"I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other."

-Napoleon Bonaparte

*****

"Why would I want... your tail?" Nero asked, confused about the direction of the conversation.

"Because it's so soft and fluffy, the best tail in the whole world." The fox responded before realizing what it had said. "But it's mine, so you can't have it."

"Relax, I'm not after your tail," Nero brought his hands in front of him in a pacifying motion, trying to show he was no threat.

"Really? M'kay," the fox accepted Nero's words readily and released its tension right away. It sat down and started scratching its ears idly. Nero was surprised with the quick acceptance but wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth at the moment. "So, whatcha you doing here?"

"Mostly hunting and leveling up," Nero said, taking a moment to get a good look at the new arrival. Like the other foxes he had hunted that day, it was a red fox. It was the largest and most common breed of foxes in the real world, though Nero didn't know if that remained true in Gods' Nature. This one was on the small size, even smaller than the one that had been his dinner that Jorry had killed by himself. "What are you doing then?"

"AH! That's right!" The animal stopped scratching itself and immediately dashed for the rabbit it had dropped upon noticing Nero. "Phew," it sighed in relief as it picked up the carcass with its surprisingly nimble tail. It then turned a suspicious back to Kaesar. "So ya after the rabbit then, but it's mine too."

"I'm really not," Nero smiled wryly. "I already ate."

"Good!" The fox nodded imperiously and relaxed its wariness once again. By the way, it accepted his words so quickly, Nero was starting to think it was a bit naive. "My rabbit's super rare, it took me a whole day to find it."

"That's impressive," Nero flattered, to the fox's obvious delight as it sent its tail waving in the air behind it in joy. He sat down on a nearby rock; this conversation could take a while. "So you live around here? How old are you?"

"Don't know," the beast said casually as it laid down on the ground, all fear was forgotten as it set its prey in front of it and started to devour it. Nero wasn't put off by the bloody sight as he would have been a few months ago. "I was born here a while ago."

"Were the leaves on the trees green when you were born?" Nero gestured to the trees behind him, trying to get a frame of reference for the animal's age. It looked young, but most foxes were born in the spring and usually in groups, so it was possible it was just small and had chased the rest of its nestmates away.

"Green?" Oh, right. Foxes were canines and only had dichromatic eyesight, they couldn't tell green from red and orange.

"Nevermind," Nero changed the subject. "Were you alone this whole time?"

"Nah," the animal said, idly chewing on the rabbit's liver. "There were others, but they died. Don't know where they went."

"You don't seem sad about it?"

"It's because they weren't awesome enough," the fox answered proudly. "If they were as awesome as me, they wouldn't have been killed. I'll never die!"

"Someday you will," Nero said a plan coming to his mind.

"Nuh uh!" The fox denied.

"It's true, no matter how awesome you are someday you'll die," Nero explained. "It could be old age or being killed, but everybody dies."

"Not me!" The fox shouted harshly, for once its easy-going mood replaced by seriousness. "I'm too awesome! If anybody tries, I'll kill 'em and eat 'em. Nobody is gonna kill me and take my tail." That was an oddly specific example, Nero thought. Likely its litter had been skinned, and the fox had seen it causing it to develop some sort of trauma.

"There's nothing you can do about it," Nero shrugged casually as he reached into his bag. This was a risky move since he was trying to recruit the fox, but it could pay off. He withdrew the skin and jerky of the fox he had for dinner. "This guy was bigger than you, likely stronger than you," Nero said, showing off the size of the pelt. "I killed him easily."

"So?" The fox asked, not looking at Nero and, instead, looking off to the side petulantly. Nero internally sighed in relief, he had taken a gamble that it wouldn't take offense to the killing others of its species. He had figured that comradery between the same species wasn't strong in monsters, but he hadn't been sure.

"Two days ago, I too was killed easily," Nero admitted. The beast looked to him in surprise, its head tilted to the side in confusion. Noticing he had its attention, Nero did what everybody else would do. He tried to convince the child to follow him away from home. "You know what I did?"

