Somewhere deep in the southern forest, creeping among the gnarled roots of trees poking through soil damp with the morning dew, a fox yawned.

Elsewhere, sitting alongside a slow stream of clear water flowing through one of the innumerable Heavens of the Celestials, another fox yawned, this one covering her gaping muzzle with a hand sporting a brightly colored quill modeled of a peafowl’s feather balanced between her long fingers. She watched her four-legged counterpart turn and yip at the base of the tree trunk until a small kit poked its head into the light, eventually following its mother.

Sofi, one of the Fox Spirits assigned as guardians of the forest, frowned as she made a note on her report. A single kit in the wild would be understandable in normal circumstances, but she saw the sole young one as another piece to a puzzle she didn’t quite understand yet. The foxes weren’t the only shrinking family she had noticed. She tapped a finger on the water’s surface, the ripples sweeping away her view, and she started to trace a circle for another vantage point.

Her nose twitched before she could finish, and she turned to see one of her sisters heading her way. It was the word all foxes called each other, leftover from the years they had all spent scattered among the Heavens in service of the Celestial Overseers. “Falin,” she called and raised a hand in greeting, “what brings you all the way out here?”

Falin pointed back the way she had come towards a white structure, the only building in sight, that sat atop a hill in the distance. “Shaxi wants a word with you. She said she’s missing your report from yesterday.”

Sofi nodded and placed her pen on her half-filled page. “I’ve been watching the southeast mostly. It’s been quiet so far, no predations yet, not even that many animals walking around.” Which was another clue to the puzzle, she thought. Something was going on that she didn’t quite see yet. She picked up a scroll at her side, rolled up and bound tight with string, and got to her feet.

“So,” Falin said slowly, her eyes fixed on the scroll, “did you forget to turn in your report yesterday, or did you forget to turn in your report?”

“Whichever one of those is the intentional one,” she answered with a smile, and she brushed a few blades of grass from her silk skirt. “Shaxi’s been getting harder and harder to talk to lately.”

Her sister nodded and waved Sofi on her way.

As far as the Heavens went, Sofi would readily admit theirs was one of the nicer ones that she had seen. She was certainly biased after a few centuries, but something about the way her feet sank into the ever cool grass just felt like home to her. Every step tempted her to sink her toe claws into the loose soil to brace herself and then just go, just spring forward and run, dart about like the feral creatures bearing the fox name they shared with her and her sisters.

She breathed in the clean air, and even that seemed to energize her as it spread through her body like a crisp swallow of water in a parched throat. Their heaven may have been the newest realm granted by the Grand Dragon to a group of spirits, but she hoped whatever magic might still linger about the place would never fade away. She recalled the earliest days alone with her sisters, free to race and run for the first time in all Creation without any other of the Celestial Overseers to look down on them or snap at them to get back to work.

Ratta the Serpent, Jungshin the Elephant Lord, a dozen others, none of them had shown much patience after she had been hired onto their staff. Most of them never allowed more than one Fox Spirit into the heaven granted for them at all. Jealous old codgers. Just because she was too fast for their liking. All of the sisters had similar stories, she knew.

And whenever their new home might have gotten too boring, the small slice of Earth they were assigned to watch over was perfect for them: a beautiful forest with meadows full of tall grass for loping, trees with thick trunks for hiding and long branches for climbing, creeks for swimming, beasts for chasing or playing, and a sky full of stars to sleep under whenever the soft golden light of the Heavens grew a bit too ubiquitous.

Sofi looked up and saw two of her sisters at the side of the path. Zoza and Zizu, the twins only discernible with the former having black stripes running the length of her tail, and the latter with hers ringed with black instead. They were both sitting with a pair of unfurled scrolls between them, and Sofi could practically hear their conversation before she came within eavesdropping range. They were comparing notes on the humans that had settled in their forest, or counting the number of deer that had run by on their latest peek into things, or comments on how deep the creek water was these days, or any number of things their mistress--their sister, she reminded herself--wanted them to keep track of.

She was ten paces past them when she heard, “Good morning, Sofi.” She didn’t respond. The words rang foul in her ears. Maybe it was because of her reminiscing. Any fox that walked blissfully unaware past another in the old days was just begging to have her tail twisted, her ear nipped, maybe tripped and pinned down by a laughing sister. Not a tame Good morning. Something that would teach them all to stay on their toes.

Yet here she was absolutely no better with a scroll of her own tucked under her arm and trudging up to the modest home atop the hill to report to her mistress. Sister. Whatever. To report to Shaxi, the great nine-tailed fox appointed to oversee both the forest and her fellow foxes. Sofi begrudged her sister neither the promotion nor the transformation granted to her--Shaxi had been one of the few foxes to have never been fired by one of the Celestial Overseers before becoming one herself--but Sofi did wish sometimes that they had a more respectable palace to call their own.

