Haru

PLAYER INFORMATION
Name: Amy
Timezone: EST
Personal Journal: palmedfire
Player Contact: AIM - palmedfire Plurk - otokoyakudream
Characters in Game (previously too): None

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Haru
Canon: Original
Gender: Female
Age: 11, technically. Physically she looks about 19
Suitability: Haru was eight years old when she gained her second tail and the ability to assume human form, but for a fox, that makes her pretty old - she’s had mates and children before. The human world is still new to her, but the mechanics and mentality of sex is not. In fact, she’s likely to be fascinated by the importance and ceremony humans (and human-like creatures) place on what she sees as a straightforward fact of life.
Species: Kitsune
Canon Point: She’s just gained her third tail and been living as a human for three years or so.
World/Setting: Back when the world was young and animals still had the power of speech, the god Inari took foxes under his protection. The gods had decided that humans were to be their favored creations, and thus have domination over the world, but Inari saw how that would endanger his precious foxes. So in secret he granted the cleverest of his children immortality and the ability to assume human form. He called them kitsune, and for many years they caused great mischief until the other gods realized what Inari had done. They wanted to destroy all the kitsune, but Inari was a silver-tongued god, and while he could not save the current kitsune, he did wrest the permission to make more, though this time with certain limits. Only the very cleverest foxes could become kitsune, and at least two other gods must agree before Inari could turn the fox into a kitsune. The kitsune could no longer be naturally immortal, but through expanding their knowledge and power could earn multiple tails, with each tail earned extending the kitsune’s natural life span, up to nine tails, at which point they were functionally immortal.

Fast forward to the modern era, and creatures like the kitsune are mere myth to the vast majority of humanity. Even most of the gods have forgotten they exist, more concerned with trying to keep up worship in the fast-moving pace of human life. But Inari remembers and still occasionally makes deals with other gods and spirits to allow him to create new kitsune, though rarely more than one a (human) generation or so.

For the most part the world is like our own. Gods and spirits exist, but those who can see or communicate with them are few and far between. Haru has no clue about the origin of her kind, just a sort of nebulous understanding that learning and gaining more tails will make her immortal.

History: Haru was born a pretty normal red fox on the island of Hokkaido in Japan. True, she was more curious than her littermates, and it was only luck and quick thinking that kept her from getting killed, especially since her curiosity often led her to sniff around the human farms in the area. Well, her curiosity and the delicious chickens the farmers kept. She learned to be quick, be smart, and be unseen to avoid both the farmers and their dogs. Seasons passed and she grew older - no less curious, but more cautious. She found a mate and raised a litter of kits. However, soon after the kits were grown and out of the den, her mate was killed by a speeding car. She mourned, but animal thought is not conducive to dwelling on the past, and foxes don’t mate for life. By the next season, she’d found a new mate, and was pregnant again.

By the time those kits were grown and out of the den, Haru was feeling the weight of her seasons. She wasn’t as quick as she had been, but she was wiser, and that mostly made up for it. She had less energy, but that just gave her an excuse to spend more time thinking. And thinking. And thinking. And as she spent time thinking, her thoughts began expanding past the all-encompassing NOW of animal thought. She started thinking about the past as more than just experiences she learned from, and the future as more than just the upcoming season. She began to consider long-term plans.

And then one morning she woke up with a second tail. Which would have been shocking enough, but it came with a new sense of vitality, and a whole host of new knowledge as well. She had started to make sense of some human words before, but now she understood the humans’ speech with ease. Abstract thought suddenly made sense, and explained a lot of what had been unexplainable human behaviours. And best of all, she knew how to take human form!

She spent a few months trying out her new ability, learning everything she could from the local farmers, both from watching them, and actually talking to them, once she’d stolen enough clothes and supplies that she could pass as a traveler. But the farmers and their families led stable lives of routine, and Haru quickly became bored. So, after asking around a bit she set off for the city of Sapporo.

The city was indeed more interesting. In fact it was almost overwhelming - the noise and the smell nearly knocking her out when she first arrived. But as always, she was quick and clever, and had a natural talent for petty theft that was able to keep her clothed and fed - especially since she had no problems supplementing her diet with the fat city pigeons. She had a couple close run-ins with law enforcement, but was usually able to talk herself out of any problems. And when she couldn’t, there was still always the option of returning to fox form and running like hell. Her talents drew the attentions of those on the other side of the law as well, and for a while she fell in with a gang, working as a scout and thief

While she never tried to hide her kitsune nature, neither did she flaunt it, and most of the gang weren’t aware of her true nature. Which was useful when she started chafing at taking orders from someone else and decided to cut ties with them. It wasn’t just the taking orders that chafed her though. While she had no issues stealing, especially from those who seemed to have more than enough, the gang also preyed on those who didn’t have enough, and lorded their power over those weaker than themselves. That clashed with Haru’s sense of what should be the natural order of things, and so she left both the gang and Sapporo.