"What?"

"I came back, and I killed everything which tried to kill me." Strictly speaking, this was not true, Claudia had killed those who had murdered him, but Nero wasn't going to explain the semantics. "That's how I know I'm awesome," it felt a bit embarrassing saying it like that, but when in Rome. "Being awesome doesn't mean not dying, it means continually getting back up and coming back stronger than ever. If somebody takes your tail, you come back and kill them twice over to prove your point."

The fox didn't say anything for a few moments as it thought about what he had said. Strictly speaking, something like that was only possible in Gods' Nature because death wasn't, but Nero was counting on the idea of permanent death being foreign enough to the fox that it would think over that point. He was saying all this on the assumption that it wasn't death that really scared the fox, but the trauma of seeing others in its litter being murdered and skinned and fearing that outcome. The question was whether it was the pain of death it feared or the humiliation that came from being killed. Nero suspected the later based on its fear of losing its tail.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"I'm not the only one either," Nero said, pulling the dozing snake from where he had been sleeping wrapped around Nero's arm. Its ability to fall asleep was awe-inspiring. "This is Jorry."

"Huh, wassit? Enemy?" The serpent mumbled before slithering down Nero's arm and into his warm jacket.

"He was like you," the fox looked at him confused. "Well, a bit like you. He was weak, no skill or power. Jorry was living in a small area, and every day he would be killed and eaten. He would revive the next day, only to be killed and eaten once more." The fox recoiled in revulsion at the idea. "So you know what we did?"

"What?" It asked, getting caught up in the story.

"We went hunting, the bird that had killed him was too strong for Jorry, so he needed to get stronger. After a while, when he was stronger, I brought him back to where he died. There, he ambushed the bird, trapped it and strangled it to death."

"Wow," the fox said softly.

"If you want," Nero said softly as his chance was presented. "You can come with me."

"Huh?" It asked confused.

"I have a skill that allows us to get stronger together," he explained. "If you follow Jorry and me, we can all get so strong that nothing will be able to hurt us." While that was Jorry's goal, Nero was mainly here to enjoy his vacation, and for that, he needed strength as well. Seeing the fox remain silent, Nero pressed his advantage. "I'm not going to lie, there will be times where we die, and it will be painful. As long as we keep coming back stronger though, there will come a day where nothing can kill us."

The fox remained silent, not looking at Nero but staring behind him into the trees where it made its den. Nero had presented the carrot, now for the stick.

"Or you could stay here," he said, standing up from his seat and towering over the fox. "You might go a while without dying, maybe even years. But all it would take is one strong monster or person deciding they liked the area and then you would have nowhere to go. You would die over and over again." The creature flinched at his words but finally looked at him. "Maybe you would be eaten, maybe skinned. Your pelt and tail sold and used to make clothes or something."

"I'll do it!" The fox said suddenly, its voice a soft growl.

"Hm?"

"I said, I'll do it!" It repeated, stronger this time. "I'll follow you, but you gotta promise me something."

"Depends on what you ask."

"Anything that kills me, anything that kills us, we have to destroy them!" It said forcefully as if to make sure Nero would agree.

"Sure," Kaesar agreed readily, more than likely he would have to do that anyway with how petty Jorry could be.

"All right then, I'll follow you," the fox agreed, and Nero was rewarded with a message.

**The Nest (3) - "To grow strong does not mean to grow solitary."

Allows for the recruitment of NPCs into The Nest. NPCs in the Nest receive stat boosts while fighting with other nestmates. Upon death, NPCs will revive around the player. NPCs disappear upon logging off and reappear upon login. Synergistic skills can only be used with other nestmates.

