Bubblegum Fox{Fairy Tail}

Flaming Pink Sparks Pt.1

|Tsukiko's POV|

It's funny really. The small things that you never notice before, and even if you do, they seem unimportant and are quickly forgotten. I had taken notice of many things during my travels. Like how easy it is to become oblivious to the changing of seasons and how drastically the temperature changes with these. I guess when you are alone in the wild your instincts take over, and it's no longer a matter of going home to a warm house, but a matter of fighting and surviving. That one singular word was what I had been doing for a year now. Surviving.

I had no outside help, no one was there to comfort me when I felt down. After a while, these things seemed just that, things that I no longer needed. I had outgrown the need to be babied by now and being in the wild like this only allowed me to show this fact. I had no human contact by now, I never needed to go by the villages anymore. I always hunted or picked my food. The only time that I did need to go stop by a village was to get fabrics and cloth to make my own clothes, I never liked buying stuff so I just always used the resources I could. I had learnt how to survive in the wilds a long time ago, back when I was still a young kitsune, with around two or three tails, and it just stuck with me, I guess the leaving of guilds also had another pro added to it.

I did wish sometimes that I had an exceed or an animal companion, even to just play around in my fox form with, but I wasn't that lucky. Talking of my fox form, I had improved it a lot. In my fox form, I was now stronger than any human I knew, I could change between my forms quicker, allowing me to make an escape or fight whilst changing forms. I had learnt how to summon and use my magic in my other form as well, although it was still weak and took a lot out of me, it was getting there.

My fox form still looked the same, just with a few changes, my golden fur had gone a shade darker, whilst the white parts became a shade brighter. My ears grew as my hearing became better and my nose and eyesight became stronger. My agility whilst in that form also improved greatly. Beforehand I never really had a use for my fox form, but now that I was out in the wilds again, I mainly slept in this form, I was warmer as a fox than a human. Plus, a small connection had grown between me and my animals, and I could use them to do many more things now, at first it was just to attack or distract, but now they could also defend or help me search for things, this was greatly improved whilst I was in my fox form.

Although my fox form only had small changes, there were blatantly obvious changes to my human form. I was skinner from the constant fighting and little amounts of food, although I was skinner you could also obviously see the results from my training. With me unlocking and taming more of my magic my body had to change to fit all my magic in me. So I started to notice faint markings along my arms, chest, stomach and around my eyes. They were all simple in design but weird of colour. Instead of just being just black or white, they were a mix of colours. The ones around my eyes the weirdest. The ones on my arms consisted of swirls and patterns that started at the end of my middle finger. From there they went up in a triangle to my wrist where it expanded and like a glove covered my arms before they faded at the top of my arm. The ones on my arms were a mix of gold and silver in colour and sometimes these colours blended together to make a white gold colour. The ones that went across my chest almost connected to my arms. They started at the top of my shoulder blade and went down this to go across my collarbone before fading into my sternum. These markings closely followed the look of the ones on my arms but had changed from gold and silver to a pale pink and blue. As the ones at the sternum ended, the ones on my stomach started. They also closely matched the pattern made by the other two but this time it was slightly different. Instead of the pattern just decorating my stomach, it made a sign. The patterned swirls and curls split soon after starting and circled around my stomach, leaving the centre free, they conjoined again at the bottom of my stomach. At the centre of this circle sat an animal, a fox with nine tails sat there, tails in the air as it crouched down on its paws, looking like it was about to leap. Another big difference between this marking and the others was that this was only one colour, a light shade of purple. The last of my marking was around my eyes. They were all the colours of my magic and made to elongate and make my eyes seem smaller, so they seemed more fox-like. They started a little before the tear ducts of my eyes as a small triangle and expanded out to outline my eye before flicking up near the end and then joining together. At the start, it was blue, then purple than pink. Silver and gold decorated the insides with little dots of glimmer. Although that was one of the most eye-catching changes, I still had smaller ones, but these were only known if you knew me from before. My hair had started to fade into a white, it started at the top of my ears and was slowly making my hair the same colour. With the different colouring of my hair, I thought it reasonable to have a different hairstyle, so I let it all grow to be the same length and the ends curled. My hair reached the top of my thighs by now. With the whitening of my hair, I thought it would be reasonable to change my eye colour as well. The way that I did this was by buying a magical item, it allowed me to change one thing about myself, often used by mages who went undercover. It allowed me to almost permanently change this one aspect, I say almost permanently as with this item I could change my eyes back at any time. I went for a reddish-orange colour. They were the major changes to my look, nothing else really changed, apart from what I wore. Instead of my purple yukata, I now wore a two-piece. The top part consisting of a bralette with sleeves that rested on the top part of my arm, a little below my shoulders. The base of the bralette was dark blue, purple and light pink in colour, a galaxy design with constellations decorating the fabric. Near the top of the bralette was a thick, dark blue ribbon, this was also at the bottom but smaller. Atop this blue ribbon was a smaller gold ribbon. The sleeves were just the dark blue ribbon with the gold ribbon decorating the top and bottom. Where the bralette joined together at the middle was a sky blue bow. Attached to the bralette was white lace with light red trim around the edges, this grew longer as it went around my back. The white lace was also used to finish off the sleeves, it puffed up till my elbow then fell freely down to my wrists. The same galaxy fabric was used for the skirt, still with the constellations decorating it. It fell down into a fishtail style skirt. The skirt had a golden trim all the way around with a thicker bit at the top that formed a golden bow to my right side. I wore thigh-high dark purple socks that had gold trimmings and for shoes, I wore tradition geta that was made from dark brown wood, purple ribbon and a single pearl. For an accessory I wore a white lace ribbon around my neck that tied to the right side of my neck, it was decorated with a white flower with the red lacing inside this.

