AN: I have had some reviewers ask me about a few things concerning Riis, mainly, the issue of heat. I have asked my good friend Merriam, and this is the answer I recieved.
Main Entry: 2heat
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English hete, from Old English hAEte, hAEtu; akin to Old English hAt hot
2 a intensity of feeling or reaction : PASSION b the height or stress of an action or condition in the heat of battle> c sexual excitement especially in a female mammal; specifically : ESTRUS
and since Riis is a female mammal...you put two and two together. This is the last chapter of Feathers of a Fox. I originally started writing this story because I couldn't cope with the death of my dog, Dutch. Yes, people, Dutch was a real dog with the mixed pedigree of a german shepherd and a huskie. The reason I haven't updated quickly is because I haven't wanted to deal with the painful memories that this story brings up when I have to go back through and find details and I come across Dutch doing this or that. He was a beautiful dog.
Enjoy this last chapter.
Disclaimer: eh, I'll say it since it's the last chapter. All the original Escaflowne characters (i.e. Allen, Van, Hitomi, etc) are copyright to those people listed on the back of their dvd's. Koyo, Fir, Riis, etc. are mine. MINE! so, if you want to use them, please ask me. I'll take it into consideration.
WARNING!
There is explicit content and sexual situations in this chapter (near the end. All implied of course). This story is M(R) for a reason.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
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And now our Feature Presentation...
Surprises Are Supposed to Come on Birthdays Only
Van explained the disappearance of Hitomi, Riis, and Koyo as visiting a neighboring country, and since a holiday was just about on Fanelia, he postponed all meetings until after the festival. For the festival's sake, of course. It had nothing to do with the disappearance of his shadowfox.
Wearing his traditional red tunic and khakis, Van ventured out of the castle. His intentions had been to visit the vendors and booths lining the streets, but he ended up walking the paths in the woods behind the castle. He could feel an odd resonance. He finally realized, after he fell into a slight indent that turned out to be dragon print, that he was on a dragon path. The mused that maybe it was because he was a Draconian. He randomly took a deer path to the right and actually stumbled on a small gathering of deer. They just looked at each other before returning to their grazing. Odd, Van thought. They usually run at the sight of anyone. He walked through the heard.
"That was most interesting," Fir mused as Hitomi dried a small fox kit. Riis was sleeping all curled up in an unconscious Koyo's lap.
"Isn't Riis supposed to feed her or something?" Hitomi asked curiously.
Riis laughed. "That's now how shadowfox work, dearie." Her smile was so full of amusement, Hitomi pouted.
"Soon, the kit will have a 'growth spurt' of sorts." Hitomi still looked a little confused. So Fir decided to try to clarify things a little bit. "You do know that Riis will be four come mid-spring?"
From the look Hitomi gave her she could only suspect that she hadn't known.
They both looked at Riis. Every so slowly, she eventually was laying on the ground as Koyo disappeared. Riis soon followed as well as the kit. Soon, Hitomi's vision became misty.
Fir shrugged. "Technically, you shouldn't be here. The Land of the Gods and the Dead are not for the living." With that, Hitomi saw black……
……her vision came back to a spluttering noise and the chirping of birds. She looked around herself. There were deer grazing in a clearing that had yet to be claimed by snow. A stag looked at her then below her before he went back to grazing. Curious, she looked down to see a pair of khaki pants. Standing up and turning around, she looked into dazed brown-red eyes.
"Van?"
Said person blinked a few times before groaning and reaching for his head. "Dammit, Hitomi, couldn't you at least land at a more convenient place, say next to me?" Her silver laughter caused all the deer to pause in their grazing and look at her.
Koyo woke to a flux in something's power. Slowly opening his eyes, he groaned. He felt like he'd been sparing against Allen and his father in a melee tournament. He looked around and found himself in Riis' rooms. She was standing behind someone brushing their hair.
"Riis?" Koyo inquired as he unsteadily got to his feet.
"Ciferu," Koyo heard Riis chime. "Go greet your father."
"DADDY?" a child screeched. He suddenly found himself back on the ground with a child firmly attached around his middle. He looked down and found a little face beaming up at him. "My name is Ciferu!"Ciferu's hair was a dark, dark chocolate brown and her eyes were a red-brown colour with streaks of green and a few fleks of silver. Koyo stared as the child disentangled herself when Riis beckoned her.
"Why don't you go find Hisomu and play tag in the rose garden?" She squealed as she ran out of the suite. A yelp in he corridor said that Ciferu had found Hisomu.
"Dad?" Koyo asked Riis gently as she came and sat by him on the floor. She nodded as she clasped her hands around her knees. She smiled a smile that Koyo swore he just saw bound out of the room.
"Don't you remember the night I broke those figurines and that vase?"
Koyo froze in the action of shaking his head……
Something had woken him up. Sitting up, Koyo looked about and a sudden draft hit him. The door to his suite had been opened and shut. Thinking that a package had been dropped off or a missive, he decided that it could wait until morning before he found out what it was.
Velvet soft fur rubbed against his legs. Reaching down, he absently petted the fox. Wait. :Fox.: That meant Shadowfox. Shadowfox meant Riis.: As if the vixen had been reading his thoughts, Riis appeared in his lap. Something was odd about her green eyes, as if something was calling him. He didn't know what it was, although it did seem important. Naïve, Koyo answered her call.
He found himself in what looked to be part of the gardens. What looked to by a guyemelef was overgrown with various vines and flowers. Trees grew on its upturned palms; the roots trailed down to the ground where they burrowed into the soil. A pond had formed next to the ancient guyemelef, and on its shores was where he found himself. A quick glance beyond the guymelef showed a wall.
