Chapter Text
My name is Sumi, nyah, and I’m a Palico. Palicoes have many jobs around Astera, and I’m no exception. We’re im-purr-tant to the survival of the base! The purr-oblem however…
“Sumi! Let’s go to the training ground!”
…is my Meowster’s kitten. This sweet little cherub of polished chestnut skin and colorful ribbons in plaited, coily hair absolutely loves hunters! It makes sense, nyah, since her parents are hunters too. I used to be little Kiyuni’s father’s hunting paw-tner, but I got tired of that life, and so my new task became caring for sweet Kiyuni after she turned four. She’s now five, and growing quick, thanks to my tender care. I’m very purr-oud of her! If only she could be tender with meeeee-yooowwww!
“Ki-ki, please don’t pull my tail, mmraaaah!” I yowl as the excitable future hunter tries to drag me away.
“Come on Sumi! I wanna fight! I wanna train!”
Someone save me.
The training grounds are for new hunters mostly, or for hunters learning a new weapon. There’s practice bombs, practice barrels, a practice beam, and a cliff for learning to grapple and other slinger skills. It’s perfect for adults. Then there’s Kiyuni. Poor Chamberlyne, Kiyuni’s parents’ housekeeper, is also in charge of cleaning up the training grounds, as am I. Us two Felynes scramble to clear the bombs and other wildly unsafe things out of the training grounds while Kiyuni runs up and down the hill to practice sliding and jumping. What a relief that she loves doing that so much, since the alternative is—
Boom.
—blowing us up by throwing rocks at the barrel bombs while we’re moving them apparently. I stare at the sky, body sore, and smelling the smoke and singed fur coming furr-om me, and wonder if this is really better than being tail swiped in the face by a Rathian. Chamberlyne gets up first and sighs heavily.
“Who gave the kitten a slinger?” He asks sourly as Ki-ki fires more rocks, this time at birds in the trees.
“If I find out I’ll give them a good thump.” I growl. “Better than her swinging on one of the barrels with her sword, I think.”
Chamberlyne shook his head and offered a paw to help me up. This was going to be a long day.
“GRRRRR!”
Ki-ki charged at me with her tiny great sword. I held up a shield and absorbed the hits from the toy weapon, mew-sing how funny it was to be training a human the same size as me. Frankly, the miniature greatsword was itself hilarious to look at. My Meowster’s great sword was bigger than he was, and while the toy great sword was bigger than Kiyuni, it still was a hilariously small copy of her papa’s sword. It was also incredibly light, compared to what a real great sword would weigh.
“Hi-yaaaah!” Clack. Clack. Thunk. Clack.
Dodging her sloppy movements was pretty easy. Sweet Kiyuni was about as elegant as a Kulu-ya-ku, which is to say, not much. One day she would be as graceful and deadly as her mother, my Meowstress, able to swat down wyverns and Elder Dragons, but it was not this day.
Thwack.
“Ha-ha! I got you!” Kiyuni dances over my fallen form. In my thoughts of her future prowess, she managed to clock me in the head!
“Mraaaaah, yes, you did, you got me.”
Kiyuni swings back her itty-bitty great sword with a mischievous grin and…oh no, no no no no no, don’t charge up a combo, don’t shoulder check into a combooooo! NYAAAAAAAH!
I barely dodge the heavy downswing of the infamous “wake-up combo” of great swords. That’s what my meowster calls it, because he loves to use it on sleeping monsters, particularly with bombs. Kiyuni can’t do it properly yet, since she can’t do flips yet, but oh she tries, and oh does that downswing hurt, even from her tiny body!
“Hey! Don’t dodge! That’s cheating!”
“Cheating? Mrah, no it’s not!”
“Yes it is!” Kiyuni stomps her little feet with each word.
“Monsters don’t sit still and let you beat them if they can help it!”
Kiyuni jumps up and down, waving her little fists around. “Yeah, but you’re not a monster!”
“Why should I let you beat me up just because of that?!”
“Because I need to practice!” Kiyuni says with a wail.
Mreow, save me from your cute and spoiled kitten Meowsters!
The only good thing about crying kittens is how easy they can be to placate. A few cookies later has my little charge marching around Astera, assuring everyone that she’ll keep them all safe. Her little patrol, if you will.
“Oh, Kiyuni! Good morning!” A gruff voice calls out.
“Good morning Commander!” Kiyuni runs to our gruff, sour-faced Commander. The sourness fell right off as she scurried to him, and he picked her up and tossed her in the air a few times, to her delight.
“Oh, Sumi, good morning.”
“Morning Commander.” I mew cheerfully.
“Sumi wouldn’t let me train!” Ki-ki pouted from her perch in the Commander’s arms.
“Oh-ho, is that so?” The Commander asked, winking at me. “Did he not let you train or did he not let you beat him up!”
“It’s the same thing!” Kiyuni said indignantly.
The Commander laughed heartily. Do you see my suffering Commander. DO YOU?
“Oi, now, if you beat Sumi up too much he won’t be able to train you. You’ve gotta be nicer to him eh?” The Field Team Leader, the Commander’s grandson, came to my defense, squeezing little Kiyuni’s cheek.
“Oh, ok.” She replied, letting herself go limp dramatically in the Commander’s arms. She sat up suddenly. “Did I show you my slinger?”
The two men looked bewildered as she showed off her modified slinger and fired a rock from it. It hit someone right in the back, earning a yelp and apologies from the leaders of Astera.
“Ki-ki, you have to be careful where you shoot that!” The Field Team Leader said sternly.
“Where did you even get that from?” The Commander asked.
Kiyuni crossed her arms and puffed out her cheeks. “I’m not telling! It’s a secret!”
We all sigh in exasperation and the men look at me.
