Hatsumi Masae quenched the large steel knife blank, wiped the sweat from her brow with a towel, and looked out at the waterfall bathed in the meager pre-dawn light. The darkness did little to drown the thundering drone echoing across the lake's surface.

Strangely, the loud din allowed for a simple transition into meditative introspection, and Masae let the peace settle over her for a time now that her current task was complete.

Addressing each stressor ‌and then doing her best to plan for what she could control and dismiss what she couldn't. As she'd done for more than a century.

She worried about her decision to hide her babies here, among these simple people. The lack of more than one exit made her ears itch whenever she allowed herself to think of it.

Should her family hear of her shame and come searching, it wouldn't be hard to find and trap her. And too many people knew of her giving birth as a fox to stop the spread of gossip. It would only take one of her kind hearing, before word would spread and for them to seek her out.

It wouldn't matter to them that she had no choice.

She clamped down on her growing anxiety, reassured herself of her contingency plans, and let her mind drift to the other stomach turning issue that now rested in her moderately sized dimensional vault.

She'd spent a significant portion of the 'reward' the baron had given her for helping quell a local Gnoll tribe on the True-Binding core and the purge tonic to free a slot for it. She suspected the widower had taken a liking to her and knew she needed help. Her companions had done all the real work, as she lay injured and insensible.

Masae had been in no position to refuse his generosity, and she had done her best to use the funds to the best effect.

The idea of having to use the core to bind her own children gave her bone aching chills, but she would use it if she had to. Because she would do anything to see her children live and it was the only thing she could afford that would extend the life of her daughters beyond the brief span of a fox.

There were a host of problems with the core. Not least of which being is that it took away their agency—their ability to move more than a few miles from the core holder until either she or her daughter were dead. Not without a lot of pain.

It also limited them to a fraction of her own power, and could drastically change the classes they would get, if they actually surpassed the intelligence threshold, to a short list that complemented her own path.

She shook her head firmly. No, she thought, I'll wait until the last reasonable moment before I go that route.

She waved the new blacksmithing apprentices, whose indentures she had bought before she came to this place, forward and said, "You two can finish this one. I'll start on the next. Be sure to use the ogre bone for the handle. I want to imbue it with increased durability."

Instead of returning to work she leaned against a support beam and continued her meditations as the sun peaked up over the distant edge of the island and painted the view in brilliant color.

Chess had been right. Once she made it past the undead and the unreasonably large spiders, it was an ideal place to hide away and raise her daughter's. The hazards of the tunnels juxtaposed with the safety of the surface lent themselves to her relative contentment.

Only the lack of more known exits made her uneasy.

The muskrats were more than welcoming. In fact, her skill as a smith, coupled with the materials she'd brought on Amber's recommendation, allowed for a relaxed position among them. Giving her most of each day to dedicate to her children.

It also allowed her to slowly acquire some of the rare animus the locals had access to through trade. Their pyth, rare furs, and beautiful spider silk rope and cloth were quickly filling any space in her vault she freed up from metal stock.

She'd even made good progress on her secondary goal. The one given to her by the delver's guild survey team in exchange for keeping her presence hidden and the extra raw metals to work. Namely, training the local tribe to make some basic metal items like nails, cookware, and small blades, at least to start.

The guild planned to have the muskrats make use of the iron and tin deposits that were found on the enormous snow-capped mountains floating above. The guild needed the industry to work so they could harvest the skystone that kept the monstrous islands afloat without damaging the delicate balance between the linked islands.

All that brought her to the fact that if the quill heads were right, she had another month, maybe two, before the first party should come through to trade and mine.

She figured if she had enough items ready and the bridge built to the higher mountain, she would make out like a pirate on her trades, and maybe find or afford a better place or means of hiding.

I should start on some mining picks soon.

Her mind went briefly to her tertiary goal. Namely, the exploration of the other islands in the area. One’s that the locals talked about, with other tribes living on them.

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Maybe that was a better option for hiding, she thought. The reason she dismissed it was her lack of knowledge of the rotations of the island. For all she knew, this island had the only exit, and she'd be stuck for a decade or more without outside contact.

She was not ‌looking forward to the raiding season, but she'd come prepared. She was only worried about her daughters. No matter how much she told herself that they should be safe with the Keeper of Memories on her island.

The thought of her daughters brought her attention back to where the two had escaped their tangle of blankets and now wrestled in the long grass outside. The smithy the delver’s had helped her construct only had the one wall taken up by the small forge she’d had them transport in for her.

