Clad in the filmy silks that her underlings had seized from lowlander estates, Sphaera Algarum stretched on her new lounge. To the demons who attended upon her, and to the dinner who cowered in a corner of her pavilion, it was a seductive motion that showcased the lines of her body. She, however, knew that it was because she just could not get all her tails comfortable on a lounge designed for humans.
How did the older fox spirits manage it? In her youth, she'd served a seven-tailed fox queen. How had she arranged her tails? At the time, Sphaera had taken the pose for granted, but now she wished she'd paid closer attention. She'd spread her two outermost tails to either side, and they trailed gracefully down the sides of her lounge. But the next two tails in were trapped under her rump, and her central tail was a lump under her back. Not only was it giving her a backache, but the tail itself was growing numb.
How had Flos Piri, the greatest of them all, managed this posture with such perfection? All the paintings depicted the nine-tailed fox lounging serenely as adoring demons knelt around her to offer up gold and jewels and tender, succulent human babies. Flos Piri's tails had never gone to sleep under the weight of her own rear end. Sphaera was sure of it.
Well, this might be a terribly impractical position, but it didn't matter. Flos Piri had lounged, and so all fox spirits after her would lounge. No matter how miserable and cranky it made her lesser sisters.
Lifting a pale, slender hand, Sphaera extended it towards her current favorite, a gazelle demon in human form. A most magnificent pair of horns swooped back from the crown of his head. At her gesture, he immediately walked forward on his knees to sink down next to her hand and kiss it.
She admired his horns for a moment before she addressed him in a low, throaty voice. "How long until we reach the capital, dearest?"
At the term "dearest," the gazes of the watching demons sharpened. No doubt the gazelle would be ambushed as soon as he exited her pavilion. If he survived that attack, he'd be challenged to duels over the next week until he stood victorious over the bodies of his rivals, or lay broken under their paws. Nothing like a little – or a lot of – bloodshed to enliven this long, tedious, dusty trek east.
The gazelle shot the jealous demons a triumphant look before he bowed his head to Sphaera. "It will not be long now, Radiant Majesty. Another day shall see you on your rightful throne."
Almost there! Almost to the capital of South Serica! Her heart thrilled at the thought of an end to this journey at long last, and she trilled a light laugh. "My 'rightful' throne, you say?"
The gazelle's smooth, handsome face betrayed confusion. "Yes, Radiant Majesty...?"
"Oh no. No, no, no. My 'rightful' throne."
She laughed harder, the rest of her courtiers joining in a heartbeat later. Of course, most of them were laughing less because they understood the source of her mirth, and more because they were savoring the gazelle's humiliation and possible fall from grace. But that was as it should have been.
Under the onslaught of scorn, the gazelle bowed his head until his nose touched the floor.
"Ah, oh!" she gasped, stopping at last.
A rosefinch handmaiden flew forward and offered her a handkerchief with which to dab her eyes.
Smiling a cruel smile at the assembled demons, Sphaera asked, "If it were my 'rightful' throne, what would be the point of seizing it? No, I want it because it is not mine."
"That is what I meant, Radiant Majesty!" babbled the gazelle. "I misspoke! I meant only that we will proclaim to the natives that you are the rightful queen, to pacify them so they will not cause you trouble!"
"Oh? You imply that these lowlander weaklings might pose a threat to me? The Five-Tailed Fox Queen of the Jade Mountain Wilds?"
"No! No, I did not mean to suggest that! I meant – I meant only that – "
Sphaera let him squirm. While her courtiers mocked his agony, she used the distraction to shift her tails. Dratted lounge! You'd think her handmaidens might have had the basic intelligence to cut some holes in the back for her tails before they presented it to her! Flos Piri would never have stood for such incompetence. She'd have devoured them down to their very marrow.
Pins and needles shot through Sphaera's central tail as she eased her weight off it, and it took everything she had to keep her expression smooth and amused. That was it. She was getting rid of her handmaidens. She might not execute or eat them, but at the very least, she would fire them. All of them.
"I tire of this farce," she snapped. "Serve my evening meal."
Her courtiers snapped to attention. A yak lumbered over to her dinner and seized his hair in his teeth to drag him to his feet. Her dinner cried out and flailed his arms and pleaded for his life.
That was good. This was a lively human. The dull-eyed ones who'd already given up and allowed their throats to be slit with no protest had duller-tasting blood. The spirited ones had a sweeter flavor.
The yak forced her dinner's head over a translucent white-jade chalice with a yellow-flame tree carved on its side, and a grey langur monkey stepped forward with a gleaming blade. Her dinner blubbered and wept.
With a smile, Sphaera leaned back against her lounge – and inadvertently crushed her tails once more. Well, at least dinner would provide temporary relief from this misery.
That's what you call a fox queen? I hissed at Stripey. That?!
He, Bobo, and I were crouched behind a shrub, peeking into a tent whose flaps had been pinned back. Inside, a petty little foxling with only four tails – no, five, she was sitting on top of one of them, silly creature – was showering spite on the demons around her. If she weren't careful, one of them was going to bite her. Literally.