She knew Shaxi wouldn’t have the resources to build the kind of sprawling estates of the older realms, but her wish for comfort and functionality never seemed to impress what visitors the foxes ever received. The structure was simple wood painted a simple, plain white, and the only true artistic flourish was the reflective dome of glass in lieu of a simple roof. Even that was only because Shaxi preferred the natural light for reading in her study though.

Sofi placed a hand to slide the entrance open, but an unusual scent filtered through her nose. It was sharp and foul and so thick that it seemed to coat her tongue and twist her stomach in knots with the thought of rotten eggs, but also so hot that it seared her nostrils. She cursed to herself, instantly regretting the failure to hold her breath as she braced herself for the imminent pleasantries a guest to their realm required. Turning her head to suck in one final breath of cleaner air, she entered the chamber.

A towering figure waited inside, the blackened skin of his torso bare of anything save hardened muscle. A full three heads taller than her by her guess, his own head was crowned with a running flame down his long neck to the shoulder blades. The air hissed as the figure turned its long, horse-like face and watched her with the corner of one of his enormous pale eyes.

But she also saw the glint of gold around his neck as he turned, and she recognized the pendant hanging under his throat, the five claws of the dragon splayed wide as if to warn off any attack coming towards the bearer. Sofi straightened herself to stand as tall as she could and forced herself to look right into the gaunt, skeletal face studying her. She raised a fist to her chest level and clasped it with her other hand, offering a short bow. “Welcome, honored guest. I am Sofi, a guardian spirit of the Southern Forest. What assistance can I offer you?”

He bared his blunted teeth and snorted a jet of black smoke.

Sofi bristled as he turned away, but held her tongue in check. It was never wise to taunt a War Horse under the best circumstances, much less when they were on business from one of their masters. She knew from experience that the fire burning inside of them extended to every part of their body. Once, she had been “escorted” out of a former employer’s palace, and her arms had burned where the guards had grabbed her, choking her with the scent of her singed fur as if the pain hadn’t been enough.

Which begged the question of why a thug like that had been sent directly to Shaxi. Sofi refused to give him the satisfaction of cowering away in the foxes’ own heaven and stubbornly stood next to him--and his burning stench--as she looked to her sister for answers.

Shaxi was easy to spot inside her home, but she could be tricky to find. Her tails bustled about the room to smooth out wrinkled pages atop one of the many desks, or were pulling books away the shelves that rose from the floor to the ceiling, and Sofi spotted at least two of the nine had their tips dipped in ink and were furiously scribbling away at their own workstations.

But there was one of their number that was rooted to the ground like a tree amidst the chaos, bent over itself to support its burden a bit more easily than relying on the bare tip, and like a tree it bent to and fro as the veritable whirlwind swirled around it, but it never quite moved like the others. Sofi traced that tail up from the floor, and as she did so, the tail itself stretched out and lifted Shaxi high above the fray.

She glittered like silver in the rays of light the glass dome allowed in, the white sheen of her coat interrupted only by the skirt and sash she wore, both of them the bright green of early spring. Her body was no larger than any of their sisters’ except for the curious properties of her tails, and she crossed her legs to sit in midair as she flipped through the book in her hands while they grew, shrank, and whipped about underneath her.

At some unspoken signal she was whisked away to the other side of the room where she pulled out a second volume. Mumbling something aloud to herself, Shaxi rifled through her new find until her head cocked to the side as she glanced between the two. Finally, her nose twitched. She sniffed around a moment before looking down to the door. “Sofi! I didn’t hear you come in.”

Mindful of the witness at her side, Sofi bowed low before she stepped forward to present the scroll with both hands. “Mistress, I have the report you requested.” One of the tails shot to her side and snapped itself like a whip to spread its hairs wide, ready to accept her offering. She froze, fighting to keep a frown away from her face before looking up to her sister, already focused on her books again. “Mistress, if I may, there are some points I would draw your attention to--”

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“Wait your turn, fox!” The air crackled with an angry hiss at the horse’s voice. “I came to ask a simple question, and I won’t waste any time waiting for your worthless points!”

The report in her hands crackled similarly as Sofi clenched her fists. She forced herself to take a breath before turning around. “My mistress asked me to deliver this report, and so I am--”

“I don’t care! My master demands an answer, and so do I!”

Sofi gasped, the hot air emitted from his shout washing over her. “You demand? You demand?” Her lip raised over her canines, and she moved to take a step towards him.

