As the humans carried them through the village, 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 since the 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 continue 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 construction that extended to the roof with a small fire burning within.
The humans put the odd sheet of stone atop one of the platforms, then grabbed his human and pulled the stone out from under them, sliding him along with it until he dropped onto the shockingly 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 stone with them.
This left him inside with just four humans; the one with the bird, the hunter who threw light, one with a small stick, and his human laying on the padded platform with him. The human with a small stick he leaned against turned and approached them, making soft noises towards 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 straightened the 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 platform it sat down on. Seeing the other humans going over to communicate 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 longer to leave, and stopped by his human first, touching them and murmuring quietly before leaving. The last human got up from where they were sitting and repeated their earlier actions, holding their hands over his human’s legs and letting 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 link between them. Seeing them turn towards him, he jumped away from his human and ran to the far corner, making sure all of them followed so his human wouldn’t be hurt more.
Thinking quickly, he considered that most everything fears fire, and if only he could make some, he could get free. Focusing 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 an extreme sense of diminishment, a wisp of something left his tail, entering the ball of energy, cutting it off from the tendril as well before it burst into brilliant blue flame nearly the size of his head.
He found he could control the flame as if it was a limb, waving it back and forth between the humans who had cornered him. As they pulled back, he pushed the flame straight at one of them, causing it to topple over, trying to dodge, before he pounced, leaping between the new gap and darting out the still open section 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 village wall. He knew it 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 flame licking 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 in the watchtowers seemed to ignore him as he fled, no horns blew behind him, nor any shouts since he made it over the wall.
After reaching what he considered a safe distance, he considered this flame of his. He couldn’t seem to turn it off, nor did it seem to be diminishing in size or brightness at all. He could move it around as easily as he could his tail, and it seemed limited to reaching a few times his body length away, pulling back to nearly touching when he didn’t pay attention.
He knew that fire could spread, so he was wary to let it touch anything until he tested it more, heading into the forest to grab a stick, then heading to the wide barren path into the plains. He dropped the stick onto the barren dirt, then tried touching it with the flame. He waited a moment, before pulling the flame away, noticing nothing had happened. Curious, he willed it to burn and tried again, the stick igniting instantly on contact this time. He then willed it to stop the fire, watching as the flames 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.