Min's private training(SOLO =O )

Minorin sat at the worn coffee table that sat in the kitchen of the elderly farmers’ home. The old woman was tending to a pot of tea for her husband, who was still very ill. Although he had shown improvement, the old sparsely bearded man sat on the striped loveseat in the room across the kitchen, the two rooms were separated by nothing except for a wide strip of hardwood that was exactly two feet wide. It served as a hallway that lead back to the part of the home that often went unused these days. That part of the home included an old storage shed that held the couples’ agricultural tools. The shed then opened up to a small stone pathway that led to a rather large barn where the cows were kept overnight as well as at other times of the day.

Minorin could hardly believe that a barn that large only contained cows, then again, she was sure they kept hay and who knows what else in there too. With this thought the small white haired girl lifted the mug that she held in her right hand to her lips and sipped the warm cider that filled the mug. After a good few sips Minorin set the mug back on the table with a satisfied sigh before taking a napkin from the small iron basket that sat in the middle of the table and proceeded to gently dab at the excess cider that hung on the corners of her small pink mouth.

The tiny girl sitting at the worn table crossed her legs as she sat there staring at the elderly woman serving her ill husband tea. The sweet aroma wafted around the house as if it where some kind of friendly ghoul come to haunt them. The girl watched for a while longer and marveled at how close the two seemed, they were so unbearably old and they weren’t wealthy at all, you could hardly say they would be considered middle class the way that they lived. And yet they were so incredibly kind, Minorin couldn’t help but stare. To grow old with someone and still love them through every single obstacle that popped up seemed impossible. But here the impossible was. They’d told her many stories of their youth, how the man had wooed the woman and how they swooned at just the sight of each other. Minorin was embarrassed to hear such things, let alone think of them. However one word always came to mind along with such thoughts and stories; Beautiful.

The elderly couple seemed to notice Minorin’s staring and gave her a shy smile, with that Minorin bowed her head and blushed a deep red. The girl hopped down from her seat and muttered a quick goodbye before leaving the house through the front door.

She was so embarrassed, had she been extremely awkward just now? No, they would be stared at like that by anyone… Wouldn’t they? Minorin shook her head and waved at a couple of older boys that had volunteered to help the couple with the farm, even after the old man got better. It seemed everyone really wanted him to be well again and so Minorin tried to will it into being. He was such a nice man; she hoped the sickness wouldn’t be the end of him.

Minorin trudged along through the valley and watched the silhouette of a nearby mountain range; she would start climbing it today. If a little girl could climb that and survive then the old man could get over his sickness. Surely that was how the world worked in little Minorin’s head.
She decided that she wouldn’t even call upon the Gobi to lend her its power to accomplish such a task. This was something she had decided to overcome with sheer willpower! And perhaps a little luck would go a long way.

The girl sneezed as she readjusted the backpack that hung loosely on her back; it was nearly full already seeing as it held twenty meters of wire along with a generous assortment of other weapons as well as supplies that she regularly kept on hand and that she would need for her trip. As she walked along nearing the mountain range the girl lifted her arm in an awkward motion so she might attempt to pull an item from the pack the bounced uncomfortably on her spine. The girl managed to fish around the bag and pulled out exactly what she had been looking for; the ninjato that Denkiteki had given her on what she believed to be their very first mission together. She gripped it tightly in her right hand as she began hauling her small body up the mountainside. She had just started and already she could tell that this might end up taking a number of days to accomplish. And that meant spending the night on these horrible rocky slopes, subject to the bone chilling winds that ran swiftly across the mountains.

Minorin swaddled herself in her warm coat and was glad to be wearing thick pants as well as gloves and a scarf. She was pretty sure there was some kind of woolen hat in her bag, but right now she wouldn’t need it. Not until day turned to dusk and that was still a ways off.
As the ten year old child inched slowly up the mountain she huffed and puffed as if she were some kind of locomotive, her trek was proving to be quite challenging indeed. She nearly slipped every couple of feet on the slick rocks that adorned the mountain and it was quite a pain to pull not only her own body weight along, but the weight of the pack as well.

