Chapter 4;

Foxfire

Miran woke up with a jolt. She sat upright and Baekhyun’s white coat fell off her body. It was morning now, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember having fallen asleep the night before. She looked around her, but saw no sign of the fox demon.

The fireplace no longer housed a dancing flame. In its stead was a pile of ash and charred wood. Miran recalled the beautiful golden fire that had kept her warm in the night, and somehow wanted to see it again. It had glowed like the sun, which was apparently always shrouded by thick clouds in the spirit realm.

“The fire, and these,” she started.

“I got them,” he replied before she could finish her question. “And I started the fire too.”

Baekhyun told her he had started the fire. How could he have produced gold flames though? A fox demon’s element was indeed fire, but the flames they produced were of the normal kind – orange, red, and yellow with hints of blue. Nine-tailed foxes were able to summon pure blue flames, but she had never heard of a kitsune using gold flames.

And then she remembered the two, large tails that trailed behind Baekhyun’s figure. An infant was born with one tail, and they were supposed to grow their second tail by the time they reached the age of 5. Every 5 years, they were supposed to grow another tail naturally. A kitsune was considered an adult when they reached 20 years of age, in which they would possess 5 tails. After that, through rigorous training they could attain more tails.

But Baekhyun had 2 tails. He certainly didn’t look like a 5-year old child, either. Had she seen them correctly?

Miran felt her stomach grumble, and she brought her hands over her abdomen. She had finished all the carrots Baekhyun gave her the night before, so she needed to find food. Miran stood up and dusted the dirt off her blue robes.

She stared at Baekyun’s white coat on the ground. It was incredibly large now that she looked at it from a bird’s eye view. She contemplated leaving it where it was; after all Baekhyun was nowhere to be seen so she assumed he couldn’t care less about the jacket. But a cold wind blew past her, and without a moment’s hesitation she picked it up and draped it over her shoulders.

Food, she thought. I need to find something to eat.

Miran took no more than a few steps when she saw something red from the corner of her eye. It was a package of some sort, wrapped in a red handkerchief. She slowly approached it, and bent down right in front of it. She delicately unravelled the knot that tied the fabric together, and when she did a bunch of carrots rolled out.

Miran looked around her, but still she saw no sign of the fox demon. Her hand had grabbed hold of one of the carrots, but her eyes weren’t on them. Now that it was daytime, Miran was able to study her surroundings. The forest she was in had a variety of trees and plants, but what really caught her attention were the tiny yellow flowers that grew a few feet away from her. They looked familiar, like the ones that grew along the path to the river in the human world.

She felt something tug at the carrot she was holding onto, and she thought it was the wind trying to blow it away. She kept a firm grip onto the carrot, still not looking at it. When she felt a harder tug, Miran turned her head around to inspect the carrot in her hand.

The creature was tiny; so tiny that it’d be able to fit in her palm. It was round, and had green skin. The demon’s three eyes lifted up to face her, and it flashed her a playful grin. Short, jagged teeth were revealed to her, and the demon suddenly let go of the carrot. It lunged forward, about to bite her hand, but Miran removed it just in time and slapped the tiny demon away.

Miran recognized the demon as a typical goblin. They were weak in nature, and usually caused more mischief than harm.

Besides, a single goblin was like a fly to her.

The goblin rolled over and stood on its stubby feet. It growled at her, then in a breath of air and let out a high-pitched scream. Miran had to cover to ears from the noise, and she unconsciously closed her eyes too. The scream died down, and when she opened her eyes the bushes around her seemed to rustle.

A second goblin popped out. Then a third, and a fourth, and fifth. Soon, an army of tiny goblins were snarling at her. A single goblin wasn’t a big deal, but a mob of them – that was a different story. Miran rushed to her feet, and grabbed the handkerchief and carrots from the ground. She her heel and started running.

She stumbled a bit at first, and nearly tripped over a few tree roots from how fast she was running. Was she even running that quickly? Miran didn’t know. She was hungry, her body still sore, and her breath unusually short. As she ran deeper into the forest, the fog around her started to thicken.

Miran turned her head around, and instantly regretted doing so. Three goblins were right at her heel, and one jumped into the air and grabbed hold of her ankle. She tried to shake the demon off, but the action slowed her down greatly. Soon, the two other goblins jumped onto her, and caused her to fall to the ground. They were climbing up her leg, higher and higher. More goblins started rushing up after them.

