Verdant Cavern
Persephone
The Vulture Queen
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Chapter Three: Bittern Peak
Part 2: Verdant Cavern
Even with her teeth clenched around your torso and her breath in your face, you’re struck by the sheer majesty of your kidnapper. She slinks effortlessly through the forest and you barely rise or fall as she moves. You sometimes catch a glimpse of her tails held high off the floor to keep them pristine. And she is very, very cold. Sometimes you’ll look down and see a leaf start to frost over as she approaches. And then, then her fur! It’s thick enough that you might be able to get lost in it, and you could definitely get lost in her tails. A whole litter probably could. And it’s all well-fluffed and perfectly white and shiny. Her eyes were big and blue, like yours, but bigger and bluer and better.
By the time she stops you’ve lost track of how long you were even moving. She gently lowers her head and releases you onto the ground. Where you very easily catch your balance despite having been caught a little bit off guard. You glance around at your surroundings and discover that you’re on the smooth cold rocks by the water. You’d thought that those were far away (you had taken Skysong over a whole mountain) but you either didn’t actually go very far with Skysong, there are even more cliffs on the other side of the mountain (which makes you wonder why you even bothered to cross it at all), or the ninetales took you a lot farther than you thought she had.
Ninetales settles down next to you as you get your bearings. She folds her hind legs under her body, spreads out her tails and reaches out with her forelegs. It would be a comfortable sleeping posture if the ground wasn’t a little bit hard.
She tilts her head so her eye is looking into yours and gives a greeting bark.
You reflexively lower your head and whine in submission. This pleases her and she hisses her acceptance.
“What is your name?”
The vulpine language is a little complex. She didn’t exactly ask those four words, but it wasn’t just a simple growl either. There are combinations of barks, hisses, growls and postures that each have different meanings and can be strung together. A better, clearer translation might be, “Name?” It’s less… rude than that, though. She’s conversing, not demanding.
Translation is a difficult subject indeed, and you aren’t quite sure how to say ‘Pixie.’ Or if it even really counts as a ninetales name. You have a quick mental debate between telling her Sh’trake’s (Avalanche’s) thirdborn, which you can say but gives the impression that your trainer doesn’t respect you enough to give you a name, or struggling with human words. You end up barking and hissing out something that ends up more like Icksae than Pixie, but it’s the best you can do. Could you spell it? You don’t know human hardwords but—neither does Skysong, actually.
Ninetales continues to look into your eyes as you complete your panicked musings and awful answer. She doesn’t seem offput by any of it, though, and she simply responds with what you assume to be her own name, “Kalani.” It’s clearly a human word but she says it with enough grace that you turn around to make sure there isn’t an actual human speaking. She follows it up with quick vulpine expressions: Name. Human. Inquiry?
You flick your tails in assent.
She growls consideration before deciding upon an answer. “Will have vulpix name.”
That feels like lightning in your spine as your body tenses and your mind numbs.
There is a lot involved in a name. Changing a name. Trifox get placeholder names at birth for convenience (it’s hard to mother a whole litter without being able to call out specific pups). And because you heard Matriarch tell one human that it’s harder to let go of something you name and ninetales ultimately let go of most of their pups. The abandoned ones, like you (and maybe Kalani given her name), they never get a name. But humans are kind of like parents so they can give you a name. But the human names can be changed because they aren’t real, aren’t fox-given. They don’t know you.
The offer, no… demand? Not quite. Statement. The statement that you will have a vulpix name? It’s akin to adoption.
Another thought brings you out of shock: Can a vulpix be adopted by a human and ninetales at the same time? Especially if the ninetales is not also adopted by the same human. You don’t think there are rules for that and you want to voice your concern but—there’s a tail on you, gently pressing you down and pulling you in. Before you know it almost your entire body is engulfed in Kalani’s tails, with only your head still sticking out.
It has been a very long time since you were properly embraced. It’s simultaneously warm and cold in all of the best ways. It’s submissive in a contractual way; you are a pup and you will be cared for and protected. And the name? That means you’re chosen. Wanted.
Liquid water drips from your eyes and you don’t notice until it freezes in the air and shatters on the stone.
Kalani turns to look at you and you aren’t sure if she’s going to judge or be mad about getting salt on her fur, but she just shifts her tails to push you up to and against her torso. Then she turns around and lets you exhaust your tears. At some point you fall asleep, you think for just a moment (the sun barely changes), and you wake up in the exact same spot. You’re in the same position as when you fell asleep and the only real change is that Kalani is purring. Vigorously. And because you’re pressed against your skin you can feel it move through her body and into yours. You spend a long time pressed against her and just listening, feeling her happiness.
Eventually you get careless and flick your tails. The purring quiets and Kalani turns around. You bark that you’re ok but she doesn’t pick up the purring again. Instead she tilts her head and asks, “Pixie. Story. Inquiry?” She pronounces your own name much better than you ever could.
You freeze, metaphorically and literally. Will she want you less if you tell her? More, out of pity? No. She’s already seen you cry yourself to sleep. Pity is already there and you don’t think her knowing the details is going to change her view of you.
So you tell her. First it’s about a ninetales who wasn’t bad in any way but made a choice she had to make and you got left out. But she was… kind enough to drop you off at the foot of the mountain, where the humans live, so that someone might still care for you and you’d be safe from the worst of the predators. But then some bad (and, in hindsight, really stupid) humans caught you and you didn’t know how to tell good and bad humans apart. Until they kicked you. Smelly, loud bipeds had no right at all to do that.
