Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
I mean the plan Piri was infamous for before she ruined everything and that eclipsed all previous infamy.
The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox
- Thread starter arianedartagnan
- Start date
Chapter 135: The Black-Necked Crane
Chapter 135: The Black-Necked Crane
The snow leopard demons, as it turned out, didn't know what was going on either. "The barking deer of the Azure Lake are in charge," they told us.
So Bobo and I went to the barking deer. Their clan chief, whose long canines made her face look as if it were frozen in a snarl, told us, "It's the red pandas you want."
The red pandas, for their part, told us, "Go talk to the pikas."
The pikas told us, "It's the antelopes."
From there, spreading our tale of delicious non-human foods, we went from the antelopes to the gazelles, the gazelles to the black bears, the black bears to the musk deer, the musk deer to the squirrels, the squirrels to the rhesus macaques, the rhesus macaques to the wild asses (yes, in case you were wondering, they were – what else would you expect from demons?), and the wild asses to the black-necked cranes.
As for the cranes, they shrieked and chased us away from the carrying pouches for their eggs, which were apparently prized delicacies to other demon clans. It took some doing, but eventually we convinced them that we weren't there for dinner.
Their clan chief turned out to be significantly smaller than the rest of them. He was a whitish-greyish fellow with a black head and neck and a crimson spot on his forehead. When he reared up at our approach and spread his black-edged wings, they didn't even extend four feet to either side. I assumed he was posturing to overawe us – but then he dove at us.
Aaaaaahhhh! I shrieked, which was thankfully drowned out by Bobo's equally undignified, "Eeeeeeek!"
I shot to the side as blackand white feathers engulfed the snake.
Bobo! trumpeted the crane.
Wait.
Bobo, it's you! It's really you! What are you doing here, of all places?
Somewhere from inside all those feathers, Bobo's muffled voice asked, "Ssstripey? Is that you???"
Yes! Yes, it's me!
"But you look ssso different!"
The crane laughed, and in the deep chortle, I heard echoes of the duck's chuckle. I reincarnated as a crane this time, Bobo. Of course I look different.
"You sssound different too!"
Well, I'm not actually a crane spirit. I'm an awakened soul inside a crane's body. So my voice isn't really coming from my throat.
Bobo's long, bright green tail whipped out from under the feathers and looped around the crane's body several times. "Ssstripey! Ssstripey Ssstripey Ssstripey! I misssed you ssso much!"
I missed you too, Bobo.
I was about to fly at Stripey and fling my wings around his neck too when a terrible thought struck me. Why would Heaven allow Stripey to reincarnate with his mind? Was this a horrible trick played by some god?
Probably. But which one?
The Kitchen God? No. I was doing good work on his Temple, good work that was nowhere near complete. Even if he planned to eliminate me afterwards, he wouldn't act at this juncture.
Aurelia? No. As much as we had…disagreed on certain issues (such as whether she should have been Empress – or alive, for that matter), she wasn't a raccoon dog. She wasn't that spiteful.
By – by Cassius?
Hiding in a shrub a safe distance away, I demanded in my best Bobo voice, reminding her of our ventriloquist act, Wait. How do I know you're really Ssstripey?
The question was really out of place, considering how Bobo had wrapped the crane up in a giant snake hug, but it had to be asked.
Still looped around his body, Bobo froze. Her head popped up between his wings so she could stare him in the face.
The crane, meanwhile, was craning (haha) his long neck to hunt for the source of the voice. Who was that?
"Oh! That was me!" Bobo trilled. "I'm a ventriloquissst, sssee?"
To complete the illusion, I continued, I can project my voiccce around, sssee?
The crane folded his wings. When did you learn that? And why?
From the mage, of courssse! I answered, testing to see if he'd supply the correct name.
From Floridiana? I wasn't aware that she knew ventriloquism.
His skepticism was a good sign. Because Floridiana, so far as I knew, didn't know ventriloquism.
"Oh, ssshe does!" Bobo assured him. "Uh-huh! Uh-huh!"
But enough about me, I said. How have you been doing? Have you been in the wessst the whole time? Why did you get to keep your mind? What have you been up to? I hid the most important question in the middle of my barrage.
The crane considered for a moment. What have I been up to? Well, not learning ventriloquism, that's for sure.
The wry answer was so like Stripey that my throat constricted. Please let it be him, please let it really be him, I thought. Bobo wouldn't be able to bear it if it turned out to be an imposter – and neither would I.
As for how I got to keep my mind…. The crane's long neck swiveled around and he stared straight into my shrub. Then he started waddling towards me, awkwardly because of the snake still wrapped around him. I have you to thank, Rosie.
At the old nickname, which almost no one used anymore, my heart actually stopped.
It restarted itself, of course.
Apparently the Kitchen God likes what you're doing down here. Flicker convinced him that you needed…help.
A minder, you mean, I corrected before I could stop myself.
Yes. As you say. You do get carried away, Rosie.
I did. And Stripey would know that. Goodness knew he'd had to rein me in often enough in the Claymouth Barony. No one else had ever been as effective at it as he, before or since.
Flicker would know that. And prefer it if my actions didn't get too out of wing. But who'd have thought the star sprite clerk would have grown the spine to suggest anything to the Director of Reincarnation?
Prove it. Prove you're really Stripey. Tell me something only the real Stripey would know. What was our last conversation? My voice cracked near the end. I wanted it to be him so, so badly. What if he weren't Stripey after all? What if this were all a sham?
If you're looking for absolute, definitive proof, I can't give it to you, said the crane, with that bluntness I remembered so well. You can always say that the gods are watching everywhere, all the time, and that they fed me all the answers beforehand.
Unfortunately, that was true, especially of the Kitchen God, whose literal job it was to spy on everyone on Earth all the time so he could report their doings to the Jade Emperor.
But to answer your question, the crane continued, our last conversation was in the waiting room outside Flicker's office, after we both died killing Lord Silurus. You were very upset that you weren't going to see me again, so I promised to return to Honeysuckle Croft whenever I awakened.
I was not upset! I snapped on instinct. I was being practical and planning ahead!
Yes. Yes, you were, he said, and that skeptical tone, that gaze that cut right through my posturing, were pure Stripey.
It was him.
It was Stripey. He was back.
And I hadn't needed to wait a hundred years to see him again.
I shot out of the shrub and threw myself at his neck, and he wrapped one wing around me and the other around Bobo, and we stayed like that for a long, long time.
So why didn't you go back to Honeysuckle Croft? I scolded later, after we finally disentangled ourselves.
It's not so easy to travel all the way across the breadth of Serica, Rosie, he pointed out. I was – am – in the process of returning to Honeysuckle Croft.
"Ooooooh!" cried Bobo. "That's why you're with the demons!"
Wait. Stripey, please tell me you didn't incite this demon migration just so you could return to Honeysuckle Croft.
If he had, it was going to be very, very bad for his karma total. So bad that I'd have to make sure he never died again.
Nah. C'mon, Rosie, give me some credit, will you? It just seemed like the perfect chance to travel east. And since my clan was suffering in the Wilds, I brought them along. I figured I could settle them in the Claymouth Barony.
Right – a thought had been niggling at the back of my mind. If Stripey were only a mind in a mortal body, how had he won leadership over an entire clan of demons? (And how could I do it too?)
But before I could ask, Bobo burst out, "Oh! Oh oh oh! Ssstripey Ssstripey Ssstripey, did you hear? Lord Magnisssimus ssstarted a pig farm!"
A pig farm?! And Stripey exploded into laughter.
Yep. And you'll never guess what Taila did when she saw me last time, I told him.
Uh-oh. Do I want to know?
Between the two of us, with our words tumbling over and overlapping each other, Bobo and I gave him a somewhat coherent summary of what everyone was up to. By the time we reached Floridiana and Dusty, and how the queen of South Serica had tasked us with saving the kingdom, Stripey had sobered up.
I assume something terrible will befall this 'Katu' if we don't stop the demon horde? And that you would prefer that nothing terrible happen to him?
A tiny cry far overhead made us look up. A vulture demon glided past, a wailing human in its claws.
Yeah. His love poetry is, well, you can read it for yourself later, and he has absolutely no common sense, but he's a decent person under all that.
"Alssso, the Kitchen God will be really upssset if we lossse his High Priessst," Bobo added with shocking common sense. "Right when the Temple's going ssso well!"
Stripey shrugged his wings in that trademark gesture of his. There was a lot more wing to shrug now, and it did look impressive coming from a great crane. Then we'll just have to stop the horde.
And he turned to look at me.
That was not what I'd expected. I blinked back at him.
I assume you already have a plan? he prompted. What do we do?
Well, yes, but…aren't you going to ask what the plan is first? And how much it's going to cost?
He burst out laughing again. Hardly! It sounds like you've found a new treasury to bankrupt. Belonging to this "Lady Anthea." So long as it's hers, and so long as she doesn't mind you bankrupting her, who am I to complain?
I just hoped he never discussed Temple finances with the raccoon dog. Of course she doesn't object to my spending! The Kitchen God is her patron god, so she's very supportive of this Temple project.
Throughout our reunion, the crane demons had maintained a respectful distance, but now one finally waddled up and interrupted us. "O Mighty Chieftain, Beloved of the Gods, we respectfully crave to know when we might move on? The other tribes are leaving us behind, and we fear that it is unsafe for our eggs in these hostile, unpacified lands."
Indeed, while we'd talked, the dark mass of the main horde had progressed far into the distance, leaving behind only pockets of demons. The rest of them were drawing closer and closer to the walls of Goldhill.
Stripey nodded at the crane, who was at least a century older than he, as a wise grandfather would nod at a grandchild. Tell everyone to be ready to go at my signal.
"Mighty Chieftain, Beloved of the Gods"? I asked with a smirk when the crane was out of earshot. It sounded like a title Dusty would bestow on himself.
Stripey shrugged his wings again. Yes, well, it worked so well for you, I figured I'd give it a try.
It only worked for me because Flicker was willing to pop down, I pointed out. How'd you pull it off?
He arched his wings, like a pair of raised eyebrows.
No way! You're kidding, right? He came down here for you too?!
It was his idea, wasn't it? And I needed to establish my bona fides, didn't I? So I called on him, and he showed up. Guess the Kitchen God really wants you to succeed, huh? He nudged me with one wingtip.
Huh. So the blaze of golden light that had appeared over the Temple altar back in Goldhill – that had not been the god himself after all. That had probably been one much-put-upon star sprite clerk. No wonder the light pattern had reminded me of Flicker's!
Raising a wing, Stripey called, "Kurrr! Kurrr!" at the other cranes. One came over and lowered her belly to the ground next to Bobo, inviting the snake to climb aboard. Once she was settled, the whole flock rose into the air, with Stripey at their head. I flew next to him, trying not to show how hard it was for a sparrow's tiny wings to keep up.
So, I panted, do you know who's in charge of this horde? Is anyone in charge of this horde? Everyone seems to think it's someone else.
Stripey chortled. I do. And you're going to love it when you find out.
I was getting worried now. Who is it?
Why, the Fox Queen, of course.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Dylan, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, yoghogfog, and Anonymous!
The snow leopard demons, as it turned out, didn't know what was going on either. "The barking deer of the Azure Lake are in charge," they told us.
So Bobo and I went to the barking deer. Their clan chief, whose long canines made her face look as if it were frozen in a snarl, told us, "It's the red pandas you want."
