One Tail at a Time

Shifu

The light flickering behind my closed lids, feels warm, safe and familiar.  Mama always lights more candles in my room than in any of the others and for two reasons.  One because I hate the dark, it always makes me cry, and the other reason is because Papa says it is a waste of beeswax.  If a fox can see perfectly with just a handful of candles, then there is no need for twenty candles, after all the bees work hard to make the wax, so we shouldn't squander that hard work when we don't need to.  Only it seems as if Mama has lit every candle in the room, so I wake up feeling greatly relieved for the extra light that is now chasing the bad dream away.

"Mama....." I whisper sleepily and pushing my paws above my head as I stretch out my body, only to yelp as a sharp pain swirls its way up my hind legs.

"Aish!  You opened your wound." a strange and unfamiliar voice chides me softly before the feel of unfamiliar hands on my back legs maneuver them gently back down again.

Instantly my eyes snap open and the fear rises in seconds as a man similar to the one in my dream comes into view.  My eyes feel as if they are going to fall out of my face and though he has stepped back to merely observe my reaction with eyes filled with compassion, the fear in my heart is eating at my brain and making me cry again.

And in a second I am up on my front paws with my injured back legs flopping hopelessly behind me.   I had not noticed how injured I was, but I put this down to the fear I had been in, in fact Zhen Zhen says that fear is akin to laughter.  Once you get the bug in your belly, it is very hard to shake and going by the state of my back legs, the fear must have been as high as it is now, because I don't feel the pain.

All I can see is that unfamiliar face staring at me.  So I bare my my teeth and snarl as menacingly as I can and to my delight, that face grimaces as he jumps back.  Zhen Zhen told me that even though I only have the one tail, I have the roar of a lion in my belly, and the look of shock that briefly flickers through his eyes gives me courage.

Pouncing upwards, a twinge of pain sears my lower back, but my mind is only on this stranger who dares to touch me and the courage I felt before begins to grow as I snarl and gnash my teeth between demonic hissing, beastly grunting and manic head shaking which Zhen Zhen said was most impressive, I could scare the beard off the Demon Lord himself, he told me and going by the way the stranger is now edging back towards the door, I fancy that long white ribbon around his hair is about to twist about his scrawny neck!

"Settle down!" a deep yet authorative voice growls low from behind me and scaring me witless that I instantly flatten myself against the mattress.  My paws are over my eyes and my tail is flat against the bed between my shaking back legs.  I didn't realize there was someone behind me, so I am now terrified and whimpering again.  And it is only then that I wonder where Fu Yu is, I can't see him and I know he would have stopped that stranger from touching me, I know he would have.  So I can't help but whimper louder at the thought that these people had hurt him.

"That is no way to thank someone who is helping you." that voice spoke again, and this time a little closer, only my paws are over my eyes, so I can't see him.

"I want Mama..." I begin to cry and making myself all ugly again.

"Go and fetch her something to eat, she is probably hungry." the voice speaks again and this time I can hear the sound of his foot steps as he moves towards me while the other man quickly raises his hands and bows his head which I sneak a peak at.

What a strange way to bow, I think to myself.  My brothers merely dip their heads to bow, so this form of acknowledgement seems even stranger than this place Im in.  And I would have said something, only that other voice is now standing directly in front of poor me who is shivering with fright and too afraid to look up.