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After The Fall

Akita, Japan, September 7th, 882

I stare at the hole in the roof, barely seeing it. The light streaming through it tells me that this is the fiftieth sunrise since my capture.

My hair is filthy and matted, my skin smeared with blood, dirt, and other substances I prefer not to think about. The sigils that bind me burn into my flesh where they have been drawn, now invisible beneath the dirt on my forehead, breasts, and pubic bone, but that pain is a mere annoyance in comparison to the hunger that makes my bones ache and my muscles knot around themselves. With sunrise, the pain abates a bit, but it never leaves me now. Soon, I will not know day from night, and soon after that I will slip slowly into torpor, the body's last attempt to save itself.

And then I will die.

I, a kitsune, one of the immortals, will die the true death in this infernal stinkhole of a village.

And I will die entirely alone.

They caught me unawares, sleeping in my fox form, my three tails betraying me. I will never know what the hunter was doing with a cage spelled specifically to bind demons, but cage me he did, and bring me back to this place he did, showing off his prize. Oh, he thought he was so clever, this hunter. He declared so loudly that he had caught a demon fox, and boasted of his prowess to an appreciative audience of young women.

I sulked in the cage. The bindings were strong, but I was worrying at them, and I'd be free soon enough. This was merely a temporary inconvenience, for in truth few have ever held a fox against her will. The boastful hunter would soon learn what it meant to anger a kitsune.

He had told a girl to go get someone named Kasumara. I hadn't paid attention, until around the corner of one of the houses came a man who I recognized--and my fur stood on end, my skin crawling.

Tashahiro Kasumara. At least, that's what I think his name is.

But I know him better as the Demonbane.

What the Demonbane was doing in this village in the middle of nowhere I have no idea; perhaps for the same reason the hunter was carrying the trap. The shugenja was a short, stocky man, much scarred but still, despite it, somehow handsome. Or I would have found him so, had I not been frantically attempting to undo the bindings on the cage, so I could pass through the bars and escape.

(And yet--was he short and stocky, or tall and think? Scarred, or merely pock-marked? Was his hair the black frosted with silver that I remember or was it steel grey? I cannot remember. I do not know why I cannot remember.)

He stopped by my cage, looking at me with those unnerving grey eyes. I whined quietly despite myself. Bravery would get me nowhere, but cowardice just might. I could not defeat the Demonbane, I knew that much. The best I could hope for was a moment of inattention.

"A fox. Not quite what we're looking for, but a good catch nonetheless. I'll bind her, and then you can do what you please with her; she's of no use to me." He opened a scroll and read from it, the shugenja method of casting spells, and though I fought I found a stiffness taking over my limbs. I was Held, truly.

"Quickly, remove her from the cage. Remember, with kitsune you have to be careful; they are powerful enough that they will break bindings very quickly, and they hate captivity. But I know something that will keep her harmless, for the time being." I was pulled from the cage and set upon the ground, Demonbane drawing a circle around him and I, signing it with the symbols of the five elements. Another scroll, and I was forcibly changed back into my human form. I immediately began to plead with him, trying to get him to look me in the eye, but with one harsh word a spell bound my tongue. I glared balefully at the man who held me, regretting I am not one of those who can kill with a look. If I were, then Demonbane's heart would stop and I would go free.

He pulled out of the bag he held a quill and a bottle of ink. He dipped the pen, and, working swiftly, set five sigils into my skin. One on my forehead, the master mark to bind my powers. One on each breast, to bind my beauty. One on my pubic bone, to render my usual method of feeding useless. And one in the small of my back, to keep me from changing into my fox form.

He then tied my hands behind my back, and broke the Hold; I ran, of course, but so slow, so clumsy, I was easily caught by rough hands, unpleasantly raucous laughter coming from the crowd that was watching.

I was starting to be truly afraid. My usual confidence that I could talk my way out of any situation was waning; with the Demonbane there and my ability to enthrall and charm bound, I was well and truly helpless.

Then the Demonbane spoke the words that sealed my fate.

"In two months, without feeding on men's lives, she will starve to death. Do with her whatever you want between now and then. She is not human, not a person; she would think nothing of killing any of you if you let her wiles overwhelm you." I protest wordlessly, whining; I rarely kill while feeding, and only those who deserve it! But a hand comes out of nowhere and hits the side of my head. I taste blood and fall silent, though I still fight.

A question came from a sly-looking young man with a lantern jaw. I misliked the tone of his voice. "We can do anything with her?"

The Demonbane chuckled. "There is a reason I have bound her in human form. You may do anything you like with her. Anything at all."

A hand in my hair pulled my head back, and one of the men who held me laughed. A wail of despair escaped me.

I fought, but my hands were bound and so soon were my ankles. There were so many of them.

So many.

And so I come to this, the fiftieth day. I have bruises layered on bruises, and there are places I've been injured I try not to think about. That first day was only a preview of what was to come. And the worst part was so much energy, so close, and yet the bindings prevent me from feeding. I am starving in the middle of plenty. The energy I could use to heal myself, to change forms, to escape is present in such large amounts but it might as well be on the moon. And this is the first time in my life I have ever been used against my will. That alone nearly broke me, in the beginning.

If I thought I were going to survive this experience, it might break me yet. In the beginning, I screamed and I wept, but for a month now no sound has escaped me.