She was defenseless, and weaponless. Miran tried to hit the goblins off her using the bundle of carrots, but they were crawling faster than she could hit. They trailed up her leg until they reached her arm. She let out a silent cry, and she closed her eyes right before one of the creatures attempted to bite her shoulder.

It didn’t – she felt no pain. Instead a warm feeling spread across her entire upper body area. She heard sizzling, followed by high-pitched screeches. She opened her eyes slowly to see what was happening.

Gold; she was covered in it.

The goblins began to disintegrate in the gold flames that covered her upper body. Their black ashes were swept away by the wind, and those that had seen what happened to their kin ran away. She was on fire, yet she didn’t feel hot. Miran realized the entire coat wasn’t on fire, just patches of it. Why weren’t the flames burning her?

One brave goblin decided to stay behind, and ran towards her. Right before it reached her toes, a ball of gold fire was thrown at it. The goblin burned on contact until it was nothing more than a pile of ash. Miran traced the trajectory of the fireball back to its source.

Standing on a tree branch was a familiar figure wearing an even more familiar kitsune mask. Baekhyun hopped down to the ground and approached her. He bent down to reach her eye level and reached a hand out towards one of the flames on the white coat. As soon as his palm cupped the fire, it was extinguished.

“You – aren’t your hands burning?” she asked him with wide eyes.

“I can’t be hurt by my own flames,” he replied, and continued extinguishing the flames.

“That’s impossible,” she barely stifled back a laugh. “Fox demons don’t produce gold fire.”

“Yeah, well you’re a human. You wouldn’t know,” he said, almost bitterly.

She didn’t say anything. Instead, Miran watched Baekhyun as he delicately traced his hands across her backside to extinguish the flames.

“But you… you could be hurt by them,” he murmured quietly. Then, in an even quieter voice he added, “Human flesh… it burns easily.”

“I wasn’t burned though.”

Baekhyun finished extinguishing all the flames, and lifted a bit of the white coat’s fabric. “It didn’t burn you because of this,” he told her. “This coat is resistant to fire.”

Miran stood on her feet and brushed the dirt off her body. She coughed into her arm, which caused Baekhyun to get up. “Follow me. You should move away from this spot. The miasma is getting stronger here.”

He walked past her, in the opposite direction that she had ran from. Miran jogged after him and wrapped his white coat around her body more tightly than before. The material was incredibly soft to the touch; it felt like silk but had a slightly rougher texture to it.

“This jacket – are all clothes here like this?” she blurted out.

There was a short pause. He then finally replied, in an almost robotic voice, “No. A very stupid woman gave it to me.”

Who? she thought, but didn’t dare ask.

Now that she was walking behind him, Miran had a clear view of the two tails that trailed behind Baekhyun. They were much larger than when she had first seen them, probably because they had been wet at the time. She counted them over and over again, each time telling herself that she had to be miscounting them. She had only seen his face once, and he sure looked much older than 5 years.

“Baekhyun?” she called out to him. It felt weird for her to use his name, and as it rolled off her tongue she almost regretted saying it. She was sure Nari wouldn’t approve of her interactions with the kitsune.

“Hm?” he hummed in response.

“How old are you?”

“I should be around 24 years old,” he replied, his voice trailing off.

Should be? Miran asked herself.

“How old are you?” he asked.

Miran ignored his question, and asked her own. “What do you mean ‘should be’?”

“It’s been many months, Tae Miran,” he told her. Baekhyun sighed, then continued, “I’ve lost count of how many moons have come and passed. But you didn’t answer my question. How old are you? You look like you’re around my age. Are you?”

“I should be around 20 years old,” she replied, mirroring his earlier response.

“Should be?” he frowned, although she wasn’t able to see it.

“I am 20,” Miran breathed.

Baekhyun dropped the topic, and became silent altogether. They walked past the same yellow flowers that Miran was sure grew in the human world as well. The whole concept that the spirit realm shared similarities to the human world made her uncomfortable, and she averted her gaze from the flowers.

