moderate danger and easily aggravated, can be defeated by a capable soultamer, caution is advised.
formidable magical prowess and physical strength, only experienced soultamers can engage without assistance.
severe threat to human settlements, requires organized hunting parties, elimination preferable to containment.
near-mythical powers, capable of leveling entire landscapes to nothing, recommended course of action: escape.
(revised)
A rivulet of sweat streamed down Miko’s back. One moment she was in a dream, the next she was wide awake, heart pounding.
Miko looked around her with muddy eyes. The room was spinning ever so slightly. She gripped the edge of her bed.
Miko told herself, and the strange ache radiated through her muscles. She had dreamed… What was it? She couldn’t remember.
She took a few shaky steps. Her vision swam, and her skin felt too hot and too tight.
Her body was weak. It was a common feeling among new soultamers, as though the body was resisting the change.
She had read about it so much, yet never imagined how it would feel in real life.
The paranoid thought stabbed through her mind, sending a wave of panic through her.
Slowly, she forced her breathing to steady. She pressed her hand against the wall, guiding herself as she moved to the door, willing her movements to appear measured and steady.
Miko would have to hide the bond, the fever, the exhaustion. If anybody caught wind of that, if her lord father found out about her bond before she could master it, it would mean losing the small power she’d gained for herself.
And she couldn’t let that happen.
But there was also something she meant to do before that.
She bent to open a chest in the corner of her room. Numerous copies of scrolls—some written in steady hands, some in barely legible script—contained all the information she could get her hands on.
She searched through the entire chest, unwrapping and scanning through countless scrolls, until she finally found what she was looking for.
An illustration depicting a moonfox. It was quite a bit more ferocious-looking than in real life, Miko found. But she was more interested in what it said below:
Miko groaned.
This didn’t seem fair. Even some of the more docile beasts, like snow elk, got two stars.
She kept staring at the lone star until she got cross-eyed and started seeing double. For half a heartbeat, she almost tricked herself into thinking there were two.
★
She licked her lips and continued reading.
In short, it was an animal equivalent of Miko herself.
The morning sun filtered through the dense canopy of the forest, casting intricate patterns on the ground.
Miko was still feverish when she reached the forest. The breeze felt cool on her skin, and the air was fresh with the scent of pine.
She couldn’t exactly tell how, but she knew the moonfox was here somewhere.
“Will you come out?” she asked but no one answered. She waited a bit and was about to ask again when the bushes rustled.
Slowly and gracefully, the moonfox came out. It looked even smaller in the harsh daylight, but there was no mistaking it.
There was even crusted blood in his fur where Miko had touched him.
“How are you feeling?” Miko asked as casually as she would talking to a fellow villager.
When the moonfox didn’t answer, she produced a cloth wrapped around some scraps she managed to take from the kitchen.
“Here. I bet you’re hungry.”
She tossed a scrap of meatbun his way, watching as the moonfox sniffed at it delicately and then flatly ignored it.
“Look.” Miko broke off a bit of the meatbun and stuffed her mouth.
“Fhee? Awll ghood,” she managed to say between the bites. The moonfox waited a few moments, perhaps expecting Miko to keel over from poison, and only then deigned to take a careful nibble.
Miko took another good look at him now that he was up close. The moonfox’s ear perked up from enjoyment.
“Why are you feeding me?” the fox finally said.
“What do you mean? I owe you.” Why was the moonfox so paranoid? “Look, the scrolls say our bond will be stronger if we care for each other.”
“I don’t plan on caring for you.” The fox was as blunt as ever. “I won’t stop you from feeding me, though.”
Miko sighed. “All right, let me just try something.” She put her fingers behind his ear and scratched.
She started lightly, her fingers tracing gentle circles, but when he leaned into her hand, she dug her fingers in a little harder, raking them over his silvery fur.
In a few short moments, the moonfoxed started purring like a cat.
“I… do not hate that,” he said when Miko was done. He was as surprised as she was that this worked. “What else do your scrolls say?”
Miko took a large gulp of air as if she planned to dive into the water. She wasn’t sure it was going to work, but…
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The fox looked around, surprised to hear her voice in his head.
“Fine,” the fox switched to talking out loud. “I’ll be quiet with other people around. But I don’t like talking to you like that. It’s… uncomfortable.”
The fox wasn’t wrong. “Deal.”
“And why the secrecy? You plan to bring me to that village of yours?”
That’s something Miko hadn’t considered yet. There was no rush to tell anyone she was a soultamer. In fact, it’d be better to tell anyone.
But then, she didn’t have to stick in the village forever.
This thought was so sudden, so , Miko slowly repeated it in her head.
She didn’t even notice that she was grinning.
“Stop that,” the fox complained. “I don’t like your smiling.”
“You don't seem to like quite a lot of things."
“When a beast is bad, does the fault not lie in the owner?” the moonfox interjected matter-of-factly.