The red pandas, for their part, told us, "Go talk to the pikas."
The pikas told us, "It's the antelopes."
From there, spreading our tale of delicious non-human foods, we went from the antelopes to the gazelles, the gazelles to the black bears, the black bears to the musk deer, the musk deer to the squirrels, the squirrels to the rhesus macaques, the rhesus macaques to the wild asses (yes, in case you were wondering, they were – what else would you expect from demons?), and the wild asses to the black-necked cranes.
As for the cranes, they shrieked and chased us away from the carrying pouches for their eggs, which were apparently prized delicacies to other demon clans. It took some doing, but eventually we convinced them that we weren't there for dinner.
Their clan chief turned out to be significantly smaller than the rest of them. He was a whitish-greyish fellow with a black head and neck and a crimson spot on his forehead. When he reared up at our approach and spread his black-edged wings, they didn't even extend four feet to either side. I assumed he was posturing to overawe us – but then he dove at us.
Aaaaaahhhh! I shrieked, which was thankfully drowned out by Bobo's equally undignified, "Eeeeeeek!"
I shot to the side as blackand white feathers engulfed the snake.
Bobo! trumpeted the crane.
Wait.
Bobo, it's you! It's really you! What are you doing here, of all places?
Somewhere from inside all those feathers, Bobo's muffled voice asked, "Ssstripey? Is that you???"
Yes! Yes, it's me!
"But you look ssso different!"
The crane laughed, and in the deep chortle, I heard echoes of the duck's chuckle. I reincarnated as a crane this time, Bobo. Of course I look different.
"You sssound different too!"
Well, I'm not actually a crane spirit. I'm an awakened soul inside a crane's body. So my voice isn't really coming from my throat.
Bobo's long, bright green tail whipped out from under the feathers and looped around the crane's body several times. "Ssstripey! Ssstripey Ssstripey Ssstripey! I misssed you ssso much!"
I missed you too, Bobo.
I was about to fly at Stripey and fling my wings around his neck too when a terrible thought struck me. Why would Heaven allow Stripey to reincarnate with his mind? Was this a horrible trick played by some god?
Probably. But which one?
The Kitchen God? No. I was doing good work on his Temple, good work that was nowhere near complete. Even if he planned to eliminate me afterwards, he wouldn't act at this juncture.
Aurelia? No. As much as we had…disagreed on certain issues (such as whether she should have been Empress – or alive, for that matter), she wasn't a raccoon dog. She wasn't that spiteful.
By – by Cassius?
Hiding in a shrub a safe distance away, I demanded in my best Bobo voice, reminding her of our ventriloquist act, Wait. How do I know you're really Ssstripey?
The question was really out of place, considering how Bobo had wrapped the crane up in a giant snake hug, but it had to be asked.
Still looped around his body, Bobo froze. Her head popped up between his wings so she could stare him in the face.
The crane, meanwhile, was craning (haha) his long neck to hunt for the source of the voice. Who was that?
"Oh! That was me!" Bobo trilled. "I'm a ventriloquissst, sssee?"
To complete the illusion, I continued, I can project my voiccce around, sssee?
The crane folded his wings. When did you learn that? And why?
From the mage, of courssse! I answered, testing to see if he'd supply the correct name.
From Floridiana? I wasn't aware that she knew ventriloquism.
His skepticism was a good sign. Because Floridiana, so far as I knew, didn't know ventriloquism.
"Oh, ssshe does!" Bobo assured him. "Uh-huh! Uh-huh!"
But enough about me, I said. How have you been doing? Have you been in the wessst the whole time? Why did you get to keep your mind? What have you been up to? I hid the most important question in the middle of my barrage.
The crane considered for a moment. What have I been up to? Well, not learning ventriloquism, that's for sure.
The wry answer was so like Stripey that my throat constricted. Please let it be him, please let it really be him, I thought. Bobo wouldn't be able to bear it if it turned out to be an imposter – and neither would I.
As for how I got to keep my mind…. The crane's long neck swiveled around and he stared straight into my shrub. Then he started waddling towards me, awkwardly because of the snake still wrapped around him. I have you to thank, Rosie.
At the old nickname, which almost no one used anymore, my heart actually stopped.
It restarted itself, of course.
Apparently the Kitchen God likes what you're doing down here. Flicker convinced him that you needed…help.
A minder, you mean, I corrected before I could stop myself.
Yes. As you say. You do get carried away, Rosie.
I did. And Stripey would know that. Goodness knew he'd had to rein me in often enough in the Claymouth Barony. No one else had ever been as effective at it as he, before or since.
Flicker would know that. And prefer it if my actions didn't get too out of wing. But who'd have thought the star sprite clerk would have grown the spine to suggest anything to the Director of Reincarnation?
Prove it. Prove you're really Stripey. Tell me something only the real Stripey would know. What was our last conversation? My voice cracked near the end. I wanted it to be him so, so badly. What if he weren't Stripey after all? What if this were all a sham?
If you're looking for absolute, definitive proof, I can't give it to you, said the crane, with that bluntness I remembered so well. You can always say that the gods are watching everywhere, all the time, and that they fed me all the answers beforehand.
Unfortunately, that was true, especially of the Kitchen God, whose literal job it was to spy on everyone on Earth all the time so he could report their doings to the Jade Emperor.
But to answer your question, the crane continued, our last conversation was in the waiting room outside Flicker's office, after we both died killing Lord Silurus. You were very upset that you weren't going to see me again, so I promised to return to Honeysuckle Croft whenever I awakened.
I was not upset! I snapped on instinct. I was being practical and planning ahead!
Yes. Yes, you were, he said, and that skeptical tone, that gaze that cut right through my posturing, were pure Stripey.
It was him.
It was Stripey. He was back.
And I hadn't needed to wait a hundred years to see him again.
I shot out of the shrub and threw myself at his neck, and he wrapped one wing around me and the other around Bobo, and we stayed like that for a long, long time.
So why didn't you go back to Honeysuckle Croft? I scolded later, after we finally disentangled ourselves.
It's not so easy to travel all the way across the breadth of Serica, Rosie, he pointed out. I was – am – in the process of returning to Honeysuckle Croft.
"Ooooooh!" cried Bobo. "That's why you're with the demons!"
Wait. Stripey, please tell me you didn't incite this demon migration just so you could return to Honeysuckle Croft.
If he had, it was going to be very, very bad for his karma total. So bad that I'd have to make sure he never died again.
Nah. C'mon, Rosie, give me some credit, will you? It just seemed like the perfect chance to travel east. And since my clan was suffering in the Wilds, I brought them along. I figured I could settle them in the Claymouth Barony.
Right – a thought had been niggling at the back of my mind. If Stripey were only a mind in a mortal body, how had he won leadership over an entire clan of demons? (And how could I do it too?)
But before I could ask, Bobo burst out, "Oh! Oh oh oh! Ssstripey Ssstripey Ssstripey, did you hear? Lord Magnisssimus ssstarted a pig farm!"
A pig farm?! And Stripey exploded into laughter.
Yep. And you'll never guess what Taila did when she saw me last time, I told him.
Uh-oh. Do I want to know?
Between the two of us, with our words tumbling over and overlapping each other, Bobo and I gave him a somewhat coherent summary of what everyone was up to. By the time we reached Floridiana and Dusty, and how the queen of South Serica had tasked us with saving the kingdom, Stripey had sobered up.
I assume something terrible will befall this 'Katu' if we don't stop the demon horde? And that you would prefer that nothing terrible happen to him?
A tiny cry far overhead made us look up. A vulture demon glided past, a wailing human in its claws.
Yeah. His love poetry is, well, you can read it for yourself later, and he has absolutely no common sense, but he's a decent person under all that.
"Alssso, the Kitchen God will be really upssset if we lossse his High Priessst," Bobo added with shocking common sense. "Right when the Temple's going ssso well!"
Stripey shrugged his wings in that trademark gesture of his. There was a lot more wing to shrug now, and it did look impressive coming from a great crane. Then we'll just have to stop the horde.
And he turned to look at me.
That was not what I'd expected. I blinked back at him.
I assume you already have a plan? he prompted. What do we do?
Well, yes, but…aren't you going to ask what the plan is first? And how much it's going to cost?
He burst out laughing again. Hardly! It sounds like you've found a new treasury to bankrupt. Belonging to this "Lady Anthea." So long as it's hers, and so long as she doesn't mind you bankrupting her, who am I to complain?
I just hoped he never discussed Temple finances with the raccoon dog. Of course she doesn't object to my spending! The Kitchen God is her patron god, so she's very supportive of this Temple project.
Throughout our reunion, the crane demons had maintained a respectful distance, but now one finally waddled up and interrupted us. "O Mighty Chieftain, Beloved of the Gods, we respectfully crave to know when we might move on? The other tribes are leaving us behind, and we fear that it is unsafe for our eggs in these hostile, unpacified lands."
Indeed, while we'd talked, the dark mass of the main horde had progressed far into the distance, leaving behind only pockets of demons. The rest of them were drawing closer and closer to the walls of Goldhill.
Stripey nodded at the crane, who was at least a century older than he, as a wise grandfather would nod at a grandchild. Tell everyone to be ready to go at my signal.
"Mighty Chieftain, Beloved of the Gods"? I asked with a smirk when the crane was out of earshot. It sounded like a title Dusty would bestow on himself.
Stripey shrugged his wings again. Yes, well, it worked so well for you, I figured I'd give it a try.
It only worked for me because Flicker was willing to pop down, I pointed out. How'd you pull it off?
He arched his wings, like a pair of raised eyebrows.
No way! You're kidding, right? He came down here for you too?!
It was his idea, wasn't it? And I needed to establish my bona fides, didn't I? So I called on him, and he showed up. Guess the Kitchen God really wants you to succeed, huh? He nudged me with one wingtip.
Huh. So the blaze of golden light that had appeared over the Temple altar back in Goldhill – that had not been the god himself after all. That had probably been one much-put-upon star sprite clerk. No wonder the light pattern had reminded me of Flicker's!
Raising a wing, Stripey called, "Kurrr! Kurrr!" at the other cranes. One came over and lowered her belly to the ground next to Bobo, inviting the snake to climb aboard. Once she was settled, the whole flock rose into the air, with Stripey at their head. I flew next to him, trying not to show how hard it was for a sparrow's tiny wings to keep up.
So, I panted, do you know who's in charge of this horde? Is anyone in charge of this horde? Everyone seems to think it's someone else.
Stripey chortled. I do. And you're going to love it when you find out.
I was getting worried now. Who is it?
Why, the Fox Queen, of course.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Dylan, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, yoghogfog, and Anonymous!
- Location
- PA
>The Fox Queen
Oh. Honey I feel so bad for what's about to happen to you when Piri finally meets you.
Also-holy cripes Piri herself acknowledges Stripey as being able to rein her in like no one else could. If that's not a sign of respect I don't know what is.
We should add the title of 'Bestower of Crowns' to Flicker's resume.
Oh. Honey I feel so bad for what's about to happen to you when Piri finally meets you.
Also-holy cripes Piri herself acknowledges Stripey as being able to rein her in like no one else could. If that's not a sign of respect I don't know what is.
