The Kitsune's Legacy

[Hakujoumi]

What fortune. Perhaps Inari had willed these circumstances to happen. How else would a young werefox who knew nothing of his own world be met with the perfect kitsune? It was more than mere coincidence. Kitan was so eager to learn more that he didn't seem to take any notice at all of Isis's fumbling and cheesy sentences. Leading him on was proving to be easier than she thought it would be. Now, it was only a matter of reeling in the fish, and then of course deciding exactly what to do with the fish once she'd caught it.

As he sat down on his log, Isis put a hand on her hip and grinned. Everything about him reminded her of a child, bouncy and ready to absorb everything around him like a sponge. His naivete was sweet, and made any desire to physically harm him vanish from Isis. No, her plans for him would be much, much more involved than that. An older sister to him, perhaps. The very idea made her warm with possibility.

As he hung from a branch, she danced over to him and sat with legs neatly folded beneath her. "Sit, and we'll start from the beginning." Isis knew just how to begin with a child as excited as this. First, she would need to calm him down.

Isis bowed her head, letting the wind curl around her. She felt the floor of the forest beneath her, and melded reality before them in one fell swoop.

An illusion formed around them. Isis stretched out her inky fingers, as if playing an instrument. Around them swirled vibrant green and yellow trees, dream-like in their detail and lack thereof. The sounds of exotic birds half a world area surrounded them, and all at once they were no longer in the Virdara Woods, but the birthplace of a god. Like a portrait, before them suddenly sat a nine-tailed, white fox. Its fur glowed with the aura of the heavens, eyes closed in deep meditation.
"Inari, the first kitsune. The most beautiful creature to have ever lived, an Astral Goddess. It is she who all kitsune owe their lives to. Inari has given you power so that you may assist with her every wish and every desire," said Isis. Her own eyes were closed, but she could see the images as clear as day in her mind.

If one were to look in a book about Inari, they would find one hundred different definitions of the being. Inari appeared to have a thousand forms. She appeared to be male, and then female. She appeared to be mortal, but immortal. To kitsunes around the world, she had only a few constants. The one true constant, was that Inari had no constants. She was the God of Trickery, unbenownst to her loyal, and disloyal, subjects.

Isis created the image as she knew it, the harvest goddess that she had grown up with, and who had deceived her during a time of need.
"Inari has a love of all things that grow, and so all kitsune are born with a love for all things natural," and as she said it the white fox watched a sparkling green plant erupt from in front of her and grow. It grew into a sapling in moments. "Her nine tails are the most any kitsune may ever have. Each tail is a gift from the Goddess herself for a deed of great virtue." Isis flicked her own three tails to punctuate this point. "Those that follow Inari and present gifts to her shrines are known among kin as the myobu." A shrine appeared behind Inari, a stone pedestal in front meant for placing incense or coin.

"But Inari is also the most deceptive of all creatures. In her lives the spirit of the fox, a tricky deceiver who loves play and hates boredom," and the white fox twirled about in circles, dancing one way and that. Pleasant music from an ocarina began to play in the illusion, but it did not last long, as it was too difficult for Isis to manufacture. "Her deception has led some kitsune to abandon her will. These kitsune are called the nogitsune, and they seek to destroy all faith and memory of Inari." The stone shrine burst into flames, and then disappeared. The white fox in front appeared unfazed.

Slowly, the illusion around them faded. Inari diappeared, and the Virdara Woods resurfaced. All of what Kitan had just witnessed was no more than religious dogma that Isis herself had learned as a child. She took it was entirely truth.
"Inari has given me great gifts, so it is my duty as her messenger to help our mortal folk," she said.
It would be a while before Kitan realized just how terrible 'messengers of Inari' were at 'helping' others.

[Kitan]

Kitan was awestruck at the display. He was talented with visual illusions, but hers seemed somehow more complex than his were. Only that wasn’t quite what affected him: Kitan usually used his illusions to depict that which he already knew, probably because the Puradynes would object if they saw anything truly imaginative. It seemed so much more magical, the way she did it. He resolved to run into the woods every now and then to create whatever he saw fit. If he kept getting better, he’d be able to turn into a fox someday!

