It was a hectic time as a main-house royal from Bloodleaf was giving birth.

The woman in question was the leader of the biggest community of kitsune in the world which made it something akin to a royal capital. Even the clan members of Bloodleaf from this city being considered the main members - the woman who stood atop it all being called the {Grand Shrine Maiden} for which all other shrines answered to. Part of the respect they got was due a rich history as well as a rich ‘economy’.

Due to their nature, even though they didn’t particularly get along with the other countries, they had an eye for shiny things such as rare metals. It had to be said they weren’t as greedy as dragons due to their inherent lack of arrogance; a dragon will feel no shame in taking something off a human for example. Still due to their connection with nature it was far easier for them to find the treasures in a damge-less manner. This isn’t even mentioning that head shrine maidens would be able to cause the mineral veins to regenerate with relative ease - even the weakest of the head shrine maidens were five-tailed kitsune.

Thanks to how powerful the members of Bloodleaf were it was hardly surprising they possessed grand qualities of metals & gems. For those of the main family, their wealth was of such a level where even the azure dragon may develop jealousy over. Moreover their very own elven descendents, blonde hair elves commonly referred to as high-elves, had discovered something called enchantment which worked to create powerful artefacts. It just so helped that the very stuff the kitsune loved to dig up (often with their own paws) were highly useful in enchantments so their treasure hordes suddenly became military grade. Fortunately for everyone else in the world these kitsune weren’t interested in war yet nobody other than the foxes knew the true power they already held - the ‘main family’ obviously pushing even further ahead. These enchantments weren’t just as useful for combat though but could help in all manner of situations especially when combined with the spiritual arts.

In other words; the woman giving birth in question was secretly one of the most powerful beings within the mortal realm who essentially kept the worth from collapsing.

Although it certainly wasn’t her first time giving birth, she had already given birth to an adorable little silver princess, however some said the second child was more demanding. Even if the actual birthing went faster the development and recovery were often more challenging than the first was. Thankfully the {Grand Shrine Maiden} was (obviously) blessed by {The Mother} which greatly helped in all steps of the process yet at the same time one couldn’t help worry.

For this very reason, in a large underground palace which rested under a tree which appeared to pierce through the sky itself, people were racing around. Most of these people had numerous fluffy tails swinging behind themselves however there were some long eared ‘mortals’ with blonde haired high-elves trying to direct the chaos the best that they could. Each of them were hurrying around to fill all the demands of a gigantic nine-tailed silver fox who was being constantly wiped down by fresh water. The amount of water that was being brought in was a major contributor to why there were so many people coming in & out.

They were similar to other types of beasts when it came to their sizes - the more powerful a fox was the larger they would be - with the lady fox in question being the strongest of all. Still the nine tailed fox wasn’t that large at the current as she could easily control her size with her current size being the most comfortable. That wasn’t to say she was small as she could still probably eat a man whole with room to spare.

This fact greatly increased the difficulty her servants were having in keeping her pleased as they washed & brushed her fur. For the fox race there was only one thing they enjoyed more than their hunting; it was having the softest & fluffiest fur out there. There was nothing as calming as a good grooming session which was much needed to help manage her stress. Especially since a pregnant vixen was quite aggressive which had led to many maulings in the past when someone unknowingly approached them expecting the same care-free nature.

Thankfully the grooming worked wonders as all the gigantic vixen did was lick her own claws calmly while looking towards the door.

From the corner of the  door a little fox head poked out to curiously gaze into the chaotic scene that was occurring. Similar to the large fox, the tiny kit was a shimmering silver with nine fluffy tails freely swaying behind her, though obviously far smaller as she was only the size of a medium sized dog at most. That didn’t stop the foxes natural beauty from shining - clearly having put a lot of effort into keeping her fur as radiant as possible.

If there was one strange point about her appearance it would be the position she was watching the room from. While it certainly wasn’t that strange for her little head to peek around the bottom right corner to spy on her mother as it was something that all little girls would do. Instead the issue wasn’t that she was in the bottom right… But from the top right. Her little paws rested along the wall, somehow sticking to it without so much as a slip, letting her fit her head snuggle into the top corner with thinned eyes as if that would help her stealth. 

Despite her efforts to remain hidden there was nothing she could really do to hide from the bigger fox who quickly spotted her daughter. Even if she didn’t mean to ruin her kit's fun it was hard not to notice when she was the strongest fox there was; the {Grand Shrine Maiden} had hunted the stealthiest of ancient dragons let alone an immature vixen. As such it was no surprise that the elder fox’s eyes drifted over to her now frowning baby girl.

Seeing that little beauty’s cheeks inflate into a pout made the larger beaty couldn’t help letting out a large laugh.

“Fufufu~ you are not going to be able to sneak around with that level of [Spiritual Arts] Alexis so come over here already~.” <Grand Shrine Maiden>

“Tutors said I am more talented than you are hmpf~!” <Alexis>

“That does not actually make you more skilled than me, that will require you to actually put your talent to use, you little trouble maker~!” <Grand Shrine Maiden>

Hearing her mothers words caused the little Alexis to put even more while her tails loosely hung down according to gravity's whims. Still she was only a trouble maker and not a naughty girl so she soon jumped down from the wall to land in the door way - carefully weaving her way through the constant foot traffic to dart in front of her mother. As soon as she eventually arrived a larger paw landed upon her little head to ruffle her.

Having her fur played with by her mother she couldn’t help purring yet, as if to not appear as if she’d forgiven her mother for bullying her, tried to unsuccessfully keep a frown.

It didn’t take much more time than that for the powerful vixen to give birth yet as the servants around the room lay sight on the child they were obviously confirmed. The child was just like their mother and older sister - being a beautiful fox with a nice silver fur even if theirs were certainly more messy at present. A noticeable difference was that the newborn naturally had sharper features however the child was a male so that made some sense.

What made people give him a second glance was that he had yet another silver tail attempting to flutter about with his weak muscles. A fox having 10 tails had never been done before which made it so people naturally couldn’t help take a second glance to make sure they had seen his number of tails correctly. Yet a closer glance revealed more was strange about the young tod.

His entire skeletal structure was ever so subtly ‘different’ from other foxes as if to accumulate to those front ‘paws’ that were unlike any other fox paw.

A set of four longer segmented digits were present on his paws with one actually being opposable exactly like that of a humanoid's thumb. Such a sight couldn’t help make the servants in the room show visible distaste for the child with some even making their disgust quite audible as they quickly began to discuss it among themselves. Even when surrounded by the laid-back foxes there would always remain some level of discrimination.

There was nothing like a mothers love though as she quickly heard the discussions about her second child & son making her loudly growl. Slowly lifting herself up while giving an angry glare to those who were slandering her baby - to make this even worse - even if she had just given birth did not change her aggressiveness caused by her pregnancy. Realising their mistakes the servants quickly filtered out upon whi-

“Baby brother is a weird mutant fox with strange paws fufufu~!” <Alexis>

“Alexis!” <Grand Shrine Maiden>