FSE

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_ **As I promised: a rewritten, edited version. Hopefully this will prove to be a more flowing read that contains more details and paints a more vivid picture in the readers mind. Enjoy.** _

"Stop it!" The shriek echoed off the towering trees that surrounded the group of children. There was four of them, three boys and a younger girl, all of them siblings. The three boys of varying ages ranged from sixteen to thirteen, and the girl being the youngest at twelve. The boys stood around a sight that was relatively common on the outskirts of their small town that was completely surrounded by the forest they stood in. Bear traps littered the ground here, but only one had caught anything. That trap was encircled by the three boys, each of them holding a stick at the ready as they sadistically poked the poor creature caught in it. Hence the shriek. The trap had a fox of brilliant orange fur, the color of a sunrise. The little amount of white on it's chest and tail tip the hue of freshly fallen snow.

The trap held the fox firmly by the right fore paw, which was obviously broken as it hung at an awful angle. "Leave it alone!"

"Aw, does Aellai like the little foxy?" The youngest of the boys teased as it jabbed the fox directly in the injured legs, eliciting a sharp cry of pain from the tortured creature. So the girl charged her brother, doing nothing other then windmilling and running straight for him, though she never even connected a swing before she was grabbed by the shoulder and shoved into a tree with enough force to knock her onto her backside. The boy quickly forgot his sister and went back to his tormenting of the fox. But he shouldn't have. The girl grabbed a branch that had been discarded from it's previous owner and had been wedged just barely between the roots of another. After wrenching it free from it's impromptu holster, she ran straight for her brother that had thrown her into the tree and swung.

This time, her swing connected. For the knobby head of the cudgel came down on the back of his neck with a sickening crunch, essentially crushing two of the seven vertebrae in his neck, killing him instantly. The remaining two boys looked at her with stunned expressions, only taking enough time to look at each other before running off into the forest, though it would be at least two hours before they would reach the town. The young girl dropped her bloodied cudgel as the reality set in on her. She had seen death before, after all, the forest was far from the safest place, but to be the one to cause such devastation...What had she done?! He had been far from the nicest person she had met, but it was her own brother! She suddenly felt very sick. An urge which she proceeded to relieve behind a nearby tree.

After which, she remembered the whole reason for her actions: the fox. It still sat trapped between the steel jaws of the infernal contraption. She hurried to the trap and set about working the metal teeth to part, which took a moment of time and a slight amount of ingenuity before she levered them open with a different branch, pointedly ignoring the one that lay not two feet away. Amazingly, the fox held still, looking at her quite intently with bright, intelligent, storm Grey eyes. Eyes that did not belong on an animal, though she was too engrossed in her work to notice. And then it pulled free, the fox quickly pulling it's leg out right before the steel jaws snapped the branch in two. The fox looked at her once last time before it limped into the underbrush, leaving behind no trace that it had ever been there other then a very faint trail of blood and a memory of intelligent Grey eyes.

_-_-_-_-_-_

And so she followed, long after night had fallen and the moon began to cast it's faint rays through the forest canopy, somehow illuminating her path quite well. Her footsteps had long since lost determination, and exhaustion had crept in with it's departure. The trail of blood eventually vanished, though the ground became soft enough at that point for her to notice the tracks of her furry friend. Her logical mind had immediately chosen this path, as the boys had most definitely arrived back at town, and a young girl who had killed for a woodland creature would receive no mercy. After all, the town had more then one story that should have been enough to scare any child into staying as far away from the forest as possible. It was believed to be dangerous because of the creatures it housed. Birds that sang so beautifully it could lead you to a cliff without you realizing, only to make you leap off. Vicious two legged, half animal-half human creatures that could transform between animal and human and would rip your throat out; eat you, or, if you were female, take you as it's mate and would eventually turn you into a monster just as foul as it. These where just some of the tales that raced through her head as she stumbled through the underbrush and tripped over roots.

She had no idea what she was looking for, in fact she believed she was just walking until exhaustion claimed her or one of the monsters did. But she was surprised when she finally stumbled to the edge of a clearing. She leaned heavily upon a tall tree with smooth bark that felt refreshingly cool to her sweaty skin. She rested her eyes for a moment before she opened them and realized what she was looking at. It was indeed a clearing, which was rare in these woods, but it was different all the same. Grass grew in the clearing, trimmed even and low. And in the center of the clearing sat a large stone, flat, polished to a glowing sheen, and marbled with glittering violet veins that took the moonlight and refracted it into a million glowing dots that seemed to form a free-standing dome that stopped where the tree's started. Aellai stood- or, rather leaned- on her tree in wonder before she walked through the dome, the purple dots seeming to split around her though she just took it as a trick of her exhausted mind. As she neared the table like stone she saw what she definitely had not expected. A dress, of crimson red cloth trimmed in the same color of fur, lay just within reach.

After her trek through the forest, and a good deal of bramble patches, thorn bushes, and other abrasive plants that had taken their toll on her clothing, which was now ripped and tattered. Aellai didn't hesitate, ripping the few parts of her clothing that barely held them to her with a fervent haste, leaving them in tatters at her feet. The chill night breeze washed over her now unclothed skin, causing her to shiver. And so she slipped into the dress, which seemed to have been made just for her, and marveled at it's fit and tailoring. It was unlike anything she had ever worn, and though the skirt only barely went past her knees, it seemed to impart a good deal of warmth with it, which only made her realize just how tired she was. And so it was that she crawled onto the table and lay there in the very center, curling into a ball and allowing the blissful peace of sleep to wash over her.

_-_-_-_-_-_

_"Too hot..."_Aellai thought as she rolled onto her other side, the heat of the rays of the sun beating down onto her and the table causing her to become uncomfortably warm as consciousness returned to her.

