Time to Move On

Sun in the fire country always beats heavy, hot, and hard, but on this day Page would easily add piercing to that list of adjectives as light found its way through the now webbed series of cracks in his hut's roof directly over then into his eyes. The rooster's call didn't wake him this morning, should have taken note of that, but the farmer was far too tired to make logical connections from the lack of certain information. He rolled out of bed, his bones aching from the backbreaking work from the day before, head aching from the borderline lethal drinking from the night before.

"Last of the reserve," Page thought to himself as he gazed upon the empty bottles the decorated the rickety hut that served as bedroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, and storage, his enhanced senses picking up on the distinct smell of 12 hour old vomit that was right underneath his head. Page quickly changed and went to survey his farm. He looked at the field, once green now various shades of light brown. The cracked dirt, the dried leaves, the only repreve from the assault on the eyes was a bit of a potato that had been ravaged by a rot to the point of turning a sickly pale purple, needless to say, this was less than optimal. Though the farm was not producing any feed, he still had his, albeit short, stored supply of it, but as he checked how much he had left, he found it not enough to feed each of his chickens, not enough to feed even one past a week. He knew this would just lead to them killing other over just a few kernels of grain, and with that accepted he would have to find some sort of food for the guys. He stared over to the now empty barn, the last of the pigs dying of some sort of wasting disease being the main reason for the little drinking binge Page went through the night prior. Even though he had no food to give them, Page figured he should probably check in on the chicken coop and to his surprise, he saw the egg gate open and two grey furred legs sticking out from the door to the coop. 

A million thoughts raced through the farmer as he realized he was now functionally in ownership of a completely barren farm save himself and whatever found itself into his chicken coup. As he got closer, he recognized the creatures rear end from the tail as some sort of wolf, a mighty pissed off one at that as it looked like it was squirming and squeezing trying to get out, but had managed to get stuck. This simple point of humor finally broke the tension that had been building in his head, and he couldn't help but to break out laughing. There he was, chuckling like a mad man as everything he had fiscally speaking had crumbled around him. He realized he had to get out of there and figured why not take the last crop of this farm along with him for the ride, after all he had been trained on how to tame a wolf, even if he never got the chance to have one. 

The once village shinobi went to the shed, saw where he had hung up his headband, the metal rusted over and the cloth ate up by moths, underneath which was a toolbox. Page opened up the toolbox, took out a screwdriver, rummaged around a bit then found a crowbar, beneath which was a kunai, the second reminder of his past life. Page picked up the crowbar and the screwdriver, walked back over towards the coup, which, at this point, had its mess of wildly kicking fur replaced by a much calmer sitting from whoever was inside. It appeared that there had instantly been a connection between the two, despite their suboptimal introduction, and as Page got closer, the wolf's tail began to, slow at first but faster as the farmer got closer. Page noticed this, and even said as he got closer, "How you doing boy, just sit right there and I'll get you out of there in no time."

Page circled the coup looking for each screw and took the time to remove em as best he could. He found four and thought he had done a good job as he tried lifting the roof off he found that it was still attached. "Must have done a better job securing this than I thought, and to think I hid some of these fucking screws too, well, time for option B," the former farmer thought to himself as he switched out his screwdriver for his crowbar. It started easy enough, page going to the first plan, wedging the front of the crowbar under before putting all his weight on the opposite end, and with a satisfying pop, bringing the first plank off of the roof before moving onto the second. This one was a bit harder to work around, given it only had one side for the crowbar to enter while still providing the additional leverage required to pop it off. Page tried all sorts of different angles, most resulting in complete failure, some the occasional self-smackage in the face with a crowbar (accompanied by what Page could only assume was a kind of laugh from the wolf), and eventually after far more struggle than the first, the second of 24 planks peeled off with Page finding purchase after assuming a, to say the least, compromising angle stretched eagle overtop the coup.

At this point, however, Page could see into the coup, the walls decorated with a mess of feathers and blood, "Damn shame," he thought as his eyes moved over to the wolf. He had a lot of gray for appearing to be quite young. The wolf's head was noticeably wide, probably the lead cause of how he got stuck in there but it was what layed out in front of the wolf which shocked Page. With a little circle oh hay out in front of it, all seemingly layed out carefully with a bit of scratching. In the center there was a noticeable stain on the wood in the center, with obvious signs of bloody meat along the sides. This puzzled page for a second before it all hit him, this wolf took an egg out from the hatchery beneath, and had the intelligence to grab an egg and use it to garnish their meal. Despite this meaning that Page would have to go hungry until he went into town, he couldn't help but to be amused by the circumstance. Of course, the final death knell in his farm, the thing that killed his chickens after he found a dried up field was a damn culinary wolf, a chef in an empty field. Then boom, the name came to him. As the wolf lay looking up at the ex-farmer, he said through the missing panels, "How do you like the name Sheffield, feel like Chef may just be too confusing."

