AN:// This is a new story. It will be updated hardly ever. Basically, this is just an outlet before I scream with frustration over Rising (It's grown. A lot. Not that anyone minds...) and isn't first on my priority list. And yes, this is the story I was going to write but had no plot for with the drabble before (imaginatively called Fox) and all terms will be explained better in the second chapter.

Fox

Sighing, he waited. ‘He’ being a red fox, a little too skinny to be healthy but otherwise sleek, with the usual fox-like attributes of long bushy tail and elongated face. There was little point in waiting here for his brother to arrive; he was always late and anyway, he was in the open here.

‘Here’ being a cold, dank alley not even a human would go down – unless, of course, they were the unsavoury sort that wouldn’t think twice about harming, or killing, him. Fine, so he was more than able to take care of himself, the two-thousand-odd years having had little to no effect on his agility or mobility, but it was the principle of the thing. He didn’t particularly feel like running like a madfox into the night due to some half-drunk human chasing him out.

“Sorry I’m late!” came the (all too) cheerful and (all too) loud voice he’d been waiting to hear for the past hour.

“And where have you been?” the fox asked, glaring at him with his black eyes that showed no trace of amusement.

“Inari, what’s got your tail in a knot Ari? Usually you’re a lot less… unforgiving?” was the reply from Asha.

Ari, quite irritated by now (he was cold and wet and sure he had caught a cold) whuffed in response.

“Is it done?” he asked, after counting to ten and calming himself.

“Yup. In a few months, providing the woman drops the babe according to schedule, we’ll have a herima all to ourselves,” the other fox, Asha, told him cheerfully.

It was clear from his grin and twinkling eyes that he was quite prepared to take full credit for this, excluding their own sister and the dying vixen who was sacrificing her unborn cub for this risky venture. Ari hated him for that – it was his cub and mate who were to be forfeited for this, and never, ever would he forget it.

“Is everyone in place? And I mean everyone, not just you, not just the midwife, everyone,” he pressed. Sure, he’d already asked this, but knowing Asha he was bound to have forgotten something. The darker fox was renowned for his less than perfect memory.

“Yes,” he sighed impatiently. “The midwife is hired; the receptionist is hired (and has been for a month now); the illusion masters have completed their trials; and the babe is declared healthy as of one ultrasound ago.”

“Good. You may go, if there’s nothing further to report,” Ari told the other. He had to get back to his mate. Kagata needed him far more than this twit, if only to keep her alive until his cub was born.

With a twitch of his bushy tail, the fox Asha disappeared down the alley and into the night. There was little point in remaining, as far as Ari was concerned, so he soon did the same.

The drunk propped up against the alley wall, too inebriated to do much but listen, would pass off the peculiar exchange of yips and barks as a dream when he remembered late the next afternoon. The multiple tails were obviously a side-effect of the alcohol.

 

Six months later:

A man was waiting in the hospital. Nothing unusual about that – there were often friends or relatives waiting around the maternity unit, although the fewer the better for the sake of the newborns housed in the nursery a little further down. Not to mention, the dignity of the ladies’ was at stake with too many strangers around; nightgown hoiked up and screaming blue murder was not what most people would deem a good first impression.

No-one was with this man, though. Each time a nurse or orderly went to check his name and purpose for being there, they suddenly had a very good reason not to. Whether it be a test result they forgot to pick up (or at least, thought they’d forgotten); or simply a case of nerves over talking to the good-looking young man (most effective with the females, but unsurprisingly a couple of the males succumbed also). His demeanour was unassuming and certainly not threatening, with his short red hair and dark eyes watching everything without being intruding. His face was perhaps a little too pointed to be called ‘handsome’ in truth, but still called for attention and attraction.

With a plain t-shirt, plain jeans, and unremarkably tatty trainers, he was almost invisible. His air of expectation and worry was not misplaced in such a part of the hospital, making many of those around wonder who exactly was giving birth.

Eventually, after three hours of waiting, the receptionist got up and brought him something to drink; only fair of her, as he was there for the same reason she was. The herima.

“So? What the news?” Ari asked her in a hushed tone.

“How should I know? I’m only a receptionist,” came the woman’s reply.

To see the pair together, one would naturally assume they were related. With the same facial features, and equally dark eyes, it was only the woman’s equally dark hair that set them apart.