Shaxi dropped between the two of them, one of her hands hidden from the horse’s view waving a frantic no to Sofi. To him, she said, “Your master will get his answer when I have an answer to give him. You may leave now. If standing around here is a waste of your time, I’m sure your master’s garden is missing its best statue.”

The horse glowered down at her and then shot Sofi a glare as a tiny snort of laughter escaped her. He gripped the dragon claws at his throat, muttering the words to open a portal behind him. Sofi caught a glimpse of a realm she did not immediately recognize full of dull gray stone before he stepped through and was gone.

Shaxi wilted before Sofi’s eyes, her ears sinking flat to her head as she shrunk into herself with a long sigh. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Of course you should have! You’re an Overseer. He had no right to take that tone in front of you. You should’ve threatened to flay him alive.”

“Need I remind you that we haven’t been able to recruit a single War Horse to our realm? Not even a rat or a serpent to just help us keep an eye on things? We need friends, not enemies.”

Sofi opened her mouth to respond, but Shaxi’s hand rising to rub at her temple squashed the argument. She reached out to her sister and lay a hand on her shoulder. “What happened? Who does he serve anyway?”

“No one important enough to worry about. That’s got to be the first time someone sent their muscle to try and intimidate me just to ask about how much rainfall our forest gets each year.” She laughed, just once and nothing but a short bark, but she laughed all the same, and that seemed to bring her back to herself. She turned with a bright smile on her muzzle and patted Sofi’s hand in thanks.

She returned the smile with a touch of relief to see Shaxi back to some normalcy. “We’ve been watching the forest for hundreds of years, and the other Overseers still give you pop quizzes like that? Is that what made you work so hard?”

“Human dynasties have lasted longer than we’ve been keeping our watch, you know,” Shaxi said with a playful wag of her finger, walking back towards her waiting desks and papers. “I just want to make sure we earn our keep. Speaking of which, you said you wanted to talk about your report?”

She passed the scroll over and turned to follow. It always amazed Sofi how spacious the study could look in these moments of calm, when Shaxi kept her tails tight at a usual length so they trailed behind her like a gown rather than whipping about. The tall shelves were the most elaborate decoration Shaxi would allow, but Sofi was pleased to see a pair of tapestries hanging between some of them.

Their sister Falin had brought them back as thanks from another Overseer for a job well done. One of them depicted a forest, and the tall trees that ran up and down the entire length of it were divided into the seasons. Bright spring filled the canopy, the lush, full green of summer took the lower branches, and leaves of orange and brown fell to the forest floor where the fresh snow of winter covered the roots.

The second was simpler, but no less poignant. The Earth was at the center with its green lands and blue waters, surrounded by the evening sky filled with stars, which was in turn enveloped by the golden light of the heavens. And surrounding that, the edge of the entire work, was the white form of the Exalted Dragon, the progenitor of Creation, biting its own tail to encircle everything within its coil. Sofi had never seen or spoken to it. Other than the Grand Dragon, she wasn’t sure who ever had.

It had taken nearly every single fox in their Heaven to convince Shaxi to hang the tapestries in her study rather than squirreling them away somewhere. It wasn’t until one of them pointed out that the Overseers would be insulted if their gifts weren’t respected that she finally relented. But other than them, the only other items in the study Sofi could see were the occasional lamp or desks. An opulent palace dedicated to the glory of Shaxi, Goddess Fox of the Nine Tails it was not. Perhaps to their detriment.

Shaxi opened the scroll, and Sofi braced herself, watching as her sister read it, frowned, flipped it over to its blank back, and met her gaze. “Sofi, what is this? Where’s the rest of it?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

“Prayers? You spent the whole day yesterday listening to the humans’ prayers?”

“I think you should listen to what they have to say. They want--”

“They always want something! They’re humans!” She slammed the scroll down on a nearby table, and a gust of power scattered some loose pages, even made Sofi flinch back. Shaxi took a breath to compose herself and continued, “The forest is bigger than them, Sofi. There’s more life, more death under the leaves than in their village. You know that.”

She swallowed. “Shasha, please just listen--”

“Don’t ‘Shasha’ me over this! This is exactly what I’m worried about!” Shaxi stormed over to another table to grab a page. She stormed over herself rather than sending one of her tails to fetch it. Sofi meekly folded her hands together and waited for her to return, unsure what to make of that sign.

“Look at this,” she said as she thrust the paper towards her. “This is from Juna yesterday. See the fifth line, the one about the young squirrel getting snatched by a falcon? It turns out the soul in that squirrel’s body had two previous lives in our forest, both ended before their first year was done. And do you know why?”

Sofi lowered her eyes and waited for the answer, but none came until she shook her head.

