Her scent was gone.
In my negligence speaking with my father I failed to notice Clara's absence. The Kirin too was nowhere to be seen grazing a short distance away where it was left. An unsettling panic crept in, disturbing my mind as to what had happened.
"The kitsune-" Turning back abruptly only to snarl at my father her name, he merely looked at me with unchanging indifference. "The kitsune should not have gone far with the Kirin. We'll follow the path." Onto his mount and already following the dirt road, I followed in suit with unfound feelings boring into me. It took us only a few moments following the road that father seemed rigid of something and slowed down. "Son, there is a strange presence up ahead."
Up ahead, no further than a mile or so, the aforementioned presence was indeed beyond a small thicket of trees. We pressed onward, wary what was there as both of us heard the Kirin. Father dismounted and charged through the veil as a brisk wind blew past only to unveil the valley of winter.
"Father, this is-"
"A deity's realm..." his brow knitted together, scanning the valley quickly and pointed out his findings. "There, the kirin."
The Kirin was standing in one place, surrounded by smaller stags as a much larger one was a short distance away beside a body belonging to Clara.
"What has it done to her?" Feeling my claws sharpen and face contort angrily, the deity looked our way with a snap and I felt my feet freeze in place. "?!" Unable to move, the stag started coming towards us with head raised.
[Demons...why do you trespass?] Our minds probed with its voice, it was rather powerful to bear. Even for one such as I could tell not to mess with this being for it would be my last.
"We seek the one you have there. She is with us." Father answered while keeping a calm demeanor, but his nails were biting into his palm nonetheless in the stags presence. "There is no harm to be done here."
[Harm...no...the kitsune mortal, injured.] Looking back at Clara as something pricked the back of my neck uncomfortably. [The kitsune soul, tainted. Cleansing.] Speaking slowly as it turned away to return to her, father was visibly livid at the notion it was taking and broke free from its icy grasp and began charging at Clara. [Demon, disrespectful!] The Ame-No-Kaku roared as it charged after him, breaking its own vice on me.
Chasing behind the stag and seeing Clara unconscious, there was a strange mist hovering over her that seemed to be doing something unknown to me. Father missed his chance grabbing her as the stag hit him from behind. The Kirin screeched, stomping its hooves into the ground and scaring the other ilk surrounding him to come towards me. taking hold of the reins, matching its speed, I reached for Clara and scooped her into my arm and leapt onto the Kirin's back and began our escape from the valley.
[Curse! I curse you both to early damnation!] Ame-No-Kaku roared with outrage as father slipped away and we both fled the valley unscathed. At least in a physical sense.
"She does not wake..." Father mentioned after several hours after escaping the deity's realm. I too worried of her health having not awoken, but the strange mist still upon her like a strange veil. There was something ominous swirling within the mist that made me transfixed on what it could be before seeing a face form and a clear visual of a fox snapped at me!
"The priestess!" Appalled by the image as it vanished back into the mist, Clara seemed unfazed by the event and remained still. "What was the deity doing?"
"...he mentioned a cleansing. The foolish beast is messing with the priestess' work." Furrowing his brow as he leaned against a nearby tree, I took Clara to a more comfortable spot with soft moss and debated how to proceed from here. "What will you do with the girl if the priestess is diminished?" Father asked.
Unable to process everything at first so readily, it was something I never thought would occur. Was I only interested in her due to the power of the fox? Was there more to her than that? Father seemed to know more of what I was going through it seemed as a sly smirk crossed his lips as he turned away.
"I will keep her as my ward...I've claimed her as mine." Finding ground against my father, he said nothing to me for some time. I cared not for his words afterwards and tended to Clara as she slept under the deity's spell. Wondering for how long this would last, and if it was reckless of us to pull her away the way we did knowing nothing what was done.