Log: Kyle, Sarah, and Yvette, Monday afternoon, July 11th (backdated)

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Kyle, Sarah, and Yvette go to visit the foxes in the nearby woods, and lessons are discussed to improve Sarah's sneakiness.


Peering through some branches, Sarah tried to stay as quiet as possible while looking at all the little foxes. "Wow, you guys were right, this is pretty cool! Look how cute they are!" She tried not to squee out loud, smiling as she watched them move around. "How'd you find out about them anyway?"

Baby animals, the universal happymaker. Even Kyle wasn't immune, he'd succumbed to the cuteness of a kitten, who grew into a cat who now basically ruled Kyle's entire room, and he had spent more than a few hours himself just sort of watching the baby foxes, or owelets, or raccoon kits. Anything that was small and fuzzy and not necessarily edible. He had his limits, after all. "I came across it out here... " He took a second to remember when he'd found the fox den the first time. Hell, for all he knew it was another time he was being an emosaurus. "Couple of years ago, geez, I'm pretty sure I was still in high school."

"That's great, Kyle. Thanks for sharing it with me." Sarah smiled at him and then looked back to watch the foxes dart around through the bushes. It really was hard not to smile or feel unhappy when watching them, which was exactly what she needed right now. If only you could have bottled that kind of thing and save it when for you really needed it, that'd be awesome.

"Kyle brought me out here to see them when I was the new student," Yvette added quietly with a soft smile. Here in the woods, she seemed more relaxed than she had been in days, her hair unspiking slightly and her face softening enough for facial expressions. "And now those baby foxes have babies of their own. They are the cure for feeling bad, I find. It is very hard to be sad when you are looking at baby animals playing."

"Pretty much. As long as we don't get too close for the mom to freak out." They were a little further back than usual, and it'd taken a little longer to get there since leading Sarah through the trees quietly took longer than Kyle or Yvette would've needed themselves, being used to it. "It's been like four years. The first set of baby foxes could have baby grandfoxes by now."

"Four years, wow. That's so cool." Sarah was repeating herself but she didn't even notice thanks to the foxes' distracting cuteness factor. "Just imagine, baby grandfoxes, hee." She tried to remain as quiet as possible but she wasn't nearly as skilled as Kyle or Yvette, and in moving backwards a little bit she stepped on a branch, cracking it in two. "Oops, sorry!" she whispered.

Down in the valley, the foxes had paused, startled, then disappeared into the underbrush. "It is all right, Sarah," Yvette said, patting the girl on the shoulder. "It is very hard to stay still and quiet for a long time. Especially when you have not had Mr. Logan as the teacher."

"Hey now." Kyle protested. "I got all my awesome the hard way, while Logan was off being Logan. Okay, most of my awesome." He scratched his head and thought. "Okay, at least half of my awesome." He stood up and brushed the leaves and dirt from his jeans. "They'll come back, it's their home, and foxes like to den in the same place every year, and even if this pair doesn't, it's a good den and another pair would take it over."

Sarah sighed and nodded, sad that she'd chased the foxes away. "Yeah, I'm not that sneaky, really." She listened to Kyle and smiled a little, glad to hear that they'd come back at some point in the future. "Well, that's good, and maybe between now and then I'll learn to be a little sneakier."

"We could teach you?" Yvette offered. "It is the useful trick to learn, and it can be fun. Like the hide and seek."

"That would be great, yeah." Sarah smiled at Yvette and Kyle in turn. "I mean, I could definitely use the training, right?" It would definitely be useful and, especially since the last incident at the mansion, she'd love to feel more useful.

"It can't hurt." Not unless the kids ended up hiding in the sewers after being kidnapped by Artie's psycho mom again but the odds of that were probably low. Kyle hoped. "It's always useful to know how to sneak up on someone, even if all you're gonna do is drop a water balloon on their head." He did his best impression of Logan's grumpy face. "If I get a water balloon dumped on my head, it's the lake for you."

"In this weather, the lake would not be so bad the punishment," Yvette offered, but then added. "But not for me. I am too heavy to swim and you will have to pull me back out."

"Ack, really? Definitely no throwing Yvette into the lake then." That would not end well at all if she couldn't swim. "I don't think I'd want to throw water balloons around either but I'd love to learn whatever you could teach me."

"Nothing says I can't toss you in the shallow end, Yvette." Kyle said, grinning. Throwing friends in lakes never got old. "And no time like the present, right? First thing you do is change how you walk. Most people go heel-toe, and so you kind of thump your heel and it makes noise. You can walk quieter if you put the ball of your foot down first. It'll feel weird and unless you're, uh, me, totally wrong, but it changes how, like you put your weight down and it quiets you down a lot." Kyle's heels rarely touched the ground but that was more due to the shape of his feet than any training.

For Yvette, it was something similar - her toes were too long for 'normal' walking so she'd adapted, gripping the ground with her toes first. "You do not have to have the feet like us, however," she reassured Sarah. "I helped Laurie learn to be sneaky and she has the very normal feet."

"Oh, hmm, ok." Sarah gave it a try, looking down at her feet as she did so. "It does feel kinda funny, but it makes sense, I see what you mean." She walked around a little bit more, trying it out. "Maybe I can learn a thing or two as well then, I guess, if Laurie can do it too." She smiled at them both, coming to a halt. It was a good start, at any rate.

"Most of the rest is just practice and patience and like, awareness. Looking around before you move, that kinda thing." Kyle said. "And not walking around in the woods trying to read your biology textbook, if you're Laurie." He grinned. "She's walked into a tree before. I kinda wish I'd gotten pictures."