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Kitsune-bi

Foxfire

By Caitlin Suzanne YoungPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 10 min read
2

The front page of the Savannah Morning News featured a photograph of a city square lined with luminescent live oak trees, their twisted, glowing branches dripping with Spanish moss, drooping low over the streets. Below the image was a headline that made Claire cringe. Alone on a cobblestone sidewalk at the end of a long work day, her exhaled breath was a small sound of private exasperation.

STILL GLOWING STRONG: SAVANNAH’S BIOMIMETIC SOLUTION CELEBRATES 10TH ANNIVERSARY

As the result of a process that had been, if she were entirely honest, far more fortuitous scientific discovery than inspired engineering, Claire was credited as the intellect behind that solution. Via laboratory incubation of a prolific lichen-like organism she had first collected in Japan, the practical application of bioluminescence to modern human dilemmas had transformed almost overnight from futuristic pipe dream to elegant inevitability. It was not difficult to coax the remarkably bright nocturnal light source to adapt to new substrates, and it was virtually self-sustaining. Early on in Claire's process of development, Savannah, Georgia had been selected as the ideal location for a demonstration of her proposed urban lighting for several reasons: the oaks rooted throughout provided an ideal biological scaffolding; the subtropical climate was sufficiently similar to that of the organism’s native forest; and public safety in the city was an ongoing issue - especially after nightfall.

The project had been an unprecedented success, turning her fledgling biotech startup into a household name and earning her a small fortune besides. Today’s headline was right about one thing, she thought: ten years of maintenance-free and carbon-negative illumination had proven to the world that the science behind her sustainable streetlights was sound. Other cities were scrambling to follow Savannah’s lead after years of initial skepticism.

It was certainly something to celebrate – but it wasn’t biomimetic.

Even setting aside the headline’s horrible pun, misuse of that term was both rampant and a special pet peeve of hers. “Biomimicry” had become a public relations buzzword, used to greenwash everything from subway systems to skin cream. Her luminous trees directly employed – not mimicked – biochemical processes. It wasn’t the same thing. She knew this, because the course of her own life had changed after a chance encounter with the book that had largely defined the emerging discipline decades earlier: Janine Benyus’ Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Claire had devoured the text in a state of childlike wonder, subsequently abandoning her studies in art history and Eastern philosophy in favor of biological engineering. She had become enamored with biochemistry. Never before in her life had she observed physical, real-world phenomena so seemingly close to true magic. Biochemistry was, as far as Claire was concerned, pretty much the Real Thing; honest-to-goodness, folklore-type magic. Within the adolescent field of bioengineering, that subspecialty had led her to the study of fungi, and thus to remote depths within the Kinsakubaru Primeval Forest, Kagoshima.

She resumed her purposeful walk back to the hotel through Savannah’s Historic District, bathed in the serene, shimmering green light she had first found on that wild Pacific island. Her heels clicked sharply underfoot, the noise reverberating from the facades of private residences. Each of the antebellum-era homes had a strange, sleepy, almost living presence in the close heat of the midsummer night. The world felt quite still. Ahead of her, a dark tabby slunk between the bars of a filigreed iron gate. A single decorative gas lantern flickered from above a sculpted doorframe across the square.

As it often did in solitary moments, Claire’s mind meandered back to the most curious memory of her life: that of her own discovery of the glowing organism that had made all her success possible. She brushed away the mental debris of thirteen years’ time which sometimes obscured its most vivid details. Turned them over again, pondering.

That forest. The forked, sinewy branches of the giant bay tree, Machilus thunbergia. It had been the most magnificent specimen she had ever seen – otherworldly, covered in green penny fern and the brilliant lime flush of new spring leaves, discernable in the moonlight that filtered through the canopy. Clusters of tiny absinthe stars clung to the tree's far-reaching fingers; galaxies flowed between those milky-green flowers. Without knowing why, she had turned off her headlamp and stepped forward, reaching out to stroke the rough grey bark. When a chunk of it came away in her hand she had found herself staring, mouth open in stunned silence.

She had called out to no one, though members of her field research team were surely nearby. To this day, she did not know how much time had passed before she had remembered to breathe. In her bones, Claire knew the moment she laid eyes upon the incredibly brilliant fungus – or lichen, or fern, or whatever it was – that she was looking at something miraculous. Unstudied. Even magical, though she had learned to avoid speaking in such terms as a young scientist hoping to make her mark on the world. She had prepared a specimen collection kit and proceeded to gently scrape away the mounded ball of organic matter from where it had been growing beneath the tree bark.

By the time she was finished, adrenaline had taken over. The spell had been broken by its own significance, by the inevitable crashing-in of her human understanding; momentary enchantment had passed over her, a cloud across the pearly moon. Filled with an urgent desire to show the others, she had taken one giant step backwards and stumbled over a gnarled root, landing hard, hands failing to break her fall in the deep loam.

