The alcove opened up into a cave that I could barely fathom the size of. Liones' castle was the only thing that could rival it, the walls so distant that even my enhanced eyesight could barely make them out in the shadows.
A massive protrusion from the ceiling served as a naturally formed chandelier, small fires roaring on the spindly arms. It had to be at least as big as Hawk's mum and bathed the area around me in so much light it was like midday in here. Off to my right were the crashing waves that I could see through cathedral sized arches; but they made no sound as they struck the black stone balcony that stretched out to the sea.
The sky above the water was dark as midnight, a thousand twinkling stars smeared across the expanse. My skin prickled again as I walked forward slowly. A rough footpath, barely a shade different from the stone on either side, extended towards a raised dais. Foxes of various size and shapes frolicked and preened in everlasting visages caught by marble around me.
Now whoever resided her was powerful, no doubt about it. I ran my hand along the top of a fox as I made my way, the magic tugging at my chest to hurry forward. I'd have to tread carefully. The magic directed me towards the dais.
Upon it lazed a wolf-sized fox. Her pristine white fur practically glowed in the firelight. She unfurled herself and stretched. Nine fluffy tails extended, a solid, golden ring snugly fit on each one.
My fox form paled in comparison to her, in both looks and size. She was hauntingly beautiful for a vulpine and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a touch jealous.
Intelligent amber eyes locked onto mine before she raised her nose in the air and sneered down at me. Had I ears, they'd be pinned back in immediate annoyance.
"Another human? Honestly, you two-legged weaklings don't know when to stop. Come on then, out with it, start your spiel."
I bristled and stopped about ten metres from her. Screw being humble, her voice evoked an innate need to take her down a peg. "I don't know what the hell you're going on about."
She rolled her eyes. "Don't play dumb. There's only two ways to enter my cave and there's no way you came through Istar. What is it that you want? Money, fame, love?" She sat on her haunches and licked delicately at a paw.
"Greed."
She froze with her eyes on me. She pointed the paw at me. "You're not a fox."
"And you're not very helpful," I quipped. "Jenna said I'd find someone who could answer my questions but I only see an obnoxious fox."
"You better bite your tongue before you say something that makes me mad. It has been an extremely long time since a druid has sent a fox through to me. Why are you human?"
"I didn't very well have much of a choice in the matter."
She cocked her head to the side. "You have me intrigued now, Fox of Greed. Pray tell, do you have a name?"
"Estra. And I guess you're also a Fox of Greed too."
She burst into laughter so musical I swear the marble foxes vibrated in a wish to come to life and dance before her.
"I can't even remember the last time someone made a joke so great. My dear little fox, I am not a Fox of Greed, I am Greed."
My mind flicked back to the book. The Vices of the world. The fox with her nine tails and the ability to command the elements.
"You're one of the Original Seven."
Her eyes twinkled with delight. "And you are full of surprises. Colour me impressed. Pray tell, little fox Estra, can your story also impress me?"
"If I tell you my story, will you answer my questions? Jenna said you had answers."
"Oh, I have more than just answers. But we shall see if you're worthy enough after our chats."
I couldn't gauge the truthfulness of her words. But standing in this cave and sensing the unrequited power oozing off of her, I could not deny that she actually could be one of the Vices the book spoke of.
So I explained my story to her, all of it. Even the stuff I hadn't been able to tell my friends and family.
The fire crackled overhead in the silence. "You've been through a lot, little fox," she mused. "More than most for a Fox of Greed."
"Satisfied?"
"Quite." She began grooming another paw. "You have questions?"
I was practically buzzing with them. "Where are we?"
"Off the coast of a land you've most likely never visited. Quite accessible to the brave, not so much for mere foxes from Brittania."
"How did you know I was from Brittania?"
"These druids' magic irritates my sinuses."
"How is it that I can get here via Istar?"
"The heavenly beings made a pact with the druids to assist them in keeping us confined. They – and I mean a lot of druids – have access to all our lairs. My stipulation was if they wished to spy on me every second that they guide the foxes with greed to me so that I could judge how worthy they were."
"Okay, okay, this is just bringing more questions up. You said they, do you mean the other original sins? Are the heavenly beings the ones that gave you the powers in the first place?"
"Why do you have so many questions bottled up inside of you?" She heaved a sigh. "You might as well sit down."
A chair grew upwards out of the ground right behind me. I gingerly sat.
"I gather you have some knowledge of the Original Sins." Her tails flicked from left to right in one sharp movement and seven coloured blobs of light burst into existence between us. "I don't know if the others are still alive. Why should I care? They are nothing more than animals who decided to destroy the natural order of things by trying to go against me."
The coloured blobs formed into seven creatures and then started prancing around the room. She flicked her tails again, right to left in one sharp movement, and a large blob of golden light appeared above the frolicking animals.
"I know them as heavenly beings. They had no gender, no race, they just existed." The blob formed into a row of figures, roughly human shaped but with no distinguishable differences between them. "They governed over all who lived on the earth and rarely interacted with what went on. That being said, when people began using the Mana they blessed the earth with to do evil, they put a stop to it. That's where we came in. Think of it like a royal hierarchy. The King and Queen have the last say but the Prince and Princess can fill in their parent's footsteps when they are away. We were their most auspicious subjects. We ruled in their stead."
Her words matched the ones from the book. The seven animal figures lined up before the heavenly being figures. Funny enough, six of them had inclined their heads into a nod of respect. The fox stood proud.
"And that's where things went wrong," I said.
"Nothing went wrong!" Her lips pulled back into a snarl. "They should have just stayed observing like they'd done for the thousands of years before that." The animals darted about, growing bigger and vicious looking, all sharp edges, shadows on their face and eyes glowing with power. The fox towered over them all. "Greed is mine. The entire world was to be mine."
She started pacing. The heavenly beings raised their hands and chains wrapped the animals. They writhed and opened their mouths in silent cries. The fox's was the most twisted, a ferocious display of teeth towards the three figures around her.
Greed laughed then, musical but grating. Mocking. "I wasn't about to let a puny god take what was rightfully mine. They split us up into the corners of the known world. When they claimed my power back, I split it. I let them rip from me my ability to regenerate and heal, my speed and reflexes, my great strength and abundant Mana. I even let them siphon a fraction of my skills. And they're so far up their own asses they didn't even think to check. But a fox obeys no one."
"And that power was gifted to the predecessors every seven thousand years?"
"Whoever you got your knowledge from knew a hell of a lot." She looked pleased by that.
Thank you, book, for getting me brownie points here.
The original seven animals disappeared and newborn animals unfurled themselves, streaks of powers marking veins in pulses. "It's true that a sin is born with the magick in their veins. It's a watered down version though since it was constrained to earth by the heavenly beings. The loophole being that the power of the sin was borne by the same animal. But time decays everything. The powers within the animals grows less and less each time, Greed even more so since it was originally split." The fox's power pulsed softer, less vibrant. "The last fox that visited my grotto barely had anything. And then you stopped the flow. At the time, I thought Greed had finally run its course through the foxes, and with its removal, it would have only been a matter of time until the world forgot and the powers holding me at bay ceased to exist."
The lights fused together and formed a fox that sat before me, burning with orange light.
"And then you traipsed in. Your demon friend was a real help, infusing his own magic in you. It awoke something I thought lost centuries ago. That power you displayed on that battlefield, it was Greed. Albeit only a fraction of it – the fraction I left behind. At it's true strength, it's the power to consume the world."
A/N: This took a while because all of this was supposed to be in one chapter. The document titled chapter 7 is now over 4000 words long and I haven't even finished the scene with Estra meeting Greed lol