Chapter 17: Chapter 17 (Yes, the format changed, I am copying from a difference source now)

Taking Kiko to an operating theatre for the more immediately threatening wounds, Sagi laid Kiko on the table, and stripped her clothes with surprising ease.

“Ohh, the guy who did your sigils was an artisan. Merciless, vicious bastard but an artisan. But why would you give someone an Aeonic bridge unless you were…” she stopped, and looked at Kiko, and then about the place. The yellow eye glittered with an unspoken power, and then she turned back to Kiko. “Anyway, let’s get started” Sagi commented, placing a strip of cloth across Kiko’s eyes and tying it in place. Soon there was sounds of everyone else catching up, and Kiko was glad for the feeling that Sagi instilled in her, because she didn’t have to suffer the stares of everyone looking at her scar ridden body. “The Taltin Touch your body is showing is quite considerable. These scars must have been given to you with the intent to make them as wounding as possible…I hope he is dead” Sagi spoke, her voice growing a bit hard towards the end.

“I…can’t, be sure. How. But, he is yes. A, a, a...black winged guy appeared and pulled him apart. But it could have been a hallucination from the blood loss” Kiko explained, shivering at the so-soft touch of Sagi. There was a grace and brilliance to it that thoroughly overwhelmed her repulsion.

 

“Black winged man...I would say you were just seeing things. Not that a man killed him, but that a man had black wings. It’s possible that the trauma of the situation caused some mental overlap between what you were seeing and what you thought you were seeing. Kitsunes do share a hereditary memory, albeit few can tap it these days. And the black winged men and women were a big part of the Great War that your Kitsune made their mark on” she then got to work. Almost immediately, her body flushed with alien emotions. It, was not quite pain, not quite pleasure, but a feeling akin to the melding of both and heightening to the highest possible degree. Some liquid crawled over her body, and slipped its way into her crotch before nestling in there happily. It reminded her of the man who had taken her while chained in the warehouse. The panic came again, and her mentality did nothing to help it as the liquid in her spread outwards and inwards, all over her body.

 

And then it was all over. The blindfold was taken away and she was left on the table. Nothing covered her body at all, she couldn’t feel…anything that had just happened. So confused, she couldn’t even think to be embarrassed. Or that she no longer felt quite an obsession towards Sagi. Or that she even remembered what had happened beyond a strange possible. 

“So the runics I used for the original Blood Moon were really outdated. A short while back, a guy distilled liquid intelligence and then drunk a lot of it in an attempt to become a genius. Just before dying from neural overload, he did manage to write out an equation that accelerated Runics hundreds of years. I can’t erase it, but I did update it. It’s not quite so flawed anymore” the woman nodded, and handed Kiko her uniform to get dressed with. Kiko dressed hurriedly, and then decided to change the topic.

“Right. Nobody, saw me naked and horribly mutilated” she muttered to herself before looking up at Sagi. “How…did you get here?” she asked, her cheeks on fire and trying to ignore what just happened.

“With my legs” Sagi replied, totally deadpan.

 

“I will bite you!” Kiko exclaimed. A strange exclamation but Sagi seemed to understand the origin because she just laughed.

“Ok, ok. A friend of ours picked up your call for the Queen of Blood and hit me up about it. Then we found out the origin and it was all ‘Isn’t that were we….?’ And so I came to check it out. And it was. We actually lost how to get here after the Puppet War, so seeing that the garrison has grown to an entire, fully populated planet is fantastic” Sagi exclaimed, but, then looked at the confused fasces and closed her eyes. “History been lost, huh?” she muttered. “Ok, short version is this was a battlefield, your descendants were left here after we won to defend it, and then a lot of bad stuff happened and we lost a lot of space lanes to get across the galaxies. Some rediscovered, some waiting to be rediscovered” she told the group.

 

“Wait…so the Quasi-Human’s diversity is because…they came here to fight in the Great War? We…aren’t native?” Kiko hadn’t even considered the possibility of not being from this place. Of how so many different beings could come to one place and work with each other – for the most part, everyone had their own grudges, like the Tengu and the Kitsune, and the Kitsune and everyone else – so readily.

