The Queen's Favorite Pet

I noticed she had left the door open, so I cautiously followed behind. The pants pulled strangely as I walked on my four limbs, my two tails had to work harder to keep my balance as I crossed the door frame. But as I did, I paused. The room was large and round. I could see most of the walls were covered in bookshelves filled to the brim with books and scrolls. On the far right, I could see the Queen. Unlike my space which had a bed, she was on simple bedding that was directly on the floor. She was sitting against a wall with a book in hand, looking as though she hadn’t been in my room moments before.

She made no indication of what to do, so instead, I looked around some more. The room was only dimly lit with a few candles but I could still see the ceiling clearly. It was domed and had bright paintings of flowers and animals. Swirls of green, orange, and pink danced across beams and through the images. There were a few doors leading out of the room, the two that were obviously to the hallway, the one to my room, and two more on the opposite wall.

But I couldn’t help but turn back to the queen. Her face was expressionless as she turned a page. Her golden pelt hung loosely and was hanging off her shoulder. I recognized that she was wearing a deep red robe, the word given to me earlier in the day. Or night. I realized there were no windows in here either. My nose scrunched as a feeling of being trapped choked my throat.

The sound of the page turning shook me from the feeling and I looked to see the queen had looked up at me. Her eyes seemed to pierce through the dim light. My tails bristled, and I wished for sharper claws to grab at the ground. But nothing happened. She continued to look, unblinking. I slowly took a step toward her and she frowned slightly. I froze. After a moment, I tried again and she frowned more. Did she want me to stay here? But why would she have opened the door? But then... she kept making me stand on two legs. Maybe... Slowly I started to stand up. I used the door frame to help me. But once I was up, my tails stabilized me. Her frown lessened slightly.

I took a shaky step toward her. Her face returned to normal. She watched as I very slowly crossed the large room. The muscles of my back legs ached by the time I got to her bedding. I stood over her, looking down, trembling under the strain. And then she smiled. She lifted a hand up to me. I took it after a slight pause. She pulled slightly and I fell into her bedding. Rather than falling gracefully, my back legs collapsed and I ended up landing with my head falling into her lap, and my body hitting the floor hard.

I let out a yip of pain, and the queen let out a soft chuckle. Before I could try to lift myself, her fingers began to comb through my hair. My nose was pressed painfully against her hip bones. I held myself in the uncomfortable position for as long as I could, then I cautiously started to pull away. When I did, her claws pressed against my skull in warning. I held still again. But couldn't bear it, so tried to turn my head instead, and this she allowed.

Over the next few minutes, I slowly adjusted my position to a more comfortable one, pausing only when her claws would scratch me again. I quickly found out that she wanted my head in her lap, and for me to be laying down. Eventually I ended up laying on my side facing away from the queen, my body curled in a ball and my tails covering me.

When I finally settled, she started to comb her fingers through my hair once again. Despite the threat of who was doing it, I couldn’t help but relax at the sensation. Exhaustion tugged at my mind and before I could stop it, I fell back asleep. This time there were no dreams. Just rest.

When I woke up, I was alone. I was curled in a ball in my own little room. I debated for a moment whether what had happened was a dream or not, but the ache in my legs told me it had happened. How I had gotten moved back here without waking up I didn’t know.

I sat up and began to clean my tails and waited. And waited and waited. I eventually got up and had use the hole again. And by accident I had discovered that the statue was actually a way to acquire clean water. So I had a long drink. But my stomach protested. I realized that except for taking in the meat of the foxkin, I had not eaten in a long while.

To distract myself, I stared down at my tails and felt the magic that seemed to flow through them. Since being caught, I had done so many things with my magic that I didn’t know I could do. First was the patch of grass, which I tried to repeat and was pleased when my little room was suddenly filled with grass and some flowers and vines. Then I had used the magic to block the predators from healing the foxkin. I tried again, but if anything had happened, I couldn’t tell.

Then I had used it for my nose, and then again for my words. That was two of my senses, so I decided to experiment. I channeled some of my magic to my eyes, and I was suddenly surrounded by images that floated in the air. As I looked at them I realized that they were some sort of picture that had magic flowing from them. Most of the images were floating near the two doors, so I figured this was what other magic looked like. Other magic? I paused and looked at my own magic. My magic was like a glowing tail in its own, and solid source and thousands of strands that pulled out from the center. My magic seemed to be colorless where the other magic was in colors of reds and yellows.

I pushed my magic around, and watched as the strands would stretch and touch things and cling to it until I let go. It made me think of spider webs. Eventually, I reached the magic toward the images in the air. As soon as my magic touched an image, the image faded away and I saw the color of the magic rush up the strand and into my tails. Slowly I touched each symbol and the magic slowly disappeared.