“You wouldn’t happen to know, would you?” The Field Team Leader asks.
I shake my head. “Sorry Com-meow-nder, I wish I did. She had it this morning but not yesterday.”
More tired sighs. “Oi, Kiyuni, a slinger is a hunter’s tool, and we don’t hunt people! You have to be careful how you use it, so you don’t hurt others!” The Commander said sternly.
Kiyuni nodded, looking sad at being scolded. As you should! “Ok Commander, I’ll be careful, I promise!”
The Commander cleared his throat and put the little girl down, and adopted a leaderly stance. “Now, what are you planning to do today?”
Kiyuni thought for a moment, looking around and then — “Can I go on patrol in the forest?”
Both men were taken aback a bit at her question. She asked to go out every day, and if someone was available to escort her, she was often allowed, but I guess that’s not the case today.
“Ah, sorry little one, there’s no one that can go with you.” The Field Team Leader said with an apologetic grin.
“Sumi can go with me!” Kiyuni said brightly.
The Commander shook his head and crossed his arms. “No, Sumi isn’t enough, Rathalos and Anjanath have been seen in the forest today.”
Oh noooo, that was the worst thing he could say. Kiyuni’s face became bright and determined. Anjanath and Rathalos were her favorite monsters, and she always tried to sneak out to see them — to fight them — whenever she heard they were in the forest. To have them both in the forest — yes, my day was going to be very long indeed. Oh Ki-ki, why couldn’t you want to be a farmer or something less dangerous? The Commander shook his head, realizing his mistake too late, and looked at me apologetically. Save your platitudes human, nyaah.
Kiyuni spent twenty minutes trying to convince an adult to take her to see Anjanath and Rathalos. Even if they hadn’t been busy, however, the answer would’ve been no. I mean, it was both Anjanath and Rathalos for heaven’s sake! Thankfully, the other hunters weren’t taken in by her mewling and whining, but right when I thought I would simply have a day of consoling a sad child, a worker that didn’t know better made the worst mistake ever!
“Wait, isn’t your mom in the Forest today?”
Why would you say thaaaaaat?!!? Kiyuni’s face, initially on the verge of tears as she kept begging someone to take her to see her favorite wyverns and getting turned down, suddenly lit up. The hard work of everyone in Astera to keep the kitten in the dark about where her parents are hunting, so she won’t take it as an excuse to sneak out, dashed in an instant. The Meow-scular Chef thwacked the worker in the side with his ladle. Oof, we really did come up to the Canteen looking for chaperones didn’t we?
“What? What did I say?” The clueless worker asks as the Chef growls and grumbles about his foolishness.
I rub my face with my paws as Kiyuni gets the mischievous look in her eyes and try to remember what Anjanath and Rathalos are weak to. The Chef sends several of his Palico assistants around Astera, to warn everyone to be on the lookout for Ki-ki to sneak out of the base, since she now knows at least one of her parents is in the forest. I sigh in defeat, because she almost always manages to get out, simply because there’s too much to do most days to keep the little kitten from escaping. This is supposed to be an easier life, nyaaaaaaah.
~~~
The voices of several people, none of them hunters, called out looking for my mischievous charge. Whoever gave her that slinger had made a mistake. She recently learned to whistle, and, by the grace of whatever trickster god kept her safe and made me mad, she’d managed to whistle loud enough to summon a wingdrake, one of the creatures the hunters used for transportation, and somehow hook her grappling hook from the slinger onto its foot. I was so baffled by how absurd it was for her to manage all of that coordination that I almost watched her fly away squealing without chase. Truly, whatever god favors her is a terrible asshole.
The number of people that tried to chase after her wasn’t as high as it normally would’ve been. After all, most of the hunters were busy already, and that meant researchers and workers were all that were left. Most of them couldn’t really use the wingdrakes to fly around, so that meant searching the Forest on foot. The purr-oblem, I’m saying this a lot today mraah, is that Ki-Ki managed to get pretty far before the wingdrake dropped her. Thankfully I’d managed to grab onto her foot when it flew off, and break her fall when it dropped her. My body hurts, and she’s crying. Hope-furr-ly this means she won’t do this again.
“Sumi, that was scary!”
I don’t have enough lungs furr all this sighing. I sat up slowly and looked around. We were on one of the high paths, closer to Rathalos’ nest than anywhere else, but not close enough to run into him. Yet. Furr now, I’d have to see if I could whip up a Potion or something.
“There, there kitten, deep breaths.” I said, wiping tears and dirt from her face. She’d managed to bite her lip, good heavens, and she was probably bruised somewhere. Thank-furr-ly, she’d put her armor on be-furr leaving. Her armor was modified Palico gear, and she hadn’t put it on purr-operly. With yet another sigh, I start adjusting and tying her armor so it would fit and stay on correctly. She’d dropped her greatsword somewhere, nyaah, hope-fur-ly not far.
While I didn’t find any herbs, I did find a godbug. Now all I needed was a blue mushroom and I could make some lifepowder! Hmm, but where to hide Kiyuni while I search for one? It probably wasn’t wise to leave her behind but, should I bring her with me? Oof, what a conundrum! Especially since she’s still crying. Nyaaaaah, this is why we can’t tell her where her parents are hunting!
“Hey Azerai, did you hear that?”
“It sounded a bit like a wailing Palico Meowstress.”
“You don’t think….”
“I’ll go check, nyaah.”
“Geez, right when we were almost done too.”
“It can’t be helped, purrr. She’s as mischievous as a Narga.”
“A Narga eh? That’s a lot of credit you’re giving to someone that would definitely walk into a pitfall trap.”
“Heh heh heh, I see you don’t know that she set one for poor Sumi.”
“Oh noooooo! Haha! Go save poor Sumi if that is them.”
“As you wish Meowstress.”