Mother, Daughter, and Cat

"Wake up, wake up, wake up!" Velk awoke with a start at the sound of a familiar voice. He found a girl, not looking all too much younger than himself, happily bouncing on his stomach and pushing roughly on his chest, seemingly trying to destroy his ribs. To his left was a young felyne who was pulling on his arm, either trying to pull him off the bed or trying to save him from the excited girl causing trouble.

"Get off me! I'm awake." Velk rolled to his side with a burst of strength and pulled his arm free from the cat. The girl sitting on his chest landed deftly on the bed as if it were a common occurrence for her.

The girl had wild blonde hair and dark brown eyes. Her skin was a healthy shade of white, and she appeared to be around 12 years old. She was a little short for her age and had a cute face that was smiling mischievously.

"You know, if you don't get up quickly, you might miss the rally. This is why mom doesn't allow us to stay up so late." Her smile grew even wider after saying so.

Velk couldn't help but frown while looking at her. He had turned fourteen a couple of weeks ago, and he had been up late studying for the hunter exam. Rose never allowed them to stay up late at night and always forced them to bed, but recently, he had been ignoring a few of her rules.

Coincidently, today is the day that the Hunters Guild recruits en masse. Once every three months, the guild holds small rallies to bring together hunters and give rewards within a district, and once every five years, they operate a Grand Ceremony at their headquarters to bring in hunters from around the world while honoring their VIPs

The Hunter's Guild has two main headquarters. One in Dundorma, a large city located on the Old World, and Astera, a coastal town in the New World, built upon the ships that transported them in the first place. Two headquarters are required due to the long distance between the New World and the Old World and the lack of resources to travel back and forth without causing problems in the long run.

If Velk missed or failed the recruitment process, he would have to wait for another three months before trying again. He had been training his body every day so that he could stay fit enough to even have a chance of joining. Luckily, the guild did not have high requirements; actually, they are a little low...

Swiftly sitting up from the bed, Velk grabbed onto the girl's shoulder and started pushing her towards the door.

"Hey, What's the big idea? What is the rush?" The girl sounded flustered and was trying to slow her steps.

"Ash and I need to get dressed, so unless you want to watch, you need to get out," Velk stated as he continued pushing her towards the door.

Before she could find her words, she was already out of the room and had the door slammed shut behind her. She turned around to face the door and puffed out her cheeks with a frown.

Although Velk could still see the shadow of her feet underneath the door, he did not mind. He knew that she would probably just stand there and wait for him to be finished, and there was no point fretting over it.

Turning to look at his young felyne companion, he smiled and said, "Alright, Ash, let's get ready."

Ash, named after the color of his fur, had round orange eyes, triangular pointed ears, and a large bushy tail. He was only 4 years old, but given that felynes reach physical maturity at the age of 5, he was already old enough to join the Hunter's Guild as a palico.

Standing in front of a mirror, Velk could see his own reflection. He still had the same sapphire-blue eyes and white hair, but it had grown a little longer and looked a little crazier. He was an attractive young man, at least that's what Rose had always said. She had told him that he looked just like his father when he was younger. Perhaps she was a little biased.

Whenever he would ask anything about his father, Rose would always seem to either give quick choppy answers, get sidetracked, change the topic, or outright blush and look away, all depending on the question. Velk had learned that it's best to just ignore the existence of his father. Rose seemed to have a shared history with him that she refused to talk about in detail.

After brushing his teeth along with Ash, who reluctantly allowed Velk to brush his teeth as well, and getting dressed into some rather plain-looking clothing except for an expensive-looking black belt around Velk's waist, they looked at each other and nodded.

"Are you ready?" Velk asked his little furry companion.

"Meow, wow." Ash's voice was a little higher than most male felynes, but not enough to stand out. Velk did not know what he said, but after spending three whole years together, he could pick up the subtle context of his friend's speech. Plus, Ash could always read and write in the Mohun language, so it was never too difficult to understand each other if needed.

Velk opened the door to find the girl still waiting for him outside his room with a pouty face. Once she saw him, her mouth blossomed into a wide smile but quickly grew back into the frown she held before.

"Took you long enough; you sure do know how to keep a girl waiting." She moved her hands to her hips and shook her head.