We should add the title of 'Bestower of Crowns' to Flicker's resume.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
I'm going to guess this whole thing is a standard cycle of revenge scenario. Piri ruined everything, so various dickheads decided to kill all foxes, one of them got a relative of this Fox Queen, so she started gaslighting all the demons into thinking humans are a good source of food. Demons keep invading, so the old king counter-invaded. Demons are sick of being counter-invaded, and here we are.
Haha, you're right to worry about how Piri's going to react to someone else called a Fox Queen.... But the new fox may deserve what she gets....
Stripey is definitely one of the first people Piri came to respect!
Flicker getting the title "Bestower of Crowns" is going to make Dusty sooooo jealous.
Yep! I wanted to bring Stripey back! His interactions with Piri are fun to write, and he's a good influence on her.
Hmm, I hadn't planned out that aspect of the Fox Queen's history, but the revenge scenario you proposed makes a lot of sense! (Humans are pretty delicious, though. Piri would testify to that.)
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
I've heard that pigs taste exactly the fucking same, though?
Ah, but a demon would tell you that the terror of humans adds to the savor of the meal. It's like a very expensive spice.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
...this shit right here is why my main problem with the demon war is the lack of winning.
Read the title, you had me at "Fox". Just binged the whole thing over two days. Really happy to see Stripey back!
Aww, thanks so much! I'm really happy you like it. And I can't believe you read the whole thing in two days!
Chapter 136: The So-Called Fox Queen
Chapter 136: The So-Called Fox Queen
Clad in the filmy silks that her underlings had seized from lowlander estates, Sphaera Algarum stretched on her new lounge. To the demons who attended upon her, and to the dinner who cowered in a corner of her pavilion, it was a seductive motion that showcased the lines of her body. She, however, knew that it was because she just could not get all her tails comfortable on a lounge designed for humans.
How did the older fox spirits manage it? In her youth, she'd served a seven-tailed fox queen. How had she arranged her tails? At the time, Sphaera had taken the pose for granted, but now she wished she'd paid closer attention. She'd spread her two outermost tails to either side, and they trailed gracefully down the sides of her lounge. But the next two tails in were trapped under her rump, and her central tail was a lump under her back. Not only was it giving her a backache, but the tail itself was growing numb.
How had Flos Piri, the greatest of them all, managed this posture with such perfection? All the paintings depicted the nine-tailed fox lounging serenely as adoring demons knelt around her to offer up gold and jewels and tender, succulent human babies. Flos Piri's tails had never gone to sleep under the weight of her own rear end. Sphaera was sure of it.
Well, this might be a terribly impractical position, but it didn't matter. Flos Piri had lounged, and so all fox spirits after her would lounge. No matter how miserable and cranky it made her lesser sisters.
Lifting a pale, slender hand, Sphaera extended it towards her current favorite, a gazelle demon in human form. A most magnificent pair of horns swooped back from the crown of his head. At her gesture, he immediately walked forward on his knees to sink down next to her hand and kiss it.
She admired his horns for a moment before she addressed him in a low, throaty voice. "How long until we reach the capital, dearest?"
At the term "dearest," the gazes of the watching demons sharpened. No doubt the gazelle would be ambushed as soon as he exited her pavilion. If he survived that attack, he'd be challenged to duels over the next week until he stood victorious over the bodies of his rivals, or lay broken under their paws. Nothing like a little – or a lot of – bloodshed to enliven this long, tedious, dusty trek east.
The gazelle shot the jealous demons a triumphant look before he bowed his head to Sphaera. "It will not be long now, Radiant Majesty. Another day shall see you on your rightful throne."
Almost there! Almost to the capital of South Serica! Her heart thrilled at the thought of an end to this journey at long last, and she trilled a light laugh. "My 'rightful' throne, you say?"
The gazelle's smooth, handsome face betrayed confusion. "Yes, Radiant Majesty…?"
"Oh no. No, no, no. My 'rightful' throne."
She laughed harder, the rest of her courtiers joining in a heartbeat later. Of course, most of them were laughing less because they understood the source of her mirth, and more because they were savoring the gazelle's humiliation and possible fall from grace. But that was as it should have been.
Under the onslaught of scorn, the gazelle bowed his head until his nose touched the floor.
"Ah, oh!" she gasped, stopping at last.
A rosefinch handmaiden flew forward and offered her a handkerchief with which to dab her eyes.
Smiling a cruel smile at the assembled demons, Sphaera asked, "If it were my 'rightful' throne, what would be the point of seizing it? No, I want it because it is not mine."
"That is what I meant, Radiant Majesty!" babbled the gazelle. "I misspoke! I meant only that we will proclaim to the natives that you are the rightful queen, to pacify them so they will not cause you trouble!"
"Oh? You imply that these lowlander weaklings might pose a threat to me? The Five-Tailed Fox Queen of the Jade Mountain Wilds?"
"No! No, I did not mean to suggest that! I meant – I meant only that – "
Sphaera let him squirm. While her courtiers mocked his agony, she used the distraction to shift her tails. Dratted lounge! You'd think her handmaidens might have had the basic intelligence to cut some holes in the back for her tails before they presented it to her! Flos Piri would never have stood for such incompetence. She'd have devoured them down to their very marrow.
Pins and needles shot through Sphaera's central tail as she eased her weight off it, and it took everything she had to keep her expression smooth and amused. That was it. She was getting rid of her handmaidens. She might not execute or eat them, but at the very least, she would fire them. All of them.
"I tire of this farce," she snapped. "Serve my evening meal."
Her courtiers snapped to attention. A yak lumbered over to her dinner and seized his hair in his teeth to drag him to his feet. Her dinner cried out and flailed his arms and pleaded for his life.
That was good. This was a lively human. The dull-eyed ones who'd already given up and allowed their throats to be slit with no protest had duller-tasting blood. The spirited ones had a sweeter flavor.
The yak forced her dinner's head over a translucent white-jade chalice with a yellow-flame tree carved on its side, and a grey langur monkey stepped forward with a gleaming blade. Her dinner blubbered and wept.
With a smile, Sphaera leaned back against her lounge – and inadvertently crushed her tails once more. Well, at least dinner would provide temporary relief from this misery.
That's what you call a fox queen? I hissed at Stripey. That?!
He, Bobo, and I were crouched behind a shrub, peeking into a tent whose flaps had been pinned back. Inside, a petty little foxling with only four tails – no, five, she was sitting on top of one of them, silly creature – was showering spite on the demons around her. If she weren't careful, one of them was going to bite her. Literally.
She's not even a millennium old!
Stripey shrugged his wings in his old trademark gesture. "She's a fox spirit and she rules over all these demons. What else would you call her?"
How standards had fallen!
Not a queen – that's for sure! Only five tails? I had attendants with more tails than that.
Even as I scoffed, I was observing the foxling. She was humiliating a gazelle demon with a rather spectacular pair of horns. They weren't short, stubby little nubs like the ones that the serow spirit, Miss Caprina, had. No, these were long and tapering and swept back from the top of his head, angled a little away from each other. A soft sigh escaped me. Now those were real horns.
Stripey poked me with a pointy wingtip. "Drool over the handsome animals later. How are we dealing with Queen Sphaera?"
Ha. "Queen" Sphaera. I'll take care of her.
I didn't bother to ask him what the foxling wanted. She was a fox spirit. We all wanted the same thing.
Tipping my head back, I chirped into the sky, Flicker! Oh, Fliiiiiiicker! We need you down here!
Then I waited. I'd give the clerk a couple minutes to wrap up whatever he was doing – finish reincarnating a soul, file a document, the like. Look how generous and patient I had become!
Inside the tent, the foxling got bored of tormenting the gazelle and snapped something at the others. Selecting her next victim, I supposed. Then a monkey picked up a knife, and a yak lumbered forward, dragging a kicking, pleading – human man.
A human! Who was about to get murdered before my very eyes!
Flicker! Hurry up! Get down here right now! I flapped my wings and bounced up and down, hoping Flicker would see me from Heaven and realize just how big this crisis was.
The yak forced the human's head over a large cup, and the monkey raised his knife.
Flicker! Now now now!
Golden light shone next to me. "What is it now, Piri? You know I can't just take off in the middle of the workday – "
He cut off, because I'd seized his sleeve in both claws and was tugging him towards the tent.
Glow brightly so they can't look straight at you! Like how you did it in the Temple!
"What – ?"
Now!
Light blazed, nearly white hot. I squinched my eyes shut and hung on to Flicker's sleeve so I knew where he was. From the direction of the tent came cries of pain, and I could imagine the demons rolling around on the ground, clutching their eyes.
Now move forward towards them. The tent, I mean. Slowly, at a dignified pace. They can't see either of us inside the light, can they?
"No, but I can't keep it up for long," he warned. "What are you up to this time?"
Saving that human, saving the Kingdom of South Serica, and setting up your boss for an eternity of splendid offerings. In that order. Tell me when we reach the tent.
We drifted forward until Flicker came to a stop, presumably just outside the opening.
"We're here. Now what?"
What's the foxling doing?
"The foxling? You mean the fox spirit? She's trying to open her eyes to look at us."
That was what I would have been doing in her place too, if only to prove that Heaven couldn't dazzle me.
Just keep glowing. I'll take it from here.
While Flicker focused all his energy on keeping up his light show, I spoke as myself for the first time in over five hundred years. (Well, maybe not really as myself, since I wasn't a nine-tailed fox at the moment, but it was close enough.)
Well met, my little foxling. Your beauty and cunning do me proud.
With my eyes shut, I couldn't see her reaction, but I heard her insulted voice perfectly. "Little foxling?! Who are you? How dare you address me with such insolence? Guards! Remove this – creature – from my presence!"
Thumps and groans to our sides suggested that some of the demons were struggling to obey. A voice moaned, "My eyes – !"
What to say next? It had been so many centuries since I'd stood proud in Cassius' court, strewing destruction whithersoever I glanced.
You project a most majestic aura, little foxling. It, too, does me proud.
"I asked you who you are! Answer the question before my guards tear you to pieces and feed you to me for my evening meal!"
Honestly, that would be preferable to her killing the human.
Oh, little foxling, have the icy winds of the Jade Mountains frozen your judgment? Has the fog that fills the valleys blotted out your wisdom? I sighed sadly. To think that one of mine would fall so low as to fail to recognize ME. Channeling my former self, I laughed a tinkling, contemptuous laugh – and promptly cringed at the realization that Stripey and Bobo could hear it too.
"Who are you to claim me as one of yours – " The foxling stopped mid-screech when she grasped the implications of that statement. "Wait. No." Fur swished: She must have shaken her head hard. "You can't be. You died. You've been dead for five hundred years!"
Five hundred twelve, if Anthea's math could be trusted. In this case, it probably could.
Five hundred twelve years, in fact. But did you truly believe that death could stop ME? I – Flos Piri of the Jade Mountains, who took down an empire?
I injected all the scorn and hatred that I felt for Lady Fate, the Jade Emperor, the entire apparatus of Heaven into those words. Believing they were directed at her, the foxling trembled.
At least, I imagined that she trembled. It was what I would have been doing, in her place.
And indeed, she asked in a voice that quavered, "Lady – Piri? Is – is it really – you? Have you truly – returned?"
There was only one answer to that, and it held all the satisfaction in the world: Yes. It is I. And I have returned.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Dylan, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, yoghogfog, and Anonymous!