I hadn’t even thought about how my little room was lit until I had absorbed one of the images and my room dropped into pitch black. I stopped the magic from being fully absorbed and tried to push it back out. But instead I watched as a small green flame appeared in the air near me. It both looked like a little flame, as well as if a “hair” of magic was floating in the air. Curious, I tried and was able to make more of them in the air, purely from my own magic.

I heard some noise outside of my room so I pulled the magic from my eyes. I looked around the now comfortable room, with the greenery making it more natural, and the green fire lighting up the room. I realized the noise I had heard was someone or something entering the queen’s rooms. I decided to push my magic to my ears and suddenly I could hear a lot more than I had a moment before. I could hear someone walking out of the queen’s room, and I realized they were walking to my door..

Panicked, I stopped my magic, and my room dropped into darkness again, the flames extinguished. The door opened and I saw the outline of a tall man. But I guessed from the lack of heartbeat it was probably a vampire.

“What the fuck is this?” He growled and I recognized the voice. This was the vampire that had taken me to see the queen. It was the one called Lord DongGeun. He turned and yelled out into the hallway. “Get Miss Jessica here. Now.” Then he turned back to me. I realized that his gaze just didn’t pierce the darkness the way the queen’s did. He just... didn’t feel as dangerous. But still dangerous.

A few moments later, I could hear someone running, their human footsteps obvious in their clumsy slaps. DongGeun turned to whoever had arrived. “Why the fuck has the light magic faded already?”

“What? But, I just cast it the other day.” A face peaked around the corner. It was a young woman with very pale skin and a brown curly pelt. Her green eyes were wide and curious. “Wow, it is dark in there. Hold on, I’ll cast again.” She pushed the vampire out of her way. Although there was no way the human was strong enough to move a vampire, he did. But now I could see the full form of this woman. My attention was drawn to a large stick in her hand.

I turned on my eye magic to watch what she would do. But instead she gasped and was staring at me. She hadn’t been able to see me a moment before. I released the magic and watched as her eyes struggled to find me in the dark. The vampire hadn’t seemed to notice.

“What’s wrong?” The vampire asked, and I watched as he touched her arm almost gently. Interesting.

“Nothing. It’s just... hold on.” She lifted her stick and said something about being blessed by light. And suddenly the room was glowing in light once more. The woman’s face lit with happiness but then both she and the vampire noticed my room. Although I had grown the greenery with my magic, they were now real and here, so they hadn’t disappeared earlier. Both sets of eyes scanned the room before falling onto me.

The man bared his teeth at me. “Well ain’t that fuckin interesting.” I bared my teeth back at him. I almost regretted my sign of aggression, suddenly worried that he would try to hurt me. But the queen’s affection the night before stopped me. She might not protect me, but maybe he didn't know that.

The girl laughed, her voice light and carefree despite the obvious danger of the vampire. “I like her. She’s got spark.”

“It’s not your job to like her.” Growled DongGeun. But it was said without bite.The woman rolled her eyes and walked into my little room.

“Hello, I’m Jessica.”

“Hi.” I responded and she gasped again.

“You speak English?” And this time I could hear her making different sounds than before and realized that although I understood it all, she must have heard me speak in English.

But before I could respond; the vampire growled out. “How do you know if she speaks English or not.”

“But... she just did. Didn't you hear her say ‘hi’?”

“No. She said ‘hi’”.

The three of us paused for a moment before I realized what was happening. I didn’t know why the vampire had come here, but on the chance he offered food, I wanted to stay on his good side. More than I have so far at least. “My magic...” I faltered as both of them looked at me. “Changes what I say. To you, I am speaking... Eeng-lish. And to you I am speaking... something else.”

The two looked at each other. “Well I certainly heard her speaking English.” the human said.

“And it was Korean for me.” The vampire frowned and they both turned to me. Silence returned, but it was broken by a loud growl of my stomach. I put a hand on it, and felt the hollowness of it. “Well. I guess that answers my question. Come with me, I am going to take you to get some food.”

“I want to come too.” The human said, smiling up at him.

He looked at her, his frown faltering for a moment before he turned away “Do whatever the fuck you want.” He started walking away, and the human gestured that I should follow. I didn’t know how long we would be walking so I fell to my four limbs and began to leave the room.

The human gasped. Again. I turned to her, and she looked so confused. But she was not my priority, food was, so I quickly caught up to the vampire. He looked down at me and continued to lead me down the hallway. Moments later, her clumsy footsteps caught up with us as well.