She was still wincing and rubbing her bruised tailbone when, from the earth at her feet, a shrill, blood-chilling scream of rage had shattered the relative hush of the forest.

For the second time that night, she had been frozen to the spot. Out of a den concealed at the base of the tree had emerged a pair of glowing eyes and a spitting, snarling muzzle full of needle-sharp teeth. It was remarkable how intimidating a fox could be when threatened. Like many wild animals, its ferocity belied its size – so much so, in fact, that Claire had felt certain this particular fox was twice as big as it was supposed to be. Paler, too, its bristling fur more soft cream than tawny rust. Maybe that was common, in Japan? She hadn’t known, hadn’t been able to think past the necessity of putting distance between herself and whatever it was – likely a litter of kits – that the creature was preparing to defend. Although a fox was unlikely to inflict serious harm, Claire had not been interested in picking a fight. Instead, she had backed away with small, soft steps. The fox’s tail cast layered shadows that shifted across the forest floor, creating the illusion of many rather than one. The glittering eyes had remained locked on her own. Furious, piercing vocalizations had turned her stomach to ice water. They were sounds she would never forget.

Her reminiscing was interrupted then, by a flicker of light like a fluorescent bulb struggling to life. She stopped halfway through one of the little parks, surrounded by tangled branches, now just a couple of blocks from her hotel. For a moment she wondered if she were imagining things. But no – there it was again. A peculiar rippling, the trees' light exhibiting a degree of variance she had never observed before. It shivered from roots to treetops. Dimmed. Flared again.

And then, it all began to fade.

Brightness seeped from the trees, top-down, shadows pouring slowly earthward as if a bucket of viscous night sky had been dumped out upon the city. Claire watched in horror, helpless. This didn’t make any sense. It was impossible, she thought stupidly. This was impossible. Somewhere in the distance she heard car tires squeal to a halt. A door slammed. Then a voice shouted something she couldn’t discern. Another voice, far off, coming from the opposite direction. Numb shock erased all coherent thought from her mind except for a single word, which became like the sound of her own pulse: No. No. No.

Until, from the corner of her eye, she saw a pale fox approach slowly out of the deepening darkness.

Moments later it was sitting on the path before her. The remaining light now puddled among the tree roots formed itself into a single, glowing sphere, which came to hover in the air above them. And then, Claire saw for the first time that this fox was not a fox at all. She tried to count its many tails, flowing white, fluid as fish bellies in a temple fountain.

Looking simultaneously feral and too wise, the creature regarded Claire silently for a moment, then opened its mouth to speak. This time, what came out was not fox-speech.

“Thirteen years ago,” it began, “you stole something from me. Before I could track you down and recover my treasure, you carried it away from my island, taking it far across the Sea.”

“This? But this,” Claire stammered, pointing to all that remained of the strange ball of light, “this is natural. Science. I mean, it’s a living thing, related to – to that,” she gestured to the Spanish moss among the trees, “It’s just a chemical reaction. Like fireflies. At least, I thought--"

“It is magic,” the creature snarled, “and you know it. You have always known it. Do not seek to deceive me, nor to sell your soul so cheaply. The existence of a how does not disprove a what – does not negate the why of a thing. I had to wait to follow you until I had gained my ninth tail," it continued, "and with it, the ability to take human form. To travel to this place, so far from the home of my ancestors.”

Claire was silent.

“You see, ordinarily," boasted the creature, "any one of my tails can strike up a hundred sparks, easily as blinking, whenever I wish; a flurry of meteors scraping the flinty sky. But only if my kitsune-bi – my foxfire – has not been stolen. Once it has died down to a single ember,” sharp eyes flicked towards the pulsing light between them, now no bigger than a walnut, “once it has been separated from me for many years, well. One must add fuel to coax a coal back to flame."

The kitsune's pink, canine tongue darted lightly over its sharp bared teeth. Barking yips of laughter filled the park as the sound of Claire's shoes had done not an hour before. "My kitsune-bi has brought you both wealth and power," the creature purred, "but now I have come to reclaim it."

Claire could formulate only one question. It was difficult to think. She heard herself ask it as if from very far away, “And what type of fuel can restore a – a foxfire?”

The kitsune grew larger, raising itself up on hind legs until it stood, taller even than she. Nine serpentine tails slithered through shafts of starlight.

“The bones,” it paused midsentence to leap into the air, snapping pointed jaws neatly over a final spark of light still hanging above them both like a suspended firefly and swallowing loudly for effect, “of a thief.

In the shadow-filled square, beneath dark trees, a strange green light gleamed in the kitsune’s crafty, ancient eyes.

Fantasy
2

About the Creator

Caitlin Suzanne Young

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