Foxes and Ravens

The new house is finally ready.

Corey is brimming with excitement. Having to keep a secret from Karasu stinks, especially when a hitch came up last minute and the house's previous occupants weren't quite ready to move out on the day that they were supposed to, leaving Corey with the very awkward ask of having his mother hide furniture in the abode she's staying in. He'd found time to enlist his twin sister in helping him get furniture out from the city into the quaint little house outside of the city in a rather nearby little town. Corey had chosen it because it's close to a forest and because the elderly lucht couple who used to live in it were gardeners, meaning there's a whole garden of various little vegetables ready for the fall harvest.

The Warden of Gilead had told Karasu that they were going on a little field trip. Karasu, by now, has learned that this means 'we are going to wander into this one direction and find things along the way'. Corey is nothing if not an explorer keenly interested in things he doesn't already know. But, to his credit, he tells Karasu one thing as he takes Karasu on the path to the house, which is a nice little house from the outside. "You'll love where you're going," Corey says, smiling. "It's something I've actually been working on for a while."

Karasu is not much one for the great outdoors usually, but he can tell that Cor'ethil has something on his mind, something that is very important to him, and Karasu is not one to deny his heart where he can allow it to wander where it wishes to be. So he has a small smile placed upon his lips and he is following in the wake of the man who carries his heart well in hand. "Oh?"

His voice is a thoughtful inquiry, but he has noticed Cor'ethil's odd behavior of late, the ducking eyes, the way he hides things when he thinks that Karasu will not notice them being hidden. Corey is a terrible liar, but he tries beautifully and Karasu loves him for being terrible at it. If Corey was any good at being a liar... Karasu probably couldn't trust him and then where would they be?

Wuya croaks on his shoulder in curiosity and Karasu pokes his raven on the forehead fondly. "We will see when we get there little brother. Be patient."

Corey beams at Karasu as the other man is clearly very curious and definitely will be very surprised about where they're going, as well as the fact that Wuya is very curious. "Just around the bend of the path," Corey says, smiling as he rounds the path around a group of trees, and...

He gestures to the house, which is cozy and quaint on the outside, well-loved and maintained. "It's our new house," Corey says softly, squeezing Karasu's hand. "I bought it a while ago. I asked An to help me move things in. I thought you'd like to live somewhere that isn't in an inn room for the rest of our life."

Then Corey points to the beds of vegetables and vacant garden-beds. "And we have room for all of your, umm, 'reagents'! Although we'll have to put up fences so the poor deer don't graze on any nightshade."

Karasu was expecting many things around the bend in the trees. A pond perhaps. A camping spot. A secluded glen where Cor'ethil would lure animals to him like some magical... paladin of Gilead. A small but lovely little home with an attached garden for him to grow his poisonous flowers in is not at all what he was expecting. That Cor'ethil would even think about him growing his poisonous flowers isn't something that he expected.

Wuya gives him a tiny little nudge and Karasu steps forward to look at the garden thinking of all the foods that he could grow here secure in the knowledge that they are not poisoned because he would be the one that has grown them with his own two hands. Him. Him growing food.

He looks at the little windows and realizes that he hasn't had a home - not one - since the one he left behind when he was a child. And he looks at Cor'ethil and he speaks the concern that he hadn't realized that he has had all this time. "What if Sori finds it?"

Before Cor'ethil can really respond, there's a call from off to the side of the house in a familiar voice: "Hell-ooooooooooo~!"

Corey has his hand on his sword before he sees a fox bounding around the corner, a beautiful beast with white fur and nine tails. There's symbols in red everywhere on his fur and on the tips of his tails. It's jarring to watch it turn into a man, but the fox does, complete with a beautiful red ceremonial robe that people would dream of wearing back in Karasu's homeland.

"You finally brought him to the house, huh?" Kiku grins as he looks at Corey and Karasu. "I brought some housewarming gifts. Mostly in the form of... These."

