Habits of a Kitsune

Our journey from the city led us into a twilight forest. Great, moss-covered trees, whose bark shone with a faint, phosphorescent light, loomed over us like sleeping giants. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth, and a strange, electric tang of raw magic that seemed to emanate from the very soil.

Lalika, her earlier distress now a grim and hurried focus, led us along a path that was no path at all, a route known only to her youkai senses. We began to see signs of habitation: small, carved stone lanterns that glowed with a soft, internal warmth, and colourful ribbons tied to the low-hanging branches of the phosphorescent trees. We were, I gathered, on the outskirts of the kitsune village.

The quiet of the woods was a stark contrast to the city's constant hum. It prompted a question that had been slowly forming in my mind. I turned to the noir-haired fox walking beside me.

"Xiao Ru," I began, my voice a low murmur, "if this is your home, why do you live in the city? Are you the only one from your village who does?"

"From our village? Mostly, yes," she answered with a sigh, her gaze fixed on the path ahead. "A few of the others come and go for trade, but I am the only permanent resident."

"Why?" I pressed.

She gave a delicate shrug, a gesture of ennui. "There is only so much pure, clean, babbling river water a girl can drink before she goes mad for something a little more... complicated."

From behind us, Ashley made a noise of profound disgust. "What," she said, her voice dripping with derision. "You drink from a river?" I could almost feel her cringe. "How utterly provincial."

Lalika, who had been a few paces ahead, paused and turned, her amber eyes blinking with a lack of comprehension. "Whatever is the matter with river water?" she asked, her tone one of pure, unadulterated curiosity. "It is cool and sweet."

Ashley stared at the two of them, her mouth slightly agape. For a moment, she seemed bereft of her usual venomous wit, dumbfounded by the sheer, unadorned innocence of the question.

It was I who attempted to mediate this strange impasse, though my own mind reeled. I looked from the two genuinely puzzled foxes to Ashley’s disgusted expression. "You... boil it first, do you not?" I asked, the question feeling strangely pedantic and yet absolutely essential. "To cleanse it of impurities? Bacteria?"

Xiao Ru tilted her head, her perplexed eyes regarding me with the same look of confusion her sister had just shown Ashley. "Boil… it?" she repeated, as if I had suggested setting the water aflame for no reason. "Why in all the hells would I do that? The river is life. To boil it would be to... cook it. To kill its spirit."

The leer on Ashley’s face widened into a smile of pure, venomous sweetness. "You must forgive us," she purred, her voice dripping with a false sincerity that made the fine hairs on my arms stand on end. "In the city, we are not accustomed to such... rustic simplicity."

She raised a single, gloved finger and pointed toward a break in the phosphorescent trees to our left, past the bank of dark earth. "Perhaps you would be so good as to demonstrate?"

Through the gap in the trees, I could see it. It was a slow, broad river of what looked to be pure, polished obsidian—perhaps the same one I drifted down. It did not babble or sparkle; it moved with a thick, oily silence, its surface reflecting the strange twilight sky like a perfect, black mirror. No life grew upon its banks, a slick, dark mud that seemed to clot around and metabolize the light.

My every instinct, both human and detective, screamed that this water was not a thing to be touched, let alone consumed. It was a river of liquid night, and it felt fundamentally wrong.

Xiao Ru, however, seemed to see nothing amiss. She glanced toward the black water and then back at Ashley, a faint, puzzled smile on her lips. "Of course," she said simply, as if Ashley's request were a perfectly reasonable, if slightly odd, part of a woodland stroll.

Upon this pronouncement, she turned and began her promenade toward the riverbank, with Lalika following a pace behind her, both blissfully unaware of the look of silent, predaceous victory that shone, for a moment, in Ashley's eyes. I watched them go, a cold knot of dread tightening in my stomach. I did not know what spirit resided in that black water, but I was quite certain it was not one a person ought to drink.

As Xiao Ru and her sister innocently approached the black riverbank, a cold spike of unease drove me to turn on Ashley. My voice was a low, urgent hiss. "Ashley. That water—weren't you washing your mouth out with it when we first met?"

The smug, venomous leer on Ashley's face froze, then vanished entirely. Her eyes narrowed in a sharp, sudden wince of recollection, and a dark flush of pure embarrassment crept up her neck. She made a soft, disgusted noise in the back of her throat.

And as I saw the look on her face, the pieces began to click into place for me as well. That dark, oily water from the city's underbelly... wait, could it be the same—

My gaze snapped toward the riverbank, a warning finally forming on my lips, but it was already too late.

Xiao Ru and Lalika were already walking back, wiping their lips with the backs of their hands. They had knelt by the black water, cupped it in their hands, and drunk deeply of the city's foul and forgotten refuse.

"See?" Xiao Ru said, her smile as bright and untroubled as ever. "Perfectly refreshing! There was nothing to be afraid of at all."

I said nothing. What could be said? The deed was done. I merely looked at Ashley, who had finally turned her head back, her expression now a mask of gelid, weary cynicism. Our eyes met over the heads of the two cheerful, oblivious kitsune.

Without another word, we continued our slow procession, finally entering the village proper.