Circe had a friend, her best friend who wasn't a succubus actually, by the name of Kirk, who was as alike her in temperament as it was humanly possible to be, which is why they got along so well together. She had called him in to help escort these younglings to their class trainer, and as he had guided them along through the city he had been endlessly amused by their interactions together.
So much potential!
Shy girl and clueless guy, the one smitten, the other oblivious. It was a theme repeated so often throughout the history of human relations that it was a mystery sometimes how the race survived.
But then, Kirk smirked wryly to himself, meddlers like himself and Circe were no less common. So it fell upon them to educate the youth on how to go about overcoming their adolescent stumbling through relationships, and actually get on with dating and marrying and perpetuating the species.
Already the girl wore the tattered remains of Naruto's jacket, which allowed her to adjust the towel lower so that it served more as a skirt, and left them both more comfortable.
Just then Kirk spotted a familiar young boy up ahead, and pulled a single gold coin out of his wallet, quick stepping two paces to drag Naruto a half pace away from Shion. "Naruto?" he directed the attention of the boy he had to the one ahead. "You see that boy over there?"
"The one coming our way?" Naruto asked, wondering what could be important about him. He didn't look like a threat or anything. So why had his teacher (any adult who was willing to say his name without hate was a teacher) drawn his attention to him?
"That's the one," Kirk confirmed, passing on to Naruto the gold coin. "His name is Little Timmy. He sells a white kitten. I want you to go and talk with him, and buy it for Shion, then give it to her as a gift. The thing is, you can never tell her it was from me. Claim responsibility yourself," Kirk conspired. "Can you do that for me? The rest of that money is yours to keep, if you do."
'Okaaay, so that made it kind of a ninja mission,' Naruto thought. 'Nothing odd about that. If people were willing to pay me to walk dogs or buy groceries, weed gardens or paint fences, why not buy gift kittens?' So he dashed off to greet Lil Timmy, and one exchange of sixty silver and one cat carrier later, Naruto was completing the second part of his assignment by presenting it to Shion and stumbling over a, "Well, I wanted to give this to you."
The kitten was adorable. The girl was predictably overjoyed.
'Ah, youth.' Kirk gazed fondly on the scene. 'So dumb, so adorable.'
"Thank you for this opportunity, I promise to try to use your lessons well," Haku proclaimed formally with a bow in her new Shaman robes.
One discrete nudge later, Naruto stumbled in his new robes and then repeated her gesture. "Uh, yeah, what she said. Thanks for the robe and stuff."
Turning about, both youths started to climb back out of the valley of kings, leaving Farseer Umbrua the shaman trainer behind them. Haku took the clone's arm in hers and asked, "Naruto, you never told me. Who had responsibility for teaching you polite manners? Was it Kakashi?"
Thunder clouds rumbled ominously overhead.
"Is there really a class where I get to keep pets?" Shion enthused, holding the adorable white kitten to her chest like she had never possessed anything as cute before.
"Several of them," Kirk answered honestly, striding along confidently. "However only one where you get to pick any critter you like."
"That makes them the best, right?" Naruto agreed, half jogging to keep up with the man's much larger stride.
"They certainly feel so," Kirk agreed, judging himself to have gotten more than his money's worth in amusement out of the pair of kids so far, and the day wasn't even done yet.
Although Shion now sported several sweets he had conned Naruto into buying for her. And her reaction kept pumping up Naruto in ways that only apply when insecure boys feel they are doing right in their treatment of girls, as her eyes rewarded him with admiration and gratitude again and again.
"We should go get that class, right Shion?" Naruto yelled, an underlying current of a very uncertain child seeking her approval present if you knew where to look.
"Oh yes!" she agreed guilelessly.
'That's okay,' Kirk thought to himself. 'I've got enough guile for both of them.'
"Come along, Hunter Trainer this way," Kirk announced, marching along pleased as punch.
Elsharin the High Elf winced and felt like a terrible person when she saw the plain, naked fear on the face of the human child she'd blasted with dueling spells, was it only three days ago now?
'On such things are the wars between races founded, when you teach the young to fear anyone different.' She quoted inside of her mind a lesson all-too-frequently observed in the long history of her race. 'Because they grow up with that fear, and teach it to their children, until wars spring from the seeds you've sown.'
It seemed, in retrospect, to be rather a harsh lesson over a childishly innocent comment about her ears.
Young ones yell rude things. That was true of all the races, until their parents taught them better. Or, in the case of the orcs, not. Those grew to adulthood yelling rude things by preference. But a human was not an orc, any more than an elf was. If she'd conjured a sweet as her reply instead, odds are she would have been 'pretty lady' just as quickly, ears forgotten.
The guards, on seeing his reaction did not stop to question it. They simply took him to Jennea Cannon instead, and the raid almost reflexively deployed an extra few of their number between the child and Elsharin, who closed her eyes to conceal her pain at their probably unconscious reaction to the 'awareness of danger' signals the boy kept sending.
'How many times must my race's pride bring us low? Will it end while elves draw breath?' she wondered.
Naruto found himself before a human woman who smiled pleasantly and calmed him down some. The lead Paladin was already speaking, "Naruto? There's a class I'd like to introduce you to where you'll never be hungry again. And with teleports so you can visit your friends whenever you want to!"
"Really?" the boy asked, eyes round. Either one of those seemed too good to be true to the lad.
"Truly," the Paladin nodded. "Now would you like to blast your enemies with ice and fire? Wrap yourself in shields of energy and command water elementals?"
Shining eyes went to Jennea, who smiled charmingly and said, "All true. I really enjoy transforming my enemies into sheep. But everything he said, we can do - and you can too, if you join us."
Naruto trembled for a moment, then exploded into a cheer, jumping while pumping a fist in the air. "Yay! New Jutsu!!"
He was wrapped into a novice Mage's robe mere seconds later and had charmed a hug out of Jennea, his trainer.
See other episodes by Sapphire Cat
(Posted Wed, 29 May 2013 10:09)
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