歳月人を待たず
Saigetsu hito o matazu
“Time and tide wait for no man.”
Time flows without regard for humans’ convenience.
~Japanese proverb
Kit
I've been sitting around the dinner table, trying to be normal. Trying to shove the past memories away while Horus just sits next to me as if my entire world hasn’t just been revealed to me in the span of hours.
I taste him on my lips.
And then I really taste him.
I see him.
I feel him everywhere.
I also used to follow him everywhere. He would tell me stories of the stars, and I would tell him stories of the night. Why the night, of all things? The parts I feel like I’m supposed to remember get fuzzy whenever I think of the darkness, of being afraid of the moon and sleep.
Speaking of sleep, does that mean I’ll actually be able to without having the same nightmares over and over again? Or will I succumb to the darkness?
What happens next? How does this end when all I keep seeing are images of us laced together with the bitterness of betrayal and loneliness?
Cassius takes a sip of tea. I guess that’s up to you, Kitsune. He doesn’t say it out loud, just stares into his tea like I’m the only one who can hear his thoughts.
My head aches, temples throb, so I try to focus on my inhales and exhales.
“Silly fox,” Horus whispers from across the glade. “To think you can control the very air you breathe when all I have to do is exhale into the sky for you to fall.”
“Exhale. Do it.” I laugh. “And then hunt me. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Hunting you or capturing you?” This arrogant god teases.
I shake my tails and run through the forests. I want this god to catch me. I know that he’s not meant for me; we’re from two very different worlds. He belongs in the past and has no place in my future.
The interesting thing about a certain destiny—you still fight it.
I know the ending before the beginning. He will never be mine, but maybe for just a short few weeks while he’s stuck here, we can be something.
“How long?” I call back in a teasing tone. “How long are you stuck in my realm, god of the skies?”
His strides are long as he follows me through the trees. “A god is never truly stuck; it’s more or less I got lost on the way to my destination.”
“Poor baby.”
“No.” He releases a long sigh. “I’m feeling quite lucky, actually.”
I stumble over a root and go headfirst into the water. I hate the water. It hurts my sensitive ears and makes me panic.
Strong arms grab me from behind and pull me out of the water and against the riverbank. “That desperate to escape me?”
I wiggle in his arms; the urge to shake my fur despite being back in human form is strong. I realize too late that since I’m back in my human form, I’m completely naked and wet against him.
A god shouldn’t be touching me this intimately.
I shouldn’t be liking it as much as I am, either. His fingertips dance along my arm, then touch my shoulder and swirl in circles. “The fur’s pretty, but the skin is pretty too. You’re soft everywhere, aren’t you, fox?”
I sigh against him. Just a few more minutes, and then I’ll pull away, just a few more moments of touching, and I’ll pretend I hated it.
Instead, I turn in his arms, press my body against him, and close my eyes. It’s hours later when I wake up. I’m covered in his black robe, still naked, lying on the forest floor, watching the flames of a fire lick higher and higher into the sky.
“Hungry?” he asks.
I sit up, and his robe instantly falls, revealing half my naked body. I quickly cover up again. “Sorry.”
“Full moon.” He points up at the sky with one of the sticks he is using to stoke the fire. “You’ll be unable to transform back into fox form until it’s gone, so I figured you needed at least a few clothes.”
“Yeah.” I gulp. “I normally stay in my cave, but it’s loud there.”
“Let me guess, you hate loud noises. Most foxes I’ve met do. Just like your ears are so sensitive, there’s only one spot a male can touch that brings you pleasure.”
My ears burn. “You know a lot about foxes, god out of time.”
“I’m not out of time; I just took a detour, right? Besides, it’s getting more and more interesting the more you talk.”
I scowl. “I don’t have time for this. I need to hunt.”
“I’ll hunt for you.” He says it like It’s simple and stands, dusting off his black leather pants. He’s shirtless, with tattoos covering his left arm and another one specifically drawn across his left eye.
The Eye of Horus.
It’s magical.
I look away. “You’ll probably abandon me now.”
“Never.” His strong laugh seems to rustle the leaves on the trees overhead. “But if you’re worried, you can always give me your bead for protection.”
I gasp. “A fox never gives their most treasured possession! Least of all to a god who doesn’t need it.”
“It was a nice try.” He laughs; it’s a gentle sound that washes over me, caressing every inch of my body as sure as if he touched me with his hands. “Is it true that if you lose your fox bead forever, you’ll have to prove your worth through three lifetimes as a human in order to gain the treasure back?”
I mentally curse and stare into the flames. “You’re the god; you figure it out.”
“So it’s everything to you.” He nods, and his eyes take on a faraway expression. “Good to know.”
I sigh and decide to reveal, “My bead treats me the way your all-seeing eye treats you. Each of us is given something to treasure, something that identifies us in this world and the next. To give up my bead would mean a lifetime of searching.”