Eventually those humans got put into the cave that they put all of the really bad humans in and you got given to a strange group of people in faux-ice armor. But you’d already died in all the ways that counted so there wasn’t much they could do. One girl, briefly, made a difference. But then, in a cruel twist of fate, she became the queen of your mountain and left you behind at sea level.
Matriarch. Hummy. Not as bad as the first humans you’d met, but people who would have preferred you be almost anything, anyone else.
Then Skysong. The human who hadn’t abandoned you. Yet.
You decide to leave out the part about her mother being a god (and her maybe being a goddess? you aren’t sure if that’s an inherited title or not) because you don’t know what to say and a tiny part of you is afraid that Kalani might decide that, as an older and more powerful fox, she should be the one protecting Skysong instead of you. Which might not be an entirely wrong argument, now that you think about it. But she’s yours and…
…ok, vulpix don’t have territory. Or pups. And they don’t really need to own anything else because why would you? You aren’t sure whether or not you being Kalani’s pup makes Skysong her human by proxy. But Kalani doesn’t have guide training so Skysong still needs you.
And you hadn’t noticed how low the sun had fallen while you were telling that story. And you’ve been neglecting your guide fox duties all day. Right when she was toying with replacing you with another guide fox.
This may be the equivalent event to shitting in Hummy’s bed. Except she had deserved it and Skysong didn’t.
Kalani inquiry growls.
“Skysong injured. Blindness. Almost night. Vulnerable. Go there?”
The last phrase doesn’t use the inquiry growl. It’s a submissive suggestion, one that implies an acceptance of rejection. It would be rude to reject the inquiry growl.
“Irrelevant. No human night-sees. Other humans do not need help. She does not. And will only be sleeping.”
Her language is stunning enough that you have to take a minute to process it. You weren’t even aware you could form human-like sentences in vulpine and have them make sense. And her logic is flawless. Skysong gets around just fine at night when she has to urinate. She usually doesn’t even ask for your help. So, she’ll be fine and not much more upset than she already is if you just return in the morning.
You are woken up once from your evening nap. You feel Kalani shift beside you and when you wake you see her sitting rigid and upright while tracking something in the sky. It takes you a moment, but you beat the sleep from your eyes and follow her gaze. There’s something there, a dark shadow on a night sky visible only from the blocked out starlight as it moves. It’s a bird of some sort, but you don’t know exactly what kind live in this area.
You expect Kalani to shoot it out of the sky any second. But she doesn’t. Instead she just keeps watching the bird until it can barely dim one star at a time. Then she settles back down and looks at you.
“Predator.”
Oh. Right. If it was a very large bird it could carry you away in your sleep. It’s a thing you’re still getting used to about the surface, even years later. Maybe having something to fear from birds. Of course, one would never be able to sneak up on you ever and you could easily kill it in one hit before you got very far off the ground at all, but Kalani wouldn’t know that.
And it’s nice being looked out for.
To your great surprise, you’re already in Skysong’s leafswing when you come back under the declining moon. The other you shifts around as you approach and sticks her head out. She spends long seconds staring at you and blinking the sleep out of her eyes. Until Kalani comes into view. Then her magnificent blue eyes open wide and she slinks out of the hammock. The air shimmers around her as her paws hit the ground and a black and red fox is left in the vulpix’ place. She tucks her tail between her hind legs and walks away.
You briefly entertain the idea of racing after her and defending your honor, but another thought occurs to you right as you start to form a powder snow: Skysong might not even know that you abandoned her last night if the other fox took your place. Starting a fight now would break her, and thus your, cover. You can only huff in impotent rage.
Kalani sinks lower to the ground and your peripheral and puts her tails down and out. She slowly extends one leg and then another as she crouches along the ground. It’s a hunting stance.
She’s a very good ninetales.
You take the opportunity to hop into the leafswing like you had been there all night and were just now coming back after a quick urination break. Skysong barely stirs except to wrap her arms around you and murmur something you don’t understand, either because the words are slurred or you just don’t know the words. And then you feel her heartrate drop beside you as she drifts back off.
You hear a vulpine scream in the distance and you start purring.
Mission accomplished.
The next day is unremarkable. Which, after your last few weeks, is somewhat remarkable. There is a long walk and you do a wonderful job of keeping Skysong and her legs safe from all the mean rocks that would attack her. It’s a forest walk this time, which means shade. It’s amazing after the last few days of rocky coastal and montane trails. You like mountains, but they’re supposed to be snowy not pebbly. And the soil hurts your paws less than barren stone. You notice that Skysong is moving a little faster than yesterday, too.
You can smell Kalani somewhere, but she’s moving at her own pace off in the forest. You understand. It took you a long time to get used to large groups of humans.
You haven’t smelled other fox since this morning. It’s a wonderful, possibly permanent, reprieve. You think there either would have been more screaming or none at all if Kalani had meant to kill the other fox, but a part of you doesn’t want to give up hope.
And then there’s lunch and Skysong gives you her entire disk of food. You think it’s fish. It smells like fish and kind of tastes like it. But all of the food stored in metal tastes kind of similar.
There’s a shorter walk next but it’s all green and shaded and downhill. It’s close enough to the sea that there’s wind and you can smell the salt in the air, but it’s not quite enough to permeate your fur and force you to spend hours getting all of it out so you can smell normal again.