Minorin didn’t lose sight of her goal or hope either for that matter, because once she had her mind set to do something she did it, no matter what crazy thing it was. As she neared the top of the mountain she realized she probably wouldn’t be needing her ninjato to fend off any animals, what kind of miserable being would live on these desolate mountains anyway? Shrubs of any kind were few and far between here. And so Minorin found a sturdy patch of rocks where she anchored her little body and used her scarf to tie the ninjato to her waist before going on her way up the mountain again.

Now that the icy winds whipped around her vulnerable neck small shivers travelled down Minorin’s chest and spine. It wasn’t enough to discourage the little girl, but it was enough to make her less comfortable than she already was.

After about four hours give or take Minorin found herself at the peak of the first mountain. The feeling that welled up inside of her was absolutely enthralling. And the view was possibly the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, maybe even more than the sweet elderly couple. Although that couple was a close second, and that would probably never change for the small girl. She set down her pack since the top of this mountain was relatively flat and stayed level for a good ten meters or so, Minorin figured even though it was colder up here it was probably safer since there wasn’t much chance of her falling to her death or cracking her head open on any sharp boulders. There were a few hardy shrubs clustered on top of the mountain and Minorin decided she would make camp there, thinking that the bushes would serve as a kind of buffer to the wind.

She unpacked a small water proof blanket of her father’s first and anchored it to the ground using four medium sized boulders which she sat on each corner of the blanket. Then Minorin unpacked and set up a weatherproof tent that she and her father had used on many a camping trip, she set it up as carefully as she could around the blanket and boulders she had set up only moments before and tapered it to the ground using the materials required as listed in the instruction manual that went along with the tent.

After that was done and after Minorin tested it she set down a fluffier water proof blanket inside of the tent before breaking off some dry twigs from the nearby shrubs and set them down in a pile out of the wind’s way. Then the little girl searched for a small granite rock and a larger pentlandite rock. She found the granite rock with ease and was very irritated that she couldn’t find a pentlandite rock. Then she remembered that she had placed one in the pack a while ago on a camping trip long forgotten by now. All she could remember was that she certainly had placed one inside of the bag. She rustled through its contents and nearly cut herself on a stray shuriken that had found its way out of one of the inside pockets. Minorin quickly put the shuriken in its proper place before going back to her desperate search for the pentlandite. And then, just when she was sure she had lost it somewhere along the way she found it. Minorin could’ve jumped for joy and would have if she wasn’t so preoccupied in picking up the granite rock and stepping to the dry twigs she had set down in a place sheltered from the wind. Then she tried to remember exactly how her father would start a fire using such poor tinder as she had. Her eyes were clenched shut with such ferocity that if she were in a populated area any normal passerby would surely find her a very strange sight and likely avoid her at all costs if the odd girl was ever around them again.

Minorin slowly opened her eyes and readied the two stones; the pentlandite was in her left hand and was quite close to the dry twigs while her right hand that held the granite stone was a couple inches above her left hand, ready to strike the other stone.

Minorin struck the pentlandite with the granite once with a good amount of force behind her strike. There was no result, except for the beginnings of a very small groove in the pentlandite stone. She struck again. A faint spark. She tried a third time. There was a good sized spark this time, and Minorin’s pale cheeks and nose glowed in the light of the small fire that formed. Minorin prodded the fire with a nearby twig and watched it roar into life. The heat felt so good. Minorin sat just a foot away from the small crackling fire. Her pack rested on her thigh as she sat there examining her handiwork. It seemed to be a job well done. The small figure now bathed in a warm orange light dug through the contents of the pack that lay against her short thigh, she fished out a bag of jerky that she and her mother had prepared before her trip. Minorin munched on a piece of the jerky as she searched through the bag. She found the woolen hat that she had tucked under a couple parcels in her pack and hastily thrust it onto her head and over her chilled ears. It was as though having the hat on canceled out all of the cold in her body, that and sitting next to the fire anyways made her feel like the cool air couldn’t do so much as touch her even if it tried to.