Lips descended upon his own and he had a compulsion to return the kiss. He became too warm for his shirt in the cool night and the tunic found itself crumpled on the ground. Silver laughter greeted the absence of his tunic and he smiled wryly at his lover. Her black ears twitched as she smiled tauntingly at him. He felt a sense of wrongness with him half naked and not she, but the robes she was wearing didn't really hide anything. Hell, the material was practically transparent.
"If you don't hurry," she whispered heatedly, "you won't get the chance to touch my clothes."
Koyo grinned. They did fascinate him, what with being made with translucent material. Before he knew it, he was tracing the contours of her body through the delectably soft and thin material. She hissed in pleasure. He could feel her skin warm under his touch. Koyo found a tie at the back of her collar. Unlacing it, her suddenly unrestrained breasts caused the top to slide down. Untangling it from her torso, his mouth found hers as they kissed again.
He couldn't remember how, but he soon found himself naked kissing his lover who matched him in his choice of dress. She pushed him down on the damp grass. He studied her glassy eyes with hazy eyes. Something dripped onto his stomach, and it was then that he figured out what she wanted. With that, she sat downand he hissed. They danced all through the night, and when he woke up, he found himself looking around his room, tucked into his bed, with Riis at the foot curled up in a ball.
"I thought it was a dream…" Koyo whispered as he gazed into her tri-coloured eyes. "I thought it was a dream."
"It wasn't a dream, lover," Riis informed him as she kissed him.
Ciferu ran through the roses giggling as any young child would as she chased Hisomu. So it came as a surprise at dinner that evening when Riis entered with the cutest child hanging on her skirt. The fact that Riis was wearing a skirt was a surprise in itself. The reason to Riis' skirt was shrugged off as the festival. The child sat next to Riis who sat next to Koyo. Both acted as young people should when there were a dozen or more important dignitaries and foreign lords attending dinner. Riis asked a servant to see that the child was put to sleep in her suite when she fell asleep at the table. All the dignitaries smiled as two maids came and took the sleepy child to the specified rooms.
Van and Hitomi wished their guests well at the end of the dinner as the moon was high in the sky. As Riis was returning to her rooms, Van turned the corner and, by Newton's laws of motion, they collided and fell. Getting to her feet, Riis started her journey to her rooms when a question from Van stopped her.
"That child that you had at dinner seemed a bit familiar. Who is she?" Riis couldn't remember exactly who was in the room with her when she had started to go into labor, but she would be money that the king in front of her sitting casually on the floor was. Deciding what she should say, Riis finally settled on the truth.
"She's my daughter, Van." Her usually laughing eyes were on guard. He just nodded. She smiled evilly as she decided to tell him the rest. "Your son was a good lover. I can only hope he'll be a good father."
She turned the corner and left Van dumbfounded on the floor, eyes staring after her in disbelief.
Winter left and spring came. Ciferu gained control of her other two forms in the warming weather and began experimenting with her magic. The kit found her fox self on the roof boarding one of the courtyards one day when she found an odd magic nestled and interwoven deep within herself. It bled into her fox magic that she had been getting used to over thelengthening winter days. Tapping into it, she was stunned and excited when she found wings explode from her withers. Ciferu spread her wings as she jumped off the roof…
Van had Riis on a leash only to assure the visiting dignitaries as they crossed one of the many courtyards. A scream from above had all the dignitaries, Van, and Riis looking up. A winged creature was plummeting toward the ground. He felt Riis lunge and jump as wings exploded from her back. She caught the creature in her jaws and landed gracefully to the clapping of the dignitaries. They thought it was just a show.
Van watched Riis scold the kit, Ciferu, and the wings disappear from both foxes. Riis laid down and Ciferu, with her bushy tail between her legs, made her way to Hisomu. The Noisome Mutt picked the kit up and trotted out of the courtyard. He reached the vixen as Hisomu reached the door.
I dabbled in my kit's magic too far. Riis told him as a tri-coloured eye watched him. Her magic marked me. I was exposed to it for too long. She sighed as she fell asleep, exhausted from using foreign magic.
A dignitary picked up a large primary feather, running it through his hands. Van turned with Riis now in his arms and made his way back to them.
"King Van," the dignitary began. He was a big man who looked like he was outside a lot. "I think that these feathers might rival a Draconian's feather, and I have seen examples of your feathers. It's durable, but lightweight and look," he bent the feather and instead of it snapping as a normal feather would, it resisted and retook the shape it had been, "it doesn't break."
"Odd feathers," another dignitary exclaimed. "These fox feathers are most interesting."
"Feathers of a fox," another dignitary said softly. "Who would have thought that foxes could fly?"
"She's a Shadowfox," the first dignitary explained. "Who knows what a shadowfox is capable of?"
The other dignitaries nodded as if that explained everything.
And so it came that Dryden heard that the King of Fanelia had a flying fox. Everybody seemed so worked up over it. He himself didn't understand what all the fuss was about. What was the big deal if Van decided to get a bat? And from what he was saying, it was a big one, too. It'd seem that he'd have to pay his old friend a visit.
Fin.
AN: I just realized, as I was thinking over the story, I left Romulus and Remus with that lawyer perosn and totally in the blue...I guess that means there'll be an epilogue. Don't expect that for two weeks. I have finals until Wednesday and Regents the rest of the week and all next week. :D Something for you to look forward to:D Enjoy your summer days!