Kitsune no Daku: Daku's Origin Story

Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Kuro Grows

Kuro's POV:

Waking up was so hard. I stretched my limbs, enjoying the smell of earth that surrounded me, and the birds chirping. I yawned and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. Huh? My paws felt weird. I looked at my paws. Clawed hands? And feet? I examined wiggling the digits. Oh, I remember Mommy must have forced my shift. So, I was in our hybrid form and outside, but Mommy said I was too young to shift. Memory of the pain of the shifted came back to me like a nightmare. I stared at Mommy's crest tied to my wrist. I had lost Daddy's crest sometime last night. Why had Mommy forced my shift? Where was she now? I tried not to cry. Warriors don't cry! The traitorous tear were escaping anyway.

"Where did all my little kits run off too?" I heard a woman call, in a sing song voice. I peeked my head out of the safety of the barrow. A beautiful woman was tiptoeing toward a giggling bush.

I tilted my head. She wasn't my Mommy. This made the tears want to fall again.

She smirked as she got closer to the giggling bush, and shifted to her real form, a beautiful golden furred ninetailed fox, and pounced in the bush. Shouting playfully, "I found you!"

Three young kitsunes laughed and squealed as they ran out to the meadow. Tumbling and pouncing around. The golden ninetails laughed watching them.

I wanted to play too, but I wanted my mommy first. Where was she? I hiccuped as I tried to hold back the tears.

The golden ninetails turned her head in my direction. She must have heard me. I backed up till I was back in the barrow, I had awoken in. As she edged her way toward me.

"Hello," She said, once she had found me.

I curled in on myself, hating that my tails were no longer long enough to wrap around and shield me. She seemed to be studying me, for a moment. Taking in my black fur....um hair, with blue ends, just like my tails and ears.

"Why are you hiding, little one?" She asked, smiling gently at me.

"I'm not hiding....and I wasn't spying either." I said, putting on my warrior face, just like daddy showed me. The thought that I still didn't know where I was, or where mommy and daddy were brought new tears, causing me to sniff, but that just made the tears come with force.

"Of course not...." She said ever so gently, just like my mommy. "May I join you?"

I nodded, as I cried, needing comfort that only a female or mother can provide.

"My name is Koi." She said, shifting into her hybrid form, to sit next to me.

I looked up at her. I wanted to tell her my name too, but I haven't been given one yet. Mommy and Daddy wanted to wait. "You're pretty." I said, instead, very quickly.

She laughed. "Thank you. Are you here to join our class, little one?"

"I don't know...." I sobbed.

She looked around, scenting the barrow. "Where are your parents?"

I sobbed harder. "I don't know...." I was beginning to think the worst had happened. I vaguely remembered something bad happening, sending Mommy and me to leave before Daddy. But that was all. Just me and Mommy running in the middle of the night.

She wrapped her arms around me and held me close. "Oh, kit. I'm so sorry." She patted my head. "You made it kit. You made it."

I didn't understand what she meant by that, but after a few moments I finally was able to stop crying and nuzzled closer into her comforting embrace. However, I still wanted my mommy. "Can you help me find my Mommy?" I finally asked her, looking up pleadingly into the golden hair kitsune's crystal blue eyes.