Even though everything had changed since I left Fairy Tail behind, I tried to stay the same, but it was difficult, being on your own changed you, in ways you couldn't control. With all the training that I was doing I had no power to fight the changes off, so after a while, I just gave up and accepted them for what they were. They were only small things, like how I have become a bit more secretive or closed off, I had no one to talk to anyway, so it was easy to accept this change. There were many more, but I don't want to reveal everything too soon.

It had still been a while since I fought my last monster, and I thought that now they might not want to test me anymore, but I knew it wasn't true. That wasn't how it worked. It just meant that either the next beast was one who I knew pretty well, or that they had trouble finding a suitable monster. I never let my guard down and didn't sleep very well because of my uncertainty, of course, the lack of sleep became nothing but a bug to me. I soon grew used to my shorter nights and longer days, and after that, I soon realized that I never really needed to sleep anyway, I was immortal after all. 

 For a couple more days I travelled around the forests till I found a dazzling lake, it was decorated with rocks and boulders of all sizes, some were covered in a full-of-life green moss, whilst others were bare. Flowers sprouted from the ground and trees drenched the lake into shadows, giving any visitor the choice to be in the shade or not. I decided that I should rest my body for a while, I was still pushing myself past my limits all the time, and my human-like body could only take so much before it was drained. I planned to stay in this secluded area for at least four days, I could have one or two to relax, and the other two or three would be used for training. It was peaceful here and I was very glad that I had stumbled across this area. It was so sublime. The colours all danced together in a pattern of absolute beauty and amazement. 

As night approached I set up my small camp. I made a small fire and cooked some fish I had caught earlier. I ate some berries while the fish was cooking. After I finished my meal I changed into my fox form and curled myself up, allowing only a few small gaps for air.  Luckily for me, the surrounding trees were close together, so I got some blockage from the wind. It was calm and I found it one of the easiest place to fall asleep in. As soon as I found a comfortable spot I tried my luck to fall asleep, and I found it surprising that I had managed pretty quickly, and yet just as I was starting to fall asleep, I heard faint singing, and it was no longer so calm, and with widened eyes I stared into the open area, searching for the source, yet I never found it. And all at once it clicked in my mind who I was up against next.