Then the humans set up their nest for the night and you curl up beside a tree while you aren’t needed. Kalani still hasn’t showed herself yet but you can smell her nearby. Sometimes you think you can even hear her growls.
They finish about halfway between midsun and moonrise. You jump into Skysong’s leafswing and curl up beside her. She’s engrossed in her metal tablet, strings stretching between it and her ears. The end of the strings are saying words. You don’t understand a lot of them, but you catch a few that you know like “battle.” That one comes up a lot.
Skysong eats her latesun meal and once again shares a lot of it. This one is some sort of landmeat. Bird, maybe? It’s one of the meats that humans like to slice into tiny thin circles and nibble at it. You don’t see the point and it’s overcooked and oversalted, but it’s not foodpebbles and you’ll take it.
You don’t see Kalani until well after moonset when you and Skysong are already asleep. You’re woken up to the feeling of movement and the light impression of teeth on your skin. Then Kalani drags you off to the coast again.
Long ago and across the sea, one clan of humans torched the city of another clan. As humans do. In the blaze, the nest of the Rainbow God was burned. As the Rainbow God descended to survey the damage, he found the bodies of three foxes who had fled into the temple to pray to the rainbow god to spare them. But he had been too focused on the damage to the building to hear their prayers. Ashamed of his role in their deaths, the Rainbow God revived them into beings so powerful they would never again live in fear of humans.
Generations passed as the Rainbow God aimlessly wandered the skies of the world, refusing to nest in the world of humans. Eventually his flights led him back to his old temple. There he found many foxes like the ones who he had revived years before. He cast a shadow shaped like a fox and descended. He asked the foxes why they stayed in the ruined temple.
“To keep the grave of our ancestors safe and await the return of the Rainbow God, so that we might thank him for his blessing of our kin.”
The Rainbow God was moved to reveal his true form.
“For your devotion and service, I will bless you and set you apart from the other foxes. You will be my emissaries and guardians, protecting people and pokemon alike and enforcing the will of the gods.”
Ashes poured from the god’s wings and became bound to the foxes, transforming them from ordinary eevee into majestic ninetales.
A clan of humans engaged in an expedition of discovery. To ensure they stayed in the good graces of The Worldtraveler they brought along a family of ninetales to transmit their prayers and pass on the word of the gods. Many moons later, they arrived on the shores of a new land. As the people moved from island to island to learn from and trade with the natives, the ninetales came along to meet the gods of the new land.
The island gods received them warmly and each conferred a small blessing of the islands’ power. From the Thunder Guardian they received longer and more beautiful fur. From the Mind Guardian they received mental acuity. From the Earth Guardian they received power over the weather. And from the sea guardian they received even greater longevity.
Upon meeting the final guardian, they were summoned to the top of the world to meet The Moon. The goddess was so impressed by the stories, devotion and wisdom of the ninetales that she became jealous of the Rainbow God and decided that she must have the foxes for her own. So she cast a spell on the foxes and turned fire to ice. Thus, the foxes could never tolerate a long voyage back across the warm seas. The Moon had made it so they could only be comfortable on the mountain and could never leave her for long.
And to this day, the ninetales honor their covenant with the Rainbow God to guide humans and pokémon and protect the sacred mountain of the Moon, for even if she is a jealous god, she is a god nonetheless.
Kalani takes you back well before moonset this time. You return to a foxless leafswing, for better or worse. You flex your legs, rear back and jump… on to the edge of the leafswing. You wind up with your forelegs clinging on to the material, claws extended, and your hindlegs and tails flailing uselessly in the air. You whine for help involuntarily and, you think, justifiably and Skysong extends an arm to scoop you up. In the process your claws very audibly rip the leafswing and you hear Skysong say an unknown but forceful word under her breath.
“Hey, Pix.”
There’s no affection in the words. You have been a bad fox. But she still doesn’t throw you out.
You will make an effort to not chill her nest until enough moonrises have passed that she has forgotten your transgressions.
Skysong doesn’t speak to you at all until morning meal is complete. Then she calls you over to take her into the woods, out of lightbox range, so that she can urinate. Humans must get partially naked to urinate and, given their absolute unwillingness to let anyone see them undress, they can not do it near a lightbox. She has even instructed you to turn around in courtesy while she does it which seems very unfair. If humans have genitalia, and you remain unconvinced that they do, you would not be attracted to it. Every other part of humans is at least a little gross and you see no reason those parts would be different.
When everything is done and she reapplies her falsefur, Skysong finally talks to you.
“Has your new friend taught you new moves?”
“New mother, actually.”
Skysong flinches and whirls around so quickly you’re afraid she might collapse again. But she doesn’t. Instead she simply faces Kalani, sitting down on her haunches with her tails wrapped around her body. Skysong lets almost three dozen heartbeats pass before she speaks again.
“Which way is camp?”
You raise your ears and find the sound. Then you walk in that direction until the leash is taut.
“Thank you. Now. Has your new friend taught you any new moves?”
You bark negation.
Skysong huffs. “What have you been doing, then?”
You don’t answer. Neither does Kalani, although a quick glance confirms she’s still following you.
“Fine. It doesn’t matter. Just, two things. You need to stop harassing the zorua. And we’re passing by a cave today. There are zubat and rattata. I thought we could practice.”
“I did not attack other fox,” you protest.
“Then your new friend needs to stop harassing zorua just because they’re friendly.”