Clad in the filmy silks that her underlings had seized from lowlander estates, Sphaera Algarum stretched on her new lounge. To the demons who attended upon her, and to the dinner who cowered in a corner of her pavilion, it was a seductive motion that showcased the lines of her body. She, however, knew that it was because she just could not get all her tails comfortable on a lounge designed for humans.
How did the older fox spirits manage it? In her youth, she'd served a seven-tailed fox queen. How had she arranged her tails? At the time, Sphaera had taken the pose for granted, but now she wished she'd paid closer attention. She'd spread her two outermost tails to either side, and they trailed gracefully down the sides of her lounge. But the next two tails in were trapped under her rump, and her central tail was a lump under her back. Not only was it giving her a backache, but the tail itself was growing numb.
How had Flos Piri, the greatest of them all, managed this posture with such perfection? All the paintings depicted the nine-tailed fox lounging serenely as adoring demons knelt around her to offer up gold and jewels and tender, succulent human babies. Flos Piri's tails had never gone to sleep under the weight of her own rear end. Sphaera was sure of it.
Well, this might be a terribly impractical position, but it didn't matter. Flos Piri had lounged, and so all fox spirits after her would lounge. No matter how miserable and cranky it made her lesser sisters.
Lifting a pale, slender hand, Sphaera extended it towards her current favorite, a gazelle demon in human form. A most magnificent pair of horns swooped back from the crown of his head. At her gesture, he immediately walked forward on his knees to sink down next to her hand and kiss it.
She admired his horns for a moment before she addressed him in a low, throaty voice. "How long until we reach the capital, dearest?"
At the term "dearest," the gazes of the watching demons sharpened. No doubt the gazelle would be ambushed as soon as he exited her pavilion. If he survived that attack, he'd be challenged to duels over the next week until he stood victorious over the bodies of his rivals, or lay broken under their paws. Nothing like a little – or a lot of – bloodshed to enliven this long, tedious, dusty trek east.
The gazelle shot the jealous demons a triumphant look before he bowed his head to Sphaera. "It will not be long now, Radiant Majesty. Another day shall see you on your rightful throne."
Almost there! Almost to the capital of South Serica! Her heart thrilled at the thought of an end to this journey at long last, and she trilled a light laugh. "My 'rightful' throne, you say?"
The gazelle's smooth, handsome face betrayed confusion. "Yes, Radiant Majesty…?"
"Oh no. No, no, no. My 'rightful' throne."
She laughed harder, the rest of her courtiers joining in a heartbeat later. Of course, most of them were laughing less because they understood the source of her mirth, and more because they were savoring the gazelle's humiliation and possible fall from grace. But that was as it should have been.
Under the onslaught of scorn, the gazelle bowed his head until his nose touched the floor.
"Ah, oh!" she gasped, stopping at last.
A rosefinch handmaiden flew forward and offered her a handkerchief with which to dab her eyes.
Smiling a cruel smile at the assembled demons, Sphaera asked, "If it were my 'rightful' throne, what would be the point of seizing it? No, I want it because it is not mine."
"That is what I meant, Radiant Majesty!" babbled the gazelle. "I misspoke! I meant only that we will proclaim to the natives that you are the rightful queen, to pacify them so they will not cause you trouble!"
"Oh? You imply that these lowlander weaklings might pose a threat to me? The Five-Tailed Fox Queen of the Jade Mountain Wilds?"
"No! No, I did not mean to suggest that! I meant – I meant only that – "
Sphaera let him squirm. While her courtiers mocked his agony, she used the distraction to shift her tails. Dratted lounge! You'd think her handmaidens might have had the basic intelligence to cut some holes in the back for her tails before they presented it to her! Flos Piri would never have stood for such incompetence. She'd have devoured them down to their very marrow.
Pins and needles shot through Sphaera's central tail as she eased her weight off it, and it took everything she had to keep her expression smooth and amused. That was it. She was getting rid of her handmaidens. She might not execute or eat them, but at the very least, she would fire them. All of them.
"I tire of this farce," she snapped. "Serve my evening meal."
Her courtiers snapped to attention. A yak lumbered over to her dinner and seized his hair in his teeth to drag him to his feet. Her dinner cried out and flailed his arms and pleaded for his life.
That was good. This was a lively human. The dull-eyed ones who'd already given up and allowed their throats to be slit with no protest had duller-tasting blood. The spirited ones had a sweeter flavor.
The yak forced her dinner's head over a translucent white-jade chalice with a yellow-flame tree carved on its side, and a grey langur monkey stepped forward with a gleaming blade. Her dinner blubbered and wept.
With a smile, Sphaera leaned back against her lounge – and inadvertently crushed her tails once more. Well, at least dinner would provide temporary relief from this misery.
That's what you call a fox queen? I hissed at Stripey. That?!
He, Bobo, and I were crouched behind a shrub, peeking into a tent whose flaps had been pinned back. Inside, a petty little foxling with only four tails – no, five, she was sitting on top of one of them, silly creature – was showering spite on the demons around her. If she weren't careful, one of them was going to bite her. Literally.
She's not even a millennium old!
Stripey shrugged his wings in his old trademark gesture. "She's a fox spirit and she rules over all these demons. What else would you call her?"
How standards had fallen!
Not a queen – that's for sure! Only five tails? I had attendants with more tails than that.
Even as I scoffed, I was observing the foxling. She was humiliating a gazelle demon with a rather spectacular pair of horns. They weren't short, stubby little nubs like the ones that the serow spirit, Miss Caprina, had. No, these were long and tapering and swept back from the top of his head, angled a little away from each other. A soft sigh escaped me. Now those were real horns.
Stripey poked me with a pointy wingtip. "Drool over the handsome animals later. How are we dealing with Queen Sphaera?"
Ha. "Queen" Sphaera. I'll take care of her.
I didn't bother to ask him what the foxling wanted. She was a fox spirit. We all wanted the same thing.
Tipping my head back, I chirped into the sky, Flicker! Oh, Fliiiiiiicker! We need you down here!
Then I waited. I'd give the clerk a couple minutes to wrap up whatever he was doing – finish reincarnating a soul, file a document, the like. Look how generous and patient I had become!
Inside the tent, the foxling got bored of tormenting the gazelle and snapped something at the others. Selecting her next victim, I supposed. Then a monkey picked up a knife, and a yak lumbered forward, dragging a kicking, pleading – human man.
A human! Who was about to get murdered before my very eyes!
Flicker! Hurry up! Get down here right now! I flapped my wings and bounced up and down, hoping Flicker would see me from Heaven and realize just how big this crisis was.
The yak forced the human's head over a large cup, and the monkey raised his knife.
Flicker! Now now now!
Golden light shone next to me. "What is it now, Piri? You know I can't just take off in the middle of the workday – "
He cut off, because I'd seized his sleeve in both claws and was tugging him towards the tent.
Glow brightly so they can't look straight at you! Like how you did it in the Temple!
"What – ?"
Now!
Light blazed, nearly white hot. I squinched my eyes shut and hung on to Flicker's sleeve so I knew where he was. From the direction of the tent came cries of pain, and I could imagine the demons rolling around on the ground, clutching their eyes.
Now move forward towards them. The tent, I mean. Slowly, at a dignified pace. They can't see either of us inside the light, can they?
"No, but I can't keep it up for long," he warned. "What are you up to this time?"
Saving that human, saving the Kingdom of South Serica, and setting up your boss for an eternity of splendid offerings. In that order. Tell me when we reach the tent.
We drifted forward until Flicker came to a stop, presumably just outside the opening.
"We're here. Now what?"
What's the foxling doing?
"The foxling? You mean the fox spirit? She's trying to open her eyes to look at us."
That was what I would have been doing in her place too, if only to prove that Heaven couldn't dazzle me.
Just keep glowing. I'll take it from here.
While Flicker focused all his energy on keeping up his light show, I spoke as myself for the first time in over five hundred years. (Well, maybe not really as myself, since I wasn't a nine-tailed fox at the moment, but it was close enough.)
Well met, my little foxling. Your beauty and cunning do me proud.
With my eyes shut, I couldn't see her reaction, but I heard her insulted voice perfectly. "Little foxling?! Who are you? How dare you address me with such insolence? Guards! Remove this – creature – from my presence!"
Thumps and groans to our sides suggested that some of the demons were struggling to obey. A voice moaned, "My eyes – !"
What to say next? It had been so many centuries since I'd stood proud in Cassius' court, strewing destruction whithersoever I glanced.
You project a most majestic aura, little foxling. It, too, does me proud.
"I asked you who you are! Answer the question before my guards tear you to pieces and feed you to me for my evening meal!"
Honestly, that would be preferable to her killing the human.
Oh, little foxling, have the icy winds of the Jade Mountains frozen your judgment? Has the fog that fills the valleys blotted out your wisdom? I sighed sadly. To think that one of mine would fall so low as to fail to recognize ME. Channeling my former self, I laughed a tinkling, contemptuous laugh – and promptly cringed at the realization that Stripey and Bobo could hear it too.
"Who are you to claim me as one of yours – " The foxling stopped mid-screech when she grasped the implications of that statement. "Wait. No." Fur swished: She must have shaken her head hard. "You can't be. You died. You've been dead for five hundred years!"
Five hundred twelve, if Anthea's math could be trusted. In this case, it probably could.
Five hundred twelve years, in fact. But did you truly believe that death could stop ME? I – Flos Piri of the Jade Mountains, who took down an empire?
I injected all the scorn and hatred that I felt for Lady Fate, the Jade Emperor, the entire apparatus of Heaven into those words. Believing they were directed at her, the foxling trembled.
At least, I imagined that she trembled. It was what I would have been doing, in her place.
And indeed, she asked in a voice that quavered, "Lady – Piri? Is – is it really – you? Have you truly – returned?"
There was only one answer to that, and it held all the satisfaction in the world: Yes. It is I. And I have returned.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Dylan, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, yoghogfog, and Anonymous!
- Location
- PA
…Oh wow.
So.
I figured this fox was in for a bad day, simply because she was a fox and directly in Piri's way.
There's…
Hrrrm…
Anyhow, so I figured she was in for a butt-kicking.
But I hadn't cottoned onto how this would basically be Piri chewing out her past self, in some ways.
Admittedly, it's a pale imitation that is sitting on her own tail until she gets an unsightly kink to it, but still. Telling that Piri found the act of herself in her glory cringe. Admittedly I think it's because she's ALSO being a pale imitation of her former glory. Real deal wasn't really one for being so flowery, at least not unless she had need of it.
And this Piri has a need.
But it's noteworthy that even here Piri finds her lacking, and really highlights how much Serica fell.
This 'so-called' queen wouldn't even be one of Piri's attendants. And she sounds like it too. I get the feeling she's riding Piri's many tails and that's all she's got, that even her so-called position at the top…Is all about keeping her suitors thirsting for her, and I bet if Piri was in her original fox body…
Well. Whether it's making this five-tail look like a wallflower or taking her head off her shoulders I wager Piri could have done it.
The REAL question…
Is if Piri can get around two issues.
1. Can she deliver her beat down before Flicker times out…
2. Can she keep these demons from going- wait isn't that the light of Heaven she was shining?
So.
I figured this fox was in for a bad day, simply because she was a fox and directly in Piri's way.
There's…
Hrrrm…
Anyhow, so I figured she was in for a butt-kicking.
But I hadn't cottoned onto how this would basically be Piri chewing out her past self, in some ways.
