Pass It Along: June

Za’iriel is a bit of an enigma. It is hard to really pin down exactly what he is supposed to be, mainly because he changes his story every single time he even bothers to answer in the first place. Most of the time he just laughs as his disconnected head floats higher and higher away from his body. He simply cannot hear after that.

Which is a shame because he was so interested in the conversation he was having. His head just gets away from him sometimes is the excuse that works the best. Since magic in the Scarfox Realm is constantly being reevaluated and altered and changed. Oh, the magic is so temperamental that his limbs have to leave to regain whatever properties they had before. The common rabble just would not understand, he might say.

He is heavenly, he’d add perhaps in jest. Though far more likely as a jab to some poor fool he crossed paths with. The common Scarfox is very insecure about their status. How does one consider themselves Standard versus something like Mystic or Hollow? How does the Unstable nature of the tortured soul factor into this? What is godliness? It’s all so pointless when magic is so variable that whatever you were at one point is not what you are going to be at another.

Some are lucky, Za’iriel thinks. Some foxes get boons to their otherwise completely drab existence. They gain confidence in the self and then go on to do great things. Others, unfortunately, are not as lucky. They are altered for the worse. They are tainted and trodden, and they sink into a misery that is very fun to watch from about one hundred miles away. The mighty who fall are the most fun to egg into self destruction.

Not that Za’iriel would honestly wish that upon another. Only those he thinks deserve it. And who that is depends on the time of day and which day of the week and if Mercury is in retrograde and the status of the three point plan.

He has his sights set on someone in particular already. A little bird tells him that his favorite tortured vampire fox is looking particularly threadbare. About to fall to pieces at any moment, with a dark past and a bruised ego. That is always the most fun. Za’iriel’s been trying for a while to get the old cretin to open up to his influences and now is the prime opportunity to do so.

All Za-iriel has to do is remember where the old bat lived. He thinks it was somewhere around a town with an old spooky forest and some kind of mountain range but it was kind of hard to tell. This is not the end of the world, though, he can just bother every single vampire that crosses his path and eventually, mathematically speaking, he will have to have bothered the right one. He can, as it turns out, bother far more foxes than the All Mother can make in a day, so he’ll start right away.

Maybe after a nap first.

---

When Za’iriel naps, his whole body is a mess of contorted limbs and haloes in a pile of luxurious blankets and pillows. It also happens that when he naps, he completely forgets whatever it was he was doing beforehand, and he has to spend an ample amount of time wasting away as he tries to recall the oh so important task he has ahead of him. By now, he reasons, he should have come up with something to keep track of all this but you won’t catch him using a calendar. That is for neurotic people with small brains and anxiety.

No, he is perfectly content in just simply forgetting until he remembers. It is not like there is anyone out there who could stop him. He is a free spirit afterall. Well, technically, he is the soul of a dead human priest from another dimension who died in some kind of political coup probably. Yeah, when coups were happening, the priests were the first to go right after the previous regime. It’s messy business, coups, but it is a part of a something something war something something.

He doesn’t even really remember but that is not the point. He is supposed to be remembering what he was doing before he took his nap - which was a very lovely nap, thank you very much. He gets the feeling that it had to do with bothering someone. He remembers birds and bats. Maybe it was a euphemism he heard once. At a loss, he must go to do something else for a while.

Yes, he brushes his favorite pink wig and detangles it, making sure it is his Sunday best as someone might have said in another life. The beauty of having a head that floats freely is that he does not have to move when he is checking how the wig looks from every angle. He can just keep combing and washing while he inspects it for damage. Not that there would be damage because he takes very good care of himself.

Becoming threadbare is not something he wants to experience, since his holy radiance would be sullied by tears and holes. It’s simply not befitting him, and if he ends up leaking magic out everywhere, then he’s going to have to work harder to maintain the level of magic he is already graced with. It’s too much work to keep up the haloes and light tail and the levitation without adding a constant leak at all times.

Spookiness is not really his thing. He is more the type to be a negative influence. Being scary is overrated and is a poor choice for the long game, since he would have to keep raising the stakes everytime the fear factor was overcome by the common fox. Oh, that’s right. Fear.

He remembers what he is supposed to be doing. He is going to go pay a certain vampire friend of his a visit. Or one of them. There are so many running around that it’s impossible to keep track of them all.

---

While Za’iriel knows what he is supposed to be doing now, that does not really effortlessly translate to actually doing it. To go meet his friend he is going to have to travel. And to travel, he needs to prepare. Pack his bags, set up transportation, maybe even cause some mayhem for unrelated individuals along the way as well.

He knows of at least one angry little thing that he could visit and see if he could speak some sense into her before a trek through a spooky forest. This angry little ball, he thinks, is supposed to be a friend as well, but he does not really deal in friendships the same way one would expect of a fox of his opulence.

Brash and truthful, the sorts of things that come out of Za’iriel’s mouth is more like an insult than anything else. There is the very real feeling that he is far more observant and knowing than he lets on and this is unanimously thought to be a bad thing. Nobody really knows how to handle him because how is someone supposed to handle an abstract experience such as being read for filth?

Not many can handle it. Even the most pure of heart have a point at which they cannot take it anymore. Some might consider Za’iriel to be rude and callous, but what’s wrong with being truthful to yourself? He knows he’s a bit of a bitch, but so is everyone else, and he does not have time for being fake.