She stared at Baekhyun’s tails, which seemed to bounce with each step he took. If Baekhyun was 24 years old like he said he was, how was it possible that he only had 2 tails? That, paired with the fact that he produced gold fire and not the normal kind left Miran thinking, What is Baekhyun exactly?

The fog around them seemed to lift as they walked out of the forest, and she recognized the path they were taking. She recognized it not because it led to the open area she had slept in the previous night, but rather the river.

In both the spirit realm and the human world.

Miran was sure of it now. Even though she had only walked through the forest in the human world 4 or 5 times, she recognized the various fauna that decorated the side of the trail. She recalled the flowers, and the slight dip in the trail right before it led to the river.

“Baekhyun?” she gulped.

“What?”

“This forest… does it have a name?” Miran asked carefully.

“It has a lot of names, but most people refer to it as the Forest of Silence,” he replied.

Miran’s pulse started racing, and she began walking faster. When she had first woke up in the spirit realm, she hadn’t paid much attention to what was on the other side of the river. The Forest of Silence seemed to mimic the human world’s forest. But if she was in the Forest of Silence, then perhaps that meant the forest on the other side of the river belonged to the human world…

When they reached the river, Miran was devastated by the sight before her. The other side of the river didn’t have a forest, or any trees for that matter. It was nothing but flat land, and in the very distance were silhouettes of mountains. She had to squint her eyes to see the image with enhanced clarity, since the fog was still quite thick. But no matter how hard she looked, Miran was sure there wasn’t a forest on the other side.

She started coughing into her arm – a lot more violently now, and she could feel shortness in her breath. She was breaking into a cold sweat, and suddenly felt very weak. It felt like with every breath she exhaled, a fraction of her strength was leaving her.

Baekhyun noticed her state, and clicked his tongue. “, the miasma’s reached the river. I didn’t think it’d get this far at this time of month.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of leaves and herbs. Baekhyun crushed the plants in his hand, then summoned a fire in his palm. The crushed leaves ignited and released a pleasant scent that wafted through the air. Once it reached Miran’s nose, she realized the tightness in her chest had stopped, and so did her coughing.

“These are called dryweed and dewleaves,” Baekhyun told her. “If you burn them as incense, it rids the area of demonic miasma.”

Baekhyun walked towards her with the open fire in his hand. He reached into his pocket with his other hand and grabbed a couple more of the leaves. Then, he handed them to her. “You probably don’t know where to find them, so I’ll share some of mine with you.”

She accepted the leaves, and studied the patterns on them. She tried to etch the images in her head, and made a mental note to try and look for more of them.

“But I’ll admit, for a human your tolerance against the miasma is very high,” he said.

Miran figured it was due to her being a priestess in training. Perhaps all the spiritual classes and purification rituals she had attended actually paid off in some way.

“Are those leaves edible? Or are they only used to ward off the miasma?” she asked him.

“A human shouldn’t eat them,” he replied swiftly. “They’re really only used by weak demons who can’t handle the miasma.”

That caught her attention. If dryweed and dewleaves were only used by weaker demons who couldn’t survive in the miasma, why did Baekhyun possess them? All fox demons, whether they had one tail or nine tails, were still stronger than most demons. In fact, it was usually because of stronger demons such as kitsune who created the smog-like miasma.

“Why… do you have them then?” she let her thoughts slip.

There was a long silence. And just like the times she had visited the river in the human world, the quietness reminded her of when she had gazed at the Forest of Silence. It wasn’t a tranquil or comforting silence. It was the deafening and unsettling kind.

“I picked them up for you,” he finally said.

“You probably don’t know where to find them, so I’ll share some of mine with you.”

Never trust a fox demon, Miran thought, even though she found a part of herself wanting to. Baekhyun was always clouded by a thick smog of mystery. His kept his thoughts and feelings masked, just like how the white fox mask hid his face. But instead of feeling threatened by him, she found herself wanting to learn more about the kitsune.

She would find out much later the true consequences of curiosity.

A/N: I have exams in 2 days :DDD But here I am back at it again with another update :)))))))

If you're confused about the parallels between the human world and the spirit world, don't worry about it. Tbh I know that bit wasn't expressed very clearly in this chapter, but it's not that important. Just know that Miran is in a COMPLETELY different world. (Also I know this is bad but I have an idea for a new fic...)

\\ xoxo