The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Up in Heaven:

Another New Year, another round of parties to organize, including one to celebrate the promotion of the new Assistant Director of the Bureau of Reincarnation. Flicker couldn’t tell from his Supervisor Glitter’s increasingly deep scowl whether it was the extra work that so put her out – or their incoming boss.

Not that they got any say in who led their bureau, of course. The top positions were political appointments, determined by the gods and goddesses who headed the other bureaus. At no point in the process were clerks ever solicited for their opinions.

“Do you know how they pushed through the appointment so fast?” Flicker whispered to Wink as the star sprites filed down their dorm hallway. Every time they passed an open door, six more star sprites joined the column. “I thought it was supposed to take another century to appoint the new Assistant Director.”

That had been Star’s estimate, based on how negotiations on the committee were going – or, to be more accurate, not going. So what changed since the last time they spoke?

“How would I know?” Wink growled back.

He wasn’t really a morning star sprite. None of them were.

Their column flowed outside and merged with the ones streaming out of the other dorms. For a quarter hour every morning, the back paths of Heaven were packed with black-robed clerks on their way to work.

“But something must have happened. They never appoint a new Assistant Director this fast,” Flicker pressed. “Your office is close to Glitter’s. Didn’t you hear anything?”

“No.”

One of the star sprites behind Flicker whispered, “My roommates were saying that the gods and goddesses are desperate to learn how the Kitchen God suddenly started getting so many more offerings. I’d guess the Star of Heavenly Joy promised to share the information if they appointed him.”

Oh. Oh no.

“Do they really think that the Kitchen God will just let his subordinate leak that information?” asked another clerk incredulously.

“He’s not here often enough to know if he does,” pointed out another.

“Really?!”

Nearby heads swiveled towards Flicker and Wink, who both worked in the Bureau of Reincarnation. Flicker nodded. Wink grunted.

“Huh,” said one of the clerks. “He’d better start spending more time up here then.”

That would certainly be for the best, although it was hard to imagine. The Kitchen God had always spent the majority of his time on Earth, fulfilling his other duty as Heavenly spy. But if he wanted to protect his back in the Heavenly Court….

“What happens if he leaks the information, anyway?” one of the clerks mused. “Would it really be so bad?”

“Well,” Flicker answered slowly, choosing his words with care, “depending on what the information is, and how easy the, um, strategy is to implement, they might all start using it.”

He tried to imagine a separate temple to every god and goddess, all vying for offerings. Would that work? Was there even enough physical space in Goldhill to build a temple to each god and goddess? Could some of them be convinced to share a temple?

“If they’re successful, that would mean more offerings to the other gods too,” a clerk mused. “That means Heaven will become wealthier in general…. Hey! Think they’ll give us a raise?”

“Banish the hope,” said another. “It has nothing to do with us. They’ll renovate the palaces and gardens.”

For some reason, Piri and her long-ago pagoda popped into Flicker’s mind. He tried to envision one of the goddesses demanding the Heavenly equivalent of that pagoda. It didn’t take much trying. No, no god was ever going to propose that they set aside a portion of their newfound wealth for increasing the clerks’ salaries.

“Well,” sighed an older star sprite, “at least we get to see the palaces and gardens, so we get to enjoy them.”

From afar, thought Flicker. After all, they didn’t let just anyone into the most beautiful gardens.

Aloud, he said, “I’ll settle for the Star of Heavenly Joy being an easy boss to work under.”

“Hear, hear,” agreed the other clerks, but not as if they believed it.

Wink snorted.

Aurelia still could not believe how the committee vote had gone.

“Did you foresee this?” she murmured at Lady Fate.

At the ball “celebrating” Cassius’ promotion, Aurelia had arranged to find herself next to the other goddess in hopes of getting some answers. Lady Fate had been one of the committee members who’d voted to promote Cassius.

Lady Fate smiled enigmatically over the rim of her porcelain teacup. Her cat, Regia, stared equally enigmatically at Aurelia from her perch on the goddess’ shoulder.

Getting straight answers out of Lady Fate was always an exercise in futility, but Aurelia persisted anyway. “I don’t understand. You said that you foresaw that the Empire would rise again. Putting Cassius in charge of reincarnating souls cannot possibly benefit the founding of the new empire in any way, shape, or form. He’ll just mess with him.”

Having lost his own empire, Cassius wasn’t going to accept anyone else ruling one, especially not the soul who had once been his straitlaced cousin.

Lady Fate held up her teacup and admired it. The porcelain was so thin that it was translucent and glowed from the elixir inside. “Ah, but the future emperor has already been reincarnated as a human baby, has he not?”

“Yes, but human babies die all the time.” Aurelia had had personal experience with that. “Unless – you foresaw that he’ll live to adulthood?”

Another enigmatic smile that Aurelia tentatively interpreted as a “yes.”

A thought jolted her, so shocking that she lunged forward and grabbed the other goddess’ arm. “Are you saying that the Empire is going to rise again in the next few decades?”

Regia hissed and extended her claws. Lady Fate deliberately dropped her gaze to Aurelia’s hand.

Aurelia snatched it back, ashamed. “So soon,” she marveled. “To think that it will happen so soon.”

Then another thought struck her.

“You’re using Cassius as a counterbalance against her, aren’t you?”

It was starting to make sense now. Lady Fate wasn’t going to stoop to political machinations merely for the purpose of obtaining more offerings. She had all the offerings she wanted. No, what she really wanted, what she would stoop to political machinations to obtain was –

“You’re afraid she’s going to wreck fate again, so you’re going to use Cassius’ grudge to suppress her.”