Current Number of Nestmates Allowed: 3

Current Number of Nestmates: 3

Nestmates: 'Jorry' (Gardner Snake), Red Fox

Stat boost to Nestmates: 0.03%**

"Woah," the fox said, likely getting the information about 'The Nest,' like Jorry had. "So this is what you meant. Are you going to recruit a bunch of others to increase this skill?"

"No, if there were too many of us it would make leveling more difficult. For now, the three of us are it. I look forward to fighting with you." Nero explained politely. "Do you have anything you want to bring with us or are you fine setting out right now?"

"I'm good to go, just let me finish my rabbit." The half-eaten animal had been temporarily forgotten in the conversation.

"Sure, go ahead." Nero was in a good mood, he had recruited another animal into the nest, one with enough desirable traits to last him months at least. By then Assimilation would probably have leveled up enough to allow him to get the last few traits he wanted from Jorry, further postponing his need to recruit anybody else.

Did Nero feel wrong about emotionally manipulating a child into following him into danger and adventure? Not really, for two reasons. The first was that nothing he had said was wrong if the fox didn't support him it was mostly waiting to die, there was no reason they couldn't both get what they wanted. Nero got a bunch of desirable traits, and the fox got a way to get stronger. The second reason was that Nero didn't think he had forced the fox into anything, it had made a choice on its own in the end.

"So what's your name?" Nero asked as the fox ate.

"Don't got one," it answered quickly.

"Huh, do you want one?"

"Sure," it seemed intrigued by the idea, its tail waving in excitement. "But its got to be as awesome as me." At least its bravado had recovered.

"Let's see," Nero gave it a few moments of thought before deciding to name it after a mythological figure. His study of culture helped him here, dozens of names rushing to mind. Foxes were usually portrayed as trickster characters, mischievous and sometimes malevolent. First things first though, was it a male or female? Nero didn't see any testicles, so it was probably female, though Nero was no expert on canine sexual characteristics in Gods' Nature. That narrowed it down a bit. "How about Kuma Lisa? She's a famous trickster fox where I come from that often outsmarts her opponent."

"Nah, the name sounds boring."

"Ninhursag? She was one of the oldest fertility goddesses. She ruled over mountains and was one of the principal deities in ancient Sumerian myth.

"Too complicated."

"Maybe something from eastern legends then," Nero gave it a few moments of thought. There was the Kimiho of Korean myth and the Kitsune of Japanese fame, and the ones they had been based on, the Huli Jing from China. "Come to think of it, most of the eastern fox myths are nine-tailed foxes."

"Nine-tails!?" The fox looked at Nero in shock, as if the thought was utterly foreign to her. She then looked towards her own tail which was waiving in excitement. "So much fluff," she said in a daze.

"All right, I'll just throw out a bunch of names, you choose one you like."

"Go ahead."

"Daji, Kayou, Xi Wangmu, Inari, Huxian, Tamamo," Nero listed. There were surprisingly few named Kimiho as they were usually depicted there as monsters who ate men's liver.

"Whose Inari?" The fox asked.

"A fertility god that could be either male or female, it rules over foxes, rice, agriculture."

"Nah, how about Tamamo?"

"She was another nine-tailed fox, perhaps the most famous one. Sometimes legends say she was also Daji and Kayou before she became Tamamo, but that is mostly cultural appropriation. She was a courtesan and, when discovered, supposedly killed tens of thousands of people who chased her. After she was finally killed, she turned into a stone that would kill anybody who got near it."

"I like her, Tamamo it is."

"It's nice to meet you Tamamo," he should have started with that one, looking back on it. This fox seemed to be enthralled by the idea of killing and revenge.

"But what's a courtesan?"

"I'll tell you some other time, we should be going if you are done." Nero had no desire to get into sexual dynamics and court politics at the moment.

"M'kay." Tamamo agreed readily, leaving the bloody and messy carcass that had been her meal behind.

Perhaps had Nero answered Tamamo's question he would have saved himself a major headache in the future. As it is, his sisters would be the ones to do it, year in the future. Much to their amusement and his consternation.

****