Velk has noticed that the girl has been acting differently as of late. He did not really understand why she was behaving this way as it only started recently. He classified it akin to something that Rose called a 'phase' because it only began after expressing his desire to join the Hunter's Guild the upcoming month. Her behavior had only increased as the days until the rally grew ever shorter, and now that the day was upon them, it seemed to be at its peak.

"You know... you didn't need to wait outside my door the entire time; you could have just left and done your own thing." The girl was still giving him a pout but had a look of contemplation in her eyes; he did not know if it was because of what he said or if she was scheming something, a habit she has shown to possess throughout the years.

"Hmph, If standing here made you get ready faster and annoyed you, then I would do it a hundred times over." She had somehow come to the conclusion that standing there annoyed him and made him work faster.

"Well, maybe if you weren't such a brat, I would have gotten ready even faster-faster." Velk attacked back with his words. Then he watched the girl flash him a smirk then shift into a shocked expression. At this point, Velk realized that he had fallen into a trap that the girl devised. He continued to watch as she started to cry and then scream.

"MOMMY!!" She took off, storming down a set of stairs while crying. Velk could already feel a headache coming on. He knew what he had done wrong and couldn't believe that he had forgotten such a stupid simple rule. Rose had 3 simple rules that should not be broken between the two of them.

The second rule was that they were not to call each other mean or offensive names. Velk had just called her a brat, hence, breaking the second rule. He was always the biggest offender when it came to calling her 'mean' names, and he had been told off many times by Rose for doing so when he was younger. While the punishments varied in extremity, the last thing he needed today was to be barred from going to the rally, though he doubted that she would. He could only hope that Rose was lenient today.

Velk quickly made his way down the stairs with Ash to find the girl crying in the arms of an older lady. She was a tall, buxom woman with the same blonde hair as the young girl, but she had green eyes instead of brown. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she had a kind smile on her face as she looked at Velk.

"Good morning, Aunt Rose." Velk greeted Rose as he made his way into the kitchen. Rose was a bit wealthy, so her house was much larger than most within the city, and even though there were only two bedrooms, the house had a separate kitchen, eating area, and living room, which was quite the luxury.

"Maeve, you know we can't keep him here," Rose spoke into her daughter's ears. Truthfully, Rose did not really want him to leave home either, and although Velk had neglected to acknowledge it, she had become something akin to a surrogate mother to him. There had been numerous times when he would accidentally call her mom before becoming embarrassed and correcting himself by addressing her as Rose. There were a couple of cases, though, where Velk wouldn't even realize what he had done, which always brought a smile to Rose's face.

After that fateful night, ten years past, Velk had woken up to an unfamiliar roof above his head. He found a young woman bundled up in blankets sleeping on a chair by the bedside next to him. Once he sat up to get a better look at her, she appeared to have sensed his movements and opened her eyes to look back at him.

Showing a very kind and empathetic look, she unwrapped herself from the blankets and gave him a hug, and stroked his back. Velk was in a state of confusion. It was only after listening to what she had to say, things began to clear up.

She had told him that his village had been burned to the ground and that he would be temporarily living with them until his grandfather returned. After being accepted into the family, which only included Rose and her two-year-old daughter, he was shown around the house. It wasn't long after being guided around that he met Maeve, the young girl he would be living with for the next ten years. They got along nicely since they were close in age, and Maeve finally had a friend to play games with other than her own mother.

At this time, Velk still held hope that his grandfather would join up with them soon. But as days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, he was slowly losing that hope. Velk was only four years of age, but he still had a vague idea of what death and dying entailed. Once those months turned into a year, he began to accept the reality of the situation. He had become unresponsive, much to the duress of Rose and the confusion of Maeve.

Maeve could not understand what was going on inside of Velk's head, so she did the most logical thing a three-year-old could fathom, and that was to play even more and even harder. Velk was dragged along on a roller coaster of creativity that only a bored child could come up with. Slowly whittling away at his depression, Maeve worked tirelessly in her own way to bring him back to the state he was in before.

Along with help from her mother, Rose, and a frequent visitor named Ethran, Maeve tore down the walls guarding Velk, and the two have had a close relationship ever since. Maeve, the ever prideful scamp with an imaginary victory over her mother, was proud and always deemed it fit to brag about it. Rose, much to her fake chagrin, was continually beaten down by Maeve and her accomplishments.

