AN:// This is a continuation of sorts, occuring a few thousand years after the first. I think it's the same fox, but he didn't tell me if I'd met him before or not so... meh. Yes, my characters "talk" to me, they're the only reason my plots keep going at times. This might just become a collection, now I think on it... :) Oh, and I'm counting major ice ages here.

BEGIN:

When the world was old, and the cold of the fifth Age of Ice was in its final stages of melting into nothingness, one person sat pondering the glorious vista in front of him.

His hair was as red as the fires released by the sun in the throes of its daily death, and his eyes were as green as the leaves that had not been seen in these now barren lands for many a year. His cheekbones were high and sculpted, his nose and face pulled downwards to a point – not enough to be considered ugly, as he was indeed quite handsome, but enough to be noticed, enough to give him the sharp features of the foxes that used to roam freely over the land.

It had been many a year since the last of the humans had abandoned this area, the Northern hemisphere having completely succumbed to the ice, leaving it for the warmer, more comforting climes of the South. But here was one being who had remained, tied to this place with his own blood, his sacrifice for the gifts and powers he now possessed. It was a little known fact that a spirit fox, or enlightened trickster that played with the mortal realm, was always and forever bound to one part of the world.

If he’d known this was how the world would turn out – well, he sure as hell wouldn’t have picked this hellhole.

Actually, it was his birthday today. Or rather, it would be better to say the anniversary of his initiation to the ranks of what the Japanese would call the kitsune, and the Chinese the hujing (or jinwei hu if he ever managed nine-tailed status). No-one was around to celebrate this time (just like the past several thousand years), and to be frank it was really depressing. The last of the fae had run. The remaining animal spirits wanted to kill him. Either that or they could remember a time when he’d tried to eat them.

Plus there was no way a guy could feed off human energy if there weren’t any humans around to begin with – meaning a birthday pig-out was very unlikely.

Shifting around a little, he sighed.

And to top it all off?

His backside was stuck to the ice. Again.