Disclaimer: You wouldn't be reading this if you didn't know Kyou Kara Maou, and you know I don't own it

DEFINITELY NOT WOLFRAM/OC.

"The Kuoi"

Chapter 1: Of Bells and Furry Whites

Wolfram pulled on his horse's reins. There was a strange sound somewhere in the distance. He strained his ears and listened: it sounded like—

"Bells?" He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. You didn't hear bells in a forest, it just wasn't natural. You hear the wind; and the branches, and snapping twigs. Not bells. He looked around for a minute before flicking the reigns, berating himself lightly for imagining things and staying out of focus.

His troops were spread farther around the forest, and he could slightly spot the blue of their uniforms against the verdant green of the foliage. Good thing, too, because that meant no one had been near enough to witness his little daydreaming. It was roughly two hours until sunset, and they still hadn't found any sight of the band of Earth Mages Gwendal sent them to watch out for.

The blond demon shook his head at the silly thought of imagining the sound of bells, when he heard it again. He stopped his mount again and the animal nickered at its master's fickleness. He wasn't imagining it. Bells.

Wolfram squinted at the greenery. The trees were thin and fanned out from where he and his men where positioned, allowing them their search on horseback. However further on it thickened, the tree trunks thick and old with age. He dismounted and tied the reins to a nearby sapling, also knowing it would be better to inspect the area without the announcement of hooves to whatever it was that was wasting his time on idle things such as bells. He began walking towards the sound, slightly irritated and just the tiniest bit curious. He unsheathed his sword, out of habit.

It wasn't long before he found it, however, and seeing what it really was, Wolfram returned his sword to his sheath. It was an old snare made of leather straps, which had probably been meant for someone's dinner. The forest had long been a source of game for previous communities that had settled down nearby, but ever since the knowledge of farming had been known to them, hunting had been mellowed out to prevent animals from extinction. How primitive, thought Wolfram. It was obviously old, because the ringing bells were rusty and just about ready to crumble.

A large tree trunk was in the way, allowing him to see the trap from a small distance but obscuring whatever it was that was caught at the other end. Wolfram rounded the obstacle and made a curious face.

He found himself staring for a full minute until he finally took in the full impact of what he was seeing. The snare happened to have trapped a small, white creature on the right hind leg. It reminded Wolfram very much of fox.

The coat was a silvery white matted with mud, bits of small dead leaves stuck in the fur. A slightly dirty snout, a small black nose… it would have looked normal and would not have bother Wolfram much… if it hadn't been for the ears and tail. Because they were quite long, too long in the blond's opinion, two normal ears that extended to two, long, whip-like streaks that trailed to the ground as the animal struggled desperately. Its tail ended in the same manner, stuck in some nearby brambles. The small wings sprouting from its back were further convictions that it wasn't normal.

Its hind leg was bleeding from the snare, cutting into the creature's fur and flesh.

The blond moved towards it slowly. Upon seeing Wolfram, it stopped struggling, and stared at him with big eyes, body rigid with anticipation. It crouched low.

"Demon…"

The blond approached it cautiously. "There there… I won't hurt you," he whispered. He kneeled down on one knee. The animal jerked to the right, away from him, regarding his intent. Wolfram reached a hand out and made to pet the weird creature. After some time, he deemed it had calmed down and slowly lifted it. It started struggling in mild panic.

"Hey, hey what's wrong with you? You're only going to make it hurt more." The hind foot was bleeding. "You might have a limp after this." Wolfram hugged it lightly to stop it from squirming, petting the fur and picking at dead leaves and tiny twigs stuck in the fur coat. He took a dagger from his boot and cut the rope. After a few silent minutes it stilled in his arms.

Wolfram was thrilled, allowing himself a grin seeing as there was no one around to witness it anyway. As an abandoned little prince in early childhood, he was desperate for friends, maybe even a pet. And now this was going to be his second time in a row.

Before he could think any further his hand brushed against something cold and hard. Looking down, he found a metal crest of sorts, thin, carved and oddly shaped under the vixen creature's neck held up by a dainty silver chain.

"Ohh… great. You already have an owner," he muttered somewhat dejectedly. He fingered the trinket. "Must be a noble… this is quite intricate." Then his sunny yellow brows furrowed as he noticed the blue beads on the animal's ears and tail. "Pretty weird owner…" He stood up, heaving the creature with him.

His horse was a slight speck in the distance, a smudge of white against the green. His men where nowhere in view as he started walking back, but he knew he had to stop talking to the animal at some point, because clearly, it wasn't going to reply anyway. But he found himself speaking to it again, finding a weird source of comfort from a conversation where he knew he would be the only one to voice his opinions and no one would reply about how stupid they were. "Haven't seen anything like you before… I could ask Günter maybe. And then maybe I could keep you in the castle while you're owner hasn't come yet. I'm sure Greta would love it too…" He ducked under a fallen branch as he spoke.