Minorin munched on a couple more pieces of jerky until her belly was content, she didn’t want to fill herself up since she was already carrying so much weight. Plus she didn’t want to run out of supplies seeing as it was more than likely she wouldn’t be running into any animals while she was in these mountains. Maybe a goat or something, but Minorin wasn’t fond thinking of killing such a cute creature, she might feel obliged to kill a boar or something like that, but something as cute as a goat just wouldn’t do. They were so fussy and almost baaa’d like a sheep would. Minorin sighed and put out the fire by kicking a bit of dirt onto it. The small girl then took her pack up into her arms and nestled down in her tent for the night.


Total WC: 2,075

10 stat points so far

20 jutsu points so far

(This thread will be continued seeing as it is a trek through the mountains, I am requesting for it to be approved though, so that I can add my points to my stat page as each post is approved.. So I have less work/math/bleh to do aaaallllllll the way at the end. >.> So pretty pretty please? =O )

Approved
10 stats
20 JP

Min woke up feeling quite sore and so she decided climbing one mountain was more than enough for a small girl like her to accomplish. She stretched and sat up taking a deep breath. The wind howled viciously and slid over the tent making a slithering kind of noise in the process. The girl quickly redressed into a green woolen sweater with matching gloves as well as a large black coat and dark pants made out of some kind of heat keeping material. The small girl quickly pulled on the boots she had worn yesterday over her dirty bunny print socks. She desperately wanted a shower after spending the night in the mountains but she didn’t need one too badly.

The girl stepped out of the tent and was met by a blast of cold wind, she fastened her scarf to her waist so that her sheathed ninjato would stay at her hip, she fiddled with the hilt as she stared at her tent. It had obviously been rained on during the night and while on the inside Minorin had been fine the outside of the tent hadn’t faired so well. Minorin sighed and took the tent down as quickly as she could. It was a fairly small tent since she was a small girl and she was able to fold it into a square shape that was about a foot tall and about ten inches across, it was pretty thick though and felt kind of heavy in the small girl’s hands. She shoved it into the pack she had brought with her and then pulled the waterproof blankets out from under the four boulders she had set down inside of the tent.

The weight of the boulders made it so one of the blankets nearly ripped, but Minorin had managed to pull it out in time so it would survive another day. As she sat there folding the blankets and even as she scuttled around collecting miscellaneous supplies she had left around the camp Minorin was paying a great deal of attention to the sky. It was still dark but there was a faint blue light on the horizon, making it possible to spot dark fluffy clouds inching across the sky. It was really quite pretty and Minorin found herself nearly mesmerized by the sight.

The small girl shook herself out of the trance though and continued packing up, once everything seemed in order and she made absolutely sure that her pentlandite rock was safe inside her pack as well she started on her way down the mountain, back towards the elderly couple’s home.

The travel down was by far entirely worse than the travel to the top of the mountain. The slippery rocks were even harder to walk on and Minorin found herself slipping and scraping herself regularly. The scrapes were nothing more than a couple harmless scratches every now and then thanks to her gloves but the fact that she kept slipping made horrible thoughts enter the young girl’s mind. Slipping and falling to her death, or perhaps slipping only to have her head caught on a very sharp rock that would no doubt crack her skull wide open. Such thoughts as those now flooded her mind and she began her descent more slowly, she was now climbing down the mountain and attempting not to look down as she did so. Her small feet searched for footholds on the icy side of the rock and she was faring well so far, even small crevices in the rock were enough for her to slide her feet into and sturdily be on her way down.

It was nerve-racking and exhausting, definitely worse than climbing up. She felt sweat accumulating on her brow as she descended, there was no way she could wipe it off either since she wasn’t about to lift even a finger off of the mountain. Minorin was glad that she couldn’t find her woolen hat, since that would probably make her perspire even more.
A cold breeze met her brow as she neared a flat plane that jutted out of the mountainside. The girl was glad for the refreshing breeze and hoisted her body down to the platform like structure. It seemed very stable, at least stable enough for a very small girl with a full pack to walk around on, and so she plopped down into a sitting position. She took out a flask of water out of her pack and sipped from it, she had neglected to drink from it the other day for fear that she wouldn’t have enough to scale a whole mountain range and so she would have used it only when she found herself in desperate need of water. But now that she was going back after reaching the top of just one mountain she gulped as much water as she wanted. She guessed she was probably a little more than half way down by this time, that meant that she wasn’t really close to arriving back at the elderly couple’s home, but it wasn’t too far away now either.