Admittedly, it's a pale imitation that is sitting on her own tail until she gets an unsightly kink to it, but still. Telling that Piri found the act of herself in her glory cringe. Admittedly I think it's because she's ALSO being a pale imitation of her former glory. Real deal wasn't really one for being so flowery, at least not unless she had need of it.
And this Piri has a need.
But it's noteworthy that even here Piri finds her lacking, and really highlights how much Serica fell.
This 'so-called' queen wouldn't even be one of Piri's attendants. And she sounds like it too. I get the feeling she's riding Piri's many tails and that's all she's got, that even her so-called position at the top…Is all about keeping her suitors thirsting for her, and I bet if Piri was in her original fox body…
Well. Whether it's making this five-tail look like a wallflower or taking her head off her shoulders I wager Piri could have done it.
The REAL question…
Is if Piri can get around two issues.
1. Can she deliver her beat down before Flicker times out…
2. Can she keep these demons from going- wait isn't that the light of Heaven she was shining?
I had a lot of time on my hands, and I might have stayed up longer than I probably should yesterday and the day before. Not the first time I did it with a book (well, I'm doing it with webnovels now), and it probably won't be the last.Aww, thanks so much! I'm really happy you like it. And I can't believe you read the whole thing in two days!
Yep! She has a fangirl!
Yes, exactly! Piri has grown so much as a person that she gets frustrated when she sees this foxling imitating the old version of herself. However, Piri isn't one for self-reflection, so she is happily oblivious to all of this.
It wouldn't be fun if there weren't some kind of time crunch, now, would it?
Aww.
Well, I'm happy you're having fun with Piri's story, and now you're caught up so you can catch up on sleep too!
Chapter 137: My Return to…Almost My Former Glory
Chapter 137: My Return to…Almost My Former Glory
I have returned.
How many times had I fantasized about proclaiming those words to an awed, intimidated, prostrate audience?
In between my reincarnations as an earthworm that renewed the soil and terrified small children, a caterpillar that ate the crops of poor farmers, a butterfly that delighted a budding natural philosopher, a bee that pollinated orchards, an oyster that did whatever "ecosystem engineers" did, and then during my reincarnations as a catfish that fed humans and advised a dragon king, a turtle that improved a barony and took down a great demon, and now a sparrow that influenced the affairs of a whole kingdom, I had fantasized about this. About reclaiming my former, rightful glory.
And now I had – partially. For I was not yet a fox. I was only a fox spirit's mind trapped in a sparrow's body borrowing a star sprite's glow. The satisfaction was great, but the triumph was incomplete.
Well, there would be time later to work on that. For now, I had a passel of demonlings to cow.
Sphaera, my child, do you covet a crown? In toppling a kingdom, do you seek to prove yourself my worthy successor?
"Is this not what we foxes do, Great Lady?" she countered.
At least, I thought it was a counter. It could have been a genuine question, disguised as a counter. Curse this light that blinded me too and kept me from reading her body language!
Can you dim the light a little? I hissed at Flicker.
"Only if you want them to be able to see us," he whispered back.
Never mind.
I'd been a blind earthworm before. I could function without vision. Hearing would do. And my hearing told me that I hadn't yet heard the thumps that accompanied people prostrating themselves. That needed to be fixed.
I injected deep disappointment into my voice. Sphaera, my child, what we foxes do goes so far beyond the coveting of crowns and the toppling of empires. Our ambition is vast, limited only by imagination itself! Our thirst – our hunger is endless! Do not shackle yourself to the emulation of past deeds!
There – that sounded inspiring enough. And indeed, a silence followed that I imagined was awed.
Then I heard a muffled sound outside the tent that might have been a snake struggling to hold back giggles. If sparrows could blush, I would have turned as pink as a rosefinch.
Feeling self-conscious, I strove to recapture the character of Piri, Nine-Tailed Fox, role model and wise mentor to little foxlings. Therefore, ask not how you can equal past deeds, but how you can surpass them!
"Surpass them," murmured Sphaera, and this time I was certain that she sounded appropriately overawed. "How can I surpass them?"
The question might have been rhetorical, but I chose to answer it. By creating something great.
Her tone brightened. "So I can tear it down later? When it reaches its zenith?"
That wasn't precisely what I had in –
"As you did with the Empire?"
Oh. Oh! Here was an idea! Precisely. What glory is there in quashing petty kings and queens who can barely hold their own kingdoms together?
"Yes! I will forge all of Serica back into one empire, and then I will annihilate it!"
That is a goal more worthy of a fox.
Standards of living for everyone, not just humans, had been much higher in the Empire, meaning that so long as I encouraged her efforts, I and this cute little foxling would both reap positive karma. And once we'd succeeded in re-forging the Empire, I would convince her that it was more advantageous to leave it standing.
At long last, I heard the rustle of fabric and fur that suggested she was bowing properly to her great ancestress. "Thank you for your guidance, Great Lady." Then the rustle drew closer, so close that I was starting to panic when her voice whispered, "Great Lady, what do you do with your tails when you lounge?"
Coiled up behind a shrub next to her best friend in the whole world, Bobo couldn't help bursting into giggles. Far from being a horrible, mean, scary demon like Lord Silurus, this fox queen was really just a cute spirit deep down.
"Oooooh! Oh! Hee hee hee hee hee! Oh, that's ssso funny! Oh, that's too cute!"
Stripey looked at her with that expression he always used to wear, back when he was a duck and the two of them attended parties in Caltrop Pond, the one that said he didn't know what she found so funny, but if she found it funny, then he would too. All he needed was for her to explain it to him, so he could join in the joke.
Sure enough, he asked, What's so funny? What are they saying in there?
Oh, right. He wasn't a spirit anymore. He was a mind inside a normal animal body, like Rosie. So his hearing wasn't good enough to hear what they were saying inside the tent.
"That fox ssspirit jussst asssked what to do with her tails!"
Her tails?
"Yep! When ssshe lounges! I thought that looked uncomfortable! Cuz ssshe was sssquassshing her tails!"
Unlike usual, Stripey didn't burst out laughing too. Instead, he looked stunned. That's what they're discussing in there?
"Oh, no, they talked about a lot of ssstuff before that too. Sssomething about…uh, putting the Empire back together? They usssed sssome words I don't know."
Putting the Empire back together?!
I gaped at Sphaera. What did I do with my tails when I lounged?
I realized I was gaping, snapped my beak shut, and then let it fall open once more when I remembered that she couldn't see me through Flicker's light.
The foxling sidled closer. "My tails keep going to sleep," she confided. "I'm positive I copied your pose exactly, down to the last fur, but how do you keep your tails from going to sleep? When they're stuck under your back, I mean?"
I very nearly burst into laughter. At the same time, I couldn't help but warm to her. Poor, naïve little foxling. She must have seen some painting of me reclining on a silken couch, picking at a sumptuous meal while musicians and dancers entertained me, or something along those lines, and then done her best to copy it. In this day and age, when East Sericans were painting foxes on cakes and biting their heads off, it was gratifying to find someone who still worshipped me to such a degree. (Or any degree, really.)
I'll let you in on a secret, I murmured, and the foxling leaned in so close that her breath ruffled my feathers. Flicker, I was pretty sure, had stopped breathing. It's not comfortable. Beauty never is. You just deal with your tails going numb and you keep smiling. And if you think arranging five tails is bad enough, try nine.
"Oooooooh," she gasped, like someone who had just received the answer to the most important question of her existence. "Thank you! Thank you, Great Lady, for your wisdom!"
To Flicker's and my relief, she moved back, and she must have bowed, because all around the tent, I heard demons dropping to the ground.
In this moment of triumph, Flicker hissed, "Now what? I'm about to run out of light."
Seriously, he couldn't keep going just a little longer? Just so I could savor my triumph? But no. Of course not. He was no star god, only a star sprite, with all the limitations that entailed.
Give me two minutes, I hissed back before proclaiming in a warm, melodious voice, My child. All my children. (More rustling as the flattered demons bowed deeper.) I cannot stay, but I will leave you my emissary, to advise you and aid you. I wish you much success and much glory. May we meet again when Heaven falls.
There was a collective intake of breath, including from the employee of Heaven at my back.
Okay, fine, I might have gotten a little carried away there, the same way Katu did when he was expounding on the glory of the Kitchen God, but that final sentence could equally have been interpreted as "May we never meet again."
Or not.
"Great – Great Lady!" gasped Sphaera. "May we meet again when Heaven falls!"
All around the tent, the other demons echoed, "May we meet again when Heaven falls."
Since there was nothing I could say to top that, I whispered to Flicker, You can go back now. I'll take it from here.
"If you say so," he muttered in a rather unconvinced way, but the light, and his palms under me, vanished.
I was left beating my wings to stay aloft, while a tentful of demons slowly raised their heads and blinked the spots from their eyes.
The foxling regarded me dubiously, seemingly as unconvinced as Flicker that the greatest fox spirit of all time would select a drab mortal sparrow as her emissary. A peacock would have been more credible. Well, nothing I could do about that, except maybe to have Lodia embroider me a cape. Hey, it worked for Katu, didn't it?
Seizing the initiative, I zipped over to the foxling's right shoulder and settled down on it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Greetings, Sphaera. I shall be advising you as you embark on your request to reunify Serica. You may call me Pip.
Up in Heaven:
"Heavenly Lady! Heavenly Lady!"
Heedless of how it looked to the employees of the Bureau of the Sky, Flicker charged towards Star's office. He dodged around a star sprite who was carrying an armful of scrolls, careened off a large painting another was carrying, and leaped over a star child who was scrabbling around on the floor for some marbles she'd dropped. A corner of his mind registered that it was Star's favored runner, but then he was skidding to a halt in front of her office. Her crane maiden attendants blocked the door, keeping up the pretense that their mistress didn't meet him in secret regularly.
Since he was a mere clerk, he puffed for breath and bowed so deeply that he nearly fell over. "I beg your pardon, but I must speak with the Star of Reflected Brightness. It's urgent."
The more senior of the crane maidens, Lady Grus, faked a frown. "On what business could a clerk from the Bureau of Reincarnation possibly wish to consult the Overseer of the Bureau of the Sky?"
Maybe the frown wasn't fake after all. It was a warning: Do not expose our mistress.
If his news had been any less urgent, he would have apologized profusely and left at once. But he couldn't. She needed to know.
The other crane maiden, Lady Dan, tapped Lady Grus' arm lightly with her fan. "Oh come now, he's so desperate. Maybe it's important. Surely it can't hurt to give him a few minutes of our lady's time."
As the one who was carrying on a not-so-secret affair with Star's ex-husband, Lady Dan was inclined to be more sympathetic towards Star and Flicker. Out of a guilty conscience, he suspected.
Whatever the cause, he would take it. He bowed nearly to the floor. "Thank you, my lady."
Lady Grus' frown deepened, but she stepped aside just far enough for him to squeeze through the doorway. "Two minutes. Our lady is busy."
When Flicker sidled past, he found Star on her feet already. "What is it? What happened? What did Cassius do to you?"
"Cassius – ? Oh, no, nothing," he reassured her. "He takes no notice of me. It's – it's Piri." He hated to bring up the former fox around her.
And indeed, she stiffened, as she always did when her old nemesis came up. "What's she up to now?"
"Well, she's in the process of stopping the demon horde from overrunning South Serica, but, um, she found out who was behind the horde. And met her. And, uh, talked to her. As herself. As Piri, I mean."
