🌸 the resilience of a lily 🌸

[Vixen Luo]

this is the placeholder and introductory post for the story of my most developed viscet and first custom, yuri.

while his design is not something from my own mind, nor his name, i have developed such a close bond to the character i've created for him and the family i've been able to give him over the year and few months i've been part of this community. that character, everything of spoken word and crafted story you will be reading, is my own original work -- and i take pride in that. so while you may judge me for owning a custom whose design is not mine, take into consideration that i have done everything in my power to make a character that IS my own property and honestly, my most beloved viscet of all.

this story will involve a lot of self-deprecation(nothing involving self-harm or harmful topics), violence and death, but at least a whole lot of hopeful peace toward the end. the violence and death are only on the thicker side (while still CS friendly) during one specific part of the story. i'll be sure to warn at the beginning of that part so those who would rather not see such content can skip over it <3

you may post, but feel free to bookmark to read along as i update yuri's journey if you would rather not mark the thread. as far as an updating schedule goes, i don't have one yet -- but i will write this as much as i possibly can.

part 1 is currently in progress, just thought i'd make this thread first off so i have somewhere to store it and work on it. c:

remember, after even the biggest storm is calm. if this little guy can make it after what he's been through, so can you. i'm always here to talk to anyone going through tough times. <3

and with that, please bear with me while i begin.

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art by mint chip

[Vixen Luo]

art by lex





xxxxx "Good luck, darling. Please come home to me soon."

Yuri glanced back at the cave he'd grown up in as his mother's parting words still rang in his tall ears, his blue-gray eyes shimmering with bittersweet longing as the shape of the den grew smaller and smaller with each lick of seawater against the ship he stood on. He was barely out of visclinghood, the pup-fluff on his mane still visible despite his matured age -- but he had decided long ago that he was ready to part from his home country to see a new land. After moons of pleading and insisting, his mother had finally let him take flight from the nest to discover himself in the world.

Yuri was hatched in the middle of winter, a mild season that was kind to the southern country of Aedox compared to the others throughout the year. With a cold breeze sweeping through his mother's nest, he had tumbled from his egg with large, perky ears and a silky mess of a mane akin to an endlessly flowing river. All in all, he was a gently raised viscling, given tender loving and perhaps too much protection to be considered appropriate.

He was the youngest of his siblings, and therefore the most catered to. Most of his brothers and sisters were matured and had families of their own when he was born, and thus, he was spoiled by siblings just as much as he was his mother. Aedoxian families were most commonly deeply engrossed in their culture and produced massive families with siblings stretching into the tens or even twenties -- never a demand, but an unspoken hereditary gift for motherhood or fatherhood to each child born. Yuri's family was no different; in total, he had around eight sisters and thirteen brothers, all of varying ages. Yuri in particular was a sole egg for the breeding season, the final child to be born from his sickly mother and his father who had died shortly before he could see his final son hatch. As such, his brothers took up the task of raising him -- but they could not be too harsh on him, lest they have risked the over-protective wrath of their mother, whose paranoia and anxiety after her mate's death seemed to seep into Yuri as he grew in an unfortunate consequence of her shadowing presence.

Still, Yuri had had a wonderful life. His nieces and nephews, some as old as or even older than he was, served as the children he played with growing up, though the rougher ones of the batch often spent less time with him due to his softness. Most days he would spend with the youngest of the children, grooming them while they told each other stories and daydreamed about the clouds' many shapes or plucked flowers from the earth to fit into each others' fur. It was the peaceful moments spent in the clearing with those children and the calm nights spent tucked into his mother's fur that soothed his soul and yet bred restlessness in him, a longing to go out and begin his own pack, his own family. To find his own love, too, perhaps.

"Oi!" Yuri nearly leapt from his fur as a harsh voice sounded in his ears, and he fumbled to turn around with a small gasp. "Ya can't stand 'ere. Go 'round back with the other passengers. Or are we gonna 'ave a problem, Doxy?"

Yuri swallowed and shook his head a bit, gazing into the hateful Vestrunian's eyes for a split second before his chest tightened and he looked away, shuffling to regroup with the other passengers parting from Aedox. Tensions were high anywhere in either country, Vestruna or Aedox. Yuri knew that the war was fierce, but he didn't understand why or how it had even begun. Being so sheltered, he had known nothing of war or hate before he'd matured. Now it was...certainly making itself known wherever he went. Vestrunians, anyhow. However, Yuri felt no hate for the lot of them; he was scared of the aggression, confused by it, perhaps. He was a pacifist at heart.

"I wouldn't let it get to you." A new voice, softer and easier on the ears, caught Yuri's attention as he glanced over, pausing the nervous shuffling his paws had been doing. "He's like that to everyone." The speaker was a dark-furred viscet with cream-accented markings and a brilliant mane that matched the dull pink of his eyes, his expression sheepish.

