Shard

  As the humans carried them through the vilge, the fox felt quite anxious, this wasn’t somewhere he knew, after all, and it would be difficult to escape if he had to. He hoped he would be safe sihe humans had not shown any hostility, however he was also well aware that very few of them were around at night.

  As they reached the structure they had been heading towards, the human in the lead pressed against part of the wall and it opened up, allowing them to tinue inside. Within there were numerous raised structures with padding on top, one of which the humans carried them towards. As he looked around, he also spotted a stone stru that exteo the roof with a small fire burning within.

  The humans put the odd sheet of stoop one of the ptforms, then grabbed his human and pulled the sto from uhem, sliding him along with it until he dropped onto the shogly soft padding. After pulling the stone sheet away, the three humans with big sharp sticks all left the den, pulling part of the wall to open it, carrying the stoh them.

  This left him ih just four humans; the oh the bird, the hunter who threw light, oh a small stick, and his human ying on the padded ptform with him. The human with a small stick he leaned against turned and approached them, making soft owards him. Remembering how this one helped his human not hurt, he simply backed away slightly as they reached towards his human’s legs.

  The human carefully straightehe legs before holding their hands over them. He could see the faint wisps of energy flowing down into the legs as things moved below the skin. After several moments, the human stopped, the energy cutting off, and wandered over to another smaller ptform it sat down on. Seeing the other humans going over to unicate with that one, he curled back up against his human and tried to rest.

  After a while, the human with the bird left. The hunter who threw light took loo leave, and stopped by his human first, toug them and murmuring quietly before leaving. The st human got up from where they were sitting aed their earlier as, holding their hands over his human’s legs aing energy flow into them. After a few moments of this they went back to sit down again.

  With only the other one who was helping his human, he found it possible to rest finally, and dozed off for a time.

  He awoke to shouts and banging noises. The human with the small stick got up and headed to the source of the noise. As he reached it, the wall opened up, multiple humans spilling into the room as they shouted, bowling over the one who had been helpful to his human. He growled in displeasure even as he shook in fear of the small mob, ears pressed tightly to his skull. His human stirred, shouting back at them as he felt a sudden spike of fear through the liween them. Seeing them turn towards him, he jumped away from his human and ran to the far er, making sure all of them followed so his human wouldn’t be hurt more.

  Thinking quickly, he sidered that most everything fears fire, and if only he could make some, he could get free. Fog strongly on his energy, he stretched a tendril forward, willing it to burn. When nothing happened, he strained harder and harder until he felt something within snap. With areme sense of diminishment, a wisp of somethi his tail, entering the ball of energy, cutting it off from the tendril as well before it burst into brilliant blue fme nearly the size of his head.

  He found he could trol the fme as if it was a limb, waving it bad forth between the humans who had ered him. As they pulled back, he pushed the fme straight at one of them, causing it to topple over, trying to dodge, before he pounced, leapiween the ne and darting out the still opeion of wall, shouts ringing out behind him. As he made it out, he felt relief flood the link from his human.

  Remembering the route they’d taken the night before, he raced back towards the vilge wall. He k was too high to jump, but he had seen humans standing on it, so there had to be a way to get up. Sprinting alongside the wall, he found a ramp that led up, leaping onto it, he found it led atop the wall. From there he could see numerous humans along the wall looking at him. He quickly jumped over the edge, and headed for the forest as quickly as he could. As he looked back, he saw the fme lig at his tail, but somehow it didn’t burn, and as he focused on it, he noticed a soothing warmth where it touched him.

  He felt somewhat worried about his human, but at the same time, the other humans surely wouldn’t hurt one of their own. And he didn’t feel fear over the link since he made it out of the mob, only worry and sadness.

  The humans ichtowers seemed to ignore him as he fled, no horns blew behind him, nor any shouts since he made it over the wall.

  After reag what he sidered a safe distance, he sidered this fme of his. He couldn’t seem to turn it off, nor did it seem to be diminishing in size htness at all. He could move it around as easily as he could his tail, and it seemed limited to reag a few times his body length aulling back to nearly toug when he didn’t pay attention.

  He khat fire could spread, so he was wary to let it touything until he tested it more, heading into the forest to grab a stick, then heading to the wide barren path into the pins. He dropped the stito the barren dirt, then tried toug it with the fme. He waited a moment, before pulling the fme away, notig nothing had happened. Curious, he willed it to burn and tried again, the stick igniting instantly on tact this time. He then willed it to stop the fire, watg as the fmes shrank and then the ember dimmed as well.

  Satisfied with the successful experimenting, he headed back to his den for some well-deserved rest until dusk.