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The harvest Fall sun provided a beautiful afternoon for the many on the island of Nytherra. For its many souls, they all basked in the hazy sun: children in harmless play and the adults doing their errands around the town in no particular rush. Even the animals seemed far more active for this time of year, even with the skull hunters searching ever-so tirelessly in the mid-day sun.
With such a beautiful day, it brought out even the most solitude of souls. Fabian was a prime candidate, there was no mistake. The glare of the window inside his woodland cabin seemed to upset his particular needs for study, making it impossibly hard to study the manuscripts. At least, for Fabian that was impossible in this condition. Even the slightest musk change in his cabin required a rigorous amount of deep cleaning with a mix of herbs and scents. The sun would not do, and the inability to frankly annihilate the sun from the sky filled him with certain anger. He wouldn't let the sun beams ruin his day however– he wasn’t a child– so he’d simply have to find a way to tolerate this sure plot by some higher being to ruin his studies.
Fabian rested under a tree of deep spruce, shifting ever constantly with the sun beams as his fingers traced along diagrams of plants and floral varieties. His eyes seemed to squint, trying to read the diagrams not outshined by the sun beams hitting his book. With a deep, almost impatient sigh, Fabian shut his book with a defiant level of anger. He surely cherished the finer parts of nature, but even he found a sort of mild annoyance when it worked against him.
Lifting his head, Fabian looked amongst the floral growing on the forest floor, trying to catch perhaps a rare color amongst the vibrant yellows and reds. Instead, his eyes laid upon a fox, crouched in the vibrant shrubbery. From what Fabian could examine, the fox’s pelt was unusually clean, and its muzzle was unmarked by the usual scars and marks created by simply existing in the wild. Yet its eyes were dark… empty, as if its eyes weren’t quite stalking, or examining for that matter.
Fabian whistled gently, trying to attract the fox with a small gesture. Yet, the fox stayed crouched with stillness, like a child who hadn’t realized they’d been caught in a game of hide and seek. But Fabian wasn’t quite sure what could’ve been the seeker, or the one hiding for the matter. He watched for a few moments, but as minutes passed, so did the waning interest Fabian had put towards the fox. With it, Fabian snagged the book beside him once more as the sun's glare seemed to shine elsewhere, leaving Fabian in a shade that was more preferable for study. Yet as Fabian opened his book, his brow furrowed in a sense of confusion, and mild annoyance.
The diagrams in the book were strewn, illegible, as if they were alien plants described in a tome found in an ancient monolith. Fabian tried to understand the diagrams for a moment, trying to understand the unconscious words and the sharp unnatural binding of leaf and stem. He couldn’t consider himself a man of knowledge without an attempt in doing so. But not even him could decipher the odd strewing of words and pictures. It enraged him more than weirded him out. With a tight grip of the book's leather bind, he lifted it to toss it angrily into the grass beside him. When he lifted his head, he stopped, his anger fleeting quickly and utterly.
No more than a foot away the fox sat with a smiling snarl strewn across its muzzle. It looked as if the fox would– laugh, or perhaps gnash his jaws in humor. The fox lifted his chin and examined Fabian with a gemmed, yellow eye.
“You’re quite the spectacle of a man.” The fox cackled out with an observable smugness.
Fabians lipped curled in a disdainful frown, tilting his head as the book in his hand lowered to the side. If he had no mystics to him, Fabian would’ve surely chewed the fox rightfully out.
“Well aren’t you a dull language hound?! Have you not even the slightest respect?” Fabian snapped back, drawing his hand sharply back to himself with disgust.
The fox’s gloated smile slowly faded, his eyes locked sharply onto Fabian with sharp fangs bared with a violet sheen of aggression. It was clear the fox was taken aback by Fabian's quick, and witty remark.
“You should watch your tongue around your elders, boy!” the fox snarled at Fabian.
Fabian slightly laughed in the face of the fox, only upsetting the poor fox far more than he expected. They were supposed to be the one upsetting him, giving him a message that would shake him to his very core like the boy in the forest. The fox leaned back momentarily, gauging Fabian's ever so growing laughs as he grabbed his sides and leaned in. Then, the fox gave an eerie smile, his eyes darting back to Fabian's eyes.
“Did your whore of a mother laugh such as you when she burned in those flames…?” The fox questioned, his teeth peering out with a deep snarl.
Fabian's laughs ceased almost instantly, his face turning red with a sort of shocked and choked offense. The fox only smiled at Fabian's choked shock, letting a low cackle from behind his teeth.
“Ah… there it is… did that common whore strike some sort of… kindness towards you…?”
“Between each man… of course.”
Fabian stared dumbfounded, and choked with something that he yet couldn’t describe. Tears? Sickened bile? No… it surely was rage. A rage that couldn’t match any moment of pure annoyance from reading or insistent pestering from Hazel or others. It was a deep seated rage. One that rivaled the fateful night.
“You… bastard!” Fabian spat out, tossing the study book at the fox– only narrowly missing.
“Who in all the soul's name are you to say such a thing?! If I had better judgement I would tear out your jugular and show it to you!” Fabian shouted at the fox, reaching into his pocket and taking the handle of his pocket knife.
But the fox only cackled, laughing a hideously hollow sound before his muzzle pointed back dangerously towards him.
“Me? Who am I? Oh… I’m just a foolish little fox who knows far too much than he should…” The fox said in a sing-song tone.
“But you– YOU are one in the same! Perhaps I'm far more… playful this harvest fall evening… but you’ve surely gotten better than the last poor fool.”
The fox snarled slightly, walking uncomfortably close to the face of Fabian. His eyes beaded into the face of Fabian, his long, almost unnatural tongue licking his teeth.
“Ensure I don’t come here again… the bird and deer seek you.” The fox warned, before snapping his jaws at Fabian.
With a snap of their teeth, that surely would’ve snapped onto Fabian's face, he awoke under the same tree– the sun setting on the face of Fabian. His book rested carefully on his lap, the regular plants Fabian had seen a million times before. Yet his mind laid with a new diagram, a new picture.
Bird…Deer…