The little shifter was too amazed by the story to interrupt it. The only time his attention dropped was when cold moisture began to seep through his tunic at the points he had been sitting down. He fidgeted a bit before settling in a kneeling pose, his tail curved around to his lap. He stroked down an errant bit of fur as she continued.

When the illusion fell, the sapling remained. Kitan smiled at it, leaning in before he poked the tiny thing with a single finger. His grin broadened, remembering what Isis had said about kitsune having an affection for nature deep inside their souls. Kitan had grown up in the forest, after all. He couldn’t say he had been left unaffected by it. The connection filled his head with pride.

“Wow.” He said simply, his green eyes full of stars. “How do you meet Inari?” It was plain that Kitan wasn’t thinking about the goddess in religious terms. “Do you have to make an offering at one of those shrines? Do you have a shrine?” Kitan started getting excited again, fidgeting around. His twitching legs told wonders about his desire to travel and see all these miracles Isis had shown him firsthand. “I want to see what I can do! I want more tails like you.” He leaned over to stare at them, giddy at the thought of receiving more himself even despite the fact that he did not yet understand their life-saving effects.

[Hakujoumi]

Isis watched as Kitan poked the leaves of the little tree. It was a rare occasion that she bothered to help a plant of any kind to grow. That was something she had mostly abandoned with her old family life. Inari, God of the Harvest, loved it when she helped trees and other plants to grow. Since Isis hated Inari, she never wanted to please her. Still, the vixen couldn't help but smile. The tiny tree had so much potential. In twenty years, it might be as tall as a two-story house. Its broad leaves might feed wildlife while its trunk served a haven for birds and squirrels.

Kitan asked how he might meet Inari. Isis made a perplexed face for maybe half a second. She licked her lips with a lengthy fox tongue. An explosion of questions reached her before she could come up with an answer to any of them, and she had to pause for a moment to think about each of them.

"Inari appears when she appears," said Isis, after a long pause. She looked at the sapling, not making eye contact with Kitan. Then, she stretched out a thin, tender finger and stroked one of its fresh leaves. The movement was almost erotic in nature, as her lips were curled with a bizarre satisfaction at this very normal gesture.

"So why are you hanging around werewolves?"
To anyone else, it seemed an out of place question to ask. It had been grating on her mind since Kitan had mentioned it. Why any kitsune would actively be with werewolves by choice was beyond her. They were brutish creatures with no sense of pride or understanding. THey were dim-witted, lost, and violent animals.

After she asked it, her eyes flicked up to the boy at last.

[Kitan]

Kitan watched Isis touch the plant much as he had moments ago. He found it strange that she should mimic him in such a manner, when he had been trying so hard to emulate her. Then again, he had already discovered he had subconsciously followed many kitsune practices. He shouldn’t be surprised he had discovered another.

Kitan’s mouth hung open when she dodged his questions about Inari. If her extra tails were a gift from Inari, she had to know more than that! She was so strangely prickly on the subject. If they were divinely granted, the little shifter did not see why. Kitan’s expression shifted rapidly from surprise to sullen pouting. His lower lip pushed out and he dropped his gaze to the plant, sharing the view with Isis from the opposite side. It was as if the little tree was his heritage, and only Isis could make it grow.

The pause was long enough that Kitan nearly continued prodding her for answers, but just as he reluctantly broke his sulk Isis suddenly asked him a question in turn. He was caught so of guard by the sudden change in topic that he stammered for a moment, even physically wavering as if he might topple.

“I, um. I don’t know. I guess it started when some people attacked me because of my ears. One of the werewolves beat them up; his name was Shade, which is a sort of silly name if you ask me.” Kitan started scratching his ear, recalling the details. “Shade wanted to teach me to fight, but then I blew up a warehouse. I mean, I just filled it with this weird gnome gas. It didn’t explode.”

“After that I met Gia, who wanted to follow us around I think just because she was lonely. The guards got angry about the gas stuff and the shifting, their shifting, so we ran away.” He finished scratching his ear and flicked his hand quickly to lose the few hairs which had become stuck to his fingers. They floated down the mossy earth like feathers, swaying back and forth.

