The Kitsune Rewrite, 2

...Tails. You listening, buddy?... 

 

The Kitsune feasted upon his prey. He dug into its flesh with his pointed teeth, letting the blood pool on the tip of chin. It dripped, falling in specks down his shirt or far down to the rich forest soil. His midnight treat was a squirrel. Its flinching tail tickled his cheeks. It bounced and jigged all over, twitching as if were a dying insect. With the Kitsune's first bite it was alive, by his fourth it wasn't. The squealing ceased, and he was alone. Thanks the gods, he was alone. An engorged, bloody moon was above him as he leaned against the trunk of a tree, high above the ground. The branch on which he stood was a thick one. The timberland was magical, full of the spirits of the dead, of the imps of the forests, dancing around him looking like fireflies in a disco club. The Kitsune's red hair, which ballooned above the bandana across his forehead, looked like a scalding tarn-- he was a fox-man. He wore dark rawhide like an Indian, moccasins on his feet, clawed toes poking through the fabric. The two blue bandanas on his head covered everything but his golden eyes and his mouth. Yes, yes, eating the varmint, gore spraying all over him as he tore at it with his muzzle. On his back was a beautiful onyx quiver of arrows which reflected an emerald color in the moonlight, oddly enough, and across his shoulder was the bow, long, menacing. From his butt a bushy tail.

The kill.

The kill was fresh in his mouth. Eat it. Yes… Eat it… Enjoy it so… 

You must be hungry, Tails. Jeeeez.

A chirping noise yelped in the night, and The Kitsune was relieved it was him and not his master. It was his Ryuuji, who now flapped down to his shoulder on his nubile wings. He was a small lizard with wings, a drakeling-- he cooed and cawed, making himself comfortable upon the Kitsune's shoulder, stretching his legs like a cat. His wings were bat-like, and his face resembled the rough skin newt. Brown with a pebble-like texture, orange-belly advertising the poison which coursed through his cobalt blood, he was was sleepy, yawning.

The Kitsune licked the last bone clean. 

You must be famished. We've been hunting all day. That man is going bug nuts down there. It was an ancient accent, but perversely, also the voice of a male child. It was Ryuuji, speaking directly to him. One might call it telepathic, but in truth it felt deeper than that, like invisible electric currents jetting between them.

 

“Tell me more about the man,” the Kitsune's said. It was a textured voice, like it had bounced through hollow driftwood.

Young Ryuuji snapped his teeth, looking almost annoyed that he had to go on about something in which he cared so little. Stupid as ever. He keeps slamming into trees and knocking himself out. He must sense he is close to home, the fool. He will never reach home again. He is-”

“Enough,” the Kitsune growled.

They had been hunting this man for weeks. No, not hunting really. More like trailing him, making him think he would die at any moment. Kitsune were once considered myth by men, except for maybe but a few Japanese oldtimers. But these days they were very much a part of the now. His fox tail wagged back and forth, not like a dog, more like perhaps, a playful feline. If he were to ever get caught in the world of men, it would because of that stupid tail. The Kitsune's stomach ached for more. These past few weeks had been stressful on him, and his master ate away at his mind as much as he at the squirrel. Prodding him, begging him not to listen… the things he asked. He felt like Abraham on the mountain, holding a knife above his child, begging for the final Word not to come.

The Kitsune could only hunt at night, it was true. The moon gave him power, and when there was no moon there was no Kitsune. He was a dream creature-- and in moments his outline seemed to fade like an image in water. It was ripple, dance, making no logical sense. In the previous world this may have disturbed the viewer. Now it was somehow possible, probable in fact.

The man below him was several miles back. He could hear him panting. He was crazed, as Ryuuji had said, but not stupid. He was a noble man of Sir Jacob Adami's school. He was a Zenai, a man of the samurai sword, forged of a mystical stone, found ages back by an archeologist. The Kitsune thought of the hunt. The worst was when he had chased him across the open plains. There was little cover there, and the beasts were fiercer, ready for man-flesh. Thinking about Jacob Adami, my friend? Your master won't like that.

The Kitsune shot Ryuuji a venomous glance. “It's none of your business, wyrmling. Maybe I ought to eat you next.” 

 

Ryuuji didn't move. The Kitsune imagined that he would have shrugged his shoulders if he could. Eat away. You'll be pushing fire through your bowels for weeks. 

 

The Kitsune stifled a laugh which sounded like a deep yip. He tossed Ryuuji the last squirrel bone and the little dragon snapped it out of air eagerly. Through Ryuuji's bites, the Kitsune spoke: “The Master is coming. I can sense him. You better be far away from me when he does, young one. I cannot always control myself when he pierces me.”

 

Don't have to tell me twice, Tails. He yawned again and then lunged into the air with the squirrel bone in his mouth, flying into the darker night. The world was cooling, becoming quieter. It was as if they all knew he was coming, the forest itself. The dragon looked back at him but for a moment. Be careful, you stupid Kitsune sonabitch. And then he was gone in the night.

* * *

The timberland was thick with Douglas fir. It was a rain forest, with fog crawling through the coniferous jungle. This had once been Ponderosa pine woodland, with scattered scrubs and dried weeds between the distant trunks, almost a prairie. Now moss hung on branches, which grew much thick, as if was imagined by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The trees were never-ending, lush, dangerous. Once magic returned to the world, everything had become a fairy-tale. Dragons roosted in their mountain cave-holes, protecting their treasure hordes, no longer gold, but valuable ancient computer components, manufacturing goods, things that would have rebuilt society if they weren't stolen away. There were aforementioned roving night-spirits, visible in the dark but also present in the day, cackling in the breeze. Mushrooms ballooned, growing the size of bushes, of trees, of large animals. And the elves ruled again. A man could not dilly-dally into the groves without risking his sanity, his self of self. He may come back without a mind, or worse, with a donkey's head for his own.