“Are you familiar with Old Mother, by any chance?” Miko asked.
“Who’s that? Some she-wolf you befriended?”
“Never mind.”
She was tired of arguing. Besides, there was something she had always dreamed of trying. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?” the fox asked.
“You must listen to me.”
“Must I?”
Miko reminded herself, with clenched fists.
But thankfully, the fox got tired of teasing Miko and closed his eyes.
At first, nothing was happening. Just as Miko was about to give up, she felt as if she was swimming on her back. The world around her swayed in different directions.
She opened her eyes and saw nothing but darkness. She was inside the moonfox’s head.
Miko thought. The fox could hear her, she was sure of it.
She plunged deep into the uncharted water, the darkness enveloping her.
But it was not any darkness she was familiar with. Blacker than the night, denser than the ink, it was a living void that pulsed and shifted like it had its own breath.
Miko reached out, fingers splayed, feeling her way through the murk.
She made slow progress, one step at a time. There wasn’t anything to see. She couldn’t even feel her fingers.
Finally, she brushed against something solid and rough. A wall? Only…
…It felt alive.
The rough, living surface contracted at her touch, like the taut muscle of a creature ready to spring.
Miko pushed the wall and felt it move, just a little.
It was a door, long forgotten due to misuse.
A door with rusted hinges.
Miko pressed against it—gently at first, then with all of her weight—until it buckled and swung inward.
She slipped inside
and then
the door
shut
be
hi
n
d
h
e
r
*
*
*
*
*
Light.
There was a blinding light.
It hurt to think.
She was running.
Towards it? Away from it?
It didn’t matter. The light was everywhere.
the girl wanted to ask.
But when her mouth opened, she only heard a snarl.
Her eyes were aching. It hurt to look. The light did not abate.
she heard.
It was her own voice. It had to be.
she asked.
The echo carried the name across the white nothingness:
MIKO MIKO MIKo Miko miko mik o m i
Why did it hurt so bad?
Why couldn’t she remember?
Why couldn’t she…
The girl closed her eyes.
It was a moonfox who opened them.
The forest came into view. It was as though someone had undraped the curtains. Her eyes still hurt, but it was a sweet pain.
Soon, the light dulled until the whole world appeared muted.
There was no orange or red, but she could see the shades of green and blue she'd never seen before.
Was it her own thought? Was it someone else’s?
She looked at the trees. She could see the tiniest movement of leaves swaying in the breeze.
Miko——glanced to her left and gasped. There she was, sitting cross-legged, her eyes closed in deep concentration.
Her human form looked delicate, almost fragile, the moonlight casting a gentle glow on her skin.
Miko’s new heightened senses allowed her to perceive the subtle rise and fall of her own chest, the faint pulse of blood through her veins, and the quiet hum of her spirit.
They were breathing in sync. , she thought to herself absurdly.
It was all too much to comprehend at once. She felt light-headed.
The moonfox shifted its gaze—gaze!—to the surrounding forest. Miko felt the cool earth beneath their paws, the whisper of the wind through the trees, and the rustle of leaves as small creatures scurried about.
The world was a trove of scents and sounds, each one equally familiar and strange to her.
She could smell the dampness of the moss, the sweetness of distant flowers, and the faint musk of nearby animals.
She heard the field mice burrowing through the dry crust of mud. She could smell a dozen different dead carcasses from hundreds of paces away, rotting in the moonlight.
The sharp tang of pine needles mixed with the earthy aroma of decaying leaves. She could detect the faint, metallic scent of water from a nearby stream and the subtle, rich scent of mushrooms hidden beneath the forest floor.
A dance of smells, and she was in the middle of it all! It was so overwhelming that she wanted to laugh.
From behind her, she felt something tug at her back. An invisible hand with a myriad ticklish fingers pulled her away, through the darkness back to the light.
As abruptly as she slipped into the fox’s body, she was back in hers.
Miko was so exhausted, she couldn’t sit straight. She was trying to catch her breath.
When her breathing calmed, she tried to get up but her legs refused to listen.
“I hope l don’t have to learn to walk on all fours now,” she joked. The moonfox studied her face for a moment.
“Now that would be a sight.”
“How long was I inside your skin?”
“I counted ten heartbeats.”
Miko was at a loss for words.
She counted to ten in her mind. One, two, three… Ten.
Surely it must have been longer? Why was she so exhausted after only ten heartbeats?
“Maybe it’s like flexing a muscle. It’s sore at first but over time your endurance grows,” Miko was talking to herself. “That must be it.”
The thought of doing this again was daunting, yet strangely alluring.
“Were you there with me?” she asked the fox.
“Yes. A part of me, at least.”
“Can you talk to me while I'm in there?“
"I have as much experience with this as you do,” he said dryly. “I can try. But warn me next time before you—”
Miko slipped into the fox's mind with an electric jolt. It felt easier this time, like putting on a pair of well-worn slippers.