"And said what?"
Star's voice chilled Flicker to his very core. "Uh, the fox demon, Sphaera Algarum, was talking about destroying South Serica like Piri destroyed the – the Empire." He hesitated, but Star's face didn't change. "Piri suggested she reunify Serica instead, because it would be more satisfying to take that apart – "
"She suggested WHAT?"
"But I'm pretty sure that was just a ploy! To distract the demons from destroying Goldhill! But I don't think – I think – I think she – "
White-hot light blasted out of Star. Porcelain vases shattered. Bookshelves splintered. Flicker himself was forced into a corner, where he huddled behind an overturned chair and struggled to withstand the onslaught.
Ladies Grus and Dan rushed into the room, then flung up their arms and turned away from the light.
As it blazed out the open door across the Bureau of the Sky, clerks cried out and dropped scrolls, brushes, and inksticks to shield their heads.
Into this chaos spoke a new voice, heavy and inevitable. "It is fated."
The brilliance faded. As Flicker cautiously lowered his arms and opened teary eyes, he noticed that Ladies Grus and Dan were bowing low.
Framed by the exploded rosewood lattice, a new goddess stood in the doorway. A sleek cat rode on her shoulder, surveying the destruction with disapproving blue eyes.
Lady Fate spoke again. "It is fated. The Empire shall rise once more."
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Dylan, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, yoghogfog, and Anonymous!
I have returned.
How many times had I fantasized about proclaiming those words to an awed, intimidated, prostrate audience?
In between my reincarnations as an earthworm that renewed the soil and terrified small children, a caterpillar that ate the crops of poor farmers, a butterfly that delighted a budding natural philosopher, a bee that pollinated orchards, an oyster that did whatever "ecosystem engineers" did, and then during my reincarnations as a catfish that fed humans and advised a dragon king, a turtle that improved a barony and took down a great demon, and now a sparrow that influenced the affairs of a whole kingdom, I had fantasized about this. About reclaiming my former, rightful glory.
And now I had – partially. For I was not yet a fox. I was only a fox spirit's mind trapped in a sparrow's body borrowing a star sprite's glow. The satisfaction was great, but the triumph was incomplete.
Well, there would be time later to work on that. For now, I had a passel of demonlings to cow.
Sphaera, my child, do you covet a crown? In toppling a kingdom, do you seek to prove yourself my worthy successor?
"Is this not what we foxes do, Great Lady?" she countered.
At least, I thought it was a counter. It could have been a genuine question, disguised as a counter. Curse this light that blinded me too and kept me from reading her body language!
Can you dim the light a little? I hissed at Flicker.
"Only if you want them to be able to see us," he whispered back.
Never mind.
I'd been a blind earthworm before. I could function without vision. Hearing would do. And my hearing told me that I hadn't yet heard the thumps that accompanied people prostrating themselves. That needed to be fixed.
I injected deep disappointment into my voice. Sphaera, my child, what we foxes do goes so far beyond the coveting of crowns and the toppling of empires. Our ambition is vast, limited only by imagination itself! Our thirst – our hunger is endless! Do not shackle yourself to the emulation of past deeds!
There – that sounded inspiring enough. And indeed, a silence followed that I imagined was awed.
Then I heard a muffled sound outside the tent that might have been a snake struggling to hold back giggles. If sparrows could blush, I would have turned as pink as a rosefinch.
Feeling self-conscious, I strove to recapture the character of Piri, Nine-Tailed Fox, role model and wise mentor to little foxlings. Therefore, ask not how you can equal past deeds, but how you can surpass them!
"Surpass them," murmured Sphaera, and this time I was certain that she sounded appropriately overawed. "How can I surpass them?"
The question might have been rhetorical, but I chose to answer it. By creating something great.
Her tone brightened. "So I can tear it down later? When it reaches its zenith?"
That wasn't precisely what I had in –
"As you did with the Empire?"
Oh. Oh! Here was an idea! Precisely. What glory is there in quashing petty kings and queens who can barely hold their own kingdoms together?
"Yes! I will forge all of Serica back into one empire, and then I will annihilate it!"
That is a goal more worthy of a fox.
Standards of living for everyone, not just humans, had been much higher in the Empire, meaning that so long as I encouraged her efforts, I and this cute little foxling would both reap positive karma. And once we'd succeeded in re-forging the Empire, I would convince her that it was more advantageous to leave it standing.
At long last, I heard the rustle of fabric and fur that suggested she was bowing properly to her great ancestress. "Thank you for your guidance, Great Lady." Then the rustle drew closer, so close that I was starting to panic when her voice whispered, "Great Lady, what do you do with your tails when you lounge?"
Coiled up behind a shrub next to her best friend in the whole world, Bobo couldn't help bursting into giggles. Far from being a horrible, mean, scary demon like Lord Silurus, this fox queen was really just a cute spirit deep down.
"Oooooh! Oh! Hee hee hee hee hee! Oh, that's ssso funny! Oh, that's too cute!"
Stripey looked at her with that expression he always used to wear, back when he was a duck and the two of them attended parties in Caltrop Pond, the one that said he didn't know what she found so funny, but if she found it funny, then he would too. All he needed was for her to explain it to him, so he could join in the joke.
Sure enough, he asked, What's so funny? What are they saying in there?
Oh, right. He wasn't a spirit anymore. He was a mind inside a normal animal body, like Rosie. So his hearing wasn't good enough to hear what they were saying inside the tent.
"That fox ssspirit jussst asssked what to do with her tails!"
Her tails?
"Yep! When ssshe lounges! I thought that looked uncomfortable! Cuz ssshe was sssquassshing her tails!"
Unlike usual, Stripey didn't burst out laughing too. Instead, he looked stunned. That's what they're discussing in there?
"Oh, no, they talked about a lot of ssstuff before that too. Sssomething about…uh, putting the Empire back together? They usssed sssome words I don't know."
Putting the Empire back together?!
I gaped at Sphaera. What did I do with my tails when I lounged?
I realized I was gaping, snapped my beak shut, and then let it fall open once more when I remembered that she couldn't see me through Flicker's light.
The foxling sidled closer. "My tails keep going to sleep," she confided. "I'm positive I copied your pose exactly, down to the last fur, but how do you keep your tails from going to sleep? When they're stuck under your back, I mean?"
I very nearly burst into laughter. At the same time, I couldn't help but warm to her. Poor, naïve little foxling. She must have seen some painting of me reclining on a silken couch, picking at a sumptuous meal while musicians and dancers entertained me, or something along those lines, and then done her best to copy it. In this day and age, when East Sericans were painting foxes on cakes and biting their heads off, it was gratifying to find someone who still worshipped me to such a degree. (Or any degree, really.)
I'll let you in on a secret, I murmured, and the foxling leaned in so close that her breath ruffled my feathers. Flicker, I was pretty sure, had stopped breathing. It's not comfortable. Beauty never is. You just deal with your tails going numb and you keep smiling. And if you think arranging five tails is bad enough, try nine.
"Oooooooh," she gasped, like someone who had just received the answer to the most important question of her existence. "Thank you! Thank you, Great Lady, for your wisdom!"
To Flicker's and my relief, she moved back, and she must have bowed, because all around the tent, I heard demons dropping to the ground.
In this moment of triumph, Flicker hissed, "Now what? I'm about to run out of light."
Seriously, he couldn't keep going just a little longer? Just so I could savor my triumph? But no. Of course not. He was no star god, only a star sprite, with all the limitations that entailed.
Give me two minutes, I hissed back before proclaiming in a warm, melodious voice, My child. All my children. (More rustling as the flattered demons bowed deeper.) I cannot stay, but I will leave you my emissary, to advise you and aid you. I wish you much success and much glory. May we meet again when Heaven falls.
There was a collective intake of breath, including from the employee of Heaven at my back.
Okay, fine, I might have gotten a little carried away there, the same way Katu did when he was expounding on the glory of the Kitchen God, but that final sentence could equally have been interpreted as "May we never meet again."
Or not.
"Great – Great Lady!" gasped Sphaera. "May we meet again when Heaven falls!"
All around the tent, the other demons echoed, "May we meet again when Heaven falls."
Since there was nothing I could say to top that, I whispered to Flicker, You can go back now. I'll take it from here.
"If you say so," he muttered in a rather unconvinced way, but the light, and his palms under me, vanished.
I was left beating my wings to stay aloft, while a tentful of demons slowly raised their heads and blinked the spots from their eyes.
The foxling regarded me dubiously, seemingly as unconvinced as Flicker that the greatest fox spirit of all time would select a drab mortal sparrow as her emissary. A peacock would have been more credible. Well, nothing I could do about that, except maybe to have Lodia embroider me a cape. Hey, it worked for Katu, didn't it?
Seizing the initiative, I zipped over to the foxling's right shoulder and settled down on it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Greetings, Sphaera. I shall be advising you as you embark on your request to reunify Serica. You may call me Pip.
Up in Heaven:
"Heavenly Lady! Heavenly Lady!"
Heedless of how it looked to the employees of the Bureau of the Sky, Flicker charged towards Star's office. He dodged around a star sprite who was carrying an armful of scrolls, careened off a large painting another was carrying, and leaped over a star child who was scrabbling around on the floor for some marbles she'd dropped. A corner of his mind registered that it was Star's favored runner, but then he was skidding to a halt in front of her office. Her crane maiden attendants blocked the door, keeping up the pretense that their mistress didn't meet him in secret regularly.
Since he was a mere clerk, he puffed for breath and bowed so deeply that he nearly fell over. "I beg your pardon, but I must speak with the Star of Reflected Brightness. It's urgent."
The more senior of the crane maidens, Lady Grus, faked a frown. "On what business could a clerk from the Bureau of Reincarnation possibly wish to consult the Overseer of the Bureau of the Sky?"
Maybe the frown wasn't fake after all. It was a warning: Do not expose our mistress.
If his news had been any less urgent, he would have apologized profusely and left at once. But he couldn't. She needed to know.
The other crane maiden, Lady Dan, tapped Lady Grus' arm lightly with her fan. "Oh come now, he's so desperate. Maybe it's important. Surely it can't hurt to give him a few minutes of our lady's time."
As the one who was carrying on a not-so-secret affair with Star's ex-husband, Lady Dan was inclined to be more sympathetic towards Star and Flicker. Out of a guilty conscience, he suspected.
Whatever the cause, he would take it. He bowed nearly to the floor. "Thank you, my lady."
Lady Grus' frown deepened, but she stepped aside just far enough for him to squeeze through the doorway. "Two minutes. Our lady is busy."
When Flicker sidled past, he found Star on her feet already. "What is it? What happened? What did Cassius do to you?"
"Cassius – ? Oh, no, nothing," he reassured her. "He takes no notice of me. It's – it's Piri." He hated to bring up the former fox around her.
And indeed, she stiffened, as she always did when her old nemesis came up. "What's she up to now?"
"Well, she's in the process of stopping the demon horde from overrunning South Serica, but, um, she found out who was behind the horde. And met her. And, uh, talked to her. As herself. As Piri, I mean."
"And said what?"
Star's voice chilled Flicker to his very core. "Uh, the fox demon, Sphaera Algarum, was talking about destroying South Serica like Piri destroyed the – the Empire." He hesitated, but Star's face didn't change. "Piri suggested she reunify Serica instead, because it would be more satisfying to take that apart – "
"She suggested WHAT?"