Other fox is not friendly. But you’ve reached camp and you know she doesn’t like talking to you with lightboxes around.
You expected the cave to be dark and cold, like the last one before the giant bee. (Will there be a giant bee in this cave? You really hope not. Of course, the bee wouldn’t be a challenge at all. Just. Your fur.) But the cave isn’t really dark or cold. Cool, sure. It’s a very welcome relief, but it’s not nearly-mountain-cold or even very close. Just a kind of chilly sea level night cool. And the light is dim, like around moonset or moonrise, but it never goes away completely however far you walk inside of it. There are strange plants growing up and down the walls or down in big crevices that sound like distant water. And they glow! You didn’t know that plants could produce light, but these ones do. It’s very considerate of them.
Skysong stops walking and you abruptly pause without running against the end of the leash and briefly choking a little bit.
“I hear zubat,” she says. “Remember the plan?”
You do remember the bat hunting plan. You are to just pelt them with powder snows. It is a very basic plan but one you used to bring down innumerable bats as a pup. You (quietly) bark your agreement and scan the cave for a bat.
It isn’t very hard to find one and you start whipping your tails around when you do. Skysong takes this as a reminder to bend down and unclip your harness from your leash, allowing you to take a few steps forward get a better vantage point and—bam! Your slush perfectly arcs through the air and nails a sleeping bat in the wing. As it falls and catches its balance—bam—you hit it again! For some reason the bat hasn’t quite gone down yet, but that can be taken care of in a third strike.
As you mix cold and moisture in your throat, the bat finally turns to you. And screams. Except it’s not quite like a normal scream of fright or delight or mischief. It’s not even like your ‘roar.’ (Skysong calls it a roar and that sounds very impressive.) It’s higher and louder and constantly shifting. It almost feels like it stopped being outside your ears and just became your thoughts. All of your thoughts. It’s very hard to think anything at all. Eventually it quiets down a little and, woah, there are almost nine nines of bats. You think. They fill up most of the cave but it’s like there are two caves and everything’s spinning a little. You fire off a slushball but you think it just hits the side of the cave (oh crap that was right by Skysong, who through the spinning looks really sick). And then you start to feel a half dozen wings hit your body. Which is bad but they can be scratched. Until they start to lift you into the air.
You do not like flying. You figure this changes the rules to the “up close fight” category, where you’re supposed to scream until the problem goes away. So you reach deep, deep down inside of your body and pull the sound out.
It hurts when you hit the ground, but the bats have at least started moving deeper into the cave, away from you. Doesn’t stop at least one from defecating all over your beautiful fur on the way out.
“Ok…” Skysong’s voice and body are shaky even after you’ve completely recovered. “Maybe a rattata, then?”
You find a rat very quickly. She’s looking at you, inquisitively, and you get a sickening feeling that she’s laughing. You will crush her and show your dominance.
The healing fluid stings on the bite marks and your tails droop behind you in shame. You did not show your dominance.
You get to sleep in a building that night in a room with Snaketree, Earthseer, Dirtface and Skysong. It’s the same setup as the ones before with two beds of two heights. Skysong takes one of the bottom levels, the other humans take the tops. Which is fine with you. Ladders are hard.
Skysong does not bathe you in the same bathroom she uses. Instead you get one of the baths on top of a pillar in a smaller room for urination and defecation, but not baths. (Is it still called a bathroom?) You want to scream and scratch and protest the whole time, especially since she’s being very rough and the soap she uses doesn’t smell great, but she’s been distant and mean sounding all day and you really do want to be clean. So you clench your teeth and live with it.
She bathes the last of all the humans, leaving you to curl up on her nest while she grooms. Just as you start to drift off to sleep something catches your attention: the scent of blood. Lots of it.
You quietly whine. You have already voiced your disapproval of her blood grooming and you had hoped that would be enough to make her stop. There’s nothing you can do now without causing a scene, which would get other humans involved and they would maybe see her without her falsefur and one or more of them could die of shock, like your mother told you happens to foxes who tear the cloak off of the falsemice in the creepy building at the base.
“Christ, is that blood?” Earthseer asks the ceiling loudly. Presumably he’s talking to Skysong even though she isn’t on the ceiling and her name is definitely not “Christ.” As far as you know. She wouldn’t keep her name secret from you, though. Right?
Skysong doesn’t answer. Earthseer tries again?
“You alright in there? It smells like a lot of blood out here.”
You hear Snaketree shift above you but she doesn’t say anything. Neither does Skysong. Earthseer takes the next logical step and bangs on the door.
“I’m on my period, asshole,” Skysong finally snaps back. Earthseer goes pale and starts stammering apologies.
A ‘period’ is a bizarre and frankly terrifying quirk of a human female’s anatomy. They do not like sharing details and they constantly cover their hips, so you have been forced to guess as to what it is. Your current theory is that human females have large sores beneath their falsefur that sometimes break open and ooze. They are understandably embarrassed by this and keep their sores hidden at all times. The males probably cover theirs as a sign of solidarity.
Of course, it is impossible to prove this theory. But you pride yourself on your brilliance in reaching what is most probably the answer with almost no verifiable information.
But periods smell different from blood. And this is definitely blood. But Earthseer is either stupid or has a very weak sense of smell because he drops the argument and gets back in bed.
When Skysong leaves the bathroom and gets into her nest, you notice that all the cuts on her legs are gone.
