Vol.6 Ch.8.1 – Little Fox I

Chapter 8: Little Fox

After dinner the girls began to migrate over to the living room, likely to share stories, as we often did, but just as I was about to join them Yume caught my gaze and then very deliberately went upstairs to her room. It would appear she was finally ready to talk to me about her past and about what her mother had told us.

I turned to follow her and saw Alisha looking up at me. She gave me a soft smile and a little wave, then motioned everyone into the living room.

I went upstairs and saw the door to Yume's room standing open. As I entered the room it suddenly struck me that I hadn't been in here since we had returned from Olympus. And...

“Gods...” I muttered.

Yume's room had been rather barren before. When she had joined up with us she'd owned nothing but the clothes on her back and the bag of holding of the Chosen One she'd killed. And even after that, there had been precious few things that had caught her interest enough that she had wanted to decorate her room with them. But now...

“Did you have all of that stored in your spatial ring?”

“Yes,” she said, motioning for me to close the door.

One corner held a trio of parasols made out of paper and wood, another a tea set hauntingly similar to the one she used in her dreamscapes. Her two katanas were on display on a wall, as was a set of ornamental wooden masks and a pair of large fans. And her bedside table held a couple of fur brushes and a necklace of white beads.

I was quite impressed with it, at least until I realized what it meant. She had stored all her belongings in her spatial ring, hadn't she?

She seemed to realize where my thoughts had gone because the first words out of her mouth were: “I was on my way to this kingdom when those slavers caught me.”

I didn't say anything, simply letting her speak.

“I was looking for a ship to board, to get me out of that place, when I felt the collar wrapping about my throat.”

“Why were you so eager to leave?” I asked. “I know you didn't leave as soon as your father died.” She'd told us that she had gone through a dungeon in her homeland, one that she had stayed in for only a few days but apparently years had passed outside while she had been in there, but only after her father had passed.

She let out a shaky breath.

“You don't have to tell me if you don't want to,” I said gently.

“I do want you to know. But it's... hard,” she admitted, then asked: “I expected you to ask about my mother.”

“Even I can tell that your mother is a sore topic,” I said. “But there is one thing I've been wondering about. When your mother spoke of ghost stories you looked terrified. What's so bad about the ghost stories of your realm? We have scary stories here, too. And what is that night parade she spoke of?”

She let out another shaky breath, then sat down on the bed and motioned for me to sit beside her. “Let's start at the beginning and go from there,” she said. “The first thing you need to understand about the kingdom I was born in is that we do not see gods the same way you do.”

I nodded. I had noticed that before. I had my reasons for being irreverent to every god I'd met but Yume seemed to hold the exact same lack of awe for the gods I did.

“Good spirits, evil spirits, they're all gods to us. And sometimes it's hard to distinguish between them. And those gods come in all kinds of power levels. There are gods to whom we are nothing but insects and there are gods you could squash with your littlest finger.”

“Are kitsune gods, too?” I asked.

“When I told you how our kind aged you compared me to a demigoddess,” she said gently. “I was shocked at the comparison back then but if I'm honest... Yes, according to the realm I was born in I am a goddess. A kami. A spirit. An evil spirit, to be precise, or at least a mischievous one.”

“When you said people hated your kind,” I asked gently, “is it because some of you gave them reason to?”

“Yes,” she said very quietly. “And my mother was one of those reasons.”

I stayed quiet.

“My father came to that realm as a merchant,” she said, “and while he never admitted it to me, I am certain he had once been an adventurer, one who had stumbled upon an excellent way of making money and had decided to retire from adventuring. Not unlike what you would have done if you weren't so driven to save the world from the Holy Maiden.” Her words were wistful.

“Would you rather I retire than put myself in harm's way?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said simply. “But I know you won't. Not until we've dealt with her.”

I nodded.

“Either way,” she said, “my mother saved his life. They never told me if he'd been attacked or had gotten lost in the woods but she saved him and nursed him back to health. And they fell in love. She was the perfect housewife for him. They lived together in one of the larger cities. He plied his trade while she took care of the house. She had to be careful that none would discover her ears and tails but she made it work.”

I frowned. “How would she hide them? That enormous ball of fluff is too big to tuck under a cloak.”

“Mother, like me, is an illusionist,” Yume explained. “Many of our kind use magic to hide those features away.”

“But you didn't,” I said. “That bastard made you hide under a cloak.”

“I could have used magic to hide them,” she said. “But he didn't know I could do that and I wasn't going to tell him.”

“Fair,” I said. If he'd known exactly what she was capable of he would have kept a much closer eye on her after all.

“Eventually,” she continued, “we were driven out. I can't tell you what it was, I was too young at the time and never asked. It could have been that people found out about what mother and I were but it could also have been that my father, a foreigner, was a better merchant than any of them.” I winced. “Either way, they drove my parents and me out of the city, out of the province. We fled into the mountains. We found an abandoned home and made it our own. And that was where I spent my childhood. Even then, groups of spirit hunter sometimes came looking for us. I was taught to be afraid of humans. But I also knew that couldn't be the whole story. After all, my father was human, wasn't he?” She chuckled. “That seed began to fester. The humans who looked like mother but with no tails were bad and the humans who looked like father were nice. You believe some stupid things as a child.” She shook her head. “No, that's unfair. Things here are better. While I did eventually meet humans back there who didn't hold me in contempt, it pales in comparison to here. Now if only I could enjoy walking the streets.”

