A yip and a growl woke Lios abruptly. No longer was there a fuzzy fox in his lap; no, now she stood before the den that bore her children. Startled, Lios looked at where she was facing and saw two hyena-like creatures, both snarling and with dark green saliva dripping from their jowls.

  Rottfangs!

  He gulped, glancing back at Brioche, remembering his daring rescue of her years before. She had been accosted by rottfangs and had nearly lost her life. He noticed she was bleeding already, though it appeared their claws had gotten her rather than the poisonous fangs. Unfortunately, as he looked her over, he also saw that there was far more blood in front of the den than there should have been.

  Way too much.

  Not far away, a silver-furred body was rich in crimson. Brioche’s mate. It couldn’t have been anything else. Lios stared with wide eyes at the body, his heart thumping in his chest, tightening behind the ribs. He gulped, waiting for the body to move, to breathe. It didn’t.

  He glanced between the dead fox and the two very much alive, very large beasts. Perhaps they weren’t quite the size of a wolf, but they were easily the size of a bull mastiff. Unlike him, they had stats, too. As he eyed them, hoping they’d pay him no notice, he realized they were a bit gaunt. There was a wild look in their eyes, the look of a hungry beast that had just found its first good meal in weeks.

  Stars seemed to appear in his vision as he looked on at the standoff, barely registering the minor cuts in one of their necks. Its skin had been flayed by a fox’s claws, though it wasn’t deep enough to be considered a real wound. Worse than that, Lios could tell they were both powerful creatures, at least compared to him. Despite looking hungry, they still seemed strong, their tight skin highlighting stringy and taught muscles. Well-developed muscles, even if they had atrophied a bit recently. He knew he would have no chance of running from them if they were in peak shape.

  Brioche’s warning growl snapped him from his reverie. She snarled at the larger animals and leapt forward in a threat, attempting to swipe one of them. She was short, her claws whistling through the air far faster than she had ever moved while Lios was training.

  Watching this, Lios shifted, reaching for his training sword. It was dull and chipped and beaten, but it was better than nothing. It was still heavy and would still work as a club, right?

  The shift grabbed the attention of the slightly smaller of the two rottfangs. It turned to face him, eyeing its new prey. He was larger than the fox, sure, but he didn’t seem all that threatening to the creature. He could tell the ‘fang was looking at him like he was a meal, not an enemy.

  A twisted smile filled with dripping poison greeted him as it cackled in a way only hyenas could, the sound inspiring Lios’s heart to slam in his chest ever harder. It didn’t give him any more time to think and take in the situation, leaping in his direction as though it could smell his fear and wanted to capitalize on it.

  Belatedly, as Lios was rolling away, he noticed the grass that the saliva had touched was withered and dead. Somehow, he moved just in time to avoid the clamping jaws, but a mote of spittle landed on his bare back. It wasn’t quite so powerful as to distract him, not now that he was so focused on the rottfang, but it stung like a bee. He could feel it bubble against his flesh, burning it slightly.

  He came out of his roll, having practiced such a move during his spars with Keagan as the other boy grew stronger, and rose to his feet. Warily, he pointed the training sword at the rottfang, keeping the metal between them. He would have preferred a spear in this moment, but since starting his dances, he primarily used only one weapon a day, wanting to become proficient in one at a time.

  Regrettably, this meant he only had a short sword today, lessening his reach. He lamented for only a brief moment before shaking himself of those thoughts. Now was not the time to regret; now was the time to do everything he could to save himself and his furry friend. With a trepidatious breath, Lios rose to his feet, refocusing on the rottfang before him. The creature eyed him warily, hungrily. It wasn’t so much afraid of him but had learned a lesson in all of its years on Ravos. Caution was a necessity in this forest.

  Before Lios could fully get his bearings the creature leaped forward, jaws wide and spittle flinging every which way. The rottfangs’ growls and the sound of dirt being flung as it flew through the air were Lios’s only warnings. His years of training and sparring saved him; he reacted just in time to sidestep and even brought the steel down on the ‘fangs back as hard as he could as it sailed past him.

  The beast didn’t even yelp. Didn’t even slow down or seem to register the blow. In fact, it appeared to smirk, though that was likely the swordsman’s imagination.

  What do I do? Can I even hurt it? The boy thought as he avoided a claw by jumping backwards. My sword alone isn’t enough. Can I... Gah! His thoughts were interrupted as spittle landed on his left forearm. Steam or smoke, or something else, wafted through the air from the wound. His skin was burning just from the touch of the venom.