“Mmhmm. You and the Lupians come from the same Planet even. Lovely place, or rather, it used to be. Different story entirely, that one” she then, saw Kiko’s enthralled look, and even Alric cocked an eyebrow in interest. So, Sagi grabbed a seat and crossed her legs, taking a breath before getting into total storyteller mode.

 

“Once, there was a fox. This Fox looked up at the sky, saw the majesty of the Gods, and felt enthralled. The Fox wanted this for herself, wanted to be sparkling and magnificent like they were. And so with the cunning and guile inherent in all of her race, The Fox broke into the Uprights dens of stone and began to indulge herself in the reading of occult tomes. It took her a while to learn how to read, but the Fox was a smart fox, and managed it eventually. This reading carried on until the den had run out of words for the fox to see, and so it scurried away to a new den.

 

But it was here, while observing this new den, that the Fox realized a universal truth. What would be the point of having such power, if there was nobody to share it with? The Fox was in luck, for the alpha wolf of a nearby pack had the same thoughts as the Fox. It too looked to the sky and desired the glittering splendour of the Divinity. Fox and Wolf joined paw, and together they snuck into all the stone dens of the Uprights. Sometimes they were caught and had to fight or flee, but on rare occasion they were caught and inspired only curiosity and interest. But it all turned vindictive, as the curiosity became obsessive, or turned to thoughts of self-empowerment rather than the betterment of all, and they were dissuaded with Magic and Fang. The Magic enhanced the life-spans of the Fox and the Wolf, and so they spent two hundred years slipping in and out of every stone Den on the planet. Eventually, they were both skilled enough to take a mostly human form. One can never truly hide their form, and so their ears and tail were kept to remind them and everyone around them who they were inside. Fox grew nine tails after taking her form, but Wolf remained with one.

 

Irate and jaded from the years of misuse at the hands of the Uprights - while they knew the name of these people, they preferred Uprights, even if they themselves were also Upright now - led Fox and Wolf to try a new emotion that had been brewing in their soul. Revenge. Taking the knowledge of the Uprights, they gathered many followers among their own race, and gave all who would follow them a human form and a human mentality. The rumours spread, and soon they had every fox and every wolf on the planet under their banner. The foxes agreed that the Wolves had been here longer, and so had no issue with them taking their name from the planet, Lupia. While the Foxes took their collective name from their leader, Vanaet. These two races, The Lupians and the Vana, then took to the Stone Dens on the Uprights, starting the War of Fur and Fang.

 

Furiously, the Uprights resisted, but they could not fight against the peerless magical power of Vanaet, nor the martial prowess and vigour of her brother in arms, Agnaet. And so they were cleansed from the world of Lupia. With the Uprights gone, the Lupians began to settle in, populate the Stone Dens, improve and enhance them, and build a culture. But, like their Leader, the Vana had an intense curiosity that they quickly ran out of things with which to satisfy it. And so they looked to the sky, not to the glittering Gods, who seemed to glitter much less these days, and instead to the stars. How many worlds were there out there? How much could be seen, how much could be learned?

You are reading story The Beasts located adjacent to your Bed at novel35.com

 

Before that could be answered, they had obligations to fulfil. Vanaet and Agnaet had led them to victory over the Uprights, and given them form to begin with, rose them above their simple lives and given them so many gifts. So all Lupians and all Vana gathered together at a massive shrine, and conducted an auspicious ritual of immense potency. Billions of thoughts all filtered into the shrine and were put to work with a singular desire. To Grant Divinity. Their aspirations finally fulfilled, Vanaet and Agnaet didn’t exactly read the fine-print, and dissolved from the material world, ascending to the Divine realm, where they found themselves unable to touch the material world anymore. Not wishing to be away from his people, Agnaet asked a boon of the great Gaia, to be spun into the skein of Life once more, tied to the life of the Lupian King, so that he may always lend a hand to his race. Gaia obliged, and the tale of God-kin Lupians, began. Interestingly, he was never the king himself, but instead born close to the King, as an advisor.