Everything around her grew louder and clearer. Miko was about to lose herself in the sensations but shook her head and concentrated on the steady drum of her heartbeat.
Miko felt that potent mix of optimism and dread that is familiar to anyone trying something new.
Scents flooded her senses again. Flowers, fresh earth, dry leaves. Dead carcasses.
Every scent, every sound, felt familiar and unfamiliar at once.
Strangely, it was her own human scent that felt most out of place here.
She could feel each blade of grass underfoot.
There stirred a small instinct inside Miko, urging her to leap, to run, to feel the strength of her new legs.
She pushed it back, holding steady, reminding herself to .
The sights grew sharper, even more surreal. She could see the texture of bark on trees in the distance—
—the shimmering edge of leaves swaying in the wind, as if each were calling to her.
Her mind began to strain, and a dull ache crept in.
The fox’s senses flooded her still, so sharply that they edged toward pain. Miko pressed on, desperate to stretch this moment further.
It wasn’t hard at all to hear her heartbeat. It pounded in her ears like a giant bell.
The pressure grew into a pulsing force, urging her to let go.
She almost did.
Her head throbbed, but she clung stubbornly to the moment, her human consciousness dancing at the very edge of her existence.
The force yanked at her again. Miko wavered but then dug deeper.
It was like holding her breath underwater. Miko’s mind was on fire.
“Hold on,” a voice inside her said. Miko could barely hear it.
Pain lanced through her mind. She felt herself stretched thin, her grip loosening as she fought to remain in the fox’s body.
The last heartbeat lasted an eternity. Then, an invisible string snapped and the force dragged her back.
Miko collapsed, her breath coming in harsh gasps. She clutched at the grass beneath her, worried that she was going to retch.
Her mind spun, dazed, but a small smile broke through the exhaustion.
She’d done it.
The fox tilted its head, watching her. “You look rather pleased with yourself.”
Miko sat up slowly.
“Twelve,” she whispered, a small thrill shooting through her aching limbs. Only two more heartbeats, but that was something.
That felt like the biggest progress she’s made in anything in her entire life.
“twelve,” the fox said. “And it was all thanks to me.”
“Why did I have to bind myself to such an annoying animal?”
“The feeling is mutual.”
Miko took another piece of meatbun and gestured to the fox. He readily bit into the meat.
“By the way, I can’t keep calling you ‘hey, you’. What do your friends call you?” She needed something to keep her mind away from thinking how tired she was.
“Foxes have no friends”, he responded, as though insulted by the notion. “But others often call me a White Paw on a Starry Night.”
“That’s a… mouthful. I’m not calling you that.”
“The names we call each other accentuate our best features. A Slender Face, a Silent Step. A Mouth That Always Keeps Chewing.”
The last one sounded like a joke, but Miko wasn’t sure enough to laugh.
“So why a White Paw on a Starry Night? Are your paws so much different?” She took a closer look and found nothing unique about them.
“Maybe not to an incurious little girl.” The fox swatted at the air with his tail. “No other moonfox has paws like mine.”
“Or ego like yours,” Miko retorted. “But thank the gods our names aren’t based on beauty. That would be most inconvenient.”
“If your names were based on beauty, you'd have none at all.”
For the first time in her life, Miko felt the urge to slap an animal. “I’m starting to think I should’ve made a pelt out of you.”
“Well, too late for that, I’m afraid. Our lives are now connected, so you won’t find much comfort in that pelt.” The fox bared his teeth in a mockery of a smile.
“Still, I need to call you something. Something I can remember.”
“I don’t pretend to know your naming customs,” the moonfox yawned. “But it had better suit me.”
Miko crossed her arms and tapped her chin. How would she know how to name him? She never even owned a pet. “How about… Snowpuff?”
The fox flicked his ear. “I think not.”
“Fine. How about… White Fang?”
“I’m not a lap dog. Next.”
“Okay, how about…” Miko started before she could even come up with anything. She blurted the first thing that came to her, “Moonwhisker?”
The fox gave her a long, unimpressed look.
“Silver?” she finally offered after a beat, a little more earnestly. “Short, dignified—like you, obviously.”
Men responded better to naked flattery, Miko often found.
The fox lifted his head slightly. “Silver”, he repeated, seeing how the name tasted on his tongue. “Silver will do.”
Miko grinned. “Well, thank the stars. I admit I have never seen such a picky animal.”
The moonfox—or, rather, —ignored her, deep in thoughts. “Yes, Silver will do,” he repeated again.
“So, Silver, ready for another round?”
Miko could barely stand upright.
The fox flicked its tail, its expression unreadable. “Careful, little fool. Sometimes the mind tires before the heart.”
Miko ignored his warning and closed her eyes. This was the first time in forever she welcomed being so tired.
She finally started feeling at peace with herself.
A door with rusted hinges opened again.
Dear Diary