Humans often believed that spirits had too much of an advantage of mere mortals. That day, as Kuro bounded back up the mountain with his tongue lagging out the side of his muzzle and his belly heaving in breath, Kuro wished that was true. Maybe then he could spare a moment to catch his breath.

Ren and Yumi might have had stubby little human legs ill-equipped to handle snowdrifts, but they didn’t need to handle them. All they had to do was follow in the furrow that Kuro’s much larger body made. His paws crushed through the top layer of snow, sinking up to his elbows, and then his belly.

Too many times, Ren got so close to him that he reached to grab Kuro’s tails. Then, the only obstacle he could throw at them was to gather his hindquarters beneath him and leap over a yard of snow. That gave him a few more yards of relief, even as Ren seemed to have become more than semi-divine and ploughed through the banks with all the power of a god.

Still, even though their proximity and Ren’s promise of punishment sent terror racing up Kuro’s spine, their closeness comforted him. They could keep up, even as Yumi swore about the cold and the wind whipping their cloaks and the blizzard blinding them in thick curtains of white. They were human, used to only seeing, not hearing the approach of others or smelling the dirt and dead vegetation buried beneath the snow.

Then, they stopped catching up to him, even though Kuro broke the entire path for them. Yumi stopped swearing. Ren breathed harder. They lagged out of hearing range. He only knew they were still there as the wind carried their scents to him.

Kuro stopped and lifted his ears in their direction, waiting until the sound of their crunching boots came from only a few yards away. Waited until they spotted his black form through the snow. He bounded away, making sure not to leap, but to break the trail evenly. Even so, by the time he stopped again, the blizzard had covered his trail and Ren and Yumi struggled through the snowbanks as high as their hips.

At least they kept catching up, Kuro told himself. They could still keep moving. And as long as they kept moving, they’d stay warm. As long as they kept moving, they’d stay alive.

Until Kuro waited for them, and waited, counting his own heaving breaths for twice as long as they’d taken the last time. He doubled back, using his chest to plough the snow, until he’d retreated a third of the distance. Then he heard them. They plodded so slowly. Kuro whined. Maybe he should just go back to give them a ride.

No! He still needed to get the sword fixed before he met Ren again. Saving Ren from the blizzard wasn’t enough. Ren would just blame him for it in the first place, or for causing it. All Kuro could risk was to stay close enough that Ren heard him, caught sight of him, gritted his teeth and mentally swore at Kuro but kept on marching.

Ren and Yumi managed it that time. And the next, and the one after that. Frostbite snapped at his paws, and through his fur coat. Not just fear, Kuro realised, but the cold plummeting until even Kuro’s fur coat wasn’t thick enough to warm him.

The blizzard was definitely not natural. But it couldn’t be him. He didn’t want Ren to die. Maybe the Yuki Onna — but no. Even the most powerful Yuki Onna could maybe summon a short and light snowstorm. They were opportunistic hunters. They waited for a blizzard, waited for mortal men forced to trek through the mountains. They didn’t cause them.

Kuro trudged through the snow, the cliff face beside him opening up in a black pit. The cave! He’d reached it. Now, all he had to do was get Ren and Yumi there. They weren’t idiots. They wouldn’t keep chasing him through the blizzard when there was a nice, safe cave to be had.

But where were they? Kuro swivelled his ears and lifted his nose to the wind. They had been right behind him. Kuro whined and dashed back down the trail, the blizzard already filling in his path.

A body hit the snow. Closer to Kuro, crunching footsteps paused, then turned back. No! Keep coming this way, toward the cave. Kuro ran as fast as he could, damning the snow with every breath.

The second body hit the snow, close to the first. Shit. Three achingly long moments later, Kuro caught Ren’s scent, and found him face down in the snow. A layer of white already covered him. Kuro nuzzled his cheek. Ren didn’t move, not even to shiver in the cold. That was bad. Worse than bad. Humans always shivered in the cold.

Half a yard away, Yumi lay on her side under a pile of snow, her whole body shaking. That’s what Ren should be doing. Instead, Ren’s cheek felt like ice against Kuro’s nose.

They’d been so close! Kuro shook himself until the bundled Kusanagi fragment shivered up Kuro’s spine close enough that Kuro could pressed his muzzle against a leaf he’d stashed in there. In a puff of smoke lost among the blizzard, Kuro transformed back into his half-human, half-fox form. The temperature plummeted as he lost his fur for a too light kimono, but he ignored the cold and reached down to haul Ren over his shoulder. His knees quaked beneath him, threatening to buckle. The only thing keeping him on his feet as he trudged toward the cave was his patchy tail extended for balance.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Good tail,” Kuro praised with chattering lips. Why had he ever cursed it?

It took Kuro far too long to carry Ren to the cave. His knees buckled once he reached inside and started to lower Ren to the bare stone ground. Kuro was so weak. But he had to fetch Yumi as well, even if she did like to punch him all too much. Maybe she’d convince Ren to spare Kuro’s life.

Oh, and it was the right thing to do too. He did like Yumi, after all.

