Chương 15: The Fox and the Horse

It took almost a week before Andy saw the fox. Not for lack of trying. Andy just didn't have much to go on. The fox, as clever as it was, left no trail for him to follow. He'd just begun to think he'd imagined it when his directional hearing pegged the familiar pocket of silence in the treeline. Once again to the northwest. Twenty to thirty body lengths away Andy estimated. He skidded to a stop so quickly that it might have been impressive.

That is if he hadn't immediately stumbled over a root which he then regained his balance and caught himself–by spearing a tree with his horn. Thunk. The not quite-horse tried to free himself and still look casual. Oh yeah, I totally meant to penetrate this tree. And now I'm yanking myself out with appropriate ease and not– urrrrghhh–. Andy pried himself free but the sudden lack of opposing force caused him to once again stumble over tree roots and fall on his back. Legs straight up in the air. Smooth Snodgrass.

Real smooth. And then the fox was above him. Amber eyes fixed on his. An amused expression playing on her– yes, he could tell now, her face. He rolled over and sat up looking at her face to face. And she simply sat there, waiting.

"Hello." Andy projected at her. She tilted her head. Same communicative tilt as before, and then she did something new. She sent him a feeling. It arrived inside of him in the same way System notifications did. Information placed directly into his consciousness that wasn't coming from him. Curiosity. Amuse. Amuse. Amuse. It was tinged with a cool evaluative patience that surprised Andy. Such complex emotions.

He somehow knew that she was both interested, entertained and waiting to see what Andy was going to do next. Andy's horn golden-green light flared and the horn trilled a little victory tune. Life magic in the grove responded to the shift in his horn and reached toward Andy. Magic swirled around the unusual pair. A daisy bloomed directly in front of the fox. Andy winced, Oh no. Talk about coming on too strongly.

Apparently his giant (A boy can exaggerate) glowing, singing, and phallic head ornament was now giving girls flowers. At this point he hoped the System was publishing a collected anthology of his embarrassment. Cute. The thought came from the fox.

"You're telepathic!" Andy sent.

"You're a fox and you're telepathic and you've been watching me and you have feelings and they're more complex than 'food'. This is the first time–well second time but that first one happened so suddenly it doesn't really count–unless that was you. Were you a collection of cells in the lake?" No. He waited for more of an explanation and when none came he continued, "Sorry it's just. I haven't had anyone to talk to in so long." She didn't respond. She just sat there, examining him.

In the dappled sunlight her coat was a russet-brown, darker along the spine and light at the belly. She had a sharp muzzle and whiskers like fine wire that shone red in the light. She looked built for speed and agility. Her tail, full and luxurious, curled around her forepaws with casual elegance. This was a creature fully comfortable in her body. She'd been in this form for quite awhile. She sent another impression, this was more of a sequence of snapshots from her perspective. A frog squashed under a falcon.

A not-quite horse trying to stand. (Andy groaned internally. That meant she'd been there for the falling-over day, which meant she had witnessed the Standing Start Collapse and the Lateral Slide and every entry in his taxonomy of equine humiliation, which was mortifying) Then the images continued. Andy doing his first run, The joy radiating from him when he'd finished. She'd been observing him for a while. She wanted to know what he was, that much he could sense.

A horn didn't belong on a frog or whatever he was now. Why was it glowing? Why was it singing? And how did it make that flower bloom? Andy's horn responded before his conscious brain could decide if responding was a good idea. Life magic pulsed outwardly in a brief, involuntary flare of introduction.

It carried the emotional signature Andy was feeling most strongly: the overwhelming, more than slightly desperate, deeply earnest gladness of someone who had been alone for countless time and now, was in the presence of someone that could say, "I see you." His horn essentially just emotionally flashed the fox. His deepest, most private emotions on display. Without consent. Peak horny behavior from a peak horny appendage. She received the pulse. Both ears swiveled to maximum extension as her eyes went wide.

Her tail uncurled and swished once against the ground in a reflexive startle that she controlled almost immediately, but not quickly enough to hide. She hadn't expected that. She'd expected intelligence, maybe. Curiosity probably. But she had not expected the depth of emotion that Andy's horn had just broadcast. Five tiers of loneliness of a human consciousness trapped in non-human bodies. The ache of it. The sheer howling vastness of being the only one. She sent another impression.

This time the curiosity was still there, the amusement, but beneath them a subtle and carefully controlled something. Andy recognized it. Understanding. A simple bone-deep recognition of one lonely consciousness to another. There was no sympathy there, nor pity. She had been lonely too. Andy walked the last couple of body lengths to close the distance between them. The fox stood, rising to her full height. They were the same size give or take. She didn't retreat.

When Andy stopped in front of her, close enough that his breath ruffled her ears, close enough that his horn cast a golden-green light on her face. Close enough that two creatures who had been alone were something else. She looked up into his eyes and sent one final impression. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. You'll do. Andy snorted. A sharp exhilaration through the nostrils which was the closest his body could get to laughing.

A sudden relieved, slightly giddy feeling washed over him. This was the highest praise Andrew Snodgrass had received from any female in two lifetimes. He was being accepted by a telepathic fox in a forest in a world which was not the one he had died in. [PARTY FORMATION DETECTED] [TWO COMPATIBLE ORGANISMS HAVE ESTABLISHED MUTUAL RECOGNITION AND COOPERATIVE INTENT.] [PARTY FORMED: 2 MEMBERS] [MEMBER 1: PROTO-UNGULATE (PRIMITIVE EQUINE-TYPE). TIER 5.] [MEMBER 2: SPIRIT FOX (VULPINE ADEPT). TIER 5.] [PARTY BONUS XP: +15% ON ALL XP GAINS WHILE PARTY MEMBERS ARE WITHIN PROXIMITY RANGE (50M).] [HERD DYNAMICS: PARTIAL ACTIVATION. VULPINE ADEPT IS NOT EQUINE-TYPE BUT IS RECOGNIZED AS SOCIAL COMPANION. HERD BOND LEVEL: ACQUAINTANCE.] A spirit fox. Vulpine Adept. The same tier as Andy. She must have gone through the same process of selection and growth. She had started as something less and become something more complex. She had a DPS build and that build included telepathy. The herd mechanic: partial activation.