  Think, Lios, what can you do? He dodged again, pointlessly slamming the sword down on the creature’s side, trying to harm it. It didn’t even flinch. Lios felt his heart thudding in his chest, crashing against his ribcage again and again.

  Badump Badump

  The creature attacked again, relentless in its attempt to gain a hearty meal. Claws this time scraped against Lios’s abdomen; he hadn’t been fast enough to dodge it this time. Thankfully, their claws didn’t hold their venom, but now blood seeped from his wound, three claw marks appearing out of nowhere. He barely noticed the sting, his adrenaline saving him from the distraction.

  Badump badump

  He circled around it, trying to get behind the rottfang, but it followed him easily. I need to damage it. I need to chase it off. I doubt I can kill it, and I definitely can’t outrun it... There’s only one way.

  He resolved himself unsure of what would happen. He knew what he had to do. It was a long shot, but he had to cast a spell. He knew only the two. He didn’t give himself a chance to doubt; he simply started to move.

  He wasn’t calm by any means, for once the movements weren’t meditative but necessary. As he dodged the beast once more, he drew his heel through the dirt, forging a line. He was forced to leap backwards when the beast lunged again, claws extended. He barely dodged it, but he was still able to make a second line in the dirt.

  Badump BADUMP

  His vision could see only the foe before him. He couldn’t hear what was happening with Bri and her own enemy, he couldn’t afford the distraction. Another sidestep and another line. A single full rune, and that now familiar tingling feeling in his legs as mana - presumably - flowed into the dirt.

  He circled around the hyena, ignoring the growing sting from all the places the spit had touched him. In the next few moments, he knew only three things. One, if the creature moved, he moved. Two, if he moved, he drew a line. Three, if he stopped moving, he would die.

  BADUMP

  He dodged again, his feet moving to write a second rune. Somehow, in his desperation, he managed it. He finished the rune; his sword cracked into the beast. Unable to think, body moving by instinct alone, the energy flowed through his feet. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he could feel the air heating up, despite the sun barely poking over the trees.

  His sword slammed into the rottfang’s mouth as he sidestepped again. Spit went flying and, for the first time, he heard a whimper. He ignored it. He ignored everything. Nothing was important other than surviving. In the back of his mind, he barely registered that he had somehow hurt it, but he knew that it wasn’t reliable.

  BADUMP BADUMP BADUMP

  Enraged that some paltry prey had hurt it, the rottfang moved with renewed vigor. By instinct alone, Lios blocked a clawed paw from slamming into his side and twisted, redirecting the rottfang and making a swooping motion with his foot. His toes scraped against the dirt, his boots worn at the tips from his frequent dancing.

  The third rune in his circle was the most difficult, he found. It required a half circle with a line going through the center, and a small circle at the top of said line. It was the rune for “Coating”. This was where he normally faltered in his spell. If he could only manage this line, he would -

  Fuck! Halfway through writing his latest rune, the rottfang jumped straight at him, forcing him to abandon the character. He felt the meager mana he had expended dissipate helplessly into the air. He nearly lost all hope in that moment. It had taken everything he had to get to this point, all of his attention all of his skill with a sword. And still he was slowly picking up more injuries; his health was dropping.

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  Before he could lose hope entirely though, he started the circle all over again, trying to calm himself with practiced breathing. The rottfang didn’t let up, and for the next several seconds, Lios dodged and wrote. Not every movement involved a new line in his runes, and in fact, he made partial runes in the dirt as he was forced to dodge wider. The rottfang was using its claws more, attacking seemingly faster.

  BADUMP

  His heart was nearly a distraction. The sound of his blood rushing through his head was almost too much. But just barely, Lios kept his focus. He circled the rottfang, leading it in his dance. He had to take the lead and guide it if he wanted to successfully cast his spell. He relied on his footwork, both that his mother and his father had taught him.

  Whenever he had the chance, he would slap the beast with his sword, not doing much damage but distracting it a touch. Each time he managed to hit it as it passed him, he could feel its fury and wariness grow. The longer he lasted, the greater its impatience and caution grew. It knew it was stronger than the human, but it couldn’t get its fangs to land.

  Somehow, the next few seconds seemed to fly past. It was paradoxical; in the moment, each second that passed felt like a brief eternity, Lios’s mind and body working overtime to keep up with the battle. And yet, once the moment passed, it was almost as though it had existed only in that instance, the next moment taking such precedence that the time seemed to flash.

