intro

Fox sat in his dimly lit cubical.  The numbers on the print out in front of him, set neatly in their grided rows, blurred again into meaninglessness.  He sighed and pressed his palms against his eyes in an attempt to clear his vision.  Fox ran his hands through his thick dark hair, letting them trail down to the tight knots in his neck and shoulders.  Grimacing he kneaded his muscles while leaning across his paper strewn desk to snatch up the disposable cup of krin.  After draining the thick remnants of the stimulant, he tossed the empty cup onto the growing pile of its fallen brethren, all heaped in the mass grave of the waste bin.

He stood allowing his leg muscles time to settle out. His computer chimed softly.  A female face appeared at the corner of the screen.  “Your First reminder.  48 hours until the Ambassador for Euthoria arrives.”

“Thank you Truby.”  He said silencing the program.

He had to study more on the Euthorian language and culture before her arrival. 

It would be dawn soon, but he still had several hours of paperwork to do before he could rest.  War was hard on trees.  He decided he needed to get out.  He gathered up a stack of papers, stuffing them roughly into a binding folder, and pulled his heavy jacket from its hook by the door. 

“I am going out for a bit.”  He said pulling on his jacket.  “See that the emperor signs this shit if he comes in on time.”  He waved his folder before sitting it on the woman’s desk.  She looked up briefly to acknowledge him before returning to her own papers.  Amy was just as much like the nightfolk as he was.  It was one of the reasons he made her his second in command.

Dawn was on the verge of breaking as he crossed the royal courtyard to the motorpool. His breath came in wispy plumes as he keyed his access code into the doorlock.  He still remembered when it was a simple key, and the garage had been a stable.  The door swung open and he went to his motor cycle.  He flipped the switch on the thermal inducer and checked his water tank while it warmed up.  After topping off the tank he sealed the pressure vessel. By the time he pulled on his gloves and straddled the machine, the boiler was rumbling and the pressure gauge was well in the green.  With a hiss and a sputter of steam the bike flew out of the garage.  Armored Guards saluted him as he roared past, drive wheel kicking up loose gravel as it found purchase on the cobblestone street outside. 

He loved to drive, especially early in the morning.  It was a between time, a “no mans land.”  The fanged and immortal nightfolk were retiring for the day, nesting down behind heavy doors, and windowless halls.  Deep in the ground, claws were being cleaned and children settled with a bath and bedtime stories.  The day people had yet to rouse enough to leave their glassy open abodes.  Breakfasts were being cooked, bleary eyes children were being goaded into rousing for the day…but outside the streets were all his, the realm of the between. Those who belonged no where.



Fox arrived at the dingy bar.  The rumble of his arrival caused a few trouble makers to scatter out side the bar.  Fox had been know for breaking up more than a few bar fights, and starting a few more.  The bar was eerily calm as he passed through the door.  He looked around for the dead body, which was usually the cause to any silence.  Instead, all eyes were fixed on a fully nude, glowing, winged, female creature; Reveling in the only bit of sunlight that had begun streaming in a small ray through the window. 

She was emitting a low twittering noise which fox could only discern as singing.  He listened for a bit until he recognized the words. It was her morning prayer to the sun, thanking it for retuning to give its light and warmth to the people of the skies, and peoples of the ground.  Thanks to all that was and would be for all of her children, rapture of her coming it was wrong, the sudden discordance hit him like a slap. The whole song was wrong.  There were other elements meant to be wond around what was there.  The song was like a leaf without a tree, fire with out heat, a river with no channel.  It was supposed to be a duet.  A song mates would sing together, in the first morning light, to celebrate the life they had together.  Without it, the song was cold and full of weary loneliness it changed from a song of hope and celebration to one of pleading and despair.  He stopped for a moment.  Shifting muscles and bone into new shapes, cartilage blossomed and folds reformed themselves into the throat of an angel.  He bobbed his head for a moment to catch the rhythm as he found where the males part should be.  He began his tones deeper and not as rich as hers but passable.  She stopped in surprise and turned to see who was there.  She cocked her head and Her wings flicked a subtle greeting, which he returned with a small wave, not losing his place in the song, he walked to her and stood beside her in the sun, his heavy black coat the absolute antithesis to her shimmering radiance.  She turned to the window again, and continued the song, now full and powerful in its celebration of life and all things gained in it.



Once the sunrise was complete, and the song over, he could see that her skin was actually semi-transparent.  He could see glittering facets that danced just under her skins surface.  “Not bad for a wingless.  I am…”  She followed this with a string of twittering and chirps that simply were too fast for a novice in the language to decipher. Her did catch the end of what she said, “Anna Elise.”



“May I call you Anna then, For the sake of saving sun?”  She nodded her agreement.  “I is the quick blushing raccoon.”  He held up his palm with her.  She twitched her wings in amusement.

“That’s it?”  She asked with a questioning look.

“That’s it” he said

“Hey fox”  A ship captain came up behind him.  He was tall and slightly overweight.  He had a broad nose and was graying slightly at the temples but other than that he had a full head of thick dark hair.  His pleasant face stared in amazement as he attempted to peel his eyes away from the winged goddess and talk to Fox.  :

Fox swallowed his throat back to speak Adneerian.  “Yes Jullian.”  Jullian smiled at Anna, who bared her teeth back.  After a pause Fox cleared his throat.  The man flicked his eyes back to Fox finally, after great effort

“You can talk like her?” He asked and blinked a few times as if trying to get his brain to function again.

“Yes Jullian I can.”  Fox answered with amusement on his face.

“Why is she naked?” he said slowly attempting to not look in the woman’s direction.  Blood was obviously returning to circulation.

“Her people are very comfortable with their bodies.  Nudity is very common.”