Next tTme: Big Wave Beach
Part 2: Verdant Cavern
Even with her teeth clenched around your torso and her breath in your face, you’re struck by the sheer majesty of your kidnapper. She slinks effortlessly through the forest and you barely rise or fall as she moves. You sometimes catch a glimpse of her tails held high off the floor to keep them pristine. And she is very, very cold. Sometimes you’ll look down and see a leaf start to frost over as she approaches. And then, then her fur! It’s thick enough that you might be able to get lost in it, and you could definitely get lost in her tails. A whole litter probably could. And it’s all well-fluffed and perfectly white and shiny. Her eyes were big and blue, like yours, but bigger and bluer and better.
By the time she stops you’ve lost track of how long you were even moving. She gently lowers her head and releases you onto the ground. Where you very easily catch your balance despite having been caught a little bit off guard. You glance around at your surroundings and discover that you’re on the smooth cold rocks by the water. You’d thought that those were far away (you had taken Skysong over a whole mountain) but you either didn’t actually go very far with Skysong, there are even more cliffs on the other side of the mountain (which makes you wonder why you even bothered to cross it at all), or the ninetales took you a lot farther than you thought she had.
Ninetales settles down next to you as you get your bearings. She folds her hind legs under her body, spreads out her tails and reaches out with her forelegs. It would be a comfortable sleeping posture if the ground wasn’t a little bit hard.
She tilts her head so her eye is looking into yours and gives a greeting bark.
You reflexively lower your head and whine in submission. This pleases her and she hisses her acceptance.
“What is your name?”
The vulpine language is a little complex. She didn’t exactly ask those four words, but it wasn’t just a simple growl either. There are combinations of barks, hisses, growls and postures that each have different meanings and can be strung together. A better, clearer translation might be, “Name?” It’s less… rude than that, though. She’s conversing, not demanding.
Translation is a difficult subject indeed, and you aren’t quite sure how to say ‘Pixie.’ Or if it even really counts as a ninetales name. You have a quick mental debate between telling her Sh’trake’s (Avalanche’s) thirdborn, which you can say but gives the impression that your trainer doesn’t respect you enough to give you a name, or struggling with human words. You end up barking and hissing out something that ends up more like Icksae than Pixie, but it’s the best you can do. Could you spell it? You don’t know human hardwords but—neither does Skysong, actually.
Ninetales continues to look into your eyes as you complete your panicked musings and awful answer. She doesn’t seem offput by any of it, though, and she simply responds with what you assume to be her own name, “Kalani.” It’s clearly a human word but she says it with enough grace that you turn around to make sure there isn’t an actual human speaking. She follows it up with quick vulpine expressions: Name. Human. Inquiry?
You flick your tails in assent.
She growls consideration before deciding upon an answer. “Will have vulpix name.”
That feels like lightning in your spine as your body tenses and your mind numbs.
There is a lot involved in a name. Changing a name. Trifox get placeholder names at birth for convenience (it’s hard to mother a whole litter without being able to call out specific pups). And because you heard Matriarch tell one human that it’s harder to let go of something you name and ninetales ultimately let go of most of their pups. The abandoned ones, like you (and maybe Kalani given her name), they never get a name. But humans are kind of like parents so they can give you a name. But the human names can be changed because they aren’t real, aren’t fox-given. They don’t know you.
The offer, no… demand? Not quite. Statement. The statement that you will have a vulpix name? It’s akin to adoption.
Another thought brings you out of shock: Can a vulpix be adopted by a human and ninetales at the same time? Especially if the ninetales is not also adopted by the same human. You don’t think there are rules for that and you want to voice your concern but—there’s a tail on you, gently pressing you down and pulling you in. Before you know it almost your entire body is engulfed in Kalani’s tails, with only your head still sticking out.
It has been a very long time since you were properly embraced. It’s simultaneously warm and cold in all of the best ways. It’s submissive in a contractual way; you are a pup and you will be cared for and protected. And the name? That means you’re chosen. Wanted.
Liquid water drips from your eyes and you don’t notice until it freezes in the air and shatters on the stone.
Kalani turns to look at you and you aren’t sure if she’s going to judge or be mad about getting salt on her fur, but she just shifts her tails to push you up to and against her torso. Then she turns around and lets you exhaust your tears. At some point you fall asleep, you think for just a moment (the sun barely changes), and you wake up in the exact same spot. You’re in the same position as when you fell asleep and the only real change is that Kalani is purring. Vigorously. And because you’re pressed against your skin you can feel it move through her body and into yours. You spend a long time pressed against her and just listening, feeling her happiness.
Eventually you get careless and flick your tails. The purring quiets and Kalani turns around. You bark that you’re ok but she doesn’t pick up the purring again. Instead she tilts her head and asks, “Pixie. Story. Inquiry?” She pronounces your own name much better than you ever could.
You freeze, metaphorically and literally. Will she want you less if you tell her? More, out of pity? No. She’s already seen you cry yourself to sleep. Pity is already there and you don’t think her knowing the details is going to change her view of you.
So you tell her. First it’s about a ninetales who wasn’t bad in any way but made a choice she had to make and you got left out. But she was… kind enough to drop you off at the foot of the mountain, where the humans live, so that someone might still care for you and you’d be safe from the worst of the predators. But then some bad (and, in hindsight, really stupid) humans caught you and you didn’t know how to tell good and bad humans apart. Until they kicked you. Smelly, loud bipeds had no right at all to do that.
