One Tail at a Time

No Pain, No Gain 2

When Shifu said he wanted to build a fleet of ships, he wasn't kidding.  And when Shifu dreams big, he goes way beyond what the average mind can even envision, because not only are we building a fleet of ships, but he is literally creating a floating system of hotels under my name of course, seeing as it wouldn't do to enter this grand venture of his under his own name.  Initially, I was sceptical about how this was even going to work, but I should have known better.  When Shifu says he is going to do something, he does it and we help him or we die.  That is pretty much what it all comes down to, because like I have said many times before, my Shifu is competitive to point of crazy, he wants to win the competition at all costs!

And it was during the initial days, that my mood swings really hit.  What he saw before then was obviously the onset, because the tantrums and screaming matches became so volitile, that my poor brothers thought I was close to being kicked out.  Not only would I scream every insult I possessed and I learned plenty from those magazines, but I threw everything in arms reach at him because the workload was just too harsh.

We were up at dawn and slaving over the frames of the ships, which is super hard work, both physically and mentally and being much much smaller than my brothers, I struggled to keep up.  My hands were calloused, my body aching and being female with everything that comes with being one, it was even more difficult.  Like for instance, my breasts.  They are growing bigger by the day, so balancing large planks of wood off the tips of my nipples was not only painful  but my goggle eyed brothers were spending more time staring at me than helping, which always had me running to Shifu to complain about them and my bulging chest.

Only he patted my head, and told me that I should just embrace the changes in my body, and then in the very next breath, he ordered me to fetch the new log books he'd had commissioned.  Only he ended up wearing them over his head when I threw them at him, along with some very choice words, followed by a fit of rage which saw us both screaming at each other.  In the end, he forcefully turned me around and kicked my behind so hard that I truly thought I had lost a tail, it hurt so bad!

And of course being a a fox from a long line of stubborn and volatile battlers, Shifu and I came to blows with me being grounded to the ships gallows, or rather a small room at the bottom of the hull until I got my temper under control.  It took three days and nights before I finally gave in and apologized and only because I was hungry.  It might not have been sincere, but he looked just as terrible as I did, so that made me feel a bit better.  In fact Fu Yu told me that several times Shifu had come to sit outside the door and rest and several times he had almost opened it, only to drop his hands and walk away.  He also hadn't eaten anything the whole time and only slept a few hours at a time, because he was so worried about me, so in the end, it was enough for me to get over it and move on.

Thats not to say I suddenly became the model student, because we still continued to have our blow outs, but I have learned just how far I can push him before he snaps, so I always pull back just in time.  But like I said, we've been here five years, and we are all over it, so its more than likely we will have many more tantrums and screaming matches before we are done and can finally go home!

But for now, we work and work some more on a fleet of ships that are finally coming together.  Now that we can see the fruits of our labour, the excitement is high, because we are finally seeing an end to it all.

  Each ship has its own set of compartments that one would expect to see on a ship but because my rudder takes most of the effort out of moving it over the water, there is only a small coal room which heats the water through a set of adjoining pipes which also supplies the ships with extra warmth, though each of the sleeping quarters have a built in wetback for added warmth.