He forced himself not to get too excited. His last encounter with a small creature—that gradually grew into a bigcreature—brought forth innumerable disasters, lies, near-death and death occasions, scars on his chest (although they were healing) and mass destruction onto one of the castle's grassy courtyards. He was still slightly wobbly from the encounter, but forced himself to look completely healthy and act the part, knowing Gisela and others would contain him in the infirmary or his bed chambers longer than the remedy called for. It would have been pointless.

He looked back at the fox-like creature and gave a huge huff and a sigh.

"Screw me..." he muttered to high heavens, wondering if his elder brother's fascination—and weakness—for cute things ran in the family.

He stopped for a while and sat down, taking a canteen from somewhere about him and carefully cleaning the wound with some water before applying a little healing magic. To his disappointment, it only improved the wound in the slightest. He sighed and just tied a handkerchief around the leg before stroking its fur.

The fox-like animal was looking ahead while it enjoyed its rub. It looked a little frail, though, its mannerism slightly limp. Wofram could feel the ribs as he stroked the animal. Maybe it was faint from hunger.

"Hope you eat demon king manjus…" The blond looked up to where his horse was neighing a few feet away.

Wolfram had lived the life of a prince with hardly any brothers to play with or any friends to keep him company, born into a time where people where too busy for him. It was a hard blow to his childhood. So he had wanted a pet. A horse was a pet, but you couldn't take it indoors, play with it by the fire, hug it and carry it to bed. It would have kept the loneliness at bay. But for some reason they had disapproved of the idea, and it had hardly been fair.

The creature closed its eyes in contentment. It opened them again when Wolfram spoke once more. "I could take good care of you… and I can definitely protect you. It's what I do after all." The animal looked steadily into his face with big black eyes. "Cute…" he whispered.

Suddenly, the creature sprang up, darting to his ear and licking it. Wolfram gave a cry of surprise and fell from his sitting position onto the damp grass. He was startled more when he heard a young woman's voice: not from the forest. But inside his head.

"You're cute yourself."

Wolfram couldn't help yelping. He stood up and looked quickly about, hand groping to his sword. "Who's there?!"

"I've licked your ear. Hear me now?"

"What—?!" he looked at the animal on his feet. It was close to grinning. No, wait—it was grinning. A fox's grin. "Y-you?!" Wolfram whispered in awe and slight panic. No way… it's intelligent. He crouched back down. The white head nodded.

This certainly was different.

The "fox" stared at him.

Wolfram stared back. "You realize this gives me a reason to doubt you," he said, eyes wary. He narrowed his eyes, and lifted his dagger instead. "What… are you??"

A 'she,' huh? thought Wolfram.Where did she come from? I've never seen anything like this around here.

"Should I take that as a compliment?" the fox's voice popped up in his head. Again, it darted forward, this time licking Wolfram's lips.

"Ergh!" Wolfram shot up and wiped his mouth. "Don't do that!" And despite the bleary attitude, the fox-like creature was giving out what sounded like an animal's laughter. The blond narrowed his eyes again. "Are you reading my mind?"

"You don't have to speak for me to hear you. I can hear your thoughts just like you can hear mine. I cannot speak, of course, at least not yet, in this body; but I can if you're willing to help me." the voice replied sweetly with soft fox-ish laughter.

"How do you mean you can't speak yet? You're not even supposed to talk. You're an animal." It was an odd conversation of sorts, and was something that Wolfram had definitely not been asking for, or expecting, at all.

"We'll see." Wolfram blinked, not knowing how to respond next.

"So… what am I supposed to do with you then? You're obviously intelligent. That complicates things." I guess it really was too much to ask for a pet. A simple, non-talking, non-otherwordly pet that I can train not to chew on furniture or pee on the carpets…

There was no answer for a while, and Wolfram was momentarily worried that he had been imagining everything, the woman's voice he kept hearing and the playful banter in his mind. Then the answer echoed in his head, no longer humorous but slow and solemn. "Well… you've found me. I'm sorry but I have to ask you… if you would take care of me?"

Wolfram stared down at her, thankful for the advantage of height. This was all so new… humans and demons were sometimes easy to predict but from this little thing, he didn't know what to expect. Grow into an electric fuzzball the next minute or warp into a beautiful woman with wings on the back? Maybe he shouldn't have followed the bells after all.

"What are you?" he repeated, with curiosity more than venom.

"… I can only tell you that… if you take responsibility for me."

It suddenly sounded like an arranged marriage proposal.