Eventually those humans got put into the cave that they put all of the really bad humans in and you got given to a strange group of people in faux-ice armor. But you’d already died in all the ways that counted so there wasn’t much they could do. One girl, briefly, made a difference. But then, in a cruel twist of fate, she became the queen of your mountain and left you behind at sea level.
Matriarch. Hummy. Not as bad as the first humans you’d met, but people who would have preferred you be almost anything, anyone else.
Then Skysong. The human who hadn’t abandoned you. Yet.
You decide to leave out the part about her mother being a god (and her maybe being a goddess? you aren’t sure if that’s an inherited title or not) because you don’t know what to say and a tiny part of you is afraid that Kalani might decide that, as an older and more powerful fox, she should be the one protecting Skysong instead of you. Which might not be an entirely wrong argument, now that you think about it. But she’s yours and…
…ok, vulpix don’t have territory. Or pups. And they don’t really need to own anything else because why would you? You aren’t sure whether or not you being Kalani’s pup makes Skysong her human by proxy. But Kalani doesn’t have guide training so Skysong still needs you.
And you hadn’t noticed how low the sun had fallen while you were telling that story. And you’ve been neglecting your guide fox duties all day. Right when she was toying with replacing you with another guide fox.
This may be the equivalent event to shitting in Hummy’s bed. Except she had deserved it and Skysong didn’t.
Kalani inquiry growls.
“Skysong injured. Blindness. Almost night. Vulnerable. Go there?”
The last phrase doesn’t use the inquiry growl. It’s a submissive suggestion, one that implies an acceptance of rejection. It would be rude to reject the inquiry growl.
“Irrelevant. No human night-sees. Other humans do not need help. She does not. And will only be sleeping.”
Her language is stunning enough that you have to take a minute to process it. You weren’t even aware you could form human-like sentences in vulpine and have them make sense. And her logic is flawless. Skysong gets around just fine at night when she has to urinate. She usually doesn’t even ask for your help. So, she’ll be fine and not much more upset than she already is if you just return in the morning.
*
You are woken up once from your evening nap. You feel Kalani shift beside you and when you wake you see her sitting rigid and upright while tracking something in the sky. It takes you a moment, but you beat the sleep from your eyes and follow her gaze. There’s something there, a dark shadow on a night sky visible only from the blocked out starlight as it moves. It’s a bird of some sort, but you don’t know exactly what kind live in this area.
You expect Kalani to shoot it out of the sky any second. But she doesn’t. Instead she just keeps watching the bird until it can barely dim one star at a time. Then she settles back down and looks at you.
“Predator.”
Oh. Right. If it was a very large bird it could carry you away in your sleep. It’s a thing you’re still getting used to about the surface, even years later. Maybe having something to fear from birds. Of course, one would never be able to sneak up on you ever and you could easily kill it in one hit before you got very far off the ground at all, but Kalani wouldn’t know that.
And it’s nice being looked out for.
*
To your great surprise, you’re already in Skysong’s leafswing when you come back under the declining moon. The other you shifts around as you approach and sticks her head out. She spends long seconds staring at you and blinking the sleep out of her eyes. Until Kalani comes into view. Then her magnificent blue eyes open wide and she slinks out of the hammock. The air shimmers around her as her paws hit the ground and a black and red fox is left in the vulpix’ place. She tucks her tail between her hind legs and walks away.
You briefly entertain the idea of racing after her and defending your honor, but another thought occurs to you right as you start to form a powder snow: Skysong might not even know that you abandoned her last night if the other fox took your place. Starting a fight now would break her, and thus your, cover. You can only huff in impotent rage.
Kalani sinks lower to the ground and your peripheral and puts her tails down and out. She slowly extends one leg and then another as she crouches along the ground. It’s a hunting stance.
She’s a very good ninetales.
You take the opportunity to hop into the leafswing like you had been there all night and were just now coming back after a quick urination break. Skysong barely stirs except to wrap her arms around you and murmur something you don’t understand, either because the words are slurred or you just don’t know the words. And then you feel her heartrate drop beside you as she drifts back off.
You hear a vulpine scream in the distance and you start purring.
Mission accomplished.
*
The next day is unremarkable. Which, after your last few weeks, is somewhat remarkable. There is a long walk and you do a wonderful job of keeping Skysong and her legs safe from all the mean rocks that would attack her. It’s a forest walk this time, which means shade. It’s amazing after the last few days of rocky coastal and montane trails. You like mountains, but they’re supposed to be snowy not pebbly. And the soil hurts your paws less than barren stone. You notice that Skysong is moving a little faster than yesterday, too.
You can smell Kalani somewhere, but she’s moving at her own pace off in the forest. You understand. It took you a long time to get used to large groups of humans.
You haven’t smelled other fox since this morning. It’s a wonderful, possibly permanent, reprieve. You think there either would have been more screaming or none at all if Kalani had meant to kill the other fox, but a part of you doesn’t want to give up hope.
And then there’s lunch and Skysong gives you her entire disk of food. You think it’s fish. It smells like fish and kind of tastes like it. But all of the food stored in metal tastes kind of similar.
There’s a shorter walk next but it’s all green and shaded and downhill. It’s close enough to the sea that there’s wind and you can smell the salt in the air, but it’s not quite enough to permeate your fur and force you to spend hours getting all of it out so you can smell normal again.