She wandered for a while, trying to understand more about humans and human nature as she did so. She traveled to towns and cities, shrines and temples, learning as much as she could. And, eventually it paid off with a third tail.

Personality: Haru is a strange mix of experience and innocence. Before becoming a kitsune, she lived a full life as a fox, complete with mate and kits. But she’s only been able to take human shape for a short time, and she’s thus still fascinated by even the most normal aspects of human civilization. She’s also eager to learn as much as she can about… well, everything. She’d very motivate to figure out how to gain more tails - she’s read the legends about kitsune and she totally wants to be a nine-tailed fox one day. Obviously learning things has led to more tails, but so far she’s not found anything concrete beyond that. What sort of things is she supposed to learn? For now she’ll just chase after learning everything and hope it works.

Despite her wonder at the world, Haru is clever, and not easily taken for a fool. She’s survived and succeeded more than any of her litter mates. She’s survived living on her own in one of Japan’s largest cities. She’s seen a lot of the darker sides of human nature, and it’s made her rather cynical regarding humans as a group. Individuals she’s found can be nice, especially those who style themselves as priests, but as a whole she doesn’t trust people. Then again, some of the kinder aspects of humanity make as little sense to her as the darker sides. Taking care of family she understands, but charity to strangers makes no sense, especially if it might take away from your own ability to survive. While she doesn’t believe in preying on the weak, at the same time, if you can’t protect yourself, you shouldn’t expect others to protect you. And she very much doesn’t understand all the rules and customs surrounding love and sex.

The aspects of human nature she doesn’t understand tend to be the ones that fascinate her the most, though she’s quick to complain about how foolish they seem to her. She doesn’t have a very good sense of when her curiosity in intrusive or taboo, and is quite willing to get all up in people’s personal space, or ask to watch them doing things like having sex or bathing or anything that a normal person would know better than to ask about. And even if the answer is “no”, she’s likely to try to sneak a peek anyway.

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it’s this kitsune’s driving force.

Abilities/Weaknesses: Haru has the ability to switch between fox and human form, as well as to manifest and hide her tails in human form. She’s going to be stuck in human form in game though, and regaining the ability to take fox form is likely to be her biggest priority. Weakness-wise, she has normal human weaknesses - she needs to eat and drink and sleep and all that. She’s also still new to the human thing, and while she’s not exceptionally gullible, she can be taken in by a good story that doesn’t have obvious contradictions.

RP Samples: One lovely sample

Shortly after her first mate died, Haru found a ball in the woods. It was a plain blue rubber ball, obviously lost by some farmer's child, and Haru took it carefully in her jaws and carried it back to her den. She'd been attracted by the bright color, even though it was covered in a thin layer of forest dirt and faded from the sun and rain. It was still a brighter blue than anything other than the tiny flowers that only came out in the warming season, and unlike them, the ball wouldn't wither and die. The season of snow was coming soon and storing food should be her priority, but Haru spent a lot of time playing with the ball - batting it between her paws, chasing after it, chewing lightly on it's odd, springy surface. Oh she hunted as well of course, and dug out her den to withstand the cold, but the rest of the time she played. Her kits were grown and gone. Her mate was dead. The ball provided a perfect distraction.

As the seasons flowed into one another, she moved dens several times. But each time, the ball came with her. She couldn't say why - fox-thought doesn't really have an expression for sentimentality - but it had a place in every home she made. It was very useful with her second litter of kits in fact - saved both her and her mate's tails from being used for endless games of stalk-and-pounce. Even when she gained her second tail and walked away from the woods on two legs, the ball came with her.

"Oh ew, that's disgusting!" one of the other female gangers commented, several years later when she found the ball in Haru's stuff at the gang's flophouse. "Get it out of here, or it'll attract bugs"

"It hasn't so far," Haru replied, puzzled. She'd kept the ball in the bottom of her all-purpose duffle bag, but it wasn't like she'd hidden it. Sure it was a bit grimy and dirty, the color nearly all faded, but her hand closed over it protectively. "It's mine."

"What is it your security blanket or something?" jeered one of the other girls.

Haru knew enough of tone to know she was being made fun of, but she pulled the ball to her chest. "It's none of your business," she snapped, hoping to put them off with bluster. But one of the boys walked over and snatched the ball out of her hand, tossing it to one of his laughing friends. She bared her teeth, but as usual, her fellow gangers were blind to even the most obvious social cues. They just laughed harder.

"It's just an old ball," the first girl said, giving Haru a shove that was apparently supposed to be playful. "Don't be all weird about it!"

Don't be all weird about it. The words echoed in Haru's head. Once again she'd managed to break one of those odd, unwritten rules of social interaction. She'd reacted differently that a human would have. That had to be fixed. With effort she covered her teeth and turned away from where the boys were tossing the ball back and forth. "You're right," she said. "It's just a stupid ball."

It was good she'd learned to lie.