Blaze in the Darkness | ✔

Chapter Twenty-one

Wooden chips fell to the ground in an irregular pattern, slowly forming a pile. I watched from my fire as they dropped down. Over the past few hours, the pile of chips had become progressively larger, and the bit of wood that Thoysal was carving got smaller and smaller.

I knew the vampire was a bit at loss for what to do, but I liked it here, with Raset and the ambertails. I didn't want to go back home yet. Here, no one looked at me like they wanted to kill me. No one told me I didn't belong. There was a fire providing food and warmth, and I had playmates whenever I needed them.

This place made me happy. There was no other way around it.

"Does this look much like a fox yet?" Thoysal asked, showing his craftwork. It was in the very rough shape of a fox, made with the rough cuts of a blade too large for the wood.

'Mm. A little bit,' I replied. 'It's a bit blocky, the way it looks now. We foxes look much more graceful, like me.'

"Capturing your grace in wood will be hard." He chuckled and reached out towards me. Giving him a foxish grin, I bumped into his hand with my nose.

With a shake of his head, he retracted his hand and went back to woodcarving. I got out of the fire and stretched, shaking out my fur. My bright orange mane was restored to its full glory, and my tail of flowing flames made it stand out even more. If I did say so myself, I was gorgeous.

With a little shake of my rear to make my tail look prettier, I trotted over to the ambertails. Their loud chirping announced that they found something interesting. Perking my ear up, I looked at the thing in front of the trio.

The big caterpillar wiggled a little where it lay on the grass. Three pairs of blue eyes were set on the blue-colored creature, their heads slightly tilted. I adopted their position, sitting down. The caterpillar really was bigger than most I'd seen before, with odd wavy patterns on its back.

The largest of the three ambertails poked the creature with his white-orange paw. All of us leapt back when it plopped into a ball. Tilting my head even further, I slowly closed in on the caterpillar, sniffing it. The ball only tightened.

I took a few steps back, rejoining the circle of staring fire creatures. When light footsteps approached, I didn't even turn my head to look, mesmerized by the weird blue being.

"Huh, it's been quite a while since I've seen a caterpillar that big. I wonder how it got here," Raset mused out loud, kneeling next to us in the grass.

I looked at her for the first time, tearing my eyes off the peculiar thing. "Can I eat it?"

"I have a better idea. How about we keep it, so we can see what kind of butterfly it turns into?" she asked.

My head tilted and my ears drooped. "But it looks tasty..."

"You can chase after it once it has wings. That'll be a lot more fun, right? Now, all it does is curl up in a ball." The spirit gestured at the blue ball with wavy patterns. It looked squishy from over here, begging to be touched or eaten. Preferably eaten.

With a soft whine, I relented. "Alright... But it better not take too long. I'm an impatient fox."

"It'll be a butterfly before a week is over. That's within nine days. That's not too long, right?" She stroked my back with one hand, petting the still staring ambertails with her other one.

"Nine days?! That's so long." I looked back at the caterpillar, wondering how quick I'd have to be to eat it before Raset could grab it.

She picked up the blue thing before I could make a move at it. The spirit held it too high for me to take. "You'll live for thousands of years. A few days won't matter in the grand scheme of things."

With some grumbling, I had to accept her point. She was right. I could breeze through nine days. "Can you at least put it somewhere I can watch it? I won't eat it."

"What's that?" a male voice asked from behind.

I jumped a little, not having heard his footsteps approach. Thoysal always made them louder so I could hear him coming. "It's a large caterpillar. We're keeping it until it becomes a butterfly."

"That doesn't look like a normal caterpillar. It's far too large," he murmured, leaning in closely to see it better.

Raset nodded. "That's what I thought, too. It's not from any butterfly I've seen before, either. Could it be a rare, mythical one I have yet to see?"

"Could be. I don't know of many mythical butterflies or caterpillars. I only know of one, and although it is not blue, it does have the distinct wavy pattern..." Thoysal trailed off, somehow becoming even more pale than he already was. "Raset, have you ever heard of a doom butterfly?"

"I've heard vague tales about it, but I've never seen or read about one." She paused and stared at the creature in her hand. "This is one, isn't it?"

Thoysal gave a slow nod, his eyes set in a frown. I barked to get their attention, ears tilted in confusion. "Doom butterfly? What are you talking about?"

After giving Raset a quick glance, he slowly said, "According to some stories, if over a hundred deaths will happen in your near future, a large caterpillar with wavy patterns along its back will appear near you. The larger the caterpillar, the more deaths will occur."

"What if I eat it?" I asked. "Then no one will die."

The vampire shook his head. "It's too late. It's a mere warning, a sign of what's to come. Eating, hurting, or killing it doesn't change a thing. We're simply doomed."