Self Care: March

Jonathan was a loser. In life, he had been called by a different name and had had a different set of priorities that had - at one point - revolved entirely around surviving through his boring life so he could get to the more exciting hobbies that dotted his mortal landscape. Though his human self had long since passed, Jonathan was not entirely aware of that, really.

No, he had somehow convinced himself that he was the protagonist of a cosmic isekai. Having no other frame of reference - and perhaps his mind could not acknowledge any other reality - Jonathan had taken the heavy burden of being the protagonist in his very own anime. And despite the ridiculousness of it all, had Jonathan been literally any other person in all the world at any other time, it might have been kind of cute to see a human live out a fantasy life as another creature.

At least for a little bit.

In the absence of television, Jonathan had taken to other forms of entertainment to occupy his time during his self proclaimed “training arcs”, and anybody who was within earshot of him had to listen as he made every effort to get better at wielding his power. He had been convinced that he had started at “Level One” and was determined to figure out how to get to “Level Two” so he could strategize how best to level up from there.

While computer games hadn’t been his preferred method of escapism, they had been around long enough for him to know the most important tropes, as well as some popular leveling methods. Grinding seemed to be an impossibility.

Jonathan had come to this conclusion relatively quickly, as monsters were not plentiful and he doubted that attacking regular civilians was how it was supposed to go. There were no health bars to be seen, and disgruntled NPCs also didn’t seem to change the environment in any way. There was no secret awareness about his own health or magical reserves either.

At some point, about three weeks after he had started traveling with Pepper, another Scarfox who seemed the only one who really understood what was going on, Jonathan had had an epiphany during the night.

He shot up from under his blankets, rousing Pepper from her own nest of blankets, her Snowfy, Salt, adhered to the side of her face. She was groggy and annoyed, having already determined that she did not like Jonathan one bit, though Salt calmed her rage with a soft peeping snore.

“The creatures!” Jonathan exclaimed. “How could I have missed a sign so obvious?”

Pepper groaned. “What are you talking about?”

Jonathan threw his blankets off him and rose to his feet, flaring out his crumpled wings until they straightened and glittered in the embers of what had once been a campfire. He was filled with a form of determination and conviction that Pepper had quickly identified as unstoppable. She rolled back over and buried herself in her blanket nest, Salt still snoring softly.

“I won’t go far,” Jonathan promised. “I’m just going to go do something real quick. I promise it will make sense when I get back.”

Pepper grunted.

Jonathan took off into the surrounding woods. The woods were very spooky during the late night hours, but Jonathan could feel fire in his soul, and he illuminated the area through his sheer willpower, casting deep shadows from the dense trees. He puffed his chest out, but didn’t shout. He was smarter than that.

“The creatures must be a key,” he said, externalizing what should have been an easily accessible inner monologue. “I must have to catch one for myself and use it for battle. Or as some kind of representation of my soul! That’s what these foxes are always on about anyway. The soul. Surely that is what I’m supposed to be figuring out during this traveling arc.”

His logic was infallible and Jonathan took to exploring the darkness of the woods to find the perfect representation of his “soul”. What he found instead was a series of red glittering eyes attached to the dark trunks.

Rather, he found darkly colored lizards with large gemstone eyes. Most of them had scattered as soon as his internal fires cast light upon them, for they were creatures of the night, even though an expert might have been able to tell that this population was displaced. Jonathan was unafraid, however, even as a particularly large one set its gaze upon him. He puffed out his chest and stared right back.

“I will not be intimidated by a beast!” he cried.

The lizard, colloquially known as a Gege, vibrated with the intensity of a small sun and Jonathan was captured by the hypnotic hums that seemed to generate from the creature’s eyes. He was lulled by it. It reminded him of server rooms and coiled wire. Warmth and indifference in equal measure. A welcomed feeling in the cold of the night.

He approached the Gege and grabbed it with his large arm. The brass colored buttons on his knuckles clanged against the trees as he scooped it up, and it released an ungodly scream. A high pitched fear response. Why wasn’t the hypnotism working?

“You,” Jonathan said. “I like your style, but your delusions cannot affect me. I’m too headstrong, which was your first mistake, haha.”

Though Geges were not known to be able to fully understand language, it somehow understood that this fox would have never fallen for its hypnotic defense mechanism.

“I’m too witty for that, but I will forgive you for trying to trick me into swimming in lava. Only this one time. And only if you come with me and represent my soul in battle.”

The Gege, once again, could do nothing. Jonathan’s hand was just too large to escape from. Even as it scurried around his fingers, more seemed to appear out of nowhere to confuse it.

“I don’t have a capsule to put you in, so I’m going to trust that you’re not going to escape, okay?”

No response.

“Excellent!” Jonathan cradled the Gege as best as he could. “I’ll call you Lavi after an old show I used to watch when I was a kid. Pepper will be excited, I bet. Even though she is tsundere. We can battle to get to know each other better. It’s a trope as old as time. We’re gonna do great, Lavi!”

However, by the time morning came around and Pepper had risen, Lavi was nowhere to be found.