Painted Fur

Hi everyone, and welcome to my first short story! I'm putting up the first half of it to get your taste-buds tingling, and if you want to read more, please ask! Thank you, and enjoy!

The fox was to embark on another hunt in the dark, but first she had to paint herself, as was her tradition.

I watched as she dipped her tail into the moonlit stream, swirling it around gracefully to gather enough moistness before transferring it into the patch of rice powder she found. When she had gathered enough white that her tail resembled a paintbrush, she began to dab it across her face, allowing the colours to transform her from a simple fox into a being unlike any other.

How I envied her, a creature whose tail had so many uses – from a fan used to rid herself of the annoying summer flies, to a weapon in the art of seduction. Now I was in the presence of an artist, who painted herself as a live canvas.

You enjoy watching, do you not? the fox winked. There is no need to be ashamed; this one can tell.

When she had finished, I thought the first drops of snow had fallen, covering her face and paws like a mask that concealed her true self. She also dabbed some red onto her jaws, but her brushwork was so fine, so delicate; I could have sworn she had a set of plums for lips. At first I offered my help, but she refused, for she wanted her work to be done as smooth and flawless as one of those pebbles in the moonlit stream. I understood, knowing how an artist feels strongly about her own masterpiece.

Yet she allowed me to help her slip into her kimono, another treasure from her honest pilfering. I lowered her collar, careful not to smudge the white on her nape. Now I could see where the paint ended and her tangerine fur appeared, creating a thin line of boundaries between fantasy and reality.  She pulled away from me in haste, with her tail shielding her painted face.

Would you think of this one still as pretty, she said, were she just a fox and nothing more?

“Of course not,” I told her. “Because I shall think of you every single day, with your beauty more elusive than the night itself.”

The painted fox whispered a gentle yip. As she laid her paws on my shoulder, she bent forward, licking my cheek.

Anata wa aishiteru.

Whether or not she chose to say it in the old language, she gave herself to me that night, and I felt for the first time a love as beautiful and ripe as a cherry blossom in spring.

 

I awoke at dawn’s first light to find her missing from my side – perhaps she was still on her hunting trip, or gone to look after her litter of cubs – as all foxes do. Nevertheless, the memories of the night before drifted idyllically like early mist. I brushed them aside before I went on my way, knowing for certain that I would see my painted fox again.

As I arrived at the local village, hoping to get the decency of a day’s meal, there was much of a commotion going about. I wondered if perhaps I had stumbled into the midst of a festival or some sort of celebration. However, upon a closer look, it was not happiness that I saw on the people’s faces, but gripped with distraught and stricken with panic.

A great calamity had befallen upon the village, and now the roots of its terror were spreading faster than a forest fire. A newlywed couple had vanished on their nuptial night, their room ransacked and the sheets torn asunder like branches in a thunderstorm. They found blood on the floor, but no matter how smudged the tracks were, the village folk agreed that this was definitely not the work of any ordinary human, but that of a monster.