“I wonder…” Horus whispers. “What could be so valuable that a fox would ever even consider it?”
I lick my dry lips. He’s beautiful in the shadows of the fire and moon. His jaw firm, his white hair tucked down his back. He truly looks like a god.
“Yeah,” I finally say. “I wonder what could possibly be worth it.”
I don’t tell him I’m looking at it, that I’d trade my bead for a kiss and steal it back in the same breath.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Horus says, his eyes burning into mine. “Not unless you plan on doing something about it.”
I throw a stick and clear my throat. “It’s forbidden, a deity with a lesser fox in the human realm. Why don’t you just go back to where you belong, god? Don’t you have an empire to run? The heavens? Go back to your own.”
“Never truly liked my own.” He grins smugly. “Let me go catch you some food. Fish okay?”
I love fish.
My stomach growls.
“Thought so…” He tilts his head. “A few berries sound good too?”
My damn stomach just doesn’t quit.
Horus laughs. “You’re very entertaining for a fox.”
“You’re very annoying for a god.” I kick a rock that’s in front of me, and his robe falls off my breasts again, causing him to laugh.
I grip it and clench my teeth. “Good luck fishing.”
“Good luck sulking.” He winks and starts walking away.
Insufferable creature.
I stick out my tongue and lean back against the forest floor, tugging his robe closer to my chilled body. It smells like the sky.
My eyes become heavy as sleep overtakes me.
Only to jerk me back to the present, staring around at the dining room table after seeing some of my memories and feeling the need to burst into tears.
I grip the edge of the table with my fingertips and start to slowly tap my thumb against the wood.
He visited for years.
He swore he’d die for me.
Then he left.
He never came back.
The number of lifetimes of suffering, of abandonment, only to be brought to this one moment at this table, staring at the god who failed me and wondering all along what I did wrong to love someone so deeply, to listen to as he spoke promises from his tongue—then never speak to me again.
I don’t know why I lash out so hard other than the trauma pouring through my brain.
I kick Horus’s chair.
Wine spits out of his mouth.
“And you? What do you have to say for yourself? Oh god of the sky that never came back.”
Timber lets out a low whistle. “That… could be my fault. We did go back in time with Kyra to save her and the world, so that counts.”
“It one hundred percent counts.” Alex nods.
“It’s weird when you agree with me,” Timber grumbles under his breath.
Ethan sighs. “It won’t last long, and you have Mason and Alex to thank for saving your sorry ass back in Egypt.”
I kick his chair again. “You never came back!”
“Didn’t she already say that?” Cassius asks not so quietly, then points at the basket in the middle of the table. “Are there any rolls left?”
I jump to my feet. “What is wrong with you people? I just got my memories back from being a freaking fox in a forest in Japan, and you guys are asking about dinner rolls?”
“Japan has forests?” Alex raises a hand. “Because I have questions.”
Mason groans into his hands. “Why the hell would Japan have no forests?”
“Doesn’t every country have forests?” Tarek pipes up.
“Holy shit!” Alex jumps back and falls out of his chair. “You’ve been here the whole time?”
Tarek flinches. “That was hurtful, and you know it.”
“Sorry, bro.” Alex lowers his head. “You were just so quiet.”
“I had to chew.” Tarek tugs at the last dinner roll and looks like he’s purposefully eating slowly just to piss Cassius off. “Sorry, got the last one.”
I kick back my chair and leave the room. They’re all insane! How is every immortal impossible to live with?
Tears fill my eyes. I can almost feel my pretty tails then crumple to the ground in a heap at the top of the stairs when I remember that day.
She took them.
She wanted my bead, but I offered her something else.
I reach to my lower back, my fingers slowly grazing over the nine ridges.
I gave her my tails.
I gave my tails to see him again, even if it meant living three lifetimes; I gave over my nine tails, three for each lifetime.
I have no more tails left.
A fox without its tails can only transform if they have their bead and the bead only truly works with transformation when you have at least one tail left.
She asked for them all, which means I trapped myself and cursed myself at the same time, all in a vain effort to wait for a god who never returned.
Does he realize what I sacrificed to see him again? The hellish lifetimes I’ve lived through all in hopes that one day I’d be on equal footing with the god I’d fallen for?
“I waited in the forest for seven days,” I whisper. “You promised you’d come back, but you never did. I didn’t eat or sleep. The moon was a constant reminder of who you were, god of the sky who promised everything only to become a liar.”
“I got trapped,” Horus murmurs behind me. “You know that.”
I ignore him and walk toward the first bedroom that doesn’t look occupied and shut the door, closing him off just like I wish I could close off the pounding memories in my head of a man I loved too much.
And being the woman he loved too little.