A few seconds passed and Wolfram sighed as he squatted down. He held a hand out in front of her and she licked it lightly in a friendly gesture. The curiosity was burning him, and he itched to know what this… thing in front of him really was. But would it be worth lies and deceit and a half-burnt castle? Or whatever it was she was capable of. He had only been expecting a pet, a weird one that could have been passed off as exotic, but now there were voices and doubts that left him hanging in the air, unsure of what to do. It was all so sudden. And everything felt so comical, a children's fairy tale straight out of the book.

"What's your name?" the fox's voice rang out through his head, friendly and consoling, as if to give him more time to decide.

"Wolfram. Von Bielefeld."

"Wolfram von Bielefeld," the animal's voice echoed in his head, savoring his name like an exotic fruit. Wolfram saw her legs wobbling for a minute before she sat down. She looked tired. "Do all beings in this place look like you, Wolfram? They'd sure be right beautiful if so."

The blond was stuck between a frown and a blush. This was weird coming out of a fox-like animal's snout. "No, we don't all look alike. Just… sometimes we look completely different, but others resemble somebody else." Playing for time… he was playing for time to think about a commitment that he could just as easily disregard. But it wasn't easy.

But she was just so fluffy.

"Well… I'd still love to see them if I could!"

"Why 'could'?" And the curiosity burned on, making it harder to decide.

"For now at least, you are the first, and will be the last, of your kind that I'm supposed to be seen by in this world of yours. Those are the rules I live by. You are a demon, correct?"

Wolfram nodded slowly, his look cautious. "How do you know that?"

He was given a look that he had received, oh so often, and it didn't matter whether it was from man or beast; he had been given that expression so many times in the past that he could recognize it anywhere, and she was certainly giving it now. I can't tell you, it meant. However, hers looked regretful, and strangely enough, hopeful at the same time.

"For the moment I can't give you any reason not to doubt me. And if you agree it would also take a few more days for me to explain everything. It's just that… you've found me first. And a lot of things had mattered greatly on that. I'm sorry if this bothers you, and I do not mean to blame anything on you. It's yours to decide."

It was after a stunning silence when Wolfram finally gave in and replied:

"Does that mean I can't take you home with me?"

The vixen-like animal shook its head. "Unfortunately, in this current state I cannot see more of your wonderful race, Wolfram. I am not allowed."

Access denied.

"What do you mean, 'in this state'?" Wolfram asked. But the albino animal just shook her head.

"I can't tell you yet."

"Those are the rules?" Wolfram said for her a little stiffly.

The vixen laughed. "There would be chaos without rules, Wolfram," she said, like a mother lecturing her child.

"Yeah…" faltered Wolfram, recalling how many rules he had broken in the past as a bored child so that someone would just pay attention to him, or how many rooms in the castle he had set on fire. It had been one of the highlights of Wolfram's young life, when he had accidentally cause one of Anissina's machine to explode by use of a tiny spark just because he wanted to, which was sheer bad luck since brother Gwendal was still in it. And said brother Gwendal had come out, as a result, encased in a massive block of what had appeared to be a green gelatin like substance, and every time Wolfram had given it a poke, the whole thing would sway, and seeing as Gwendal was trapped inside, he had swayed along too. So of course it had been fun, and as long as big brother was inside, he had might as well poke it and watch the jelly quiver, and Gwendal shake his hips unwillingly, and poke it… and poke it… and poke it… and poke it some more…

"Wolfram?" asked the animal timidly. "If you don't mind me breaking your reverie of jellies but…"

Wolfram quickly snapped out of it. "What?"

"Will… will you help me get back? To where I'm currently staying?"

Wolfram blinked. "Yes. Just tell me where it is and I'll take you there." He got up, holding the feeble animal in his arms. She weighed about as much as a wet towel.

She snuggled further into his arms, then her head bobbed back up. "Oh…!"

Wolfram had started walking but then stopped at the sound of her voice. "Something?"

"You're betrothed? How pleasant! And so young…"

Wolfram flushed red. "What the—?"

"Oh, I'm sorry… but… our kind can tell."

The blond raised an eyebrow at her accompanied by an expression of confusion and incredulity, and one as if he had suddenly stepped on something foul. Then he started to walk again. "Once this is all over and done with, that will be the first thing I am going to ask," he stated resolutely.

Wolfram continued on, having finally spotted the grazing horse at last. The vixen seemed very interested upon seeing a horse, and asked a good deal lot of questions before Wolfram was able to mount with a little difficulty, having a fluffy bundle in his hand.

Making sure she was comfortable, he steered the mare upon the vixen's directions. As Wolfram's horse trotted through the forest, they conversed in small talk that Wolfram was beginning to enjoy immensely, despite himself. It also meant that he now had a secret to keep. As a child, he felt special and important whenever a great secret was instructed upon him, and this was no exception.