[Hakujoumi]

Kitan wavered. Isis ignored it. She waited for him to speak up, explain his situation, and give her some kind of in.

Shade. What a silly name.
The thought was immediately followed with Kitan's words, "which is a sort of silly name if you ask me." This coincidental symmetry of thought made her giggle with a snicker. She held a black hand in front of her mouth; her eyes flicked up to Kitan again and she smiled as he nervously itched one of his adorable ears. She had an urge to nibble it and groom his hair.

"But then I blew up a warehouse." Another titter erupted from Isis right in the middle of his explanation of the gnome gas. She pulled together the thin fabric of her white robe, gathering it in a bunch around her folded legs to hide any exposed fur. After all, she did want to seem like a polite young lady.

"Marn hates all shifters. Shim too, but of course nobody has the time to lock us up out here," she mused. "Humans are jealous, especially of our kind. We can do things - beautiful, amazing things - that they couldn't even dream of."

Isis scooted a little closer to Kitan, and to the sapling. She had a wide smile plastered firmly on her youthful face. "You have a hundred times more potential than any werewolf. You won't need to fight when you learn all that you can do."
She had a wonderful daydream of the two of them, fully shifted into half-foxes, lighting fires beneath the werewolves, just to watch them howl.

[Kitan]

Kitan’s eyes glimmered at what she promised. It sounded too good to be true! He wouldn’t have to fight anyone to stay safe if he could only learn to shift and use his magic well. What a noble teacher he had found! He clasped his hands together in happiness and turned his heartfelt eyes to her, full of the admiration and respect only a child could give.

“That’s so amazing!” He cried out. He scampered about for a little while before gradually settling into a fidgeting, four limbed crouch. Even though he could not shift, he certainly enjoyed acting like he could. Besides, the more he got used to it, the sooner he figured he would be able to convince the world he was a fox. And the sooner the world accepted that, the sooner he would be able to shift!

He loved what Isis had told him as she approached, near enough for him to touch. Always eager to see the world as a storybook, being told he had great potential was a godsend. He was giddy with anticipation of his future skill, cunning, and glory. “This is the best day, thank you thank you!” He hopped forwards and embraced Isis with both arms, pressing his head against her right shoulder. With both of them kneeling upon the soft forest bed, the fur of his right ear touched the fox hair of her shifted neck; meanwhile his sap and soil stained hands left bits of dirt on the back of her white robe.

His quick, familial hug was abruptly ended when he jumped backwards. The little shifter continued to fidget upon all fours. Certain that there was more to learn, he continued to pester her with questions. Deciding to leave what she taught next up to her, his sagely mentor, he asked “What else can you show me?”

[Hakujoumi]

Isis had to admit that it was refreshing to have someone so enamored with her abilities. While she was certainly accustomed to men staring at her beautiful, human face, it had been a long time since she had revealed such power to others. For the past many years she had done little else but trick men into sleeping with her so she could harvest their bodies. By day she had been an exotic dancer, in all senses of that term, while by night she had been no more than a common succubus.

In her girlish body, she could not help but continue to giggle. Usually Hakujoumi did not take the forms of young adults and girls because she had less control over her own emotions. Now, though, she enjoyed being able to laugh at jokes that weren't funny and smile at Kitan's exclamations.

Two pasty arms surrounded her and suddenly there was a warm body smushed against her. Isis blinked twice, and raised one of her long-fingered hands to stroke his wonderfully red hair. Before she could do that, or even so much as return his hug, he broke from it just as quickly and bounced to all four of his human limbs.
“What else can you show me?”
Isis thought for a moment. A bird, previously scared off by the foxes' antics, flew back to its nesting site. It chirped an "all clear" sign for the other birds. It had bright red wings and a black body. She watched it briefly before she made up her mind on just what to show Kitan next.

A broad, devious grin stretched across her canine maw.
"How fast can you run?"