She's not even a millennium old!
Stripey shrugged his wings in his old trademark gesture. "She's a fox spirit and she rules over all these demons. What else would you call her?"
How standards had fallen!
Not a queen – that's for sure! Only five tails? I had attendants with more tails than that.
Even as I scoffed, I was observing the foxling. She was humiliating a gazelle demon with a rather spectacular pair of horns. They weren't short, stubby little nubs like the ones that the serow spirit, Miss Caprina, had. No, these were long and tapering and swept back from the top of his head, angled a little away from each other. A soft sigh escaped me. Now those were real horns.
Stripey poked me with a pointy wingtip. "Drool over the handsome animals later. How are we dealing with Queen Sphaera?"
Ha. "Queen" Sphaera. I'll take care of her.
I didn't bother to ask him what the foxling wanted. She was a fox spirit. We all wanted the same thing.
Tipping my head back, I chirped into the sky, Flicker! Oh, Fliiiiiiicker! We need you down here!
Then I waited. I'd give the clerk a couple minutes to wrap up whatever he was doing – finish reincarnating a soul, file a document, the like. Look how generous and patient I had become!
Inside the tent, the foxling got bored of tormenting the gazelle and snapped something at the others. Selecting her next victim, I supposed. Then a monkey picked up a knife, and a yak lumbered forward, dragging a kicking, pleading – human man.
A human! Who was about to get murdered before my very eyes!
Flicker! Hurry up! Get down here right now! I flapped my wings and bounced up and down, hoping Flicker would see me from Heaven and realize just how big this crisis was.
The yak forced the human's head over a large cup, and the monkey raised his knife.
Flicker! Now now now!
Golden light shone next to me. "What is it now, Piri? You know I can't just take off in the middle of the workday – "
He cut off, because I'd seized his sleeve in both claws and was tugging him towards the tent.
Glow brightly so they can't look straight at you! Like how you did it in the Temple!
"What – ?"
Now!
Light blazed, nearly white hot. I squinched my eyes shut and hung on to Flicker's sleeve so I knew where he was. From the direction of the tent came cries of pain, and I could imagine the demons rolling around on the ground, clutching their eyes.
Now move forward towards them. The tent, I mean. Slowly, at a dignified pace. They can't see either of us inside the light, can they?
"No, but I can't keep it up for long," he warned. "What are you up to this time?"
Saving that human, saving the Kingdom of South Serica, and setting up your boss for an eternity of splendid offerings. In that order. Tell me when we reach the tent.
We drifted forward until Flicker came to a stop, presumably just outside the opening.
"We're here. Now what?"
What's the foxling doing?
"The foxling? You mean the fox spirit? She's trying to open her eyes to look at us."
That was what I would have been doing in her place too, if only to prove that Heaven couldn't dazzle me.
Just keep glowing. I'll take it from here.
While Flicker focused all his energy on keeping up his light show, I spoke as myself for the first time in over five hundred years. (Well, maybe not really as myself, since I wasn't a nine-tailed fox at the moment, but it was close enough.)
Well met, my little foxling. Your beauty and cunning do me proud.
With my eyes shut, I couldn't see her reaction, but I heard her insulted voice perfectly. "Little foxling?! Who are you? How dare you address me with such insolence? Guards! Remove this – creature – from my presence!"
Thumps and groans to our sides suggested that some of the demons were struggling to obey. A voice moaned, "My eyes – !"
What to say next? It had been so many centuries since I'd stood proud in Cassius' court, strewing destruction whithersoever I glanced.
You project a most majestic aura, little foxling. It, too, does me proud.
"I asked you who you are! Answer the question before my guards tear you to pieces and feed you to me for my evening meal!"
Honestly, that would be preferable to her killing the human.
Oh, little foxling, have the icy winds of the Jade Mountains frozen your judgment? Has the fog that fills the valleys blotted out your wisdom? I sighed sadly. To think that one of mine would fall so low as to fail to recognize ME. Channeling my former self, I laughed a tinkling, contemptuous laugh – and promptly cringed at the realization that Stripey and Bobo could hear it too.
"Who are you to claim me as one of yours – " The foxling stopped mid-screech when she grasped the implications of that statement. "Wait. No." Fur swished: She must have shaken her head hard. "You can't be. You died. You've been dead for five hundred years!"
Five hundred twelve, if Anthea's math could be trusted. In this case, it probably could.
Five hundred twelve years, in fact. But did you truly believe that death could stop ME? I – Flos Piri of the Jade Mountains, who took down an empire?
I injected all the scorn and hatred that I felt for Lady Fate, the Jade Emperor, the entire apparatus of Heaven into those words. Believing they were directed at her, the foxling trembled.
At least, I imagined that she trembled. It was what I would have been doing, in her place.
And indeed, she asked in a voice that quavered, "Lady – Piri? Is – is it really – you? Have you truly – returned?"
There was only one answer to that, and it held all the satisfaction in the world: Yes. It is I. And I have returned.
A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Dylan, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, yoghogfog, and Anonymous!