Minorin glanced at the sky as she rested on the ledge; it was nearly noontime by her guess. The sun was almost directly overhead, so her guess was probably correct. That meant it had taken her about six hours since she figured she had left her camp sometime around five or six in the morning. The girl sighed; her muscles ached and felt as though they were burning. Her calves were beginning to cramp up too. The girl decided that mountains were solely made for the purpose of looking at them- not climbing them, ever. Minorin began to stretch her legs and arms as another cool breeze met he body, it really helped with the heat she was feeling in her muscles too. After she stretched and rested for a good twenty minutes Minorin was back to climbing down the mountain, the rocks now weren’t as slippery but it was still just as hard to maneuver with her muscles aching so badly. She felt pain in muscles she didn’t even know she had, exhausting herself yesterday really didn’t help her case either.

As she descended she tried to focus just on moving and nothing else. Not the wind, or the rocks, or her muscles, nothing but going down. And after a while Minorin felt her feet touch soil. It wasn’t the nice soft kind of soil; it was that flaky rocky kind. But she was officially off of the mountain. A smile met Minorin’s lips, and the soft pink skin of her lips cracked, the dry cold weather really hadn’t been friendly with her.

No blood came of her dry lips though, and for that Minorin was glad. She trudged along in the direction of the familiar farm she found herself visiting more than often these days with her father gone off overseas on business. Her mother wasn’t at home much either and being home by herself wasn’t much fun at all for the small white haired child. She’d rather visit the elderly couple and listen to their stories and pet the cows in the pasture and even ride on the cow’s wide backs occasionally as well as make talk with the farm hands. Those kinds of things were fun and made her feel content. Not to mention she was able to speak with Kokuo very much when she was out this far from the village, the wide open space made everything seem clearer and she had more time to spend talking with the Bijuu out on the farmland than she would while doing household chores or shopping.

She soon came upon the house and waved to the boys that were tending to the cows not far off. Minorin stepped on the mat laid before the front door and knocked three times, they were soft little raps that only a small hand like Minorin’s could make. The little girl wanted to brag about how she had successfully climbed a mountain. And really, a girl her size climbing such a thing was a huge accomplishment, they’d be so shocked and proud of her, Minorin was sure of it. But when the door opened and the elderly woman saw Minorin a look of disgust came over her aged face.

Minorin was pretty grubby at this point. And the light of the setting sun revealed this, showing the dirt smeared across the child’s red face and her dirty clothes, her boots were so scraped up and dirty you couldn’t even tell what color they were. She looked like she was some kind of smelly hobo who had traveled the world without a single bath to the elderly woman, although there was no stench.

Minorin found herself being picked up by the old woman, not roughly or anything but being carried by your armpits kind of hurt. Minorin put up no struggle against the woman and was taken into the bathroom, then the old woman set Minorin down and tore off the young girl’s pack, coat, and boots before telling her to wash up. The lady’s voice was friendly and worried sounding at the same time. After she had said that though she left the room.
Minorin turned to the bathtub and sighed. This was not the welcome she had expected. The small girl leaned over the side of the tub and turned the knob for both hot and cold water, after a couple of minutes the tub was filled up with water that Minorin deemed a comfortable temperature being only slightly warm. The girl quickly undressed and stepped into the tub hastily.

When Minorin exited the bathroom she was squeaky clean and clad in a light blue dress that had must’ve been placed in the bathroom while she was washing in the tub. This didn’t bother Minorin though, these people felt like the grandparents she had always wanted. She dragged her pack along behind her as she made her way into the living room area across from the kitchen she had left her dirty clothes in a basket back in the bathroom that was normally used for that kind of thing. Minorin set her pack down next to the striped loveseat and looked around. It was pretty dark now, and not a soul seemed to be stirring inside the house even though the clock said it was only seven pm.