  And in the next moment, with heart racing and fear running through his veins, Lios once again finished a rune. He had started writing it but had been forced to abandon it. He hadn’t known if this would even work but had been forced to make the attempt. Having guided the beast around in a circle, he had returned to the first rune. Mana flowed from his feet as he leapt to the side, landing on the second rune.

  BADUMP BADUMP

  A single line was required to complete it, so complete it he did. Energy sprang from him, the familiar tingling sensation giving him a burst of hope. The third rune, the hardest of the five, jolted into existence much the same as the previous two.

  Lios danced around his enemy, driving it where he needed it to be. The rottfang was growing more desperate, its prey turning out to be harder to pin down than expected. It attacked again, managing to nick the boy with a claw as he forced himself not to dodge in order to finish rune four.

  One more. Only one more and we can see if this is all worth it. He thought to himself as he dodged an open maw. He stepped to where his final rune was resting. He drove his heel through the dirt, carving the last line he needed. Mana poured out of him, mana funneled through the air and into the circle he had so desperately created.

  And flames red and orange came into existence, covering his metal stick. He dodged and sidestepped, surprised he had completed his spell but not sure how long it would last. As he twisted out of the way, more venomous spit landing on his chest, he drove the sword downward and finally managed to hurt his nemesis.

  The dull blade was sharpened by the flames and somehow managed to carve into the neck of the rottfang, severing its spine. It crashed into the ground, paralyzed but not yet dead. For a brief instant Lios nearly finished it, but before he could, a yelp he was familiar with reached his ears. His head whipped toward the sound, and his heart nearly stopped.

  Rage filled the boy’s eyes, his face twisting into a grimace. Clasped between the jaws of the larger hyena-like creature was his first friend on Ravos. The intelligent fox could barely whimper in pain as the venom sedated her. She trembled before his eyes and looked straight at him. Then, with the unexpectedness that befalls a battle, the rottfang whipped its head to the side, launching the poor fox into a tree.

  Before she had even struck it, Lios leapt into action. Sword burning for an unknown length of time, he lunged towards the beast and thrust outward. His action elicited a yip of annoyance, but this animal was stronger than the previous one. It jumped backwards before Lios could finish it off.

  The two eyed each other warily. The creature was specifically eyeing the flaming blade, soot beginning to build up along its edge. Lios, conversely, was watching the animals’ fangs and claws, his own vision tinged with red. To the side, he barely heard the fox still breathing.

  Desperately, and knowing he had only seconds left of his spell, the boy lashed out at the hyena. The tip of his blade barely struck the snout of the animal. A growl filled the silence. Then there was a pitter-patter of paws as the hyena darted past the boy.

  It very briefly staggered beside the other rottfang before scooting past it and scooping up the grey-silver body of another fox. BriBri’s mate. It fled the clearing, and not a moment too soon, as the flames dissipated, the heat that had been stinging the young swordsman vanished without warning.

  Lios held his blade out for a few moments more before quiet mewling broke him from his cautiousness. At the sound he hesitantly tucked his sword through a belt loop, wincing as the metal was still hot but did it, anyway. A small burn wasn’t the worst of his problems right now.

  He scooped up his discarded shirt, tossed to the side while he had been practicing, and approached the foxes’ den. Inside were a pair of silver fox pups with some tan fur accenting their coats. They were mewling incomprehensibly, a bit larger than the palm of the swordsman's hand. Carefully so as not to frighten them, he scooped them out of the den and into his arms. Then he rushed in the direction Brioche flew.

  With bated breath he gazed down on the tan fox. He felt his chest tighten and wetness slip down his cheeks at the sight of her mangled body. For a moment he thought she wasn’t even breathing but after a moment of staring saw her chest weakly rise and fall.

  Gently, he lifted her up and wrapped her with his dirty shirt, hoping that he could stop some of the bleeding before it was too late. Once she was wrapped and in his arms beside her wriggling pups, he bolted. He felt weary, tired, but he ran with all his might all the same.

  A headache was budding as he came down from the battle mindset, adrenaline fading. His breathing grew more laboured, and the various cuts and pockmark wounds began to sting and hurt even more, no longer pushed to the back of his attention. Still, he ran. He worried a bit about the motion worsening the fox’s injuries, but if he could get her to his mother, perhaps she could help again. Maybe she could heal BriBri one more time.