By the time he retrieved Yumi and gently set her next to Ren — or tried, at least, even as his body gave out and he collapsed into a heap between them. He lay there, unable to feel the radiant heat of their bodies, and the thick straw cloaks weren’t to blame. Kuro shuddered. The cave might be sheltered from the wind and the snow, but it wasn’t warm. Or even close to warm.

Ren and Yumi needed a fire. A great big blazing fire to heat up the inside of this ice cave, and warm their blood. But while Yumi and Ren must have brought a flint to start fires in their camp, even if he did find it, any wood he scavenged outside would be too wet.

Unless Kuro summoned foxfire.

He peeled himself up from between the two. White like the blizzard invaded his eyesight. He closed them for a moment, falling forward onto his hands. Light-headed. Wow, Kuro was pathetic.

Even so, Kuro managed to crawl out of the cave and sniff out some fallen sticks close to the trail, and brought them back, shaking off as much of the snow as possible near the entrance. He lay them in the middle, piling them to give them plenty of air. Foxfire was stronger than regular fire, and would last so much longer without fuel.

Kuro stared at the pile. “Ignite.”

The sticks just lay there, dark and cold.

Kuro narrowed his eyes. “Ignite!”

Kuro might as well have been human for all the good that had done. Not even a spark.

He pressed one hand over the other, forcing them into the stone to stop from shaking. He had to keep trying. If he didn’t light a fire, Ren and Yumi were dead.

And the more Kuro thought of them failing, the more tense he got, until he could barely lift his hand, never mind summon fire from thin air. He needed to calm down. He closed his eyes and rocked back.

When was the last time he’d even been sort of good at foxfire? Graceful hands with pale, tapered fingers folding and unfolding. The sound of laughter, as light as the wind. White kimono sleeves swaying, and Kuro tucked safe by silver tails, as the Celestial Foxes taught him Leaf, Fire, Water.

Palm down for leaf. A hand cupped to receive fire. Fingers flowing down for water. The fox’s three main gifts encapsulated in a game — transformation, foxfire and illusion.

Even as a kit, with paws instead of hands and too young to transform never mind master illusion, he’d managed foxfire, the Celestial Kitsune encouraging him.

Until Reiha discovered them, punishing the Celestial Foxes with latrine duty, and locking Kuro in a storehouse for days.

Kuro glanced at Ren and bit his lip. Ren’s cheeks were so pale, and he lay so still, like the dead. Which he would be, if Kuro couldn’t manage to summon foxfire.

And if Kuro managed it through the game, rather than serious training, then he’d punish Kuro just like he’d punished those kitsune kits for playing transformation tag.

His litter-sister had never needed the games. She had summoned foxfire as easily as Kuro breathed. Upon reaching her centennial birthday, she’d transformed into a human girl on her first try. She made Reiha flick up her lips in satisfaction. No one satisfied Reiha. No one but his perfect litter-sister.

Ren must be cursing the day he’d run into Kuro, rather than her. The perfect fox familiar.

Kuro shook himself. “Don’t be ridiculous. Ren never has to find out about the game.”

Kuro could claim he’d stood under waterfalls and did push-ups one-handed, until he’d mastered foxfire. He wouldn’t be able to show Ren to prove it, but Kuro would figure something out. He was a master liar. Ren didn’t even suspect he’d been failing all these weeks.

He closed his eyes, picturing Celestial Kitsune gathered in a circle, one across from him, smiling at him encouragingly. Reiha was long gone, he imagined a fox saying, on sacred business from their goddess Inari. It would take days. They were safe. They wouldn’t be caught.

Tightening his hand into a fist, he tapped it against his open hand. “Leaf, fire, water!”

The Celestial Fox in his head opened her hand palm down as he opened his fist into the container, and exhaled into it. Foxfire.

Gentle warmth filled his palm. Kuro gently opened his eyes. Blue flames flickered in greeting.

Kuro’s mouth widened into a grin. He couldn’t have stopped the smile if he’d wanted to.

He’d done it! He’d summon foxfire! And not just a few flickers either, but an orb that hovered in his palm, as strong as any fox’s.

“I did it, I did it, I did it!” he sang. He started to jump to his feet to dance along with his new song and his ball of foxfire, but his eyes fell on Ren and Yumi. “Oh, right.”

There’d always be time to celebrate later. He set the foxfire down on the wood pile. The snow melted, water hissed, and then evaporated. Blue flames flickered, the split edges of wood curling and blackening, then the wood caught. Kuro prodded more sticks into the developing flames until a merry fire warmed the cave.

There was still more work to be done. Kuro pressed snow against the cave opening, making a solid wall to hold in the heat and keep out the snow, until only a sliver remained at the top for the smoke to escape and fresh air to enter.

He reached into his collar for a leaf, and returned to his fox form. He wriggled around them, pressing his warm fur into them. Between the fire and him, he’d keep them alive.

Kuro fought with his eyelids to stay open, but as the cave warmed, as the two humans did too, his eyelids became heavier and heavier. He had to stay awake, though. He had to feed the fire. He had to…

He fell asleep, and for the first time in months, his mother stayed out of his dreams.