He pulls out some pieces of paper that are attached to rope, arcane sigils on the paper. "They're protective talismans. Just so you two can breathe a little easier."

Corey blinks rapidly. "Wait, how did you know about this place?" he asks, narrowing his eyes at Kiku.

Karasu's own dark eyes are narrowed at Kiku but he simply rolls his eyes at the kitusne. "As soon ask why the wind blows Cor'ethil. Or your god where he chooses to wander. At least with all of those protective talismans around the house Sori will have as much luck finding this house as finding the dark side of the moon." Karasu bows politely to Kiku. "Our gratitude jiji."

Karasu takes up Cor'ethil's hand with a slight amount of bemusement. "Come along my heart, I am certain you intended to show me the interior as well?" He seems much more at ease now that Kiku has shown up out-of-the-blue.

"You make it sound like I'm some kind of inscrutable spirit of mischief and chaos or something," Kiku says with a grin at Karasu. "It's pretty simple. I happened to be in the village nearby one day and noticed Corey was passing through with that sister of his. They were squabbling about where they'd put this great big dresser that Corey had on the wagon. I followed along, of course. Invisibly."

Corey sighs a little, but he smiles, proceeding to the front door. "I changed the locks on the door, of course," he says, producing a key and handing it to Karasu before producing its identical twin. He unlocks the front door and walks in.

The place actually looks quite a bit larger from the inside, somehow. There's a wide open space for a hearth and plenty of space for indoor sparring or meditation, as Corey and Karasu both engage in such activities. "That door," Corey says, pointing to a door in the back, "leads into a hallway, and there's two rooms back there. We have a basement for storage that gets quite cold. I think we could probably start curing our own meat if we made friends with some of the local farmers for their animals." Which is important to Corey. If an animal must die, the whole of the animal must be used as much as possible.

Karasu is giving the house a through investigation, looking over parts of it that Cor'ethil probably hadn't even noticed in his documentation of the home. Karasu locates a bit of loose molding which he notates as a location for a weapon to be hidden at a later date. He also finds a loose floorboard which he considers an especially lucky find as its near a wall where he can place a small cache of items at a later date. He doesn't hide these things from Corey either of course, rather sharing his own ideas for their shared home with his soon-to-be-husband.

If this is to be *their* home, then it will be a place that is comfortable for them both.

He follows Cor'ethil into the basement storage and nods at the idea of meat storage and thinks of other uses for such a cold location. Nothing nefarious, but sake is often kept at cool temperatures for long periods. Something he has not had for a very long time indeed. "Which of the two rooms were you intending to be a bedroom?" He inquires of Cor'ethil. "Did you have a preference?"

Corey flushes a little. "Here, I'll show you." He leads Karasu back upstairs and into the hallway, pointing toward one room that already has a sign hanging from an iron nail. It has a little prayer in Sildanyari for a good marriage and a loving home, beseeching Althea by name as a goddess of the family and home. "That one," he says. "An had the sign made for me as a housewarming present."

"Oh, hold on, I've got a talisman here for your sex life," Kiku says as he's back in the hearth area, reaching into his robe as though looking for it, before laughing. "Just kidding! I always thought that was kind of weird unless you're like, in some political marriage where you hate the other person's guts or something. Actually, even then, kind of weird and ethically dubious." Kiku looks thoughtful for a moment before shrugging. "So long as people are consenting adults, who--"

Corey is turning bright red, just leaving behind Kiku as the kitsune blathers on about talismans for reproductive health. He goes to the door of the bedroom and shows Karasu the bedroom. There's a cozy-looking bed inside of it already, as well as the dresser that Kiku noted, and other pieces of fine sildanyari furniture. In fact, everything in the house is sildanyari-made, likely either from the Mythwood or imported all the way from Llyranost. The windows let in a gentle amount of light from outside, and there's even an open door that leads to an adjoining water closet. Very handy.

Karasu runs a hand over the fine looking dresser and over a small bedside table as well. The furniture is lovely. All of it. "We should get some tatami mats." He remarks quietly, his eyes just a little dark. "Perhaps not." He stands up a little straighter then.