The Kitsune's fox ears twitched. A hooting owl silenced itself. The night continued to chill, and goose pimples rose along his exposed skin. Parts of him were covered in a lipstick-shaded layer of soft hair. Even here his skin was cold. It was an unnatural feeling, and one he had grown familiar with over the years. The freeze slithered across his skin like a serpent and then dove into his blood, dripping lethargically through his insides once it hit fluid. He shivered, yes, shivered. You would think that it would stop, after having experienced this sensation so many times, but he knew that could never be true. It was a creature of another dimension poking its head into our own-- and that sense of dread, it was something every man faces once in his life, if he knows it or not. He suddenly wished he hadn't told Ryuuji to leave. It was near unbearable to speak with the master ALONE.

The Kitsune's doleful tail was motionless. He knew it was only a matter of time before HE spoke to him. He had been expecting it all night, and he considered his duty, like a man knowing he must wake early in the morning for a long day of work. 

It was a moaning. A deep moaning. Not from out there, with the spirits, the woodland, or even, God forbid, the moon. A deep moaning, forming into a hum, which if you listened closely enough became discernible, like a new language you were finally getting the hang of.

Hellllllo, it whispered into his elongated left ear. No it was inside his ear. Hellllloooo. It was in the center of his head now, begging him to question everything, his sanity even. It was the voice of a komodo dragon. Deep. Full of the texture of a lizard's mouth, with its dagger-teeth and poison-saliva. It was nothing like Ryuuji's electric jolt of thoughts in his brain. Instead, it sunk into his soul, into the deep unconscious that would snap him awake at 2 AM in the morning, feeling like a ghost passing through him. The night was incredibly dark-- his vision was failing in horror. Fox-man. Fox-man. Oh dirty, mortal fox-man, full of pulsing blue blood, convulsing organs ready to be popped like tasty zittttttts. The voice was coherent and incoherent at the same time, for it was a nightmare voice. It didn't make any sense. Fox-man, Fox-man. Full of spite man. You hate the man. You Hate HIM. Don't you?

“Yes, Master,” he answered impassively, hiding the fear inside. There was sweat building in his arm pits and along his brow. It was a lie, and he knew that the voice could see him, see his thoughts for what they were. Why did he even bother?

You want to kill him, don't you, my fox dream? You want to kill the stupid, stupid man who runs through your forest. You want him dead. In the Kitsune's mind he saw a man's eyes widening with each word, the voice growing stronger with each syllable. The Kitsune didn't want to speak with his Master, not now, not ever again, but he had made his choice long ago.

He pictured the man falling, a lump sack, shaking between the trees, shaking, shaking, then stopping. An arrow was in his back. Yes, that was what he wanted. He felt his tail erect. I see what you are thinking. But that would go against my orderssssss, fox-man. That would go against my. Orders. Fox-mannnnn. The voice was turning into a hiss. Even though the voice raved at it him with its venom-fanged verboseness, he felt lonesome, a forsaken itch gnawing at his skin-- it was only he in these woods. Everything else had hidden away under their collective blankets. Do you plea for them, my fox dream? Plea for them to emerge from the night shadows and save your tenderness from the boogy-woogy man? Ain't going to happen, cupcake, it growled. Ain't even going to happen. You're mine for always.

 

He was helpless against it. There was no escape from the nothingness.

His Master was a force of not nature, perhaps, but anti-nature… maybe even anti-matter. 

He could see ITs face… no it wasn't a face, it was a blank space with white shining teeth, like the Cheshire Cat, and burning red eyes. They shot into him, seeing his soul, all of it, all of its cracks, indentations, cuts. IT knew. IT knew everything. His MASTER had walked upon the earth once, wearing sandals, speaking a tongue of hate. NOW it could only speak through others, many many others throughout the years. It was the creepy crawling spider beneath the dark ocean waves, It was the sinking feeling in your groin when you hear a beloved is dying. It was division, it was the crossroad demon at midnight, it was the grand schism-maker with its sheath, destroying matter and defecating it into formless mass.

I'm growing tired of you, foxdream. The smile expanded until it connected to the back of its barren skull. Do your job, and I'll give you the world.

He knew the Master did not lie.

A vision flashed through his eye, snapping like one of those trick noisemakers kids use on the 4^th of July. It was a valley lush with trees growing toward the moon, untouched by man's grimy hands, so used to crawling in the dirt, and dragons roosted in them in nests made of gems and straw. There were thousands of them. They were the size of 747's, yes, but also smaller juveniles-- maroon, the darkest of blacks, the goldest of golds. Their scaly hides reflected the sun, and their cooing, their growling, sounding like giant birds. The fox-men… they also climbed through the trees, tending the lionhearts, feeding them meats from the kill, vegetables harvested from the fields far to the east. Men, men were trash in the dirt… they had no place in the foxdream's world. The vision had been so perfect he had almost forgotten about IT, but the voice returned, like a demon sliding into a sick person's conscious. Or I'll take it away, the creeping said, I'll take it all away. I'll kill that whom is closest to you, the only man which you care. I'll kill him.

“No,” he spoke aloud. “Please no.”

Then do as I say. 

“I will,” he pleased. “I will, Master.”

* * *