The Fox God Saga - The Legend of the Wishing God - Chapter I
And with that, welcome to my new story! I'll try to post a new chapter every friday (fox-friday basically lol) and I hope you guys enjoy! Please head the warnings on every individual chapter!
Edit: Ah, well, wanted to queue it and accidentally posted it, lol. Then today is fox-thursday, I suppose xD
Warnings: Yandere, Description about hurt animal with broken bones, Long Post (2.3k words)
Breathing in the crisp, mountain air, your lungs stung from exertion, a sheen of sweat glistening on your forehead in the evening sun.
After a whole day's hike, the light was dancing through the trees' canopy above you, only illuminating the overgrown path faintly before you. Not many had the drive or ambition to climb the old trail between the ancient mountain shrine and your village, and with every heavy step, you were reminded as to why. Even after working hard down in the valley, earning your dinner with all the strength in your body, it had been a long way up, your legs tired and wobbly as you tried to avoid the stray roots and thorny branches covering the way. Not many walked this path, aside from the devout seeking the shrine.
And those who wished desperately for the legends surrounding it to be true.
You were of the latter sort, and although desperate, not ashamed to admit it. The elders called the shrine a place that would fulfill all your wishes, as long as you prayed earnestly and devoted yourself to its teaching. If you approached with pure and noble intentions, the god it belonged to would be sure to bless you and fulfill your wish. That's what you'd been told all your life, the priest coming down once a month to hold a speech about the grace of the gods and how they looked upon us favorably. You had watched him age with every new year, listened to the same words attentively, but now the time had come for you to be convinced that it was actually true.
Despite your body aching, you thought about your little sister and about the harsh condition she was in. Your ache was nothing compared to the pain and misery she had to go through for weeks now, coughs wrecking her little frame and prayers being left unanswered. If the gods were as benevolent as everyone described them, you thought they'd help eventually, seeing how sick and frail your sister had become, unable to even eat by herself anymore, her breath stopping ever so often, making you think she had passed on.
Sometimes you caught yourself thinking that if she were to die, her suffering would at least be over.
The old man who traveled to your village every week to provide the households with medicine had once sat you down and told you that death was inevitable. It was just a matter of how long your sister wanted to survive or until her body gave out from under her. It hurt to hear it said out loud, but with your village wrecked by the same sickness that had taken hold in your sister, he didn't want to give hope of a miracle recovery, not even when you begged him to heal her. The medicine helped… for a little while. Then she was back to coughing and gagging. It never lasted, and there was now a shortage of medicinal herbs, as every household had a sick person or two in need.
That very morning, you had lain awake, listening to your sister's strained breathing, when you made the decision that maybe it really needed a miracle to save her. The man had been right; there was no saying how long her mind or her body could prevail over this illness. But if the teaching were true, if gods were looking down on your little village, then praying and wishing for them to help was maybe your only chance to save her.
Although you had been following the instructions and wishes of your parents diligently ever since you were a child, you had never quite believed in them. Everyone in your village prayed and thanked the gods that you felt no connection to, so it wasn't unnatural for you to follow along in the practices. Once, you had questioned your mother as to why everyone had to thank the gods for a good harvest, when it had been—in your opinion—all of the work of the adults in the village who worked hard together. She had merely smiled, saying that without them, the fields wouldn't have bloomed, and without the gods, rain wouldn't have watered the grains to give everyone a day off so they could work even harder the next.
She called you "a little too rational" for your age when you pouted and insisted the gods had not done much after all.
But here you were, ready to leave all of your doubts and skepticism behind if it meant you'd get a chance of helping your little sister. If earnestness was what the gods wanted, you had plenty to offer, your heart filled to the brim with compassion. And if they made the miracle happen, you'd be sure to never doubt them or their existence ever again, staying devout until the end of your days. All you wanted was to see her run around again, laughing and playing, like a child her age should. You'd do what was necessary if it meant you'd save her, no matter the cost it would have.