Minorin was feeling rather hungry now, after not eating all day, she just hadn’t wanted to eat that old jerky again. She had grown quite accustomed to being fed by these people and to eat anything other than what they set in front of her almost seemed like cheating. Minorin was a very silly young girl and had a lot of quirky things she did so this was normal behavior. She looked into the kitchen and noticed a first aid kit had been set on the table. Just as she noticed it she heard a faint snore come from the old couple’s bedroom.

Minorin walked over to the table and hopped into a chair, she then focused on the first aid kit, turns out that she had actually cut her hands up pretty bad, and while she had cleaned herself thoroughly she was still worried about the chance of infection. So she dug through the kit finding antiseptic liquids, creams, and bandages, she choose the antiseptic she normally used on larger scrapes and some bandages that she could wind around her hands after she cleaned them. She took the bandages and antiseptic over to the sink and set them on the counter. She was a little too short to actually see above the counter so she pulled a stool over in front of the sink so she could stand on it. After Minorin could see the sink and countertop she ran some warm water and washed her hands carefully, then she turned off the water and opened up the bottle from the first aid kit and poured the liquid over her wounded hands, the palms were the worst and after pouring the antiseptic on them they stung badly, but Minorin only flinched and supposed that’s how one would know it was working. She allowed her hands to drip dry before tenderly bandaging her own hands.

Now Minorin felt as though she were some kind of mummy, she would have eagerly danced around and wiggled her fingers in what she thought would be a mummy like fashion if they didn’t hurt so bad. The girl put the liquid and bandages back into the kit and then returned the stepping stool to its rightful place before remembering that she was hungry. Minorin searched the kitchen for a small part of a loaf of bread and then took out a small block of cheese and poured herself a glass of milk. She set the bread and cheese on a plate and then onto the table for herself before getting a knife and butter, as well as placing her glass of milk on the table. The small girl sat down in the chair and began to eat the snack she had made for herself, first cutting off a bit of bread before buttering it and taking a bite, and then moving on to nibbling a bit on the cheese and so on and so forth. In a few moments Minorin was done with the snack and had emptied her glass and had already cleaned and washed everything up. She was now resting on the striped loveseat in the living room reading a note that had been left for her by the old man. It read:

Hey, lil’ un. I heard from a couple of the boys out there on the farm that a friend of yours has left town along with the Mizukage and Tenkage… Wonder what thas all about, you know? Anyways, it was that real funny feller ya told me about that one time. The one with the bread, ya know, reddish hair or somethin’ an funny clothing. That odd hat thing. That kinda stuff. They even say that he’s an Anbu captain of Tengakure now. Bet’cha already know all this, since you’re one of those ninja and all, I just thought I’d tell ya. Jus in case.
–Gurē

Minorin was surprised, did he mean Kairashi? That was the only guy like that in town. She hadn’t even known that the Mizukage had left, or that the Tenkage had even been in Kirigakure to begin with. That must mean that they had all left to go to Tengakure. That was the only place they could go right now, wasn’t it? Minorin’s mind was racing. She wanted to congratulate her friend on his promotion and also go to wherever her Kage was. Sure there were Anbu with him most likely, and Kairashi and the Tenkage were with him too, but that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t worry. Something had to be wrong.

Minorin groaned, she felt she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. But she knew where she needed to go and that was to Tengakure. They were allied and peaceful so there shouldn’t be any reason to avoid Tengakure, she’d already been there once before with the Mizukage anyways. Minorin’s mind was set. The very next day she’d be right on her way to Tengakure. She wasn’t just going to let everyone go away without a proper explanation as to why. And since they had already gone then she’d have to race along after them. And if she was going to be doing that she’d better at least try to sleep, she was going to need all of the energy she could muster for such a journey. She glanced over at her pack; her ninjato was sticking out precariously from it, as if it were trying to make its presence known as well as to tell her goodnight. The young girl smiled and curled up on the couch and soon afterward sleep overcame her like a wave silently crashing onto a faraway shore.
{EXIT}

Total WC for this post: 2,676
+13 stat points
+26 jutsu points

Approved