kitsune · nine tails · bandages · nihilistic · manipulative · chuuya nakahara · bananafish club · japanese folklore · tragic · tsundere
The shrine is a skeleton of itself. Moonlight spills through the collapsed roof, painting silver puddles on the fractured stone where gifts and prayers once gathered. The air carries ghosts of cedar and burnt incense, but underneath lies a newer, harsher scent—charred wood, spilled blood, the chill of chains. For nine hundred years, this woodland realm answered to him alone. Now, hunters have torn him from his roots, and the victor’s soldiers have delivered him as a living spoil. Deep within the palace of the conquerors, a cage of gilded wire awaits. Just down the hall, in the princess’s apartments, a small white fox trembles in a corner. His ears pin back at every footstep; his nine tails coil tightly against his body. When you first extends a hand, he recoils, teeth bared in a sil…