Prologue
The night seemed quieter than usual. As if it were waiting for something to happen. It was so quiet that one would think that the whole world died leaving nothing but silence in its absence.
However there were 6 creatures that dared to disturb the silence. A single fox was bounding through the forest at top speed, dodging every obstacle with skill and grace. And dangling from the fox’s mouth was a small ball of fur with nine tails.
The little creature was rather smart for its young age and had the decency to stay mostly quiet during the whole ordeal. But the little fox knew he was being hunted by the 4 Beasts of Legend and there was no escaping them.
The fox slipped under a large fence almost dropping her charge in the process. The fox was now crossing through empty streets of a human town. It only took a few wrong turns and dead-ends before the two reached their destination. An old building stood rotting at the end of a dank ally-way.
As the fox trotted through the hole in the door her body began to stretch and grow. Her hair melted into her body and her face began to pull back, squishing into more human like features. By the time the fox was halfway through the big abandoned room she was no longer a fox, she was human. The fox now woman cradled the little furry creature close.
“Emily, Quin is that you?” a man called from somewhere in the room.
“Yes Rick, it’s us and we have the pup” a man in dark robes stepped out from the shadows with a small infant wrapped in his arms.
“Sorry, I didn’t recognize you without your tails. What happened?” Emily’s face went dark before she answered.
“While saving the pup they tore off our tails in the fight, me and Quin were lucky to escape with one tail and the pup,” she shuddered remembering the battle. “Actually they’re right behind me, you’ll have to do the sealing on your own while I lead them away, so I’m afraid this is where we part for good old friend”. Emily handed the pup to the man before turning away.
“Who knows, maybe I’ll manage to escape and we’ll see each other again” she turned and winked “I’m still young, I’m only roughly 367 I know I have at least another 200 in me if I survive this”. With that Emily shifted into Quin, Emily’s fox, and ran out of the building. The man known as Rick placed the infant and the fox pup into two separate white circles on the ground.
He started to chant and the circles began to collide pulling the infant and pup with them. Rick watched as the two bodies touched. The pup’s body twisted and stretched to look more like the shape of the baby. The circles continued to push the two together making the fox and the child one.
Rick began to do the sealing spell that would keep the fox’s consciousness hidden until the baby was old enough to control it. But before he could finish, a timber wolf about three times bigger than it should have, burst through the building’s doors, destroying them in the process.
Rick quickly grabbed the child that now had the little fox pup hidden inside it and ran. The wolf bounded after him with no hesitation, almost catching Rick in its massive jaws. Rick ran and ran, barely escaping the wolf when it lunged.
Fortunately Rick managed to get far enough away to quickly hide the child safely behind some crates before running again. He hoped that the seal would hold. But he doubted that it would last all thirteen years, considering he didn’t actually finish the sealing.