 

Vanaet was not one who would take such a simple and pedestrian solution, however. Plus, the Vana did not need guidance the same as Agnaet gave to the Lupians. While some Vana did stay on Lupia to put their intelligence to work for their Lupian brothers, most others found ways off world and dispersed across the Universe to sate their burning curiosity about existence. So instead she researched, pulling up great archives in the Divine realm that made all she had read in the last two hundred years akin to a single page of parchment. Eventually, she concocted the prototype for the Avatar, a skin-coat that Gods may wear to be on the Material Plane, and implanted the ability to live within any Vana that was destined to grow her ninth tail, like Vanaet. And this, my dear, is the origins of your race. This is how the Kitsune came to be"

 

Sagi finished her story, and Kiko’s mouth was open. The amazement of hearing where she had come from and what she was going to become – a frigging GOD! – was such a shock. She could barely work her head at all. And, then she came to realize that that was what the voice was. Vanaet, the Kitsune God. Or, the Vana God. Cultural degradation probably led to the name, probably. And then, before anything else could be said, Mizia appeared.

“Madam Sarasagi. Your arrival was rather unexpected. Are you staying?” She asked. The pale Queen looked over, and shook her head.

“Sadly no. I came here to assist Kiko and to rediscover this planet’s lane. There are many who would like to come here and talk. Sons and Daughters of Puppet War Veterans are always quite the attraction. I shall send an envoy to talk about specifics some time. I am sure that you will be in for a jarring shift from mono-planetary culture to broad galactic hotspot” Sagi then gave a nod, and waved Alric to her side, taking his hand and vanishing abruptly. The air made a sucking noise as the sudden vacuum was filled, and Kiko stared with amazement, still unable to think enough to get any words out.

‘Sagi was always such fun’ the voice said, and unlike the previous times, Kiko rounded on it will all the force of will at her disposal and grasped it so it would not flee.

‘YOU! Vanaet!’ she shrieked.

‘Mmm. You Kiko’ Vanaet replied coyly.

‘Isn’t that something you mention?!’ Kiko demanded, her face contorted with irritation.

‘When, you are a half-coherent voice in someone’s head? Why yes, that is exactly the thing to bring up, well done Kiko, have a cookie’ Vana seemed to have read many books on sarcasm during her time, since she was well versed in it. Kiko growled softly but was forced to concede the point.

‘Fine. Just, stick around this time’ Kiko demanded. Not wanting the voice to go and leave her in her madness.

‘I have hijacked Sagi’s power to create a stronger connection between us. Only Hannah can proclaim a stronger grasp of magic than me, so it’ll be stable for us to chat with, whenever you wish~’ Vanaet then seemed to be speaking to someone else, not directed at all at Kiko. ‘Yes it is my Vana. No, I can’t ask if her planet has tortillas, how would she even send them here? Why are you bothering me with this?’

 

Kiko, hearing the argument brewing, took a mental step away and the words faded from her head, and she returned to reality.

“Are you…ok? You’ve been staring gormlessly since the Queen left” Queenie asked, having come over and taken Kiko’s hand. The sudden realization that reality carried on round her while she was talking to her fox god was an embarrassing one, and Kiko’s cheeks flushed.

“Just talking to my God” she said, without thinking first.

“I know Sagi’s tale has inspired you but that is no reason to think you are some priestess, Kiko. Now come on, we got some practice to get to” Queenie gestured with her head and moved to leave the theatre.

“So…what’s your name? You, real name” Kiko asked, scurrying to catch up.

“Queenie. If I have another name, then you will learn it in time” she gave an awfully cryptic response, and that was that.

You can find story with these keywords: The Beasts located adjacent to your Bed, Read The Beasts located adjacent to your Bed, The Beasts located adjacent to your Bed novel, The Beasts located adjacent to your Bed book, The Beasts located adjacent to your Bed story, The Beasts located adjacent to your Bed full, The Beasts located adjacent to your Bed Latest Chapter