The captians eyes stole towards the now dressing woman.  “Next time you need a shipper to go there, I’ll go for free.”

“I’ll remember that Jullian, now I need to escort the ambassador back to the castle.”

“She’s the ambassador?”  He asked incredulously. 

“Yes, I can tell by the armor.”

Jullian turned and saw that the woman was now strapping on silver body armor.  The cloth shimmered like silk but was obviously bulked in ways to protect, a back hatch nestled between her wings then fastened down with a belt.  A long sword what looked like translumian slipped into a scabbard Fox shifted his throat back.

“You are the speaker for your nests are you?”

“You are a defender of the a wingless, are you?” she asked

“I am the kidnapper of  Adneer, and my undergarments are multifaceted, may we journey my pants?”  She blinked at him a few times and spoke slowly.  “You are the guardian, and keeper of the royal family?”

“Yogurt.”  He nodded.

She sighed.  It was infuriating to try to speak with these wingless.  All they did was cough at each other. Whoever trained this one to mimic speech did so as a novelty.  She resented her mother sending her here.  She pointed to her wings and then to herself and moved her head in the way she learned meant approval.  She pointed at him and then bobbed her head in the way she learned meant disapproval.  He shook with approval.  She pointed at the one who had coughed at him then pointed at her mouth with a chewing motion and then back at the raccoon.  She felt like an idiot.

“Do I eat no wings?” 

She nodded her approval, then bared her teeth and made a hissing noise while clawing at the air.

“Am I a Nightfolk?” He said, remembering that the Euthorians had a legend about creatures much like the nightfolk, called ‘the eaters of no wings’, they were to be considered trustworthy.  He decided to tell a truth, “I do occasionally eat no wings.”  She then nodded her approval and motioned for him to go.



She had never seen a motor cycle before, and was unsure of the device.  It was noisy, dirty, and kept spitting hot water at her.  Fox straddled the thing, then patted a part of the seat behind him, indicating she was to do likewise.  She was surprised at the dense bulk of him, as he indicated she should hold onto him as the machine whirred itself forward with incredible force.  She had to wrap her wings close to him, else the wind tear her from his back.  She clung very tightly to him, as the empty streets rushed past.  She couldn’t believe how lifeless it all was.  Everywhere sprouted steel, glass and formed stone.  Nothing was grown; nothing breathed life.  Clunking whirring behemoths stomped, and rattled through the streets, mindlessly completing their assigned duties.  It was like these people had pushed the world aside to live.  Slowly, the uppermost spires of the palace began to appear on the skyline.  There was a buffet of wind as they passed out of the dense buildings, and into an open area set before the palace.  The wide street was perfect for fairs, and celebrations.  Without any visible signal, the gates swung open before them, and Fox passed into the courtyard without slowing.  He turned away from  the motor pool, and took the longer winding path to the main entrance of the palace.  He shutdown the motor, and offered a hand to Anna as she slipped from the bike.  For the first time in their drive she found some form of life.  To her left was a grand spring of water.  It came up over formed rocks.  She was appalled at the audacity of their need to control the beauty of the natural elements of the rocks and the water.  Nothing was sacred here.  Nothing was allowed to be.  Even the sparse vegetation that they allowed to survive was cropped and bleeding.  Forced into the tiny boxes they allotted.  The raccoon began to speak, but his words were lost on her.  She went to the plants for a closer look, they were sitting in their little boxes with some sort of shiny stones crowding around them; choking out their ability to flourish.   

The raccoon came closer putting his hand on her shoulder and indicated to a plant in front of her.  He began to say something about it, his proud expression faltering as he saw the tears welling up in her eyes.  He whined an interrogative sound to her, oblivious to the suffering of the tiny lives before them.  Her wings flicked in irritation at being unable to express the absolute horror of the silent travesty unfolding here every day.

“Pastry?”  Fox said, his face solemn with concern.

“How can you trap these helpless children here?  Crushed beneath these sparkling…”  She reached into the flowerbed, and froze, realizing they had packed them in crushed glass. “What kind of people are you?  Who think they are better than the world that made you?  That can so heartless crush out all life around you?  Have you no souls?”  She could see the raccoon processing her words, seeking meaning he could understand.  He swallowed, kneeled to her level, and very slowly and carefully picked his words.

“Not all worlds are yours.  Not all eyes find the same line.  Yours is a place that feel much for all that camouflages you.  In truth, this is not their world.  They are the descendants of travelers that came here from a far land eons ago.  Where you see abuse, they see themselves as protectors.  They do not know how to live in harmony, for the harmony of here leaves them as a discord.  What you see here, in their eyes, is a crèche.  A place to protect the weak.”

“You speak as though you are not one of them.”  She said, caressing a soft crimson petal.

“I am not.  I was brought here long ago.  From a place even farther away than your nest.”

“You stayed?”

“These people mean well, even if you don’t agree with all their beliefs.  At their base, they are decent.  And can accept more differences than most.”  Fox raised his hand, and before Anna’s eyes, the flesh softened and began to run like hot wax.  The bones shifted and moved, settling into new shapes.  A small bird sprouted from his wrist and flexed its tiny wings.  It looked up at her and opened two horribly oversized and googley eyes at her.  She erupted with an unexpected giggle just before the bird turned inside out, and blossomed into a copy of the flower before her, which also opened a pair of oversized eyes.  She gasped in surprise, and covered her mouth.  The flower winked at her, then return to being his simple hand.

“How did you do that?”  She tittered.

“I am a many headed snake.”  He said.  “and have spent many many years entertaining the royal children.”  He smiled and stood, offering her a hand.  “Now let’s go and see if the king is out of bed yet.”



they grew close, but that was before the war was upon them, that was before Adneer feel before the angels became a slave race, that was 800yrs ago and this is now.