“The slavers,” I said, “were they Southerners or were they from this realm?”

“The ones who grabbed me were from my realm,” she said. “The ones who handed me over to Ares were Northerners.”

“Good to know every realm has scum like that,” I muttered.

She smiled, then took a deep breath. “Now, as I said, I spent my childhood in the mountains.”

“The place in your dreamscape,” I said.

“And in mother's,” she said quietly. “I had a nice childhood, aside from the fear of spirit hunters. Mother doted on father and both of them cared for me. I had a few friends, though I hid my tail and ears from them. But sometimes, when the moons were hanging high in the sky, mother would tell me stories. Ghost stories, she called them, but that's not quite accurate. Most of these stories were about other spirits, often cautionary tales. Kitsune weren't welcome among humans so many of us lived among other spirits and so mother made sure I knew about as many of them as possible. Some of those stories were funny, like the Shirime, a faceless human that will crawl toward you and then show you its butt, except it has a huge eyeball instead of an asshole.”

I snorted.

She smiled but continued: “But they weren't all funny. One of the most common type of spirit are the Oni, seven feet tall humanoids with thick slabs of muscles, huge clubs and a craving for meat and alcohol. They live in tribes in the mountains but sometimes they come down to raid.”

“Did you have to deal with them?” I asked.

“When we lived in the mountains?” she asked. “No, never. I used to think they left us alone because they liked us but now I'm convinced mother bought them off so that they'd leave us alone. And there's others. A thousand other types of these spirits, these yokai. Each dangerous in their own way. My mind is a library filled with ways to handle each and every one of them. And while most of them aren't dangerous if you know what you're doing, that knowledge is the only difference between life and a very unpleasant death.”

“Enough to give a child night terrors,” I said. I didn't bother making it a question.

But she shook her head. “Some of those stories gave me nightmares, sure, but nothing too bad. Except for the night parade.” A shiver seemed to run through her at the words. “The Hyakkiyako. Translated literally it means 'Night Parade Of A Thousand Demons.'”

I swallowed. What a name.

“Alisha told stories of the Wild Hunt before,” she said. “Do you remember those?”

I nodded. “On the night of the last day of the tenth month, spirits and fae and all manner of dark creatures walk the streets,” I said, “and kill or devour or abduct any mortal they can find. And so we dress up like those creatures, so that they won't recognize us. Of course, it's not as big a deal as those stories make it out to be. Sure there are spirits roaming on Samhain, and lowering your mask at the wrong time can be dangerous, but the mortals outnumber the spirits in all but the smallest villages.” I looked at her. “But that's not what this Night Parade is, right?”

She shook her head, her ears flopping back and forth. “Everything the Wild Hunt is meant to be, the Night Parade is in truth. The Nurarihyon, the yokai general, descends from the spirit realm and leads a procession of spirits through the streets. A thousand spirits all causing their own kinds of mayhem. All those rules you so carefully learned are out the window. Appeasing one might cause you to upset another, and that's assuming they even still play by the rules. Anyone found outside is dragged off to the spirit realm, made sport of, turned into food or turned into entertainment. Horrifying for mortals.” She paused. “But also horrifying for yokai like me. It is said that no spirit can resist the pull of a Night Parade. All must join the procession. All must kill and devour and destroy, no matter their nature. Mother told me stories of kitsune coming to after a Night Parade, bathed in the blood of the mates they had adored. Of Yuki-Onna waking up to find their lovers frozen solid. A thousand horrors and many of the horrors can't even stop themselves.”

If I ever yearn for Hyakkiyako, I want you to end me.

Those had been the words Yume's mother had said. But now it made even less sense. If all of this was true, then why would...

Yume saw the confusion on my face. “Now imagine you are a spirit. Not one of the truly evil ones but one who can choose, who knows right from wrong. All your life you see humans treating you like dirt, not for what you are but for what they think you are. You see them burning down homes on suspicion of a spirit living in them. You see them driving people out of town. You see them slaughtering benign spirits as revenge for a Tengu taking their daughters, thinking all yokai are the same. Imagine seeing this for centuries. Would you not be tempted to yearn for a Night Parade, to answer all that hatred with terror? To wash it all away in a river of blood and nightmares?”

“Are you?” I asked quietly.

“I try not to hold anyone responsible for the actions of another,” she said. “I would slaughter those slavers if I ever found them. I will ruin Ares in any way I can. But I will not hurt innocents in the name of my revenge. But... I also haven't felt this hatred for over four hundred years, like mother has.” She took a deep breath. “Mother is... an enigma. When I was a child she was nothing but a perfect mother and wife. But after my father's death I began to dig. And I found out so many things about her. She has created horrors and miracles in equal measure. She has toppled dynasties and caused civil war. She overthrew tyrants and became a hero. She hunted down evil gods and spirits and released many others into the world. Every great blessing and every tragedy in the past four centuries, she was there for. She always vanishes for decades at a time, presumably to play happy family with another husband again until he meets his end, but then shows up again to either wreak havoc or bless the land. Mercurial does not begin to describe her. Hearing that she has gotten into politics again was bad enough. That she is worried about coming to yearn for Hyakkiyako, even more so.”