"But I'm pretty sure that was just a ploy! To distract the demons from destroying Goldhill! But I don't think – I think – I think she – "
White-hot light blasted out of Star. Porcelain vases shattered. Bookshelves splintered. Flicker himself was forced into a corner, where he huddled behind an overturned chair and struggled to withstand the onslaught.
Ladies Grus and Dan rushed into the room, then flung up their arms and turned away from the light.
As it blazed out the open door across the Bureau of the Sky, clerks cried out and dropped scrolls, brushes, and inksticks to shield their heads.
Into this chaos spoke a new voice, heavy and inevitable. "It is fated."
The brilliance faded. As Flicker cautiously lowered his arms and opened teary eyes, he noticed that Ladies Grus and Dan were bowing low.
Framed by the exploded rosewood lattice, a new goddess stood in the doorway. A sleek cat rode on her shoulder, surveying the destruction with disapproving blue eyes.
Lady Fate spoke again. "It is fated. The Empire shall rise once more."
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Dylan, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, yoghogfog, and Anonymous!
- Location
- PA
…Okay just 'suck it up' being how Piri and the like dealt with the lounging tails problem is hilarious in that 'cons all the way down' factor that seems to be the byword for all Kitsune….
Hrrrm…
Thaaat gives me ideas for later…
Also apparently Star leveled up into a new Lady of Fate somehow.
What happened to the old one? Did she just get so few offerings she demoted and Cassius' wife was next in line? Hrrrrm…
Hrrrm…
Thaaat gives me ideas for later…
Also apparently Star leveled up into a new Lady of Fate somehow.
What happened to the old one? Did she just get so few offerings she demoted and Cassius' wife was next in line? Hrrrrm…
Half Moon
In the end, there is no end.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Piri has a protege! And my gosh, that's adorable.
(Is it not possible to have all your tails splayed out beside you, though?)
Haha, beauty is pain and all that! Lounging with multiple tails is like wearing high heels. It's going to hurt, and all you can do is decide whether to do it or not. So far, all the foxes have decided it's worth it.
Oops, I should have made it more clear that a different goddess (Lady Fate) popped up in Star's office. Lady Fate probably deserves a demotion though.
Hmm, but the base of that central tail is still stuck under your back, I think. Maybe the solution is to cut holes in the bottom of the lounge.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
My guess was that spirits eventually get so tough they can just sit on their own tails without hurting themselves. This way's funnier, though.
I for one thought that she either did in fact have a special lounging technique, especially since she commented on how Sphaera's position looked uncomfortable, or maybe she'd never actually lounged that much and it was just something that got emphasized/added in the intervening centuries.
This is much funnier, I love our disaster kitsune.
This is much funnier, I love our disaster kitsune.
Haha, I'm glad you think so! The sacrifices you make for beauty....
Haha, Piri really is a disaster, isn't she?! Poor, poor future foxes....
Chapter 138: Prophecies with No Time Limits
Chapter 138: Prophecies with No Time Limits
Up in Heaven:
The Empire shall rise once more.
Lady Fate's proclamation sent shivers up and down Aurelia's spine. Her glow wavered like that of an oil lamp. Next to her, Flicker had dropped to the floor and prostrated himself before one of the great gods.
As for Aurelia, she deliberately met the eyes of the goddess who had decreed the end of her Empire, the one she had worked so hard with her cousin-in-law to save. "Lady Fate. Good day. What brings you to the Office of the Overseer of the Bureau of the Sky?"
Lady Fate's cat, Regia, flicked a disdainful glance around the room with shockingly blue eyes. Only a cat could make Aurelia almost blush.
Almost. She stood by her momentary lapse in composure. It had been justified. More than justified.
"Good day to you too, Star of Reflected Brightness." Unlike her cat, Lady Fate, at least, had the good manners to act as if the Overseer of the Bureau of the Sky lost control of her powers and trashed her own office every day. (Although, given the temper of Aurelia's predecessor, maybe it had happened every day.) "I merely thought that you would appreciate the good tidings. All shall proceed as I foresaw. The Empire shall rise again, greater than it was before."
Aurelia's lips twisted, but she didn't argue. The Empire had been on shaky ground already before Piri's arrival, and by the time the fox demon was through with it, she was just surprised that the Jade Emperor hadn't sunk the whole thing in the ocean.
Lady Fate raised both arms. "The Fated One shall reign over a land of peace and prosperity!"
"Isn't that what you predicted for Marcius?" Aurelia couldn't help it: The challenge just slipped out. She remembered how hard Cassius' cousin had fought to save the dynasty, how Piri had stripped away his supporters and the emperor's trust and maneuvered him into a corner out of which the only remaining path was death. She would never forget the sight of him plunging a dagger into his own heart, to spite the fox demon who had demanded it for her "medicine."
Lady Fate, on the other hand, was unmoved. "Indeed. His day shall come."
Implying that, half a millennium ago, when Lady Fate predicted that Marcius would found a new dynasty, what she really meant was that the soul inside him would one day reincarnate into a baby who would grow up to become a man who would found a new dynasty?
"Is there no time limit to your prophecies?" Aurelia couldn't help asking.
She felt a touch on her ankle: Flicker warning her to stop before she antagonized the goddess of fate herself. Aurelia shouldn't have needed the reminder, but she just couldn't seem to help herself today.
Fortunately, all that happened was that she got raked by twin scathing glares from the goddess and her cat before Lady Fate swept back out.
The Empire shall rise once more. The Fated One shall reign over a land of peace and prosperity.
Words that were supposed to apply to the world in which she had lived, as a human, half a millennium ago.
"Where is Marcius now?" Aurelia wondered out loud.
Now that the other goddess was gone, Flicker hauled himself back to his feet, wincing. She assumed it was due to creaky joints or some star sprite equivalent of muscle that had gone to sleep, but in fact, it was due to the answer he was about to give.
"He's in South Serica, actually. He's currently reincarnated as a golden snub-nosed monkey, the favored pet of Queen Jullia."
"Wait. Don't tell me that the next Emperor of Serica is going to be a monkey!"
In the palace in Goldhill:
Bink the monkey scratched at the jeweled collar around his neck, then hopped from his silk cushion to his carved rosewood swing. He was bored. No one was coming to play with him. The pretty human lady, the one who came every day, hadn't come yet. The other, less-nice people weren't coming to feed him either.
His tummy rumbled. It wasn't a feeling he'd ever had in his whole life.
He picked up an embroidered ball and threw it across the room. Then he threw a pinwheel. Then he threw a doll. Then he threw his water bowl. Then he threw back his head and howled.
At last, the door opened. It was the pretty human lady. Behind her were more human ladies with bowls of cut mango and bell fruit. Chattering, he ran over to the pretty lady and scrambled up to sit on her shoulder. He scolded her the whole time.
She said something that he couldn't understand, but he could tell she was sorry that she was so late and he was so hungry.
It was all right. He let the other ladies feed him the fruit with their hands, and he let the pretty lady tempt him with a new ball. It had a bell inside it that made a pretty sound.
At last, full and happy again, he settled down in her lap and fell asleep to her singing.
Somewhere west of Goldhill:
So high above the ground, the air was cool, and the wind blew around me, crisp and refreshing. The land below, dotted with farmhouses and orchards, stretched out like the scenes that Lodia had embroidered on Katu's robes. (At least, they would have if she'd included the demon encampments. Which she hadn't.)
With a chirp of glee, I folded my wings and plunged. Chortling, Stripey dove after me. I let him almost catch up to me, then pulled up sharply and shot straight up. He overshot, corrected, chased after me, and overtook me. I pumped my wings harder and caught up, then overtook him in turn. On and on we flew, darting through the clouds and playing our game of tag until we'd had our fill. Then we glided down to earth and landed next to a pond full of wild lotuses.
Think we offended any cloud spirits by flying through them? Stripey joked.
Nope. There's no such thing.
Unless you count Lady Nu? The goddess who created humans and patched Heaven when it cracked? She's supposed to be floating around as a cloud and sleeping off her labors.
Meh. I'm not worried. Are you?
Nope. Hey, these flowers are pretty nice. Don't think we had so many of them in the Claymouth Barony. I wonder if Den would like some?
I tried to imagine Caltrop Pond filled with giant pink blossoms instead of rosettes of tiny green leaves. The image was off, though. Lotuses were too luxurious and highbrow, when the charm of Caltrop Pond was its humble homeyness. But maybe I should let Den decide for himself.
We could bring him a seed pod, I said. Or rather, we could have Floridiana bring him a seed pod.
Bobo and I had already updated Stripey on how everyone was doing, so he knew that the mage was also in South Serica. When's she heading back anyway? he asked.
I shrugged, the habit that I'd picked up from him. Then I realized what I had done. I didn't want Stripey thinking that I'd missed him so much that I'd copied his mannerisms! Trying to hide my self-consciousness, I automatically shrugged again, and cursed myself. Fortunately, he didn't comment. Most likely he hadn't even noticed.
She's probably leaving soon, I told him. The harvest must be done by now, so the children have time to attend school again.
Mmm, I see. Taila must be quite a bit bigger by now.
Oh, she is. She is. Big enough to go around shooting innocent creatures with her slingshot, in fact. The child was truly a menace.
But Stripey had reminded me that I needed to let Floridiana return to the Claymouth Barony and her responsibilities as headmistress and lone person capable of teaching the children there. As much as I hated to admit it, even to myself, I'd miss the suspicious, prickly mage. She was efficient. She had good ideas. She did what I needed her to do – with complaints galore, true, but she did it. And she had a way with the ex-slum-dweller priests, especially the child ones, that I simply did not have. Who could replace her as their supervisor? Who among us was capable of keeping them in line? Certainly not Katu.
I was fretting over so many problems that it took a while before I realized that Stripey, too, had fallen silent. He was staring at the pink lotus blossoms without really seeing them. I nudged him with a wing. Whatcha thinking?
He stirred and shook his head. Mmm, not much. Just thinking that you've changed.
I have? You mean, because I have feathers and wings now?
That got a chuckle out of him, one that held echoes of his old, wheezing duck's laugh. Yes, Piri, because you're a bird and not a turtle now. No, of course that's not what I meant.
What did you mean, then?
I couldn't imagine what he was thinking. I was myself. I had always been myself, ever since I awakened as a one-tailed fox spirit. I'd always been –
Piri.
He'd used my true name just now, whereas before he'd only ever called me Rosie. But of course that made sense – I was back in my natural habitat, the world of politics and courtly intrigue, where a misstep could cost you not only your head but those of all your friends, teachers, and family members for three generations up and three generations down, just to be sure all the evil had been rooted out. I was behaving the way I had back in the Empire, because such actions came to me as easily as breathing. If I'd ever stepped out of character, it was at Honeysuckle Croft.
Wait.
Then, was it a good thing that he had switched to calling me "Piri"? Did he mean it as a compliment, an acknowledgement of my fox-ly skills? Or did he see my name in the same way everyone now saw it, as the emblem of pure evil? Was he using it to hint that he didn't like the changes he saw in me?
Just as I was about to panic, he answered my question. I haven't seen much of it myself yet, of course. It's just – from what you and Flicker pulled off, and what you and Bobo told me, you're acting more and more like you did leading up to the Battle of Black Sand Creek. More commanding. More focused on the larger issues. Less self-centered, I think.