With gusto, she rushed in the blink of an eye from the ground, to her feet, and then to across the pond behind a tree. Peeking out, she giggled like a nymph. "We are the most agile, quick-footed creatures on earth, you and I. But you will need your tod feet to reach your full speed. Human feet are too ugly and flappy."
She didn't know if pushing him to shift like this would help any. She had no experience with training any of her own species, half-mortal or not.

Isis did know that she had a strong desire to run. Right now.

[Kitan]

“I’m fast!” Kitan pouted, crossing his arms and looking away. He didn’t think she understood that it was already impressive that he had managed to create sound. “I’ll prove it!”

Kitan pushed his back legs out and tossed his hands forwards. For a brief moment, he was airborne. He landed in the stance of a sprinter, his fox tail curved gently upwards to the treetops. After a mere fraction a second, he was charging towards Isis.

His speed was indeed incredible, as even for one of his size he pushed the upper limits of human ability. But a problem remained in his path: he was running straight for her. The pond separated the pair of kitsune. Undeterred, the little kitsune strode onwards.

Eager to match her time, he had chosen to take a slight risk. The branches above the pond looked stable enough. At the pond’s edge he launched himself upwards. His bound alone could easily have carried him half the distance across the pond, but at about fourth of the distance his hand shot upward into the branches.

It caught the flimsy wood, which bent some distance downwards. Kitan tucked his legs inwards as much to avoid water as to increase his acceleration. Being a tricky, intuitive process, Kitan instinctively stuck his tongue between his lips as he made the proper mental calculations. This had the rather nasty side effect of causing him to bite it.

To his credit, he did not lose his grip and swung all the way to the other side. He even spun out of the way of a branch he had previously realized he would need to avoid. This would mean that he was facing the pond when he landed.

The instant he landed on the other side of the bank, adjacent to Isis with his bandaged feet glancing off small pebbles, he immediately reached for his mouth. “Ow. Ow ow ow!” He stuck held his mouth wide open and stuck his tongue out. “I bit mah tongue! Dan it.”

[Hakujoumi]

Ready to dodge, pounce, or fly back across that pond, Isis stood with her knees bent in anticipation. Her eyes were lit up in excitement, waiting for Kitan's next move so she could counter it just as quickly.

The way he moved from his seated position was reminiscent of her brother, Isis choked. Such a reminder of old memories was pushed aside so she could watch how he performed his acrobatics.

It was a dance between earth, sky, and fox. Every motion was calculated on the fly, the way a bird could tilt a single feather and alter its course was just what he did with his hands and feet. Suddenly the human-esque boy became kitsune, but only for the briefest moment before he landed right beside her. He was backwards, and spilled out some funny-sounding sound bytes before Isis began to chuckle once more.
"You are fast!" She shoved at him, carefully avoiding scraping him with her claws. This was easier said than done since they weren't retractable like cat claws. If her eyes had been able to catch his mistake, she might have given him a pointer since that was supposed to be what mentors did, but she didn't have the ability to slow down time.
"Until we can get you some proper feet we'll have to do things the old-fashioned way I guess," she said. "You know, practice."

Isis could only imagine how that boy would be able to move when she could finally get him to shift. He would easily out-maneuver her. She didn't mention that; her sense of pride wouldn't allow it.

Once more that cunning smile bled onto her features. She looked at him, waiting for him to recover from his misstep. Then, with only that as her warning, she took off running into the woods. Her feet carried her toward a deeper part of the forest, an area that housed the place she called home. Keeping her pace about two thirds of her speediest, she leaped over stones, small shrubs, and a lot of tangled undergrowth. She ran for a full three minutes, the air hitting her face with deafening force. Running was like a dream. Inari had given her children the ability to fly through wilderness. This was not without effort; Isis panted and made mild chirping sounds beyond her control as she moved.

When she thought Kitan couldn't possibly be behind her, she launched herself up a tree and in three seconds she had clawed her way into it and hidden herself in its broad leaves. Her robe had turned into a muddied, tangled mess during her run. Letting loose a tiny giggle, she waited for her trainee to find her.