It had been over two months since they had arrived here and the changes in her daughters were significant.

It won't be more than a few months before they have their awakenings, she fretted and hoped. I’ll use the core only if they don’t cross the intelligence threshold. She resolved. What’s one more crime against my people?

The thought made her snort.

She enjoyed watching her daughters play fight for a time. Soaking in the pleasure it gave her to see them healthy.

I really need to name them soon, she admonished herself. I don't think I'm going to lose them to some childhood illness now.

She'd been thinking of them as Greeny and Blacky in her head for weeks. Maybe I should keep it simple and use that.

“Are you well, mistress? Is it that time of the week?” Juiky asked, breaking her from her musings.

Masae turned to the human woman and smiled. “No. I’m well. I was just thinking it’s about time I gave my girls' proper names.”

Cay's broad shouldered form joined them. The pair seemed to perk up, smiled, and then nodded in near perfect unison.

"How about Sapphire or Emerald for greeny?" Juiky suggested. "And Kali or Onyx for Blacky?"

Cay laughed. "We're already referring to them as Greeny and Blacky. Why not just use that?"

"You're such a man." Juiky slapped Cay on the shoulder with the back of her hand, leaving a black stain on his brown tunic. "You can’t call them that! They need real names!"

Masae smiled at their antics. "I like the idea, but Juiky is right. It has to be more like a name. Maybe something in a different language that means the same?"

"Like what?"

"I'm not sure," Masae admitted.

She turned her attention to the girls in question. Like most early mornings, the pair had moved away from the smithy and now frolicked near the water's edge, fighting over a bone and wrestling with some of the younger muskrats children.

The sight brought a fond smile to her lips. Greeny had been playing less in the last month, leaving her sister to run or swim with older kids. Instead, she lazed about like a lapdog with the younger kids while they listened to their elders tell tales or teach basic skills or pestering Cay or Juiky for ear scratches. Pulling them from their work.

"I still think she's god touched," Juiky said, smiling and scratching Greeny's head when the lazy girl slunk away from the crowd and came over to sit on Juiky's feet.

"What did you say?" Masae turned to the girl.

"Just never seen a fox with green fur like this." She ran a hand through the tuft of bright green fur at the end of Greeny's tail.

"My tails are actual flames and you think her green tail is strange?" Masae almost laughed.

"That's different. You're a Kitsune. You said your daughters weren't yet, because they have no humanoid form, but they could be if they are smart enough. So that means they are just foxes. And this green is a mighty strange color for a fox," Juiky reasoned.

Masae sighed. "That's likely the influence of a natural animus or the inheritance she got from her father's body. She'll develop them slowly, like any other animal. Whatever it is, has also made her more heat resistant too. It's the same process that's giving Blacky a metallic luster to her fur. Which are both signs that they may have enough natural magic to break the intelligence threshold.

"Have you not noticed how Greeny will come in here and sit against the forge to sleep when it's colder and her sister keeps to the furs or comes to me instead?"

"Yes exactly, she's god touched," Juiky agreed.

Masae shook her head. "Inari protect me. I forgot you're only 16 and from a rural village. Remind me tomorrow, and we'll talk about the development of magical beasts. For now, you two should get back to work. That blade won't finish itself."

"Yes, mistress!" they chorused in unison and left her to her musings.

Masae shook her head again. I ‌need to decide on names.

She could still remember her conversation with Chess about Greeny.

"There is something wrong with this one," Chess had said while stroking her daughter's downy head. "I think she's broken. The silent crying is unsettling."

Masae remembered her own rebuttal. "She's not broken, maybe a little tarnished. We broke her body before she was born, but I don't think her spirit broke."

The memory of her certainty made her smile.

Maybe Tarnished would fit? She shook the idea off. It wasn't right.

Chess had called Blacky 'little sphinx' for her habit of laying prim and proper, paws forward and head held high, like how the majestic creatures often slept on the peak of a mountain.

Sphinxes were powerful, but again it didn't feel quite right.

Something in Inari's tongue might be best. She nodded firmly.

She thought for a time before making her picks.

For Blacky, she decided on Akaya for her shiny black belly and copper fur.

And her lazy green vegetable she'd call Natsuki.

With the choice made and her current blade done, she stepped into her vault and retrieved some meat to process for her daughters’ breakfasts. She noted with a relieved smile that the container now sat near empty. That, at least, was one thing she wouldn't have to worry about soon.

With a sweep of her flaming tails, she banked the coals in the furnace and set a new bar to heating, before portioning the meat.