Then the humans set up their nest for the night and you curl up beside a tree while you aren’t needed. Kalani still hasn’t showed herself yet but you can smell her nearby. Sometimes you think you can even hear her growls.
They finish about halfway between midsun and moonrise. You jump into Skysong’s leafswing and curl up beside her. She’s engrossed in her metal tablet, strings stretching between it and her ears. The end of the strings are saying words. You don’t understand a lot of them, but you catch a few that you know like “battle.” That one comes up a lot.
Skysong eats her latesun meal and once again shares a lot of it. This one is some sort of landmeat. Bird, maybe? It’s one of the meats that humans like to slice into tiny thin circles and nibble at it. You don’t see the point and it’s overcooked and oversalted, but it’s not foodpebbles and you’ll take it.
You don’t see Kalani until well after moonset when you and Skysong are already asleep. You’re woken up to the feeling of movement and the light impression of teeth on your skin. Then Kalani drags you off to the coast again.
*
Long ago and across the sea, one clan of humans torched the city of another clan. As humans do. In the blaze, the nest of the Rainbow God was burned. As the Rainbow God descended to survey the damage, he found the bodies of three foxes who had fled into the temple to pray to the rainbow god to spare them. But he had been too focused on the damage to the building to hear their prayers. Ashamed of his role in their deaths, the Rainbow God revived them into beings so powerful they would never again live in fear of humans.
Generations passed as the Rainbow God aimlessly wandered the skies of the world, refusing to nest in the world of humans. Eventually his flights led him back to his old temple. There he found many foxes like the ones who he had revived years before. He cast a shadow shaped like a fox and descended. He asked the foxes why they stayed in the ruined temple.
“To keep the grave of our ancestors safe and await the return of the Rainbow God, so that we might thank him for his blessing of our kin.”
The Rainbow God was moved to reveal his true form.
“For your devotion and service, I will bless you and set you apart from the other foxes. You will be my emissaries and guardians, protecting people and pokemon alike and enforcing the will of the gods.”
Ashes poured from the god’s wings and became bound to the foxes, transforming them from ordinary eevee into majestic ninetales.
*
A clan of humans engaged in an expedition of discovery. To ensure they stayed in the good graces of The Worldtraveler they brought along a family of ninetales to transmit their prayers and pass on the word of the gods. Many moons later, they arrived on the shores of a new land. As the people moved from island to island to learn from and trade with the natives, the ninetales came along to meet the gods of the new land.
The island gods received them warmly and each conferred a small blessing of the islands’ power. From the Thunder Guardian they received longer and more beautiful fur. From the Mind Guardian they received mental acuity. From the Earth Guardian they received power over the weather. And from the sea guardian they received even greater longevity.
Upon meeting the final guardian, they were summoned to the top of the world to meet The Moon. The goddess was so impressed by the stories, devotion and wisdom of the ninetales that she became jealous of the Rainbow God and decided that she must have the foxes for her own. So she cast a spell on the foxes and turned fire to ice. Thus, the foxes could never tolerate a long voyage back across the warm seas. The Moon had made it so they could only be comfortable on the mountain and could never leave her for long.
And to this day, the ninetales honor their covenant with the Rainbow God to guide humans and pokémon and protect the sacred mountain of the Moon, for even if she is a jealous god, she is a god nonetheless.
*
Kalani takes you back well before moonset this time. You return to a foxless leafswing, for better or worse. You flex your legs, rear back and jump… on to the edge of the leafswing. You wind up with your forelegs clinging on to the material, claws extended, and your hindlegs and tails flailing uselessly in the air. You whine for help involuntarily and, you think, justifiably and Skysong extends an arm to scoop you up. In the process your claws very audibly rip the leafswing and you hear Skysong say an unknown but forceful word under her breath.
“Hey, Pix.”
There’s no affection in the words. You have been a bad fox. But she still doesn’t throw you out.
You will make an effort to not chill her nest until enough moonrises have passed that she has forgotten your transgressions.
*
Skysong doesn’t speak to you at all until morning meal is complete. Then she calls you over to take her into the woods, out of lightbox range, so that she can urinate. Humans must get partially naked to urinate and, given their absolute unwillingness to let anyone see them undress, they can not do it near a lightbox. She has even instructed you to turn around in courtesy while she does it which seems very unfair. If humans have genitalia, and you remain unconvinced that they do, you would not be attracted to it. Every other part of humans is at least a little gross and you see no reason those parts would be different.
When everything is done and she reapplies her falsefur, Skysong finally talks to you.
“Has your new friend taught you new moves?”
“New mother, actually.”
Skysong flinches and whirls around so quickly you’re afraid she might collapse again. But she doesn’t. Instead she simply faces Kalani, sitting down on her haunches with her tails wrapped around her body. Skysong lets almost three dozen heartbeats pass before she speaks again.
“Which way is camp?”
You raise your ears and find the sound. Then you walk in that direction until the leash is taut.
“Thank you. Now. Has your new friend taught you any new moves?”
You bark negation.
Skysong huffs. “What have you been doing, then?”
You don’t answer. Neither does Kalani, although a quick glance confirms she’s still following you.
“Fine. It doesn’t matter. Just, two things. You need to stop harassing the zorua. And we’re passing by a cave today. There are zubat and rattata. I thought we could practice.”
“I did not attack other fox,” you protest.
“Then your new friend needs to stop harassing zorua just because they’re friendly.”