  With these thoughts, the young man burst through the treeline mere minutes after fighting a pair of monsters. He sighed with breathless relief on seeing his home, the well. His friend was playing her lute beside the well, her eyes darting up and then widening with concern on seeing him.

  “Lios, what’s going on? Why are you bleed...” Her voice trailed off on seeing Brioche wrapped up and in his arms, only her head visible.

  “No time! Get my mom! Please!” Lios commanded as he stumbled, speaking the words through laborious gasps. He collapsed onto the ground and released the pups, not having it in him to deliver the foxes to his kitchen table as he had done last time.

  Rose, to her credit, didn’t question him any further. She rushed toward the house calling out, “Elaine, Miss Elaine! Lios needs help, please hurry, it’s urgent, he’s hurt!”

  A worried mother burst from within the small home, rolling pin still in hand from the pie she had been preparing. Her eyes wandered erratically until she saw her son kneeling on the ground with blood dripping from a dozen scratches, with skin blackened and necrotized by rottfang spit. She took in his ragged appearance, taking note of every injury even as she came toward him, her perception stat and intelligence allowing her to process it all in instants.

  She dashed in his direction, only belatedly noticing the fox pups and dying momma fox. Lios glanced up at her when she approached, his expression tearing into her. Only once before had she seen him look so helpless, when this very same fox had been on her kitchen table. He was crying, though he barely seemed to notice it himself.

  “Mom... Please, you have to heal Bri. Please.” His voice cracked, and he turned back to the fox, unwrapping her.

  She looked considerably worse than the last time. Instead of the rottfangs piercing her hind legs, this time it had managed to clamp around her torso. Its venom was eating away at her flesh even as she knelt down across from her son.

  Elaine had been practicing her healing magic ever since that day, a day that had embedded itself in her memory. She raised both hands over the fox and called on her sorcery, her healing skill. A soft glow covered her hands and the animal, and her breathing seemed to soften; no longer was it filled with jagged gasps and pained panting.

  She could feel her magic working to fight the potent necrosis. She could feel it losing. More mana was poured into the skill, practically to the point of overflowing. Never before had she tried to expend so much on any skill at one time. Overloading skills was always possible, but it made them all the more difficult to control.

  Still, she could feel herself only slowing down the process. Healing magic was a blessing as well as a curse. By necessity, a healer was able to feel and perceive what was wrong with a patient. They needed to have at least an image or sense of their injuries and illness in order to think about helping them, after all. This meant that now, as the fox lay in extraordinary pain, she could feel how difficult each breath was. She could feel how slowly her heart was beating. She could feel it beating slower.

  “Lios... Son, there’s nothing I can do. I’m not strong enough to save her. She’s just being put through more pain.” His mother’s voice broke, crashing into his ears as he registered the words.

  The tears were flowing more freely now, dragging lines of dirt and blood and dried spittle down his cheeks. Panic flared. He reached out gently, stroking the fox's blood-matted head. The two pups whined beside him, whimpering as they sensed the gravity of what was happening. They crawled forward and tried to lick at her fur, to groom her, but Lios and Elaine stopped them from doing so. There was no way they could swallow rottfang venom.

  “Wh... what about a companion pact... Could that save her?” Lios asked in a whisper. His mother barely registered the words before she shook her head sadly.

  “You don’t have the system, you can’t enact one. And she doesn’t trust me the same way as you.”

  I don’t need the system to save my friend. Lios thought darkly as he imagined reaching out to her, mentally asking her to take his hand. He called out to her, feeling his mana react to his will. He still hadn’t gotten a full grasp of how to use mana, but he knew enough and had read enough stories to make guesses. His mana reacted to him, pushing out from his palm and into the fox.

  He felt her stiffen briefly before weakly gazing up at him, acknowledging what he was trying to do. A mote of energy transferred back to him. It was a rejection. She said no. Her eyes moved to her kits, and his followed, wide with sorrow and fear. Somehow, despite his fragile emotional state, he picked up on what she wanted. Her intent flowed into him through their brief connection. Save them, protect them, she seemed to be telling him.

  The connection severed. Elaine felt it as the fox’s heart stopped. As the little electrical pulses in her brain faded away. More than that, though, she heard as her stoic son, so mature for his age, wailed in his melancholy.

  Rose, standing to the side, kneeled beside him and wrapped comforting arms around him from the side. She had likewise never seen the boy as anything but a joyful workaholic, and this change tore into her as well. She sobbed with him, uncaring as his blood and tears soaked into her green dress.