[Kitan]

Youthful pride gave Kitan’s face an expression of joy when Isis complimented him. Despite his bleeding tongue, his tail wagged happily beneath his tunic. This made a little fleck of white pop in and out of sight. He was so happy that it took him a moment to realize that his mentor was not where she had been mere seconds ago.

“Beh?!” Kitan’s shocked, wounded voice cried out. He looked around the pond fruitlessly before he remembered that his ears were his finest sense. He heard Isis sprinting through the woods, directly away from the pond. “H-hey! Wait for me!” He called after her.

Quick as a flash, he leapt over foliage and glided through the forest. For a time he could still see Isis ahead of him, but only in glimpses. Eventually he lost sight of her altogether.

Panting, he came to a slow halt and bent over, resting his hands upon his knees. He toppled over to the ground, feeling utterly exhausted. He groaned, having no idea why Isis had run off or where she was now. A deep, crippling fear overtook him that he would not be able to find her again. Also a factor was that, if he did not know where he was before, he was almost certainly clueless now.

He sat down, legs cross, and listed carefully. He closed his eyes to drown out other senses and focus solely on his hearing. He could hear the wind and the sound of birds. He could hear the frogs and the babbling brook. He could hear rabbits scurrying in the underbrush. For a brief, fraction of a moment, he thought he heard a branch shift out of tandem with the wind, but it was so brief that he was thrown into a state of complete uncertainty.

He opened his eyes and stared in that direction. His ears flicked forwards as he attempted to discern the source of the noise. He bit his lip. Was it really so infeasible that something else had moved a branch? They did that all the time. It wasn’t as if the wind was constant across the entire forest.

Eventually, he concluded that he had no other clues. He lamented that foxes were not blue, because blue stood out against green and brown much better than red fur did. He was worried that he would walk right past her! Then again, she was wearing that white robe.

A flash of white burst into his vision, and just as quickly vanished to his right. Kitan, already exhausted, blinked once before it registered that he should turn his head to follow the movement. The instant he did so, he was greeted by a familiar visage: not that of Isis, but that of the delusion which had led him into the woods.

“Ah!” he cried out, taking a fearful step backwards. “So... you can come back after all.”

Kitan waited. The spirit just floated there, staring directly at Kitan. After an extremely long and awkward pause, Kitan ventured. “Um... I guess you don’t know where she went either?”

The spirit tilted its head, as if it did not understand him. He sighed. He would never understand these things. He supposed that if he found her again, he aught to ask Isis if these were normal.

[Hakujoumi]

Up the tree, Isis curled her tails around her body. She perched herself there and rested her chin on the aged bark of the oak. The wind caught the leaves for a moment, rustling them like a whisper and revealing her white robe for half a second. Not far away, she could hear footsteps, and what she thought was the voice of Kitan.

Talking to oneself was not strange in her world. Though human society had deemed it something that only weird people did, Isis knew better. A kitsune without another kitsune was a lonely animal. There were few who Isis enjoyed talking to more than herself, as that was the best way to solve problems and reaffirm knowledge. While Isis waited for the kit to discover her, she had time to think about what her goals in her new situation were.

From what she had seen so far, Kitan was a blank slate. She could bend him any way she wanted, since he knew no better and probably had little willpower. Isis knew just how to introduce him to the world of mischief. Hopefully, she would be able to drag him away from his new werewolf friends. If he hadn't been with them for long, surely she could get him to trust her more than they. She would need to build or find some place for them to stay where he wouldn't find her little secrets when they were together. Such molding would take time, but if she could just do it right, he was an easy target for her mind games.

Isis squished herself against the tree's bough, enjoying her own luxurious fur. She hated being human, for the skin became taught and unmalleable. As a fox, it was as if she was wearing two sets of clothing: the robe, and her warm, moist skin. Her muscles moved beneath it instead of with it. Idly, she nibbled at the white fur at the end of one tail.

Then, a distraction. As was usual with Isis, she was incapable of keeping her attention on one thing for longer than a few minutes. Despite all of her zen talk of patience and Inari and prayer, she was really quite bad at waiting for things. A chipmunk, some distance away, rustled in the foliage nearby.