Other fox is not friendly. But you’ve reached camp and you know she doesn’t like talking to you with lightboxes around.
*
You expected the cave to be dark and cold, like the last one before the giant bee. (Will there be a giant bee in this cave? You really hope not. Of course, the bee wouldn’t be a challenge at all. Just. Your fur.) But the cave isn’t really dark or cold. Cool, sure. It’s a very welcome relief, but it’s not nearly-mountain-cold or even very close. Just a kind of chilly sea level night cool. And the light is dim, like around moonset or moonrise, but it never goes away completely however far you walk inside of it. There are strange plants growing up and down the walls or down in big crevices that sound like distant water. And they glow! You didn’t know that plants could produce light, but these ones do. It’s very considerate of them.
Skysong stops walking and you abruptly pause without running against the end of the leash and briefly choking a little bit.
“I hear zubat,” she says. “Remember the plan?”
You do remember the bat hunting plan. You are to just pelt them with powder snows. It is a very basic plan but one you used to bring down innumerable bats as a pup. You (quietly) bark your agreement and scan the cave for a bat.
It isn’t very hard to find one and you start whipping your tails around when you do. Skysong takes this as a reminder to bend down and unclip your harness from your leash, allowing you to take a few steps forward get a better vantage point and—bam! Your slush perfectly arcs through the air and nails a sleeping bat in the wing. As it falls and catches its balance—bam—you hit it again! For some reason the bat hasn’t quite gone down yet, but that can be taken care of in a third strike.
As you mix cold and moisture in your throat, the bat finally turns to you. And screams. Except it’s not quite like a normal scream of fright or delight or mischief. It’s not even like your ‘roar.’ (Skysong calls it a roar and that sounds very impressive.) It’s higher and louder and constantly shifting. It almost feels like it stopped being outside your ears and just became your thoughts. All of your thoughts. It’s very hard to think anything at all. Eventually it quiets down a little and, woah, there are almost nine nines of bats. You think. They fill up most of the cave but it’s like there are two caves and everything’s spinning a little. You fire off a slushball but you think it just hits the side of the cave (oh crap that was right by Skysong, who through the spinning looks really sick). And then you start to feel a half dozen wings hit your body. Which is bad but they can be scratched. Until they start to lift you into the air.
You do not like flying. You figure this changes the rules to the “up close fight” category, where you’re supposed to scream until the problem goes away. So you reach deep, deep down inside of your body and pull the sound out.
It hurts when you hit the ground, but the bats have at least started moving deeper into the cave, away from you. Doesn’t stop at least one from defecating all over your beautiful fur on the way out.
“Ok…” Skysong’s voice and body are shaky even after you’ve completely recovered. “Maybe a rattata, then?”
You find a rat very quickly. She’s looking at you, inquisitively, and you get a sickening feeling that she’s laughing. You will crush her and show your dominance.
*
The healing fluid stings on the bite marks and your tails droop behind you in shame. You did not show your dominance.
*
You get to sleep in a building that night in a room with Snaketree, Earthseer, Dirtface and Skysong. It’s the same setup as the ones before with two beds of two heights. Skysong takes one of the bottom levels, the other humans take the tops. Which is fine with you. Ladders are hard.
Skysong does not bathe you in the same bathroom she uses. Instead you get one of the baths on top of a pillar in a smaller room for urination and defecation, but not baths. (Is it still called a bathroom?) You want to scream and scratch and protest the whole time, especially since she’s being very rough and the soap she uses doesn’t smell great, but she’s been distant and mean sounding all day and you really do want to be clean. So you clench your teeth and live with it.
She bathes the last of all the humans, leaving you to curl up on her nest while she grooms. Just as you start to drift off to sleep something catches your attention: the scent of blood. Lots of it.
You quietly whine. You have already voiced your disapproval of her blood grooming and you had hoped that would be enough to make her stop. There’s nothing you can do now without causing a scene, which would get other humans involved and they would maybe see her without her falsefur and one or more of them could die of shock, like your mother told you happens to foxes who tear the cloak off of the falsemice in the creepy building at the base.
“Christ, is that blood?” Earthseer asks the ceiling loudly. Presumably he’s talking to Skysong even though she isn’t on the ceiling and her name is definitely not “Christ.” As far as you know. She wouldn’t keep her name secret from you, though. Right?
Skysong doesn’t answer. Earthseer tries again?
“You alright in there? It smells like a lot of blood out here.”
You hear Snaketree shift above you but she doesn’t say anything. Neither does Skysong. Earthseer takes the next logical step and bangs on the door.
“I’m on my period, asshole,” Skysong finally snaps back. Earthseer goes pale and starts stammering apologies.
A ‘period’ is a bizarre and frankly terrifying quirk of a human female’s anatomy. They do not like sharing details and they constantly cover their hips, so you have been forced to guess as to what it is. Your current theory is that human females have large sores beneath their falsefur that sometimes break open and ooze. They are understandably embarrassed by this and keep their sores hidden at all times. The males probably cover theirs as a sign of solidarity.
Of course, it is impossible to prove this theory. But you pride yourself on your brilliance in reaching what is most probably the answer with almost no verifiable information.
But periods smell different from blood. And this is definitely blood. But Earthseer is either stupid or has a very weak sense of smell because he drops the argument and gets back in bed.
When Skysong leaves the bathroom and gets into her nest, you notice that all the cuts on her legs are gone.
*
Next tTme: Big Wave Beach
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