He calls everyone 'Doxy'? he thought, confused, before the newcomer corrected himself, smiling a bit and shaking his head.
"Sorry, I mean...he's rude. You being Aedoxian doesn't mean anything to him. He just likes to ruffle pelts." Oh. Perhaps that made a little more sense, but...

"I don't..." His voice died in his throat, ears twitching in embarrassment. He'd never properly learned to speak Eterna's universal language - he didn't even know what it was called, just knew it was the commonly spoken word. His mother, ever hidden from the outside world, had always spoken in pure Aedox to him and his siblings. It was only from the latter that he had picked up any of the Common Tongue. "Ruffle...pelts?" The words felt odd on his tongue, and his voice was unable to mimic most of the syllables properly -- but as broken as it was, the other viscet still apparently understood him.

"Oh, I'm sorry. You must be from deep Aedox," he murmured, before he straightened up with a friendly, patient expression. "Ruffle pelts means...upset. He just wanted to make you upset," he explained, and Yuri nodded in understanding; that made more sense, then. Still, it didn't detract from his sheepishness from the evident language barrier. Was that how it would always be while he was away from home?
"I'm Fitz, by the way. What's your name?"

"Yuri." He felt bad for being so quiet, but Fitz didn't seem to mind it at all. In fact, he was as friendly as ever. Hardly anything like the rude brute from around the corner...

"Nice to meet you, Yuri! Are you headed to Soltia as well?" Soltia? Where the wilderness was a death sentence? Horrified, Yuri shook his head, and Fitz clicked his tongue in disappointment. "Ah. Where, then? I get off ship in about a week."

"Ol...." He stumbled over the pronunciation and his jaws clamped shut briefly in embarrassment as he heard a snicker from a passenger walking by the pair. Hotly, he shuffled, mumbling his answer again. "Ol..Oluolu."

"Ooh, I wish! I've got some business where I'm headed, or I'd be heading that way about now. I hear the coconuts are wonderfully ripe.." Half of the things Fitz said flew right over Yuri's head, and he was left reeling and fumbling to understand what in the world he was saying -- until finally Fitz seemed to notice and apologetically stopped talking. "Oh--right, you probably aren't used to anything but Aedox. Well, still, we can stick together until the ship reaches Soltia." A whole week. Right...

"...you...um," he began, ears flicking back modestly. "Teach me how?"
"You mean...help you learn how to speak the Common Tongue?" Yuri nodded, hope glimmering in his eyes. "Sure!! I hope I'm a good enough teacher for you. I don't speak much Aedox myself, but I can try," Fitz chirped, but it was the earnest smile on the viscet's face that made Yuri relax and believe he really was willing to help.

"We could probably get started now, actually. Look out at the sky. How many words can you tell me about it?"

"...it's...pretty. Blue. White fluff in the air..."

"That's great!! You're already pretty great at pronunciation. I think I can just teach you some better words to use, but you're a natural. You'll be speaking fluently in no time!"


.....


The week had flown by far faster than Yuri would have liked; each day had involved him sticking to Fitz like glue, of course, but the other male hadn't seemed to mind it at all. Being Yuri's very first friend, Fitz was the only one he was comfortable sticking around for too long -- especially since the ship's crew seemed awfully haughty and rude to everyone in general. Even better, though, Fitz had managed to help him get a little more comfortable with speaking the Common Tongue -- though he was far from a 'natural' in any way, shape or form. However, Yuri supposed by now that it was just Fitz's overwhelming optimism and encouragement -- something that he admittedly appreciated more than he could verbalize.

When the ship docked at Soltia, Yuri was hardly ready to let his new friend go. They parted ways sadly, but hopefully; with one another's home country and region in mind in hopes of visiting one another someday, Fitz finally left and headed to his destination while Yuri watched him fade away, ears flicked back with a crippling loneliness settling in his chest once more.

The rest of his journey for the passing days was much harder without his friend; the crew seemed to get harsher on him each time he made the smallest error, and a few of the passengers still bullied him for his stumbling in language even after he'd gotten noticeably better. A few of the older passengers, most notably an elderly human, were kindest to him -- but they had a language barrier that could not be crossed, which perhaps justified the ease at which Yuri felt around them. He wasn't exactly comfortable with the hands that stroked his fur every now and again, but he figured it was nicer than being made fun of for his inability to speak properly. Still, he missed Fitz. That optimism that had once made him shine was gone, and therefore, he was deflated and lonelier than ever.

Somehow, though, he survived the last few days of his trip -- and he was sleeping soundly when a harsh clatter sounded in his ears and startled him into terrified wakefulness, eyes wide as he heard the voice of the head of the ship's crew ring out to the passengers.

"Stoppin' at Oluolu. If y'er final stop is 'ere, get lost and don't come back."

Although the harshness of the crewmember's voice made Yuri cringe, his heart swelled with excitement as he rose and gazed out at the sunrise above the gorgeous country that lay in wait.

Welcome to Oluolu, it seemed to whisper. Welcome.

fitzgerald belongs to james.

[lex]

mark :› what a good boy

[invincible llama]

mark because i need

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Sweet!