The newly dubbed "Sheffield" gave a little nod of approval and the name was set, now was the problem of getting rid of the other planks. It was pretty obvious this method was taking far too long, so Page said to the wolf, "You stay here just one second, I'll be right back," as he went into the shack. The previous residents had left a stuffed little bear, probably just one of the previous inhabitants had grown out of it before they left and didn't feel like taking it with them on their move. Page grabbed the stuffed bear, brought it to the coup and gave it to Sheffield to gnaw on. "Alright little buddy, I'm gonna start smashing some of this wood, I'll make sure this won't hit you, but for your sake I'm gonna need you to stay calm and stay still, can you do that?" Another nod from the hound. 

WC: 1,342

CRACK!!! CRACK!!!

Page stretched back his arms, popped his neck a little bit, then went back into hammering down of the roof of the coop with a crowbar, Sheffield clutching deeply onto his new stuffed bear as shrapnel started falling. Eventually, enough of the roof was broken off, and now that page was warmed up enough, that he could rip the rest of the roof off. SNAP! And now Page had a good entrance into the coop. He hopped in and got Sheffield to finally go all the way through, tugging a little bit while making a mess of the both of them in the blood, feathers, and egg yolk. Page realizing there was nothing to be done about it cradled his arms, picked up the similarly dirty Sheffield, and brought him out the top of the coop, laying him finally on all four legs, on solid dirt.

Slightly surprisingly, Sheffield, as opposed to running away, got real close to Page and started leaning on him. It was clear that this assistance that the farmer gave the wolf had created a strong bond between the two. Page looked down at his new companion and said, "Come on 'ere pup, lets go get ourselves cleaned up, would hate to be stinking like this much of any longer." The former farmer led the dog of grand taste to a nearby river, the stuffed bear bouncing a long as they walked. As soon as they saw it they both bolted into the water, Page wanting to clean himself off and Sheffield catching several fish first in his glance, second in his jaw. As Page was bathing himself in the river he saw the dog hop out periodically, each time bringing out a decent sized fish. One out, jump back in, two out, jump back in, three out, then to Page's surprise the dog started running into the woods. Waiting a moment and wondering when he would come back, Page started dressing himself back into dry clothes before the distinct smell of wet dog drew closer. Page looked up and saw Sheffield charging back towards his little bounty of fish, dropped them off, and went right back to the forest. After waiting a little bit he came back with a little black rock and dropping it off with the pile before nuzzling for page to come over.

It took the farmer a second to realize what his new dog wanted, but he quickly got to work assembling the bonfire and using the flint with the steel from his screwdriver, along with a little hay that was stuck with his boot, to start up a fire and got to work cooking the three fish. The crispy popping sound brought comfort to both the newly met friends as they watched it cook with eager eyes. As the first fish was ready, Sheffield quickly grabbed it, risking its own fur as it deftly dogged any burn marks and started chowing down. Page took the second one, waited for it to cool down and before he could even fully sink his teeth into it, Sheffield grabbed the last fish and swallowed it whole. Page let out a little laugh, pet the pup,"You dirty dog," he said before finishing off what had become his share of the food. As the dog fell asleep in his lap, Page started to carefully lean back and stare up at the stars that were bright enough to shine through the dusk. As he gazed at the sky, clouds passing by, Page started to do some thinking. It had been years since he left the leaf, and this farm life had worked till now, but now he was faced with a difficult decision, what was he going to do. He didn't have enough capital to jumpstart the farm again so for now, he would have to find some town to do odd jobs in. He thought it might be nice to walk around the world a little bit, and with that thought he came to the answer of what he wanted to do. Page right there and then decided he was going to travel around, doing odd jobs until he found the village for him, he had already determined that it was certainly not Konoha, but there were so many other options to explore, and Sheff and himself were going to see them all until they found one that suited them, and failing that, they would try and make their own.

For now it was time to sleep, but tomorrow, tomorrow he would start his great adventure.

WC: 764 TWC: 2106
+21 Stats
Trained up with familiar Sheffield  2k/2k
Throat Chop 106/500

@PageBoy You can't add WC to a farmiliar until they are full approved. So you will have to wait for a moderator to approve it before we can look at this.

Approved.