What they saw in the light was a deer, it stood tall at a height at least twice their size with a body made entirely of wood. The way that its body was woven with branches, each the size of The Fox’s legs, gave a harmonious feeling. Each branch is carefully wrapped, carefully protecting, and carefully supporting the beast's frame.
The branches, while they might be large and many, did not make up the entirety of this creature's body. There were cracks and sections that lacked the protection of these branches, each crack showed just what was truly different between this creature and the ones they knew.
Behind these branches was not fur, scales, or skin rather, it was nothing. The space behind the branches was but an open space filled with a green light. This explained the light they saw emanating from this deer and why it gave a kind of otherworldly feeling.
Honestly The Fox just found that it seemed, just too perfect, it draws the attention of all things around it naturally invoking a feeling of a weak creature, one that should be protected. This made it hard for others to feel aggression towards it.
Even with all of these mystical properties, they had not even seen the most shocking part about this creature until it took another step towards them. The deer slowly brought its front hoof up and took a step forward as one would do during a leisurely stroll. But the moment the hoof came down, the deer disappeared. It was not that the deer had literally disappeared, the light was still there, moving forward like the body of the deer was still present.
With the exterior of a deer suddenly gone, the light that made up its center suddenly appeared 10 steps forward from its original position. As the light approached the end of its seemingly instant jump, branches extended from the light.
In an instant a new body had formed around the light allowing for it to step forward again. The particular thing about this new body was not only its sudden appearance but instead its new shape. The body was no longer the elegant harmless deer that it was before, but instead now a large lion still made of branches and green light, yet far mightier.
The new form of a lion gave The Fox an entirely new feeling towards this creature. With the harmlessness of the deer form gone like it had never existed, a sudden wave of intimidation appeared and pressed down on The Fox. He felt the presence of a predator, one that could kill him swiftly, yet disdained the thought of doing so itself.
Just as The Fox started to register this creature’s new form, it took another step. Just like before it disappeared and appeared 10 steps closer. This time it didn’t take on the form of a lion but instead took on the form of a panther. With another new form appearing the feeling it gave once again changed. Now The Fox felt a sense of danger, not from a strong presence, but instead a feeling like he was being hunted, that there was a predator he couldn’t see watching him getting ready to pounce and end his puny existence.
At this point The Fox felt his brain coming to a halt as he just couldn’t understand what was happening, why were so many auras coming from this creature, why do all of them carry a feeling that he can’t resist or doesn’t want to resist. Resistance is just a lost thought, an idea that would never come to fruition.
Yet this creature wouldn’t just stop because The Fox can’t process its existence and took another step. This time it reappeared right in front of The Fox, the creature had approached them swiftly and yet The Fox was still lost and confused. This confusion can be considered a mistake that would cost his life, yet in this case it didn’t matter so much.
The Fox was already injured, there was little he could do to resist even if he reacted in time. Luckily for The Fox the objective of this creature was obviously not to swiftly kill them. This could be understood from the creature’s last form that it took in the last step.
The form was something familiar to The Fox and The Black Lily, it appeared in the form of a fox. The fox that appeared before them was evidently larger than The Fox, showing perhaps a maturity or a strength that The Fox didn’t possess. The fox before them had also taken a non-hostile stance as it had sat down in front of them, calmly staring into the eyes of The Fox waiting for him to finish processing the existence and presence of the fox before him.
The aura that could be felt from the creature was strange at this point. There was no obvious feeling unlike its other forms. There was no intimidation, no danger, no relaxing feeling, it just felt almost blank. Yet there was also still an obvious aura, it was there but yet not there, like a presence you know but yet you can never know. It could be there in front of you where you believe it is, yet you also feel that it could be behind you staring into your vulnerable back.
In fact it was the fact that the feeling was so faint yet had such an alarming assumption behind it, that caused The Black Lily to react. She had been observing the whole time and had felt confused as well, yet she didn’t let herself fall into confusion like The Fox as she could comprehend this creature better, she never had a flesh form before and therefore couldn’t completely admire this scene leaving her less confused. Due to the feeling of this fox before them also seemingly behind them, The Black Lily kept a watch of the area behind them, carefully trying to find the presence it felt. There is no denying that this presence exists, but knowing where it was is another story, only adding on stress to the one being watched.