Isis hadn't been keeping track of where Kitan was, or if he was close to finding her. The taunting movements of the chipmunk stimulated her ears, and they twisted toward it. Like a cat drawn to a wiggling string, her eyes widened and she poked her face through the leaves so she could discover its location.

The animal was stuffing its face full of what looked like moss. Blinking quickly and remembering that she had very recently eaten, Isis ducked back in the tree and made a bit of noise doing that. She searched through the leaves for Kitan, but he had apparently evaporated.
She frowned.

[Kitan]

Kitan heard the rustling, and his ears picked up the sound. His head whipped around to the direction he had heard it from: far off to his right and a bit behind him, quite a different direction than the one he had been heading.

He immediately started running off in that direction, abruptly halting every couple moments to make sure he wasn’t missing any auditory clues. The spirit floated through the trees, following him out of what Kitan could only assume was a passing whimsy.

Kitan vaulted through the forest. He kept hearing branches moving, so maybe the spectral one had the right idea. Gradually, his leaps took him higher and higher, until he finally kicked off a tree and grabbed hold of the branches themselves. He moved through the trees like a lemur, swinging from branches or crawling along their length for as long as they would support his weight.

His bandaged hands were becoming increasingly coated by sap and flecks of bark, but he didn’t much mind. Years of climbing had left him with firm calluses. A final leap took him to the tree where he thought he had heard the sound. The spirit, though it followed the path of its jump, floated down to the mossy ground by passing right through the branch he had perched himself upon. Kitan frowned down at it, wondering why it wasn’t bothering to look around. It had helped him with something like Go Fish, but wouldn’t help him find Isis?

He closed his eyes and snootily raised his head, lightly bumping into a branch on the way up. Attempting to save face in front of the watchful being, he twitched his ears out and listened as if he had meant to hit his head. If anyone asked, he could listen to the vibrations in the branch.

With his ears flicking around the forest, he eventually seized up on the noise that no animal could hide: that of breath. Well, he supposed she actually could hide it if she turned into a rock or something. But somebody was breathing behind that tree and he didn’t think it was likely to be the werewolves waiting for prey. It was coming from behind the stump of a tree to his left.

He thought about his situation. He didn’t really know why Isis had sprinted off, but a little worm of mischief crawled its way into his mind. His new abilities were just perfect for this. If he only called up this passive spirit as a delusion now, he supposed he didn’t really need to worry.

Kitan focused on the manipulation of sound. If he could create a big globe of darkness with his visual illusions, he could probably create silence, right? A bit of thought finally pushed him into the proper state of mind, and the world around him grew much, much more quiet. He began to creep across the branches slowly, ignorant to the inherently suspicious nature his suddenly muted actions possessed.

He also failed to notice that when he moved, the parts of the branch that remained outside of his small field still expressed their full range of sound. In short, his approach was nothing less than obvious. With catlike tread, he landed on the tree which Isis hid behind, a tricky, confident grin plastered across his face.

[Hakujoumi]

A branch swished behind her in a way that seemed loud to her tuned ears. She swiveled her head around, craning her neck, eyes wide. Something big had landed on the other side of the branches. Isis slinked down, around, and away from the tree, dashing to another and peeking out. The whole movement took maybe two seconds, and while the sound would have been obvious, Isis looked to find an orange-eared kitsune foolishly moving toward the spot where she'd been moments earlier.

Her brow furrowed to a perplexed, asymmetric angle. She stood behind and away from Kitan, watching him and noting both that he made no sound with his hands, feet, or breath, but didn't seem to notice the brsh pkrsh of leaves around him. He also appeared to have no idea that she had moved, despite the amount of noise she had made while doing so.

Isis made a quick, "BRACK," noise, and waited. Kitan continued to creep.

It was as if he had cotton in his ears and silk-padded feet. It made absolutely no sense.

So, Isis did what any predator might do in such a situation. She launched herself back toward the tree behind Kitan, gripped it with her claws and climbed it two thirds of the way. Then, she waited for him to "discover" where she had been hiding.