Wuya on his shoulder lets out a little whirring noise. "What is on your mind Karasu?" He asks, sounding like the boy he will always be.

Karasu pets the bird gently. "I see a lovely home designed by my heart, and it fills me with happiness." He looks at Cor'ethil, that soft look in his eyes that says that he loves the other man. "I should not ask for more than that."

Corey melts a little with Karasu's gaze, smiling brightly in that way that Corey does so easily. "We can get _anything_ you want, Karasu," he says. "This isn't the final product by a long shot. I know that the moment you stepped in, you'd have a dozen bright ideas that I didn't have. Like... Maybe we could keep some chickens for their eggs? And meat, too, but I think having eggs without having to buy them from farmers would be really nice."

"If you do get hens, let me know!" Kiku calls over from the hearth area. He seems to be occupied in some kind of elaborate routine. His tails are out and they're sweeping around the house as he keeps marking walls with little sigils. "I can put a ward on their house to keep predators away."

"Oh, that's actually a really good idea," Corey says, visibly impressed with what Kiku has to offer. But then he draws closer to Karasu and pets Wuya. "I should have a perch for you coming in a few days. I commissioned a woodworker here in the village."

Karasu relaxes considerably. "We will need a strong fence to keep the chickens from the produce and from the other things I wish to grow." Karasu says. "I would like a medicinal garden as well. A small one."

He kisses Cor'ethil softly, unable to be this close to the other man without laying claim to his lips at least for a moment. "Chickens are a good idea. Even in the winter we can expect at least one egg a day from a good layer and they will eat our cast-off foods. It is perfect Cor'ethil. Our home is perfect... Or... it will be."

It's everything that Corey could have hoped for. Karasu is comfortable in their house. Karasu wants a medicinal garden in addition to all of the other things that Karasu wants to grow. Karasu thinks his chicken idea is a good idea. These are all symptoms of the love and acceptance that Corey had hoped for, and he gets it in spades, kissing back Karasu, putting his hand on the other man's cheek and letting it linger there. "It's perfect because you're in it," he says softly. "With you and Wuya... It's a home."

He even looks over his shoulder and eyeing the kitsune back in the main area of the house, chuckling a little. "A home plus the occasional kitsune ancestor. I just hope he doesn't make a habit of dropping off various talismans for all sorts of needs." Then Corey looks a little mischievous, because he's about to say words that will make Karasu _very_ happy.

"The room next to this one is our armory, or at least, what I plan to be our armory. I was hoping you'd come look at it with me and give your ideas? I know you'd be better at organizing it and figuring out how it should look than I am." After all, Karasu has been trained in these things.

Karasu hums and smiles. "I think I will have to argue with you on this one my heart." Karasu wraps his arms around Corey. "The extra room will not be an armory. It will have to be a guest room. For my jiji, and your mother, and your sister. For all our guests who come to visit us. Who will drink our wine and stay too late and need a place to sleep; as surely my jiji intends to do tonight."

Surely.

Karasu smiles his small secretive smile and Wuya flies off somewhere else because he knows what is coming next as Karasu lights another kiss upon his beloved paladin. "I will come and look at it with you, but I think you will see things my way..."

Corey flushes as Karasu gives him another kiss. He'd actually not been expecting the argument for the extra room at all, but he admits readily in his head--because Karasu's not giving him much space to respond verbally--that Karasu makes a great argument. He pulls away a moment later, beaming as he says, "We should close the door if we're going to..."

Out in the main room, Kiku lounges on an armchair, holding out a peanut to Wuya. "Probably gonna be here a little while, huh buddy?" he asks, before he leans in conspiratorially and whispers, "I did you a big favor. I already put a talisman on their room so that no sound leaks out when the door's closed."

Kiku pats Wuya on his fluffy little head. Wolves may boast the most about their relationship to ravens, but this fox is pretty fond of them, too.

-End