Whew, that was a lot better than I'd been expecting. "Commanding" and "more focused on larger issues" and "less self-centered" all sounded like positive attributes. Even if he'd felt the need to qualify that last one.
Awww, thanks, Stripey!
But he wouldn't have been Stripey if he hadn't slid a sidelong glance my way. Don't let it go to your head. You're not really planning to let the Fox Queen destroy the new empire, are you?
What? Of course not! Can you imagine how much negative karma she'd earn from that?!
Yes. Yes, I can. You might have mentioned it once or twice. Stripey's voice was very dry indeed.
Oh. Yeah. Well, how could I let one of my little foxlings make the same horrible mistake I did and get kicked all the way down to White Tier? What if she doesn't get to reincarnate as a helpful bug? What if she reincarnates as a tapeworm and stays in White Tier forever?
What if she reincarnates as a really cute bug? he retorted, but I was pretty sure he was just being difficult.
There's no such thing.
Even bumblebees? Or those really furry white moths? Come on, don't tell me those aren't cute.
Ewwwww, moths?! Gross! You have no taste, Stripey! None!
He laughed, dipped a wing in the pond, and splashed water at me. Spluttering and yelping, I dove under a lotus leaf that had a big pearl of water in its center. When he stuck his head under it, I tipped the leaf so the water rolled onto his back.
Then it was his turn to yelp and rear back, bumping into more lotus leaves that swayed and tipped and dumped water on him like a rain shower while he spluttered and I laughed and laughed and laughed.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Dylan, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, Relai, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
Up in Heaven:
The Empire shall rise once more.
Lady Fate's proclamation sent shivers up and down Aurelia's spine. Her glow wavered like that of an oil lamp. Next to her, Flicker had dropped to the floor and prostrated himself before one of the great gods.
As for Aurelia, she deliberately met the eyes of the goddess who had decreed the end of her Empire, the one she had worked so hard with her cousin-in-law to save. "Lady Fate. Good day. What brings you to the Office of the Overseer of the Bureau of the Sky?"
Lady Fate's cat, Regia, flicked a disdainful glance around the room with shockingly blue eyes. Only a cat could make Aurelia almost blush.
Almost. She stood by her momentary lapse in composure. It had been justified. More than justified.
"Good day to you too, Star of Reflected Brightness." Unlike her cat, Lady Fate, at least, had the good manners to act as if the Overseer of the Bureau of the Sky lost control of her powers and trashed her own office every day. (Although, given the temper of Aurelia's predecessor, maybe it had happened every day.) "I merely thought that you would appreciate the good tidings. All shall proceed as I foresaw. The Empire shall rise again, greater than it was before."
Aurelia's lips twisted, but she didn't argue. The Empire had been on shaky ground already before Piri's arrival, and by the time the fox demon was through with it, she was just surprised that the Jade Emperor hadn't sunk the whole thing in the ocean.
Lady Fate raised both arms. "The Fated One shall reign over a land of peace and prosperity!"
"Isn't that what you predicted for Marcius?" Aurelia couldn't help it: The challenge just slipped out. She remembered how hard Cassius' cousin had fought to save the dynasty, how Piri had stripped away his supporters and the emperor's trust and maneuvered him into a corner out of which the only remaining path was death. She would never forget the sight of him plunging a dagger into his own heart, to spite the fox demon who had demanded it for her "medicine."
Lady Fate, on the other hand, was unmoved. "Indeed. His day shall come."
Implying that, half a millennium ago, when Lady Fate predicted that Marcius would found a new dynasty, what she really meant was that the soul inside him would one day reincarnate into a baby who would grow up to become a man who would found a new dynasty?
"Is there no time limit to your prophecies?" Aurelia couldn't help asking.
She felt a touch on her ankle: Flicker warning her to stop before she antagonized the goddess of fate herself. Aurelia shouldn't have needed the reminder, but she just couldn't seem to help herself today.
Fortunately, all that happened was that she got raked by twin scathing glares from the goddess and her cat before Lady Fate swept back out.
The Empire shall rise once more. The Fated One shall reign over a land of peace and prosperity.
Words that were supposed to apply to the world in which she had lived, as a human, half a millennium ago.
"Where is Marcius now?" Aurelia wondered out loud.
Now that the other goddess was gone, Flicker hauled himself back to his feet, wincing. She assumed it was due to creaky joints or some star sprite equivalent of muscle that had gone to sleep, but in fact, it was due to the answer he was about to give.
"He's in South Serica, actually. He's currently reincarnated as a golden snub-nosed monkey, the favored pet of Queen Jullia."
"Wait. Don't tell me that the next Emperor of Serica is going to be a monkey!"
In the palace in Goldhill:
Bink the monkey scratched at the jeweled collar around his neck, then hopped from his silk cushion to his carved rosewood swing. He was bored. No one was coming to play with him. The pretty human lady, the one who came every day, hadn't come yet. The other, less-nice people weren't coming to feed him either.
His tummy rumbled. It wasn't a feeling he'd ever had in his whole life.
He picked up an embroidered ball and threw it across the room. Then he threw a pinwheel. Then he threw a doll. Then he threw his water bowl. Then he threw back his head and howled.
At last, the door opened. It was the pretty human lady. Behind her were more human ladies with bowls of cut mango and bell fruit. Chattering, he ran over to the pretty lady and scrambled up to sit on her shoulder. He scolded her the whole time.
She said something that he couldn't understand, but he could tell she was sorry that she was so late and he was so hungry.
It was all right. He let the other ladies feed him the fruit with their hands, and he let the pretty lady tempt him with a new ball. It had a bell inside it that made a pretty sound.
At last, full and happy again, he settled down in her lap and fell asleep to her singing.
Somewhere west of Goldhill:
So high above the ground, the air was cool, and the wind blew around me, crisp and refreshing. The land below, dotted with farmhouses and orchards, stretched out like the scenes that Lodia had embroidered on Katu's robes. (At least, they would have if she'd included the demon encampments. Which she hadn't.)
With a chirp of glee, I folded my wings and plunged. Chortling, Stripey dove after me. I let him almost catch up to me, then pulled up sharply and shot straight up. He overshot, corrected, chased after me, and overtook me. I pumped my wings harder and caught up, then overtook him in turn. On and on we flew, darting through the clouds and playing our game of tag until we'd had our fill. Then we glided down to earth and landed next to a pond full of wild lotuses.
Think we offended any cloud spirits by flying through them? Stripey joked.
Nope. There's no such thing.
Unless you count Lady Nu? The goddess who created humans and patched Heaven when it cracked? She's supposed to be floating around as a cloud and sleeping off her labors.
Meh. I'm not worried. Are you?
Nope. Hey, these flowers are pretty nice. Don't think we had so many of them in the Claymouth Barony. I wonder if Den would like some?
I tried to imagine Caltrop Pond filled with giant pink blossoms instead of rosettes of tiny green leaves. The image was off, though. Lotuses were too luxurious and highbrow, when the charm of Caltrop Pond was its humble homeyness. But maybe I should let Den decide for himself.
We could bring him a seed pod, I said. Or rather, we could have Floridiana bring him a seed pod.
Bobo and I had already updated Stripey on how everyone was doing, so he knew that the mage was also in South Serica. When's she heading back anyway? he asked.
I shrugged, the habit that I'd picked up from him. Then I realized what I had done. I didn't want Stripey thinking that I'd missed him so much that I'd copied his mannerisms! Trying to hide my self-consciousness, I automatically shrugged again, and cursed myself. Fortunately, he didn't comment. Most likely he hadn't even noticed.
She's probably leaving soon, I told him. The harvest must be done by now, so the children have time to attend school again.
Mmm, I see. Taila must be quite a bit bigger by now.
Oh, she is. She is. Big enough to go around shooting innocent creatures with her slingshot, in fact. The child was truly a menace.
But Stripey had reminded me that I needed to let Floridiana return to the Claymouth Barony and her responsibilities as headmistress and lone person capable of teaching the children there. As much as I hated to admit it, even to myself, I'd miss the suspicious, prickly mage. She was efficient. She had good ideas. She did what I needed her to do – with complaints galore, true, but she did it. And she had a way with the ex-slum-dweller priests, especially the child ones, that I simply did not have. Who could replace her as their supervisor? Who among us was capable of keeping them in line? Certainly not Katu.
I was fretting over so many problems that it took a while before I realized that Stripey, too, had fallen silent. He was staring at the pink lotus blossoms without really seeing them. I nudged him with a wing. Whatcha thinking?
He stirred and shook his head. Mmm, not much. Just thinking that you've changed.
I have? You mean, because I have feathers and wings now?
That got a chuckle out of him, one that held echoes of his old, wheezing duck's laugh. Yes, Piri, because you're a bird and not a turtle now. No, of course that's not what I meant.
What did you mean, then?
I couldn't imagine what he was thinking. I was myself. I had always been myself, ever since I awakened as a one-tailed fox spirit. I'd always been –
Piri.
He'd used my true name just now, whereas before he'd only ever called me Rosie. But of course that made sense – I was back in my natural habitat, the world of politics and courtly intrigue, where a misstep could cost you not only your head but those of all your friends, teachers, and family members for three generations up and three generations down, just to be sure all the evil had been rooted out. I was behaving the way I had back in the Empire, because such actions came to me as easily as breathing. If I'd ever stepped out of character, it was at Honeysuckle Croft.
Wait.
Then, was it a good thing that he had switched to calling me "Piri"? Did he mean it as a compliment, an acknowledgement of my fox-ly skills? Or did he see my name in the same way everyone now saw it, as the emblem of pure evil? Was he using it to hint that he didn't like the changes he saw in me?
Just as I was about to panic, he answered my question. I haven't seen much of it myself yet, of course. It's just – from what you and Flicker pulled off, and what you and Bobo told me, you're acting more and more like you did leading up to the Battle of Black Sand Creek. More commanding. More focused on the larger issues. Less self-centered, I think.
Whew, that was a lot better than I'd been expecting. "Commanding" and "more focused on larger issues" and "less self-centered" all sounded like positive attributes. Even if he'd felt the need to qualify that last one.
Awww, thanks, Stripey!
But he wouldn't have been Stripey if he hadn't slid a sidelong glance my way. Don't let it go to your head. You're not really planning to let the Fox Queen destroy the new empire, are you?
What? Of course not! Can you imagine how much negative karma she'd earn from that?!
Yes. Yes, I can. You might have mentioned it once or twice. Stripey's voice was very dry indeed.
Oh. Yeah. Well, how could I let one of my little foxlings make the same horrible mistake I did and get kicked all the way down to White Tier? What if she doesn't get to reincarnate as a helpful bug? What if she reincarnates as a tapeworm and stays in White Tier forever?
What if she reincarnates as a really cute bug? he retorted, but I was pretty sure he was just being difficult.
There's no such thing.
Even bumblebees? Or those really furry white moths? Come on, don't tell me those aren't cute.
Ewwwww, moths?! Gross! You have no taste, Stripey! None!
He laughed, dipped a wing in the pond, and splashed water at me. Spluttering and yelping, I dove under a lotus leaf that had a big pearl of water in its center. When he stuck his head under it, I tipped the leaf so the water rolled onto his back.
Then it was his turn to yelp and rear back, bumping into more lotus leaves that swayed and tipped and dumped water on him like a rain shower while he spluttered and I laughed and laughed and laughed.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Dylan, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, quan, Relai, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!