Time passed as the fox sat before the duo watching them leisurely as one was trying to wrap his head around its existence, and the other concentrated behind them watching for its presence that she felt.
After a couple of minutes passed, it couldn’t help but let out a chuckle, their antics were honestly quite amusing, providing the creature with an emotion it hadn’t experienced before: amusement or perhaps it was joy, the creature couldn’t tell as both are foriegn to it.
The chuckle that it gave out was not so physical but instead felt like a wave that resonated within the minds of the duo. The voice that it gave off was deep and smooth, giving a feeling of a senior or elder calmly enjoying the antics of the young.
This chuckle brought the duo out of their own personal worlds they had created and brought the focus of the duo on to the fox.
“Are you done?... How unfortunate, it was rather amusing to watch. Quite the show I must say.”
The voice once again resonated and sounded in the minds of the duo. While the duo at this point felt alarm and confusion, they also started to calm down. The calm steady voice affected their moods and calmed them down and gave a strange sense of safety.
The Fox and The Black Lily both knew that this sense of safety was the largest lie that they had ever heard, yet they didn’t want to believe it was a lie, so they ignored that feeling of weariness and instead focused on the fox in front, regarding him in a calm state of mind.
‘What is this strange creature, why does it change, what are these feelings it gives off…. And most importantly, why are we alive?’
‘How am I to know? The only thing I can respond to is that we are alive because it wants us to be at this moment’
Another few moments passed as the fox waited for the duo to respond, only to be met by confused silence. As the silence continued to drag out, the fox seemed to come to a sudden realisation.
“Ah! Do you not know how to respond?”
Hearing the voice once again resonate in their mind, The Fox shook his head telling the fox that he in fact, didn’t know how to respond.
“Heh, well that will likely come with time I suppose, or at least I hope so.”
Giving a slightly disappointed grunt and speaking his hopes, the fox decided that instead of trying to have the duo respond at this time it was better for him to just speak his mind.
“Well, I imagine you are thinking about why in the world you are alive?”
The Fox nods, a simple and direct question was met by a similarly simple answer.
“Heheh, this is a reasonable question, after all I would be asking myself that, if I was you, heheh. Anyway I suppose I should explain just what I want from you, after all I wouldn’t just leave you alive without some purpose.”
As the fox was speaking, his gaze was no longer leisurely but instead piercing and excited.
“To tell the truth, the main reason is that I’ve run out of a source of food. So your main task will be to go out and hunt, hunt and bring your rewards back here to this forest. I will obviously leave you a fair share for your work, but don’t think I won’t be taking any. Additionally I’ve just decided on another task I want from you two, It's a really simple one really.”
The fox paused here checking that the duo was paying attention. The slight pause made The Fox slightly nervous as he didn’t know what to expect from this second request. The first wasn’t so bad but the second could be difficult as he honestly didn’t think of anything else they could provide to the fox in front of them.
Seeing the slight nervousness appearing on the face of The Fox, the fox gave a small smile towards him.
“No need to worry about this one, it's even easier than the first one. Whenever you come back to deliver your tribute you will sit down and have a talk.”
At this moment The Fox froze.
‘What??? We can’t even talk back, why in the world would he want to talk, and how would he!’
‘....’
The Black Lily had no response to that either as she was quite confused herself.
The fox watched their confusion and once again gave a soft chuckle before explaining what he meant.
“Don’t worry, I am not asking for you to be able to respond immediately, I will teach you that with time, but really the reason I want this is simple. I find you two rather amusing. Never before have felt such a sense of amusement so I rather look forward to what other amusement you could bring me in the near future. I am after all rather bored in this forest, entertainment is hard to come by or rather impossible to come by nowadays.”
‘What do we do about this?’
‘....Agree? I mean what else can we do, and what can we stand to lose? Our lives? That is already in his hands anyway.’
‘Good point’
The Fox nodded towards the fox showing that he agreed to this and was willing to follow through on his end of the agreement.
“Heheh, great, I look forward to our future conversations, oh and you can call me The Many.”
Finishing with what he had come here to do, The Many stood back up and took a step back towards where he came from. As he stepped he continued to take on new forms, an eagle, a tiger, a wolf, and more as he left them where they were, still rather confused at what in the world just happened.