These thoughts spurred you on, gave you another boost to walk despite the exhaustion, and to breathe regardless of the aching in your whole body. The situation wasn't lost yet, and with your sister fighting for your life, you'd not stop either.
An unexpected, shrill whine broke through the insects' calm chittering all around you, the unmistakable sound of distress, bringing you to a stop. Your body complained about the sudden stillness, the wobble in your knees returning as you looked around, trying to make out where it had come from and what was making the sound. Despite not knowing the origins, you didn't feel afraid of what you might discover, the sound reminding you more of a…
Squinting your eyes, you looked a little closer into the bush erected a few steps away from the path you were on, a little black snout pushing through before little paws dug their way out from under it.
Your breath hitched as the little creature emerged from the undergrowth, and although you had never seen one in this color, you immediately knew what it was: a fox.
It let out another pained scream, looking at you as if asking for help, metal rattling behind it as it tried to pull its little leg after it. You did a cautious sidestep at the sound, seeing a massive bear trap snapped around the small ankle of the fox, having broken it, although, miraculously, not torn it off for good.
"Oh, you poor thing," you gasped empathetically, clutching the strap of the little bag you had brought on your travels. The fox continued whining and desperately pulling on its leg as you spoke. Perhaps it was your heart so full of compassion for your sister that made you step closer, knowing fully well that a fox was still a dangerous animal and that its bites would hurt if it thought you were there to harm it. But really, what kind of person would you be to just leave this poor thing to suffer? Bite off its own leg or worse, get eaten by another predator that saw it as weak?
Even though you had no knowledge on how to treat animals and wounds occurred by them, you still couldn't think about walking away from a creature in need. Carefully, with downcast hands, you approached it, mumbling in a calming voice. The fox did a few more pitiful yaps before quieting down, looking back and forth between you and the trap it was caught in.
"You're a clever one, eh?" you praised gently, slowly getting down to your knees next to it, never letting its maw and claws out of your sight but trying to make yourself look harmless. "I'll help you, don't worry, little fox."
As if understanding your words, it yawned once to relax before moving to curl into itself, placing one of its front paws on your thigh like a sign of trust and watching what you were doing. You inspected the trap with your eyes first, finding it partially overlapped on the other side and thus not fully locked. A blessing in disguise, as you didn't know if you could have opened it with your limited strength if it had snapped completely. This way, it was easier to grip and open wide enough for the fox to slip its leg out.
"I need you to work with me here," you grunted, gripping between the teeth of the trap, knowing that if you messed up, it would be your own finger on the line. You had to help some of the hunters in town once undo all their traps they brought back from hunting, but they hadn't given you proper instructions, just paid you once you were done. Taking a deep breath, you put all your strength into prying it open.
At first, the metal only clicked a little as you applied force to its mechanism, then the fox whined loudly in your ear. For a moment, you were scared it was going to bite you, thinking you were hurting it on purpose, but the pain of a bite never came. "Come on!" you groaned, your arms shivering from the exertion on your muscles when the shock of movement rattled through them. Going for the last push, you managed to pull apart the teeth just a little further, and before you knew it, black fur dashed by you, loud, excited chattering exploding all around you.
Your mind was fogged by exhaustion, but you managed to pull your fingers from the trap before it eerily snapped together, the thought of having your hands in that thing running shivers down your spine. Next thing you knew, you were "attacked" by the little fox, who was jumping up at you, licking your cheek despite dragging its broken foot after it.
"Now, now," you laughed, shielding yourself from the unintentional scratches and wet, sloppy kisses you were receiving, turning to your bag to pull out your knife. The black fox jumped back, warily watching what you were doing as you pierced the blade into your sleeve, cutting a piece of fabric from your own garments so you could help the little creature with it. However, even when you put the knife away, the fox seemed hesitant to approach, now knowing you had such a weapon at your disposal.
You chuckled a little at its wariness, watching its little ears perk up and try to surveil what you were doing as you stuck your hand back into the bag, this time pulling out a piece of riceball you had grabbed this morning. Interest now roused, the fox bounded back over, seemingly unbothered by its dragging foot, eating the rice right out of your hand. You watched it chew for a moment before leaning down, trying to steady the foot. However, it whimpered miserably the moment you placed the cloth around it.