The bags are packed, but he does not really need them when he need not eat or breathe or sleep. He does like to look nice when he is going out though. That is how he makes himself look more pleasing to the eye, despite already appearing to be made of fine mable and bejeweled with opal. He is marble and black and green and the only thing that would have made him look more angelic would be a pair of wings. But he does not like to talk about those.

They had been there at one point, but, again, Za’iriel will not talk about it. That is not important to understanding him and his morals, of which there are few. When anything goes, morality kind of has to take a back seat.

Where was he? Oh yes, packing. He arranges for his transportation as well. A nice little carriage ride out to the east. Or it could be the north. He is not entirely sure. He will undoubtedly figure that out when he has to. Now is not the time. Perhaps the driver will take him to where he needs to be and will end the ride as a new being.

Filled with the dread of being called a loser by a total stranger. Read like an open book. Forced to reevaluate why they would choose to live an infinite life where they ride around in a carriage behind smelly animals all day and night.

That will be quite the conversation.

---

It’s not quite as Za’iriel expects it to be. The driver does confirm that where he is trying to go is to the east of where he is, but the conversations are unbelievably stilted. Of course, Za’iriel sees that this driver is, in fact, planning on using up the rest of their extended life to just drive a carriage around. What a boring existence that will be, Za’iriel thinks.

But he supposes that there is no other fate that is more befitting a drab grey fox with no real identifiable features to speak of. This fox is meant to be a part of a set piece. A part of something that ultimately does not matter. Flavor text for something else far more interesting. He would have no choice but to deal with it.

Thankfully the ride is not long. Try as he might, the driver is content with their life and after a certain point, Za’iriel accepts that as this particular fox’s truth, since no matter how he tries to finagle the conversation to trip them up, there is no change to the story.

A simple fox with a simple desire to live a simple life. Likes the taste of peanuts, had a peanut allergy in their previous life, not bothered by the concept of being a human soul sewn into a new plush body, nothing. Just a guy doing a job for all eternity. The response always the same. It’s a living. It’s a job and someone has to do it. I like to travel and this lets me do that without all the fanfare that comes with going on a real vacation.

The ride does get a little bit better after that. Without having to deal with a fake fox doing a fake life, Za’iriel can sleep the whole ride. The driver is probably thankful for not having to be grilled the rest of the way, but that is not, was not, and will never be something that Za’iriel concerns himself with. Maybe if Za’iriel hadn’t gotten so sleepy, this would have gone differently.

In the bumps in the road, Za’iriel snoozes, rolls over, falls asleep again. Sometimes he snores. Sometimes his limbs are all in a pile again and he looks like some kind of monster when his head is floating away from the rest of the pile. The driver makes sure to lock the door after the rest stops are done so that Za’iriel will be in one piece when they get to where they are going. Or, uh, four pieces. Two arms, one head, and one body.

Maybe six if the haloes counted, but the driver never bothers to ask Za’iriel about it. Anything asked was just met with obtuse deflections. No one is allowed to ask about Za’iriel. They won’t get anything anyway, but it is kind of fun to see them try.

Annoying? Is the behavior annoying? It probably is to someone, but since when was that supposed to be a deterrent? Za’iriel doesn’t think much about it.

Are they there yet?

---

As it turns out, the answer  to the question if whether they are there yet is yes. Woolhope is the name of the place. Za’iriel swears he wrote it down somewhere, but in reality? No he didn’t. He doesn’t write anything down unless it will get a rise out of someone. Woolhope is a nice enough place. Kind of sad and pathetic. A real medieval Europe vibe, but not in the nice way.

There is a spooky forest and the townsfolk are equally drab as the rest of the place. The only place of note is The Ugly Cloth, which is colorful and bouncy looking. Za’iriel knows it’s because there are foxes there that have names and problems. A whole host of them he reckons, since this town also has a name and a special forest and a castle in the distance.

This is the sort of place he could cause a lot of trouble if he put his mind to it. Though he also gathers that this place is protected. He will be welcome here by some, hated by others, and there will probably be at least one fight in the streets. Though between whom is anyone’s guess.

His first guess is between lovers. But maybe it will actually be between brothers. Regardless, Za’iriel thinks to set up shop here for a bit. Well not a real shop, since he has no wares to sell, not even if you have the coin. He just wants to hang around and poke some sleeping monsters into possibly throwing down in the town square. That is what he is good at.

When poking around to ask about the myths and legends, he learns that there is an evil force in the forest that will sweep a lost traveler away and take them to a hell of a dungeon where they will be sucked of their mist.

Za’iriel knows that he has found what he is looking for. He does not heed the word of the townsfolk as he goes straight into the pointy trees and gets lost. Well, he doesn’t really get lost. He knows where he is trying to go, so he goes there and when he arrives to the lake with the manor overlooking it, he knows he is in the right place. He hesitates to call it a castle, but it does sort of fit the description. A description by a fox that has never seen a real life castle before.

The gates are not guarded, because fear drove everyone else away, and Za’iriel walks in, knocks politely on the door, and comes in anyway because he knows the head of the house is not here. The head of the house is off frolicking with an otaku who is on a himbo redemption arc. Which is something that he will also have to check in on when he has the opportunity.

And when he finds the master of the house, the vampire lord, looking particularly haunted by his past, Za’iriel makes a deep bow, all his limbs arranged normally and asks the pleasant fellow out on a date.

Should be appropriate for the purposes of fulfilling some imaginary quota, huh?