Ethran had also regularly stopped by to check in on Velk and talk with him for some time. Even though Velk had disdained him for quite a bit of time, in the beginning, He never let on and continually pursued a friendship with the grandchild of his idol.

It was from Ethran that Velk was able to obtain books and training methods to become a hunter. So while lacking physical experience, Velk held a sufficient amount of knowledge on various monsters, plant life, animal life, and different regions discovered worldwide.

At some point, when Velk was eleven, Rose had adopted a young felyne from its mother, who couldn't care for it. Since felynes are named in their native tongue, a language not so easily replicated by humans, they needed to rename it. The three decided to call the felyne Ash.

Velk and Ash had quickly bonded to become close friends, and they made it their dream together to explore the world and fight monsters. While Ash's only genuine aspiration was to follow Velk along on the journey, Velk wanted to either find his grandfather if he is not dead or slay the elder dragon who had destroyed his town and slaughtered his grandfather.

Most of the hunter's remains were retrieved from the still burning valley, but his grandfather was never found. This does not come as a big surprise, though, as many hunters are eaten after befalling to a wyvern. So his grandfather's status was set to MIA until the next Grand Ceremony at the capitals, where he would be officially recognized as dead if he did not show up alive.

Looking out the window, Velk could see that the sun was slightly risen in the east and approximated the time to be around nine in the morning, meaning that the rally would start in an hour. It was not all that big of a deal if he arrived late, but he wanted to be there from the beginning so he wouldn't miss any relevant information.

"I will be going now," Velk stated as he swiftly made his way over to a familiar brown bag near the door leading outside. One of the few items he had left of his grandfather. Along with the belt around his waist and the relics located within, there really wasn't much.

"Wait just a minute, young man!" Rose shouted as she quickly left Maeve. She made her way over to Velk and started pulling on his ear.

"Ow, Ow! Please stop! That hurts!" Rose had the tendency to tug on his ear whenever she was frustrated with him, and since she was doing just that, he knew that something was wrong.

"Did you think that I would just let you leave without giving proper goodbyes? Honestly, you are so much like your father. I would have thought that my nurture would have beaten out your nature." Rose pulled him into her embrace for a short while shaking her head disappointedly.

After she let go, she stated, "I have put three hundred zenny in your bag along with some other essentials. Come back home after you are done. You will be assigned living quarters to be shared with three other hunters where you will stay, but we still have a punishment to work out, so you must come back home tonight, otherwise..."

"Yes, I will come back, I promise." Velk knew that it was not a good idea to get on Rose's 'bad' side, and no matter how much he longed for his independence, he would never outwardly betray Rose's commands. She was a scary woman when you made her angry.

After he was done with Rose, he was left standing in front of a crying Maeve. Despite knowing that he wouldn't be gone for long, she felt like this was a final goodbye. She just wanted him to stay home, but she knew this was not one of those times where she could just work hard to get what she wanted.

Velk pulled her into a big hug as well. He did not know what to do or say, so he just let her cry into his shirt. Ash stood off to the side, conversing with Rose while all this was going on. She was strangely fluent at understanding what Ash was trying to convey, and it always made Velk jealous because he never could do the same.

After what felt like minutes, she finally let go of him after coming to a decision and suppressed her crying, only letting out a sniffle every once in a while. She raised her hand out towards him and extended her pointer finger while vehemently staring at him.

"Promise me... promise that you will let me join your hunting party once I become a hunter as well." This was the first time he had ever heard Maeve express the desire to become a hunter. It probably only came about due to a spontaneous decision on her part.

Velk was at a loss for words for a couple seconds before he also came to a decision. "I promise, In two years, if you can become a hunter, then I will let you join my party." He extended his own pointer finger as well and touched the tips. With that sealing their promise, Maeve hugged Velk once again, but for a much shorter duration this time around.

After putting on his bag and shoes, he turned around to face Ash, along with Rose and Maeve. Velk showed a small heartfelt smile for a second before returning to a resting face.

"Let's go, Ash."

"Meooow"

Velk opened the door and stepped outside; Ash followed close behind. He closed the door behind him, leaving the two girls alone in the house. Standing in silence for a couple of seconds, Maeve started to cry again, this time with Rose wrapping her arms around her.

"What are you crying for, you silly girl? It's not like he won't be back tonight." This only caused Maeve to cry louder. Rose could only shake her head at her daughter's antics.