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99Shipping – Arcanine & Ninetales (K+)
In a rush of unnatural wind, time seemed to slow. An eerie calm followed, weighing heavily on the souls of all present. The feel of fur in his mouth jerked him to reality, and a flash of horror came him; he realized too late that he had made a grave mistake. Heart racing, he hastily spat the furry objects from his mouth, hoping against hope that by some miracle she hadn't noticed.
She had.
"To seize one of my tails," she said slowly, locking piercing ruby eyes onto his widening black ones, "is to elicit a curse to last a thousand years. And you have seized three."
It was a mistake! he tried to say. I was just trying to Bite what was closest! Yet the words never came. His jaw stiffly open, frozen by terror and exhaustion and perhaps something else.
"You shall live," she continued imperiously, "for three thousand years. Age shall not affect your flesh, but you shall wander the wilderness, regretting your error, while friends age and wither and pass into the dust in your wake."
Though only half his height, she seemed to loom over him, all creamy fur that billowed without the touch of earthly wind. He felt himself cowering, felt moisture starting to form in his eyes. He was still little more than a puppy.
"Learn your lesson well," she commanded. She paused, as if deciding whether to say something else, and then turned and dashed away over the rocky hills, her tails streaming behind her.
He whimpered, then realized that he could move again. Ears still pinned against his skull, he turned toward his master, who stared after the ghostly fox long after she had vanished.
His master comforted him, assured him that near-immortality was hardly a curse at all. Yet he could not shake off the heavy feeling that had settled in his bones and in his gut. He was cursed. A marked dog, something to be avoided. The other dogs could sense some change in him, something transcending sight or smell. It made them uneasy, though they couldn't decide how or why. They saw his despair and pitied him in their way, but they were careful to keep their distance all the same.
He never could say afterward when he realized his master had gone well into adulthood. He only knew suddenly, without warning, the human was bent almost double, smelling of prunes and dust and rot. And he knew that on one gray afternoon he heard the wailing in his master's house, grief-calls of his master's children and grandchildren and servants, and it was followed by a procession through the village, an upheaval of earth, and then silence.
He glanced around the kennel, wondering what the other dogs thought of this, and realized belatedly that they had all been dead for decades.
There was some scuffle or other as to who would claim the land afterwards, and the conflict snowballed into a war that ultimately destroyed the castle. There was a day when, roused from his lethargy by the acrid scent of fire, he realized that the kennel wall had been completely torn away. Initially the chance of escape did not appeal to him, and he wished only that some of the falling rubble might crush him and end his misery. Then he remembered the words of the fox, clearly as if she stood beside him, reminding him that he would live for three thousand years. She had not specified whether anything would be able to kill him. The implications were chilling.
He left the castle altogether – there was nothing there for him anymore – and bounded away from the pointless wars and the soldiers whose deaths he envied.
He watched the near-destroyed village for a while from his den on a nearby mountain, falling asleep for months or years at a time. At odd intervals he would awaken to notice that something below had changed. A farmer had tilled the soil again. Buildings had been rebuilt. The village square would ring with shouts. The village would be in ruins. And the cycle repeated itself.
He couldn't understand why it mattered. The land would last. They would not.
Sometimes he would hunt the prey that roamed on the mountainside. Sometimes he would unleash a bloodcurdling howl that would send every creature within miles scampering.
All times felt empty.
He returned one day to his den, a fresh-caught deer in his jaws, to find the fox waiting for him. She watched him, ruby eyes glittering, but it didn't seem to matter to him. The dull ache within him left no room for fear. She'd already cursed him; there was little she could do to make his plight more unbearable. So he said nothing, as did she.
He ate his fill, licked his chops without enthusiasm, and noticed her staring at what meat remained. He felt a brief surge of defensiveness – he had captured his prey himself, and surely she could do the same. Then he caught himself and brushed it aside. There would be more deer when he was hungry again. He met her eyes, gave her a slight nod, and padded to the den's shadowy edge to give her space.
She accepted his offering, and when she had finished, she swept her tails across the floor, almost wagging. "Thank you."
He grunted.
"Arcanine," she said, in a voice with a note of something he couldn't identify, "the curse of my tails is not a voluntary reaction. The energy shifts to the offender whether I wish it to or not."
He didn't look at her. But her voice reached his ears all the same.
"You did not deserve this fate," she said. "I can think of no one, no matter how vile, who does. But my kind do not appreciate those who invoke it, for with every millenium we cast upon a mortal is also another thousand years we must endure. I did not tell you of this before because I was sorely angered when you damned me to live another three millenia. It took me these last two centuries to come to understand and forgive you."
He grunted again. But her words struck a chord in him. Somehow he saw the truth in them, the most honest words he had ever heard.
"It may be longer before you will do the same for me, if at all." She got to her feet. Was that a hint of regret in her tone? "If so, know that it is a great comfort to be in the company of those who bear the same burdens you do. Search for me, and I will be found."
And then she was gone.
He remembered that day clearly. He heard the memory of her words whispering to him as he watched the village grow into a town, then a bustling city. His lucid thoughts wrestled against his despair. And as he slowly came to accept her apology, the lucid thoughts increased. There was someone out there who would share his pain, if he would let her.
He was no longer alone in the world.
When he left the den behind for good, he set off after her, putting the echoes of agonized howls behind him. Off he went, following the ghost of a vulpine scent that he had once tracked for a long-dead master.
The hunt would finally end.