"Hey!" The whisper came from a distance, how she knew it was a whisper, she did not know. But voices where bad. Especially after yesterday, and most definitely right now since she was deep into the forest at this point. And so she discovered the gravity of the situation. Attempting to raise a hand to her forehead, she was met with the second most disturbing sight in as many days. Where her hand should have been was a paw, which led to a furred leg, and on to... the body of a fox covered in fur the color of crimson. Amazingly, her mind did not go on, in fact it seemed to shut down. It was as she had feared. Exhaustion hadn't claimed her, nor had hungry animals, or even hunger itself, but something else had.

There was nothing for it. As far as she was concerned at this point, she might as well go along with it. And so she stood on her four wobbly legs, and took her first unsteady steps as a fox. Aellai spent a few minuets getting used to her new form, and a few minuets on her side as she fell quite a few times, before she became confident enough to jump from the stone table, which she did with all the grace of a falling rock, although she managed to stay on her feet, or should she think of them as paws now? Whatever. Now there was only one thing left to do: find whoever or whatever had talked. And it didn't take long to find it. It was like a thing out of legends. It had two legs, yet was more animal then it was human. It had brilliant orange fur with hints of snow white in various places, holding it's right arm as as though it caused it pain, and staring at her with storm Grey eyes that looked just as intelligent as they had the day before.

"Poor thing, I don't know know how you made it through the clearing, but at least now I can make sure you're safe, it's the least I can do after yesterday." It said, or, He said, as the smell emanating off of him was very masculine, tinged with... sorrow? The thoughts were removed from her head rather quickly as he scratched her feral muzzle, sending a shiver down her spine. The shiver turned to heat, burning her from the inside out as she was wracked with spasms of pain. She fell to the ground writhing about. Not noticing as the muzzle shortened then disappeared, as did the fur, and bones re-knit back into the skeletal structure of a human. By the time the pain left, she didn't even notice that she had transformed back into a human. The fox-man just stared at her before offering a hand-paw towards her, which she took in her own, leaning on him heavily as they walked off into the forest, her heightened senses giving the ability to smell the earthy smells of rotting plant material and the scent of green growing things. And the distant barking of dogs that signaled the approach of angry townsfolk.

They walked in silence, him providing support and her stumbling along the way. He often looked at her with curiosity, though it was quite some time before his curiosity made him speak. "My name is Aaron. I'm sorry about what happened, but I intend to make it up to you. If we can out distance our pursuers, and manage to lose them, then we can build you a new life in The Society. I won't explain it to you, your obviously in shock. All I can say is when we get there they will find something for you to do. You will be trained in a position the elders deem worthy of you. Be smart, and stay strong. It wont be as bad as you think." Aaron said, and the ensuing walk would have been easy indeed, if Aellai hadn't heard any of the tales of the creatures in the forest. Her legs gave out beneath her, and Aaron had to catch her and carry her, wincing in the process as he picked her up, settling her weight on his wounded arm, before picking up the pace. Aellai slipped back into unconsciousness, with thoughts of her future and the distant barking of dogs tormenting her.

_-_-_-_-_-_

The pain of her head smacking against the hard stone walls of her cell was lost upon her, as her body writhed in uncontrolled agony as her bones reshaped themselves once more. The constant reminder of the scrapes and bruises caused by the constant shape shifting remained, and they were many indeed. Aaron had indeed kept his promise. He had carried her back towards the city that housed The Society, as they called themselves. A city in the trees, or so she heard from the guards outside her cell. Apparently there were more then just this city, which only housed the clans that were comprised entirely of foxes. She didn't know much, as she had been unconscious when they had entered the city. The only thing she had seen was the council chambers where the elders debated politics and the path to her cell, which she had been placed in until she became capable of controlling the changes. Until they could train her. Upon waking for the second time, more changes had occurred, though these features haunted all of her forms now.

Two ears, the ears of a fox, were a constant in all three of her forms, the semi-human, the half-human, and the fox. As was the change of her normal hair color from raven black to crimson red, which only seemed to mock her. These were constants for everyone, they had said. The other three of her features were not, however. Her eyes still refused to work properly, as they gradually changed from the blue eyes of a human to blood red. And two tails finished out the set. They had called her Kitsune. A title that truly terrified her. In her childhood, one of the most terrifying tales were of Kitsune, thieves of souls, magic users, a thing feared of by everything else. They had told her nothing to dispel those fears, and the thoughts that rampaged through her mind did nothing to comfort her. She hated it all. She hated her brother whom she had killed, she hated the elders who had ordered her to be confined until further notice, she hated the accursed dress that had imbued her with powers she did not want and would never be rid of, and most of all, she hated Aaron. If she hadn't felt bad for him, she never would have been in this situation. He had made her kill her brother. He had led her to the dress. He had brought her before the elders. She loathed his very existence.

Tears of anger and pain welled from eyes that already would not see correctly for weeks to come, and she did nothing other then lay on the floor as her body settled into that of the feral fox. She lay next to her bunk that she had rolled off of in her thrashing. She had no idea why a stone building would be in the trees, but it was there nonetheless, and it held her captive. The walls were without cracks, and the door only revealed itself when one of the two people who had the key used it to open the door, otherwise it was just another wall. But she was disturbed. The wall began to make it's grinding noises as the stone changed to wood, and then opened. One of her keepers slid a plate of food inside before closing the door and locking it, causing the wood to revert back into stone. The smell of the raw meat was tantalizing, as she had not eaten in three days, since she had killed her brother, but she refused to eat. As her one choice, she defied them as much as she could, but she knew she would only last so long. And so she closed her eyes, allowing the oblivion of sleep to take her, as it seemed to be the only thing that was still kind to her.