“Because the last time that soul had been human he murdered six people in the Imperial City! What if that slipped through the cracks? What if we passed that soul into the Wheel of Life and it reincarnated as human again before it was cleansed of that wickedness? You can’t just guess at these things! We need to know what happens in our forest! What would you have recommended for that soul, Sofi? What would you have told Inquisitor Rachne as he spun the web of fate?”

Her cheeks burned, and it was impossible to look anywhere but at the page. Sofi breathed in. Out. Shaxi’s glare still burned into her, and another of her questions needed an answer. She had expected disappointment in her report, but never thought that Shaxi would treat her with more anger than an insulting guest. Sofi managed a weak wave to where the War Horse had stood just minutes before. “M-make the soul a horse so it would learn what it’s like to serve another human?”

The anger she could nearly sense pulsing against her died in an instant, but she still couldn’t look up. Gently, she felt the page tugged out of her hand and watched it fall to the floor. Shaxi stepped towards her and wrapped her arms around Sofi’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, sister. Forgive me. It’s just that... the Grand Dragon thinks in millenia. Why he gave us this home, we’re still in the first step of his plan. Whatever it is. I don’t want him to take it away from us.”

“That’s never happened, Shasha.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s never going to happen.”

“It’s never going to happen because we’re going to know everything that happens in our forest.” She waited for a heartbeat, and she pressed her luck. “That includes the humans. Will you listen to what I’ve found?”

A sigh, and a nod. “Of course. If you think it’s this important, I’ll listen.”

“Okay. Thank you.” Sofi pulled away from her embrace and smoothed out her wrinkled report. “Well, you’re right that the humans ask for a lot. Good harvest, safe travels through the trees, I know we always hear that. But things seem different now.” She frowned as she read the words written in her script. Nervous. Beasts. A woman crying. She remembered hearing the voices speaking to her. They had been raised in Shaxi’s name, but still raised in the hope that someone might hear and listen to them. She really thought just scribbling a few words down would have made the same impact? “They just... they sound desperate.”

She glanced to the side and saw Shaxi studying the page with her, her face unreadable. “I think you should listen in for yourself. This man, right here,” she said, tracing a claw under a line. “He prayed to bring home a deer for his family to eat for over a week. But now he’s just asking for a rabbit. His wife made the same plea, I think after he left to start hunting. They aren’t the only ones. Somethings happening down there. Maybe I should have checked the wilds around the village instead of just the village, but I think all the game has fled.”

Shaxi said nothing. Eyes dancing across the page one more time, Sofi tried to find some clue in her writing she might have overlooked. “I don’t get it. The forest is big, but this isn’t the season for migration. Could we check all the reports to get a count of how many deer are there, and where they are? We might even need to send one or two of us to sniff around the village itself and see what we can find. What do you think?”

Sofi turned to see a silver tail upright and alert at her side. A tail. Just a tail. Shaxi had her back turned to her. Not just that, but she was up in the air again, at least six shelves high.

But she had left her tail in her place.

Sofi grabbed it, hissing as a serpent coiling around its prey, and twisted it around and around into a tight knot, yanking the end to finish it off with every muscle she had.

Yelping in pain, Shaxi fell to the floor, and her wounded tail snapped back to her side. She sucked on the knot for a moment, her eyes clenched as she let out a sharp groan, before nipping at Sofi’s work to pull it loose. “That was uncalled for.”

“I didn’t come here to talk to your tail, Shaxi!”

A burst of light from one of the lamps interrupted them. It’s golden glow waxed and waned before their eyes in an unsteady rhythm. Shaxi snorted and thrust a finger towards it. “There you go, another prayer coming in right now. Grab a pen and inscribe it for me. Don’t summarize it! Don’t give me one or two words! Tell me exactly what that human wants if you care so much.”

Stung, Sofi swallowed and drained her voice of as much emotion as she could. “Yes, mistress.”

Shaxi winced, but she still turned away without another word.

Venting her anger through clenched teeth, Sofi marched for the lamp. Each step shook something inside of her, her mind a sieve as her frustration, disappointment, even her certainty that something was going wrong sifted through it. Shaxi wasn’t going to listen. She would have to take matters into her own hands.

And there it was, the jewel left over after all the debris had been sorted through. There was no hesitation, no permission, not even the desire to ask for it. She snatched the lamp and screamed the words to open a portal to Earth. It opened before her eyes, but instead of seeing the petitioner on the other side, the magic must have been jumbled with the emotions swirling within her. All she saw were the treetops of their forest, perhaps several body lengths away.

“What are you--Sofi, wait!”

She stepped through, her stomach twisting in knots as the portal shifted her bearings to send her tumbling down to the leaves below.