She wasn't equine, but the system was flexible enough to recognize a social companion of the wrong species. Acquaintance was the first rung. Companion, then herd, then bonded herd. He assumed each rung came with increased bonuses.

"I have a party member." Andy thought staring at the Spirit Fox, his first friend in this life. The fox stared back with an expression that read: Yes. Congratulations. Contain your excitement. I'm going to pretend I can't feel how desperately happy you are now. Andy sent back the feeling of gratitude. He felt it emanating from his horn, which he figured meant that his horn was now not just physically but emotionally erect at all times.

He was walking around with his emotional fly unzipped and was doing his best not to be embarrassed by it. But, there really wasn't any room for embarrassment in the overwhelming gratitude and contentedness of no longer being alone. Her response was immediate and unmistakable: the psychic equivalent of rolling one's eyes. Andy was delighted. They spent the day together. Together was loose as they really spent the day in proximity of each other.

A loosely coordinated coexistence of two organisms who had agreed to share space but had no real understanding of what sharing space entailed. His companion (he needed a name for her but she hadn't communicated one) trotted beside him. She matched his pace with an easy stride. She darted in front of and around him in a way that had nearly tripped him twice. Her psychic impressions suggested that they were at least partially intentional.

She watched him run his speed trials and when he finally completed a particularly good run, she sent an impression that was the equivalent of a slow-golf clap. She then ran the speed trial and knocked one and a half seconds off his time. The fox questioned his horn. Why does it glow?

"I don't know. It's an ability I gained."

"Why does a mammal have a horn?" Andy sent back, "Complicated. Long story. I chose a calcium spike when I was a cell. It kept on through til now." The fox received and sent back an impression that communicated,"what?"

"It's been a weird couple of tiers."

"I can see that."

"What did you start as?"

"That's personal."

"Oh okay. How about your name?"

"I haven't used a name in a long time." Andy sat with that. Even with the lack of information this was the most satisfying exchange he'd had in maybe either life. This included the argument he'd had with Megan about whether Die Hard was a Christmas movie. (it was; Megan was wrong) The fox sent, " You're thinking about something happy. I can feel how happy you are."

"I'm just thinking about an argument I had about a movie." The fox sent back confusion.

"Fair." Andy sent back. He supposed this meant that the Fox wasn't from Earth afterall. It must've been too good to be true: obviously. The fox tilted her head in deeper confusion. Why sad now?

"Oh, nevermind." By evening the light had shifted in the forest from the warm gold of an afternoon to a cooler amber. The sky filled with pinks, oranges and purples as sunset approached. Andy and the fox had established several things. 1. The fox was a female. 2. She was experienced. 3. She had been a fox for a lot longer than Andy had been a not-quite-horse. 4. She was alone. (Not lonely in the moment as she had him now, but lonely in that she didn't have a pack, family or group. She was a solitary animal.) 5.

She had chosen him. She found him interesting. She told Andy throughout the day, she had been drawn to him because he was unusual. It wasn't just the horn, although a glowing singing horn was a first. It was his intelligence and persistence that kept her coming back to observe. It was the loneliness his horn had been broadcasting for weeks now. She was the first sapient being in two lifetimes that was attracted to his horn. Andy was going to ride that high as long as he possibly could.

[XP: +58 (SOCIAL BOND: FIRST PARTY MEMBER)] [XP: +8 (SPEED TRIAL BONUS) x 3] [XP: +15% PARTY BONUS APPLIED TO ALL GAINS] [XP: 338/3000] [HERD BOND: ACQUAINTANCE (VULPINE ADEPT)] [PARTY STATUS: ACTIVE] Three hundred thirty eight. Just over ten percent of the way to his goal. The fifteen percent multiplier was a thing of beauty. The math spoke for itself. Partnership wasn't just emotionally valuable but for a herd animal it was almost essential. The System's incentive was transparent– don't be alone.

Being alone is slower, harder and lonelier. Here's the math to prove it. Andy stood in the clearing as the last light faded, his horn casting a small circle of illumination in front of him. The fox sat beside him within that circle of light. Close enough that her fur was reflecting the glow. Neither of them was alone and the shape of that was difficult for either of them to wholly express.

"I have a friend." Andy sent with the emotional equivilance of a smile.

"Don't make it weird." was her only reply. Andy then proceeded to make it weird. Because of course he did. He'd been alone for so long that he needed a little weirdness. He was emotionally clingy and his horn was transmitting it for all to hear. If there was a less cool (more cool) way to show affection he had yet to discover it. She tolerated it. Barely. She sighed with an air of long-suffering patience that translated as: I knew you were going to be like this. They settled in for the night.

Andy's legs folded beneath him, The fox curled into a circle a couple of body lengths away. The horn glowed between them like a nightlight. [PARTY MEMBERS: 2] [HERD STATUS: ACQUAINTANCE (1)] [GALLOP EFFICIENCY: 70%] [XP: 348/3000] Tomorrow they would hunt together. They would strengthen their bond. Andy yawned closing his eyes. The fox was already asleep, her psychic presence a warm ember at the edge of his awareness. My horn brought me a friend, he internalized. It felt like a hug. Warm and full in his chest.

After five tiers of being a punchline, it brought me a friend. Good horn. The thought carried through his horn, soft and warm. The fox's ears twitched, once, in her sleep.