The Dark Mage

Chapter 27: Kitsune Family Life

   Although Todd and Vixie Reddington were married and had many kits together over the centuries, hardly any of them stayed in touch with them over the course of the past 200 years. And the place where most of them went was Szolsura, and despite how much Todd and Vixie missed them, they figured this was for the best. After all, with what the Kitsune civilization was devolving into, Todd and Vixie didn't want their kits anywhere near the Kitsune clan if it were to suddenly fall apart. Vixie also didn't appreciate people trying to use her name to elevate themselves in Kitsune society or any society for that matter and preferred that they gained their benefits through merit rather than nepotism in which she utterly despised and blamed for unqualified people being put into positions of authority that have no business being there. And anti-nepotism reforms were some of her acts as one of Inari's executors who served at her pleasure.

     Meanwhile, recognizing Vixie as part of the Reddington family, Todd looked into Vixie's iridescent violet eyes with empathy whenever he would visit his family in the Reddington village. Because for all the closeness they had and the jovial times playing music and acting like fine country folk, they all knew Vixie only pretended like she was having a good time. After all, Vixie still remembered her father's last words that cut deep into her, "You were never worthy to carry the Schnee name. Marry that worthless hick so I don't have to see your face ever again."

     And although Vixie's father died many centuries ago and Vixie had moved on, remembering those words still hurt very much years later. It was one thing to be hated by your enemies and another to be hated by your own father and a mother who had no eyes for anything except her social standing that they only saw as a tool to advance themselves. And Vixie never heard from her family again since she married Todd in 1492 until she became one of the 9 executors, solely to gain standing because of Vixie's social position. And because of this and knowing they only cared about her position and not her as a person or anyone else, she didn't even acknowledge them as her own family, and when the documents were shown for her relationship by blood, Vixie said in front of the royal guard with both Inari and the Schnee tribe, "Depart from me. I never knew you, you who work lawlessness."

     The head of the Schnee tribe tried to argue but both Inari and the royal guards had seen enough of their charade and attempts to exploit their blood relationship to one of her executors and told the Schnee tribe to leave immediately if they wanted to leave with their heads still on their shoulders. As for the Schnee tribe now, they still maintained much of the wealth they had inherited from their forefathers, but they never considered Vixie part of their family again and removed any trace that she was ever part of the family, not that Vixie cared anymore after their terrible treatment of her. But because of what Vixie went through and her resilience, rather than continue to be like her family, she chose to be nothing like them and love the kits she had with her husband and treated them as their own persons rather than a means to an end like her parents did with her. After all, before Vixie had married Todd Reddington, her father was going to force Vixie into an illegal arranged marriage while she was still a 2-tailed adolescent and the tod being much older than her and solely for the monetary and social benefit of her father while already being extremely wealthy. And the tod she was supposed to marry didn't love her but only looked at her beautiful Arctic Fox Kitsune body with lust and a means of pleasuring himself when he's not out cheating on her which he was known for doing in brothels and taking advantage of the poor by paying them much needed money for sex with their daughters. And knowing this, although Todd wasn't rich, he was a morally upstanding man and someone who genuinely acted on his desire to do what is in the best interest of his wife and family. Todd also came from a pious family where men treated women with respect and as people rather than domestic property. And in the Reddington family, a woman was just as dignified as a man and to force anyone into an arranged marriage for some worldly gain was unthinkable, to force someone underage as worthy of public torture in a carnival-like atmosphere while not letting the person die but making them suffer as much as possible for as long as possible.