A yellow flash streaked through the rioting greenery of the forest, flanks heaving and dripping with sweat. The vague clamour of pursuit chased after the escaping vixen, bright pinpricks of blue, white and red in the distance whose shapes were just barely discernible. These were Beast Tamers, and although their title sounded innocent enough and heroically impressive, what they actually did was much less so. They were an organization that served to capture and essentially enslave Spiritual Beasts via a non-opposable contract that bound the life of the Beast to its master’s but not the other way around, making it so that when the master died, the beast would too but the master would come out unscathed should the beast be killed.
It was inhumane treatment towards Spiritual Beasts that, bar appearances, were like humans in pretty much every way. They could feel pain, they could feel joy, anger, sadness. They were loyal, but they were also traitorous; there was only the matter of them looking like animals that caused humans to feel a sense of unfounded superiority that made them think it was perfectly fine to capture these Beasts as pets or as tools of war.
Skirting around a tree root jutting up from the ground and then bounding across a small clearing before curling up, quivering from fear and exhaustion in a well-hidden pocket under a massive tree, the vixen listened attentively with ears pricked towards the direction in which the sounds of pursuit were coming from. The humans crashed around as they tried to discover the hiding place of the female Vulps. The Vulps are a species of small, fox-like creatures that are desired less for their combat prowess as they were actually rather weak creatures, but more for their beautiful and elegant appearances. With a slender snout and fox-like head; a thin but powerful neck; a long and streamlined body; long but powerful limbs ending in sharp claws and a tail that resembled that of a wolf’s more than a dog, the whole ensemble painted in yellows; pale reds; golds and silvers, it was little wonder that they would be so highly sought after.
In fact, they were so highly sought after that there were almost none of them left that were wild, despite originally being such an ordinary and common creature. That point made this particular female even more valuable, for she was heavily pregnant and it was plainly obvious that she was on the verge of giving birth.
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When the vixen had ascertained the danger had long past, she allowed herself to relax and with this relaxation, contractions wracked her frame and she let out a soft keening cry, eerie with how it hung in the still air of the silent forest. Lying on her side on top of the crackly padding of dried leaves that littered the forest floor, the vixen’s breaths came quicker and more laboured until finally, the first mewling whine pierced the veil of silence.
Hours later, the she-Vulps ran a rough tongue over the head of her four newborn kits, cleaning them with long licks, chuffing in disapproval and discontentment when the biggest one of the four, a warm sunset-orange one, wriggled towards the mouth of the den. Extending a paw, she batted him back to her side, letting out a satisfied bark when he stopped trying to escape and instead burrowed into the soft fur of her belly.
Within the darkness of the den, the third smallest of the four kits let out a soft whine before curling in on herself, barely touching her mother. The vixen nudged all four of the kits closer to her side before letting out a soft sigh and put her head on her front paws, closing her eyes and slipping into the content, exhausted sleep of a new mother.
In the ever-growing silence and gloom of the encroaching night, the smallest, runt of the four kits started to shift around when previously he had been motionless in sleep. If there was enough light, the contrast between him and his siblings would be startlingly prominent. While his siblings were coloured orange, yellow and a minty-green, he was a flawlessly pure white and there were two slight bumps on his head.
Late into the night, the air brimmed with mana, and the sky lit up in brilliant coloured lights, so bright that humans and Spiritual Beasts alike looked up in alarm. The world seemed to be celebrating the creation or birth of something, and it was likely a worldly treasure had just descended into the world.
Nobody would ever find what it was.
The tiny kit let out a sleepy yawn.