“You’re right, I know. It’s just… frustrating, Tsuki. Who am I to take this child?” he asked sorrowfully.

“Ari, shut up. We need her,” Tsuki reminded him in a practical tone – the whole reason she had been sent to do this job in the first place.

“Her?!” he exclaimed, a little louder than he had intended.

“Yes, her. Why?” she queried.

“The woman will notice – my child is my son! A male! There is no way that she cannot realise,” he informed her, a panicked expression alighting on his face and his voice rising in volume.

“Hush. You’ll garner attention. It’s alright, everything will go according to plan. You’ll see,” she quietly reassured him. “I have to go back, just… stay calm, alright?”

“Easier said than done,” Ari told her, more jittery than ever.

Despite the old faerytales, it was not easy to steal a child and leave a changeling in their place. At least, not now humans had devised accurate birth records, and institutions like this to birth their young. Such a switch had to be made fast and clean if they didn’t want the child (either child, he thought with a sigh for his own youngling born only a few hours ago) to suffer a sense of dislocation and attempt to escape.

Ari wanted the girl to be happy where she was. She was a herima, and as such precious to them. It was rare for one to be born, especially in this day and age, yet here was one who, so very soon, would taste her first gasp of air. And the foxes would protect her, as a veritable font of power and energy that could be taken at will with her permission (or without, but that was very messy and rather rude) and as a child they were to adopt. It wasn’t as though a herima could use their power, after all, which left them very vulnerable.

With six tails to his name, and a history of fatherhood (his eldest son and –currently – only daughter attesting to that) he was a good choice to act as parent to the babe. Ari refused to see it as a paltry method of compensation for being forced to give up his own – he would care for the youngling as though it were his own in truth. Perhaps he’d never love her like he loved his real newborn, but he would do his best not to see her as a thing to be reviled.

He’d do that much for his dead mate. For Kagata.

 

Holding the baby girl in his arms – a little awkwardly, but that was to be expected – Ari thought of his first problem.

“What’s her name to be?”

“Whatever you want, I guess. Her name isn’t that important,” his companion responded, bewildered as to why it would matter.

“So… if mother had named you Moron, you wouldn’t have seen it as important, Asha?” Ari asked his brother in a sweet, false voice.

“Ha. Ha. Ha. So, very, very funny. But really, no-one minds what you call her. Sure, you’ll have to tell those in charge, but really it’s your choice,” he shrugged, a little more interested in naming what was to be his niece.

“Any ideas?” Ari queried.

“Kagata?” was the thoughtful response.

“I’ll tear out your throat if you ever suggest that again,” Ari snapped, whatever good mood he had had from holding the babe gone in an instant as he was reminded of his deceased mate.

“Inari, no need to be so damn sensitive, Ari! I thought of it as a way of remembering her! I’m not always flippant, you know,” was his brother’s fast, hurt response.

For a moment, the semi-dejected, half-angry expression on Asha’s face made him stop, but Ari thought he ought to hammer home his point a bit more. He didn’t want to hear her name every day for the rest of his life – he wanted a chance to grieve. Having a human girl running around with that name attached to her… he wouldn’t be able to.

“Sorry, but I’ll tear out your throat if you ever suggest that again,” he told Asha in a serious tone.

“Fine, fine – perhaps a human name, then?” he acquiesced, understanding that this was not a good time to needle his brother.

“Or a name that’s similar to one of ours… Erine?” Ari put forward hesitantly.

“That’s as good as any, and better than most. Erine it is, then,” his brother said decisively.

“I wonder what they’ll name my son?” he pondered aloud after a few moments.

Asha just looked at him with sorrow and a little pity in his eyes, before shaking his head. There was nothing, nothing that would get his brother’s mind of those two. Maybe he ought to drag his niece and nephew back into their lives; Inari knew his brother needed something to take his mind of his personal tragedy. Either way, the fox needed time, time that the elders would not grant him, to mourn his lost ones before taking up this burden.

Of course, knowing Ari, he’d probably end up throwing himself off a cliff in a fit of suicidal lamentation, leaving him to cope with the brat. And he was not changing nappies for anyone.

AN:// Erine? Erin? No, I know no-one called Erin, I just wanted a niceish name for the kid. Inari is the god of rice, I think - he's similar to the lord of the kitsune in Japanese culture; they're sworn to his service.