Fable (on hiatsu)

9. Kit

I'm sure you're wondering what got me so excited, so I'll tell you. The Equinox. On September 22nd, all the spirits of the world gather in festivals to celebrate. It is the time when night and day are equals. It is also the day all of the Inversed Shrine gets covered in stalls of all sorts. Food stalls, remedy stalls (like ours), game stalls, fortune stalls, musicians' stages, cloth stalls, art stalls, etc.

Its one of the biggest events of the year, second only to the Spring Equinox.

All in all, its awesome. We get three times the customers, meet new and old friends and have the time of our lives. The shrine has a Dance that celebrates equality, done by none other than the Goddess Inverse herself. It is stunningly beautiful.

And this year our stall will actually be close to where she does the dance (she changes her spot every year)!

I've lived here for four years, but this was the event that made me a part of the Spirit crowd. I had spotted the lights, high on the mountain, from my window. I figured there would be some kind of event going on and I wanted to see what it was. So I snuck out of the house and asked T'Ko to come with me. T'Ko had been living in our old house, before we moved and I convinced him to join us. Anyway, the two of us had made our way up the hundreds of steps to the shrine and had mingled with the crowd at the very top. It was awesome.

We spent the whole night dancing, singing, laughing and trying new things. One of the stalls had a really  mean sandwich that almost burnt a hole in my tongue. I ran around in circles, practically spewing flames it was so spicy. A little fox eventually took pity and told me to drink milk or eat yogurt. I did and the flames immediately lessened. I went back to thank the fox, but she had vanished into the crowd.

About an hour later, T'Ko and I were watching the Dance, totally sucked into it. A drum beat a steady sound, the same speed as my heart. As I slowly fell into a trance-like state, I spotted the little fox. She was holding hands with someone who seemed to be her older brother. He looked about ten, his hair was the very essence of the word 'bed head' and as pale as milk. I was just watching them, with an absent smile, seeing sibling love that hadn't been spoiled by adolescence, when I noticed something about them. The boy had nine tails. A nine-tailed fox. They gain an extra tail every hundred years and can take human form. Well, that was obviously what the 'boy' was doing.

Slowly, the Dance ended and we all seemed to wake up. The nine-tailed fox looked around and spotted me looking at him. He walked over to me, dragging the girl who seemed to want to be anywhere else than here. The 'boy' certainly had a childish face. His cheeks were chubby with kiddy fat and he had large icy blue eyes that stared at me.

He got up real close and his big white fox ears twitched.

"You're a human, right?" he asked as if he wasn't sure whether being one was good or bad.

"Yeah." I replied dumbly. How can you saw no to such a question?

His nine tails suddenly began to wag, not unlike that of a dog. His eyes were bright with excitement, as ifI was the seventh wonder of the world. I guess he hadn't seen that many humans before?

"Let's be friends!" he exclaimed, barely containing his excitement.

"Uh, okay..." I had answered. I tugged on a strand of hair, uncertainly. This was certainly odd, but I wasn't about to run away or anything.

Sometimes I think I should have. He's a pest.

"My name is Kitsune Kyuubi! It means Fox Ninetails in English. You can just call me Kit, though!"

"Um, nice to meet you Kit. My name's Craft." I deliberately skipped my last name. I don't know who was crazy enough to name our family 'disaster', but it certainly isn't fun when people ask your name.

"What's your last name, Craft?"

Crap. 

"It's Cataclysm." I exhaled my stress. He probably will laugh, but you won't be annoyed by that, no you won't Craft. It's to be expected with such a weird name...

Kit burst out laughing. He was practically rolling on the ground. He was make like chocking sound, trying to say something before having a relapse at the funniness of my name.

Honestly! This was way too exaggerated. I wanted to smack him, but held myself back.

Calm down. Self-restraint is key. Take a deep breath...

About five minutes later, he calmed down enough to tell me thanks and promise to talk again. That was that.

Come to think of it, Kit is probably going to attend the Festival this year too. I'll see him then (hopefully not before), but for now, I have potions to prepare!