Wrapping it up wouldn't be enough, you determined. This creature would have to be cared for, for a while, and fed since it couldn't hunt fast enough with just one hind leg. Perhaps you were overthinking it; maybe foxes were stronger than you thought. Your village rarely saw them, most of them at home in the forest of the mountain, only coming into town if people left out scraps or the winters were hard.
You had done what you could, even bandaged the foot despite the fox's pitiful whines, but you still felt bad just leaving it behind. "Perhaps the priest would know how to help you…" you muttered, thinking out loud about the only person you thought could have knowledge about the wildlife. The animal peeked its ears at your voice, and you gave it some head rubs as you debated bringing it with you to the shrine.
But you had come so far, how could you stop now?
"You might not like this, but you need to promise me to be calm when I pick you up!" you explained sternly, as if the animal could understand you. As expected, it only cocked its head to the side, and you couldn't help but adore the cute little tilt before slowly reaching under its forelegs. You did some careful probing to see if the fox would let you lift it up, but when it didn't react at all to your attempts, you slowly brought it up, settling it over your shoulder and holding it below its bushy tail.
Carefully, you stood up, wobbling on the spot, the break your legs had gotten not forgiven by your body. It was always worse to stop when you were pushing through exhaustion, but this time it had been for a good cause. "It can't be far now," you said to the fox, as if to encourage it rather than yourself, and the animal barked once, making you grin, thinking it understood more than you thought.
Together, you two returned to the path leading towards the shrine, the journey continuing. An anxious feeling that you'd wasted precious time crept into your stomach, so you reminded yourself that helping someone worse off than you wasn't wasting time. If anything, the gods may look fondly on your compassion for the creature, although that wasn't the reason you had helped it in the first place.
But maybe, finding this injured fox had been an omen. An injured creature and you helping them. It could make the miracle you sought after come true after all. With these thoughts, you marched on, the fox's tail happily wagging as it let out a few more barks and panted happily on your shoulder, nuzzling its fur against your face and neck appreciatively.
[You can find the masterpost with all chapter's here!]
Today was my first birthday alone and surprisingly it's one of the best ones. For the first time in 19 years, I spent it without any noise or unnecessary arguments.
At first, I thought I'd be very lonely and sad, and that the day'd be ended with me drunk and crying.
And even though I didn't celebrate it in any special way, I couldn't forget from the very morning that it was my day. I received my first birthday greeting that night from someone I'd lost touch with many years ago.
In fact, so many people contacted me that I didn't expect it (I thought only my mom and my closest friend would remember the date). It wasn't much, but I was very very pleased.
And oh, I was so busy with making the cake that I completely forgot about the gifts
In addition to this post, i've been prepping making cream and cake layers for training, like, for the last week. The actual cake was 3rd (I'm not a pastry chef and this is my first time making cream cakes, even though I love baking, so pls don't laugh). Btw, here's the full pics
I honestly expected the worst, but it turned out pretty well. The sketch was like this btw (again, restrain your laugh please):
Today was my first birthday alone and surprisingly it's one of the best ones. For the first time in 19 years, I spent it without any noise or unnecessary arguments.
At first, I thought I'd be very lonely and sad, and that the day'd be ended with me drunk and crying.
And even though I didn't celebrate it in any special way, I couldn't forget from the very morning that it was my day. I received my first birthday greeting that night from someone I'd lost touch with many years ago.
In fact, so many people contacted me that I didn't expect it (I thought only my mom and my closest friend would remember the date). It wasn't much, but I was very very pleased.
And oh, I was so busy with making the cake that I completely forgot about the gifts
Just finished marika's quick drawing which somehow took me almost a week... It supposed to be just a color training doodle but ended up being fully complete
vaporwave
origamiaround
ellievsbear
tangentwithtanner
kaledo-art