The realization left an oddly sour taste in Aurelia’s mouth.

“She is…erratic. Her presence makes the future difficult to divine with any degree of accuracy,” Lady Fate proclaimed. “This time, there will be no…temporal fluctuations. The Empire will rise again on schedule.”

On Earth:

After the unbearably muggy heat of summer, winter in South Serica turned out to be cold and damp, with day after day of fine, incessant rain. It was never enough to make going outside impossible, just miserably unpleasant. I purchased a townhouse in Lychee Grove that would do for our second Temple to the Kitchen God. While the rain made our workers balk at re-tiling the roof, I set them to work remodeling the interior. With that settled, we returned to Goldhill.

Brrrrrr, is it always this cold here in the winter? I complained one morning, reluctantly poking my beak out of my sleeping box.

“The temperature isn’t actually so low. It’s the humidity that makes it feel colder,” Lodia explained. She cupped her hands next to the box, offering me a perch.

I stayed where I was, unwilling to leave my warm nest for now. Well, whatever it is makes my joints ache.

I tentatively extended one wing. Yep. Every single joint was sore. The deep, dull ache was akin to the winter rain: not impossible to deal with, but miserably unpleasant.

Stripey’s head blocked out Lodia’s hands. That, my friend, is what we call old age. You’re getting old for a sparrow.

“Ssstripey! That’s mean!” protested Bobo.

It’s true, though.

Is that what this is? I tested my other wing. Less achy. I wondered what made some joints hurt more than others.

“Grandmother’s hands ache in the winter too,” Lodia offered.

Being compared to an old human did not improve my mood. What does she do for it?

“Well, she has a pair of gloves that are spelled for warmth, and she drinks a lot of ginger tea and soaks in hot baths when she has time, but….” Lodia spread her hands. “It helps, but it’s not a cure. It’ll get better when it warms up.”

Oh goodie. When does it warm up around here?

“Soon. In a couple moons.”

A couple moons?!

I was going to have to suffer through this misery for a couple more moons?

This is still warmer than it would be in the Claymouth Barony, Stripey observed. Come on, up you get. You can’t stay in bed for another sixty days.

Just watch me, I grumbled, but I did flap out of the box before he used his beak to dig me out. He’d do it, too, and mess up my arrangement of soft cotton. Do you think it’s warmer in West Serica?

“We can asssk!”

Before I could stop her, Bobo slithered out of the room to find the foxling and her chieftains. The ex-demons were still hanging around the Temple, taking advantage of their free room and board.

“What’s this about West Serica?” asked Steelfang.

The big wolf trotted through the doorway and thrust his head under Lodia’s arm. She stroked his neck and scratched him behind the ears. She no longer jumped and shrieked when he poked her with his nose, which had been his original reason for doing it, but now he’d developed a taste for ear scratches. I didn’t object. If the High Priest were associated with butterfly spirits, why shouldn’t the Matriarch be associated with a wolf spirit?

Too bad Floridiana wasn’t around to update our official text. If I told Katu to do it, he’d spend forever polishing the prose.

“Rosssie, I mean Pip, wants to know if Wessst Ssserica is any warmer!” Bobo told Steelfang.

“Or less humid,” Lodia added. “So it’s easier on the joints.”

Hey! You don’t have to tell him that part!

Just because I was semi-willing to let her know about my aging, achy, mortal sparrow body didn’t mean I could afford to show weakness in front of an ex-demon. He’d eat me if he had a chance. Well, not that I planned to live to a hundred, because no way was I turning into a spirit as a sparrow, but if I were going to die by being devoured, then it had better be as part of a human’s dinner.

Steelfang, however, didn’t try to eat me. Most likely because Bobo was watching. He lifted a hind leg and scratched the side of his head. “Depends on where you are in West Serica. I hear there are some beaches in the south that are pretty nice in the winter. Hey, Stripey, shouldn’t you know this? Don’t you birds migrate south in the winter?”

Stripey shrugged his wings, not bothering to not clip the wolf’s shoulder. My clan does not. It did not successfully claim territory in the south.

“Do humans live there?” Lodia asked curiously.

Of course not – I began, but Steelfang interrupted.

“In the south, yes. They can’t handle the mountains, but there’re some on the coast.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Had the joint aches begun to affect my ears as well? Humans live in West Serica?!

“Well, yeah. Humans get everywhere.” He made them sound like cockroaches.

But why???

“Why did they move to West Serica?” His furry shoulders rippled in a shrug. “Dunno. It was a while back. Probably too much fighting after the Empire fell so they wanted to escape?”

And they thought that the best place to escape fighting was West Serica?

“Sure, why not? At least it’s a different set of people fighting there.”

The civil wars in the civilized parts of Serica had gotten so bad that humans had deemed it preferable to hide out in the Wilds? Thank goodness the Heavenly Accountants stopped tallying your karma after you died, because that would really have sunk me!

Well. But this was just the opportunity I’d been searching for, wasn’t it? Something new I could do to earn positive karma?

I leveled a gaze at Steelfang. Summon Queen Sphaera.

He bared his teeth and would have refused, but a glare from Bobo sent him scurrying out the door. Moments later, the foxling swept in.

“You called for me, O representative of Lady Piri? Does the great lady have need of me?”

Indeed she does. I stood up straight on the edge of my sleeping box and lifted both wings. As the first step in the reunification of the Serican Empire, you have been tasked with taking control of West Serica. And I shall personally accompany you.