This time, she didn't shoot back to the stars and their endless beauty. There was something… intriguing about the planet beneath her, how conceptually dense it was. Something in the way it seemed so central to the workings of the universe.

It pondered a decision in the space between seconds, and decided to stay.

Now… to not explode things. Tightly wrapping her nature around itself, she gently flickered through the atmosphere as little more than a spark of flame dancing in the wind, carefully watching the permutations of patterns below- and there were so many. The entire surface of the world teemed with incredibly complex cycles, eternal to the atomic level yet so intrinsically transient. A standing wave, etched into the finest art.

She wanted it, to be part of it as she flickered through the light-absorbing, bushy topped pillars and fleeting shapes which breathed, lived, died. There- on the ground, nestled between a gnarled network of capillaries and microscopic self replicating fabricators, bound to a cohesive whole, there was one of the other kind. Quadruped, single fluffy brush-like structure, onyx orbs that swam in the dim light. Color like flame, a shockingly orange pelt and a splash of white on its paws, gracing the tip of its tails.

It felt like a spark, resonating with her as right. It was a form that just made sense.

She felt- wanted, herself- her form. The fire. The roiling, shifting flame whose very nature was annihilation, laced through the underpinnings of the universe and monumental without. She made a decision, fire decided- she was a fox, and a fox was fire.

Two foxes stood next to one another, exactly identical but for the faint wisps of flame that coiled beneath the second's fur. A long moment passed as they stared at one another, fire in demure certainty at its decision, fox in baffled confusion and a bit of trepidation. Carefully, timidly, the fox reached up a paw- and batted fire in the face.

Seconds passed slowly as she stared back with a stoic gaze before carefully reaching out and bopping the fox back. Same speed, identical motions, as little energy as she could possibly put into it. She didn't really understand why the fox went flying back into the wall of its den. She tilted her head in confusion- maybe it did that on purpose? The terrified yip and mad scramble to run away was probably proof. If it could move, then it could definitely move backwards. She certainly didn't do it!

Somehow, this was not convincing, even to her.

She wandered around a bit, messing around with her shiny new form as she romped through forest glade and open plains. More legs? Uncomfortable in the extreme. Eyes… well, more eyes were fine. Certainly made it easier to see, but it could get pretty irritating as her eyesight got fogged up by all the dust settling on her back, and even worse when the eyes on her paws only saw the ground beneath them. Her fur was less pretty, too- and that was something she guarded jealously. The orange was perfect and she refused to adopt any other color, but she did change the white around her paws to a more pleasant ruddy black.

There was a pleasantness to the homeostasis, a serenity to watching a burned forest sprout flowers and trees as it reached to old growth and the ancient magnificence of gnarled trunks and cool shade. A pleasantness to just… sitting still, watching lichens to moss to dirt to a dizzying array of life, solar cycles whirling away in the firmament above as the sun’s fire soaked the earth with its life-giving splendor.

So, it came as a complete shock when one of the strange, structure building creatures stumbled up to her with an expression of pure triumph on their face, beaming as if they’d just seen all the prettiest patterns. “I found you! At last…”

It would have probably had a bit more of an impact if she’d taken the time to learn language.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

………

There is something to be said about finally fulfilling a goal after so many years, long eternities spent searching- terrible hells where everything she’d built could be ripped away in a moment and reduced to a reputation of madness, the splendor of knowing each and every moment could lead to something unique and marvelous. Of knowing, at last, she’d managed to find the beyond description which had ever haunted her dreams.

Kiyo was speechless at the moment, though, so if there was anything to say, she didn’t say it. Instead, she just looked at the stately vulpine creature, more fine than any mortal fox ever could be as it sat vigil over mossy rocks’ plain. Its solemn eyes, burning-

More than that, etched into her very perception of the world so deeply that it convinced her, fully and completely, was the sensation that the fox was more real than anything around her. There was a sense of immutability to the vixen that she realized she hadn’t felt since that fateful ritual so long ago.

A laugh escaped her as she picked her way neatly across the stones until she stood beside the fox with a sensation that she was decidedly inadequate against its infinity. “I found you! At last…” She waited for a response, seconds to minutes before she tentatively spoke again. “Uh… fox… lord fox? Lord fire?” A frown etched over her face as a response resolutely failed to manifest itself. “Lady fox? Lady fire? No… maybe fire? Are you even listening?”

The fox wasn’t, in fact, listening, so Kiyo contented herself by sitting on the stone in front of it and just… observing it, watching the chaotic order to the flames that shifted just out of phase with its mortal coil, watching the way its fur rippled in the wind and its tails twitched every few hours. Every so often she called out a name, moved around, and essentially did everything short of kicking the fox to get its attention. No need to attack something that could so obviously destroy her.

“...maybe, Flame-who-watches-the-sunrises? The stars…” no, that was wrong. She blinked in realization- there was nothing that had prompted such a strangely visceral response since she’d been shunted out of time. An innate sense that only grew stronger the more she stared into those captivating, inferno eyes. “Are you Fire?”

The fox glanced up.

Their eyes met.

In its gaze, Kiyo saw something ancient beyond measure. Something not bound to time, not bound to reality- beyond the sea of branches she could see on the edge of her existence, beyond the membrane that held the indescribability out.

An existence, if it could even be described as such, a fundamental law shaped into the thing that looked into her gaze so dark and deep with its twin orbs like shimmering coals. A pressure tickled at the edge of her soul, the one thing that had never been reachable by anyone, and she started to hyperventilate just a bit at the threat she’d put herself in front of. She’d felt the vagaries of its twisting dances beyond the borders of sanity- “Hi! Oh… who are you? You don’t feel like the sibling-concept-comrade-things from-” a concept flickered at the edge of her mind along with a flash of intense pain, translating roughly as white space. She knew that if she grasped onto it she’d go irreparably mad for real. “...You feel like a pattern!”

There was a sound a little like a gasp, and Kiyo was suddenly aware she was laying sprawled on the ground, fox-deity gently nuzzling her in concern- something her temporal senses hadn’t managed to predict. She shivered for a second… so the being which she’d been terrified for so long was actually whatever counted for the eldritch version of a kid.

What the actual-

Right. Drawing a shuddering breath on the edge of hysteria, she pushed herself to her feet and, on an impulse, set the fox on her shoulders. Time to help raise the very concept of fire and hope she’d remembered to pack her sanity when she’d first left on this whole adventure.

She didn’t check her bag- somehow, she wasn’t very hopeful that she’d make good mother material…