I have been allowed to eat, but it helps little. My spirit requires feeding, less often than my body does, but it requires it all the same. And if I cannot feed on the life energy of others, I begin to feed on my own. The skin over my knuckles is stretched tight, and I can no longer sleep because there is no position I can lie in that is not painful. I can still walk, but only very slowly. Sometime in the next few days, I will only be able to crawl, and it will be at that point that I know torpor is near.

And so I stare with wide unseeing eyes at the hole in the ceiling of this windowless hut. It seems that the time between visits by the men of the village has been getting longer and longer; I am probably no longer the entertainment that I once was. I cannot say that I really care, either way. Even the visits from the men are almost like company. This is perhaps what we kitsune fear the most; dying helpless, starving, without anyone to comfort us.

A movement outside of the hut, and the door unlocks. Someone comes inside; I can smell...nervousness? Trepidation? Perhaps a whiff of fear? Who is left in the village who fears me? Why would they fear me, as I am, helpless, dying?

I lift my head from where I lie.

It's a girl. Perhaps thirteen, fourteen years old. She carries a bucket and some cloths with her, and what might be a robe, draped over her arm. She kneels beside me; she fears, but is ignoring her fear. I find it within myself to admire her for it. She is wearing a somewhat plain kimono, and at her throat is a necklace set with a topaz in the simple pendant. Daughter of the headman, then, recalling that topaz was the symbol of this little village in the northwestern part of Japan. Akita, I believe it's called. Not that I've seen much of it. Except the ceilings. And the sky.

Her voice is soft and steady. "I am Mei. Your name is Reiko, correct? I have been sent by my father to wash and clothe you. You are to--" She chokes, and turns her head away from me, then clears her throat. "You are to be displayed to a guest visiting from Kyoto at dinner tonight. He wishes to see the kitsune we have captured. My father tried to dissuade him, but he brooked no argument. And so, lady Fox, I am to bathe you. I--am sorry."

I wonder why this visitor wishes to see me, but does it matter, since I may not prevent it? I shake my head. "It's all right, Mei. I don't hold you responsible for what you've been told to do. And, truly, it would be good to be clean... I'll cooperate with you." It is then that I tell her the first lie. "You have nothing to fear from me."

She begins to wash my hair, helping me sit up and combing out the tangled mess. There is something familiar in her touch, something I have felt before. But what?

Then her hand touches my skin, and I know. Oh, these humans, who care more for nobility than ability. If they only had eyes to see.

The girl is a shugenja. Untrained, ignorant, but a shugenja all the same.

Her family would never have sent her in here, had they known.

I hide my smile and submit to her washing. The mark on the small of my back is the first to go. Ordinary soap and water would never remove the sigils, but ordinary soap and water wielded by a shugenja of her potential will certainly do so. She wishes me to be clean, and her wishes have the force of her element, Water, behind it. Demonbane's Element is Fire. She could not be more perfect if I'd asked specifically for her.

The three other sigils on my body are washed away next. And finally, I lift my face to her, and she washes away the last sigil, all unknowing. I touch the pool of life within me; it's dwindling, but I have enough for one small enthrall left. It will leave me nearly in torpor, but I can manage it if I know I can feed afterwards.

I look into her eyes. And it is then that I see exactly how young she is. I shudder at what I am about to do, and a part of me begins to scream against it. I lock that part of myself away, carefully. For I am nogitsune, and I am starving, and though innocent the girl will indeed be willing once enthralled. In fact, she'd almost be willing without the enthrall; she pities me, believes that she knows what I have been suffering. If I were not quite as hungry as I am, if time were not as short as it is, I could probably seduce her before she really knew what was happening.

You are disgusting, the Reiko I have locked away snarls.

It is this or death, I reply. Better her than me. I push the locked-away Reiko farther into the depths of my mind.

And I reach into myself. Touch the power. And cast my net.

The Ten-Tailed Lady have pity on my soul.

*****

The fire that consumes the village is warm on my back as I walk from the town.

I drained three men tonight, after Mei, and with that power charmed ten of them to do my bidding, to dance to my tune. And they did, oh, they did. For when the fox rides your mind, there is nothing you will not do for her. Even kill. Even die.

The worst ones, the ones who were the most brutal, who truly thought of me as an object rather than a fully sentient being, I killed myself with a long knife I liberated from the corpse of the village's headman. Belly wounds take a satisfyingly long time to kill people. And when I find Demonbane, he too will die. I don't care if it takes me the next thousand years to track him down and kill him. He will pay for what he has done to me.

Innocent or guilty, every adult in the village tonight is dead, and the last thing I did was set the hut I was kept in, with the girl who freed me inside, on fire. It is the dry season. The fire is quickly spreading behind me.

My body will take a very long time to heal, I know, and I will need to feed deeply and often to return myself to my full glory. I shudder at the thought of working as a courtesan again after the village, but I will do what I must.

Whatever I must, to survive.

I drape the necklace I am holding over a low branch and change, my three-tailed fox form feeling wonderful after so long bound as a human. I sit up on my hind legs and slip the necklace over my head, tossing it so that the pendant falls into the thick fur on my back.

As I run, heading south towards the nearest large town, the topaz in the pendant glitters in the moonlight.