather than an aid..."