WoX fic

[...] while their malign intent is usually certain, a troubling amount of adventurers have reported intelligence amongst the fell monsters of Mist. These outcasts are referred to as "Friendly Monsters", though the name is a misnomer; they will still attack if provoked, and there exist intelligent monsters who are hostile from the outset. The origin of these sentient monsters is a mystery to modern science. Laigh's Theorum, which states that Mist Monsters are corrupted versions of natural beasts, would suggest that monsters of sentience possess human ancestry, either partially or entirely; support of Laigh's theories may be found in the documented accounts of a group of "Friendly Monsters", who show signs of social statra and filial bonds which extend beyond survival mechanisms. Conversely, Scholar Tyr's Theory of Mind suggests that Mist Monsters may be emerging into sentience, regardless of their origins; the Gimme Cat, a well-known sentient monster, may have evolved to mimic the friendliness of other monsters.


100 Years Past Seeding

A creature slips through the roots of a tree she has observed for many years. For the first time, she has been able to grasp a physical form, wresting the strange concoction she nested within. She has long heard the distant voices of quaint green men as they pass by, pilgrims on some unknown quest, but longer still has she observed the towering branches. With a sight unlike theirs, she sees what they cannot; the turn of souls. It is not all she sees. She has brothers and sisters alongside her, and they have caught notice of a creature of power. Towering blue and white, she takes the form of an earred, tailed creature, long muzzle, sharp fangs. She and those like her took on this form, for it was this creature who taught them the way. Now she is free, and she investigates the source of her curiosity.

It is a source of power like none she has ever seen in her short life, and as she crouches between the soil and the roots, she hears another pair of those strange, green men. She follows them out of curiosity, but when they notice her they are fearful, and they strike at her with sharpened steel. Guided by vague instinct inherited from her 'mother' template, the one who dwells by fens, she leaps upon them; their blood is surprising to her, as none came from the slices on her body, but she quickly learns the differences between herself and these men. Their blood is sustenance, and their organs are pleasurable to consume. She heard them calling for each other as they fell, and again, vague memories stir within her - she knows those words were of nominal importance. Her ability to speak is limited, but she gives herself a name. If the bleeding creatures could hear it, perhaps they'd call it "Lah Criuu".


590 Years Past Seeding

"Mother has suffered a crushing blow," Lah Criuu speaks with words which sound like birdsong, from a woman's mouth, as she reclines on the stone of a mountain. In the distance, fire rages, taking more from the settlement than it could possibly give. "If we are to take our leave, the time is now."

There is a boy with her, an older man who holds fox-effigies, and breathing foxes who perch on the rocks. Many snap their teeth together. The man speaks, "What would you have us do, Lah Criuu? She is our mother. We took our image from her, and our customs."

The boy speaks, "I won't do it."

And the woman looks over them, with the golden eyes they all share, and conjures a coal between her fingers. The smoke rises from it as if it were live, and she breathes the smoke in, blows it out in a long, theatrical motion. "Mother has changed, Aaral-Kah, but we stay the same. Have we not the right to take our own den, brothers? Or," she gestures towards the flaming ruins of a sacred village, far away, "would you follow her to oblivion? Her blood-masters are dead. Mark me, brothers, her memory will follow."

"She'll oppose you," snaps the boy, of golden hair and modest robes. His name is Corvi-Ah, and he is not so much younger than her - the second generation, almost to his fifth tail, just as she is almost to her sixth. His standing gives Lah Criuu pause, but there's a stubborn spark in her eyes. "Haven't you noticed? She's not the same as us. She's tied down to those burning masters. We are not, and needn't be. She won't oppose us; she'll be too busy licking her own wounds."

This statement draws warning-barks from some of the assembled kitsune, and one of them becomes a woman, draping over Lah Criuu. They are direct sisters, first-generation five-tailed kitsune, two of the first followers. On Vwa sneers into her vulpine ears, perched between black human locks: "Some of us are not such traitors. Go feral, and we won't let you down softly."

Lah Criuu curls her lips to reveal sharp teeth, and lashes tails which weren't there a moment ago, a sign of her agitation. She places a hand against On Vwa's face, and pushes back, before she leaps onto the rock with blackened paws. A moment later, the woman is there again, and she stands as she addresses the things in form of men and beasts: "You call me nogitsune, On Vwa? It's a compliment! Her ways are not our ways, and there are those of you, my brothers, my sisters, who know this!"

A battle is waged, between those who uphold the old ways, and those who do not; it is terrible, and because they have learnt how to bleed, it is bloody. Lah Criuu and her sympathisers are brought before the master of the river. Their mother banishes them from their ancestral home, unwilling to end their arcane lives in the wake of her recent tragedy. It's just as her scheming daughter had hoped.