When he finally did, she pushed off with her hind feet and attacked him, putting her arms around him, scraping him by accident, and rolling with him right out of the tree. She made chirpy fox sounds as they hit the ground. It was not exactly a soft landing. Isis ruffled Kitan's hair with her teeth, afraid of scratching him with her claws. Then, she bounced backward onto her feet. Her three tails flicked about quizzically.

"Got you..?"
It came out as a question, as she wasn't sure if Kitan could actually hear her.

[Kitan]

Kitan sprang around the tree with his arms spread wide, dexterously balancing himself on the branch with nothing but his toes. “Surprise!” he yelled, or would have yelled if he hadn’t still maintained his field of silence. It left him rather foolishly, silently mouthing the word instead.

His happy face fell even faster to surprise when he realized that Isis was not where he thought she was. His outstretched arms were brought together such that he resembled a small, timid rodent standing on its hindquarters.

Adding even more to poor Kitan’s confusion was that he seemed to be staring at the sky now.

A moment of panic saw his mouth open wide with fear and his hand stretch out to the sky, desperately reaching for a branch or handhold with which to stop his sudden decent. His other arm was held down by something, somebody-

There was a crash as the pair of them crushed ferns and brush beneath them. The next thing Kitan felt was the rough welcome of the ground. Kitan had hit his head on hard-packed dirt beneath a tree, in addition to the scrapes and bruises Isis had surely given him. The fall had taken mere seconds, and the shock of it all had thoroughly eliminated Kitan’s spell. Now that he didn’t have reason to panic, he put together events fairly quickly. His suspicions were only confirmed when a friendly nose rubbed his aching head.

“Isis!” He exclaimed, flailing his arms a bit under her weight. His voice was filled with lighthearted reproach. She bounded off him and he jumped up to four legs before he reached two. He dusted himself off. “That hurt! Why’d you have to do that?” His tail wagged behind him through his torn up tunic. He didn’t seem to mind as much as his words would indicate; a small little smile decorated his features.

Without any warning, he went down to his knees and uncoiled, intending to leap onto Isis in an act of playful justice. Unfortunately, he was still dizzy from the fall and the blow to the head. He was wildly off course, and landed on clumsy feet a bit under a meter to the left of her. After several missteps of attempting to regain his balance, he held himself still by gripping onto the bark of one of the thick tree trunks which surrounded the two kitsune. He panted, scratching his stomach. “Okay... nevermind that plan.”

[Hakujoumi]

Isis grinned as her name was called out. Kitan's angry words were handled lightly since his tail was waggling to and fro. Isis looked down at her chest, only to find she had exposed one of her breasts in their little tussle. She adjusted her robe and retied the belt so it pulled in her waist. She didn't do this that quickly, and intentionally showed some of her bare body while making it look accidental. The vixen wore an embarrassed expression like a mask. She offered a breathy exhale as if nervous that he had seen her.

The goal was to hook him to her. For good.

Unfortunately, her plan had almost certainly failed since he'd been too busy tripping over his dizzied self to notice any of her performance. No matter. She was still trying to figure out exactly what had happened to him up the tree that had made him oblivious to sound.

"If the training hurts that makes it extra effective." This was something her father used to tell she and her siblings as children. "As the humans say, 'If little is our labour, little is our gain.' "

Of course, she herself was in pain, sort of. The fall had torn parts of her robe and she had a few scrapes that were still fresh and bleeding lightly on her knees. Some of the fur on her arms was matted with the dirt and sap from the tree. These were things she was so used to that she simply ignored them. Living in the woods did that, and they were not exactly what you would call injuries.

Isis took a moment to primp herself. She groomed the fur of her soiled arms with her teeth and tongue, the way a dog would. As she did so she stretched her fingers and claws out, wiggling the dirt from between the pads of each digit. She peaked her eyes up at him as she did so, and stopped for a moment to speak.
"So you live in Marn of all places... with a dwarven father." She grinned, and the first bit of cruel sarcasm dripped from her voice as she continued to groom herself. She sat on the ground to fix her hair with her claws.