The silence between them drew out. There was a quality to it, a kind of sharpness that left Misty Peak certain she would cut herself with the wrong move. She kept her face, well, the face she’d chosen for this task, neutral even as her mind raced for the right thing to do. She’d misread everything. The situation. The actual, terrifying strength of her long-estranged grandfather. Most of all, she’d misread the man who stood in front of her. In some ways, he frightened her more than Laughing River did. She’d been following her grandfather on and off for a long time, so she’d become aware of Lu Sen almost by accident. The elder fox had been… It was not spying, never spying, because even traitorous foxes were too dignified for anything as pedestrian as spying. Her grandfather had been surreptitiously checking up on the boy. Following that, she had made a point to learn about the folk hero, Judgment’s Gale. At least, she thought she had.

Where she’d expected him to be almost mindlessly violent, he’d been controlled. No matter what tale she’d tell others, she lived only because he hadn’t really been trying to kill her. It had taken a little while for that truth to settle into her mind. She’d walked away from that fight feeling pretty good about herself. She’d beaten a folk hero and even stolen a couple of kisses from the ridiculously pretty man. The longer she thought about it, though, and compared what had happened to the kinds of stories she’d heard about him, the less good she felt. The man in those tales set the sky on fire, battled spirit beast tides, and singlehandedly slaughtered an entire criminal organization. Even if those stories weren’t completely true, she was willing to bet there was a lot of truth mixed in. If he’d wanted to, he could have simply burned her to ash instead of grabbing her. He’d been trying to stop the fight, not end the fight.

Now, he was standing there like he didn’t have a care in the world. She couldn’t stop thinking about that horde less than a half-mile away. One wrong move and all those terrible things could swarm into the forest and destroy everything in their path. And this mad bastard was out in these accursed woods like it was a fine summer day in the city. He was just oh so casually setting up some kind of formation, or was it formations, that she didn’t even pretend to understand. It was also painfully obvious that he truly did not care what happened to that girl from the sect. And why would he? If someone showed up looking to kill me, I wouldn’t care what happened to them either, she thought. If she’d managed to grab someone he did care about, that might have gotten her some leverage. Then again, it might have transformed him into the avatar of doom that everyone already thought he was.

Grabbing that girl had been a spur-of-the-moment act, anyway. She’d hoped it might pan out but couldn’t be all that disappointed that it hadn’t gotten her anything. Misty Peak studied the man’s face and then had to look away. Looking at him wasn’t helping her decide, just distracting her. She didn’t need a distraction. Not right that minute, anyway. She shut down the more distracting routes her mind tried to take her by recalling Lu Sen’s killing intent. Their fight the day before had nearly ended at the moment he released the thing he called a killing intent. It had been abominable, domineering, and beneath it all she’d felt a kind of icy wrath. Simply remembering it was enough to make her shudder.

“If you want to take a day and think about it,” said Lu Sen, “I’ve still got a lot of work to do today.”

A quick glance revealed a kind of mild bemusement on the man’s face. She glared at him, but the man seemed all but immune to it. It wasn’t a first, but it was close. She had an excellent glare and knew it. What had the man seen that let him shrug off her glare? The man was too self-possessed. She was used to knowing what people thought at a glance. She’d learned to rely on that. Now, it felt like she was navigating blind. She didn’t know the best course to get what she wanted from the situation. Out with it, he’d said. She wondered if she should just do what he wanted, but something quintessential to her nature, her very fox-ness, rebelled at the idea. Foxes didn’t do as they were asked. They did as they wished.

“Are the tasks of the mighty Judgment’s Gale so pressing that he can’t give a woman a few minutes to think?”

“Is that what you were doing?” said Lu Sen with amusement in his eyes. “Then, by all means, please proceed.”

She watched as he looked around thoughtfully, nodded to himself, and walked over to a tree. Then, he leaned a shoulder against it and crossed his arms, shooting her a ridiculous grin. He looked so wildly overconfident that she was sure that it was meant as some kind of parody. People like him didn’t need to put on acts like that. Is it a ploy? Is he trying to make me second-guess myself? What kind of game is he playing?

***

I’m hungry, thought Sen.

He’d tried to take some of the tension out of the situation by putting a little space between them and leaning against a tree. He’d even tried to give her a friendly smile. It hadn’t worked. If anything, the look on her face gave the distinct impression of someone who was constipated. While he waited for her to make some kind of decision, he pulled an apple out of a storage ring. The woman glared at the apple like she thought he was going to attack her with it. He summoned another apple and tossed it to her. She grabbed the apple out of the air and then just looked at it like she’d never seen one before. Whatever, thought Sen. Maybe foxes don’t eat apples. He’d never given much thought to what foxes did or didn’t eat. Laughing River hadn’t seemed very picky. Sen took a bite out of the fruit in his hand and let himself enjoy the crisp sweetness of it.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

He watched her watching him eat the apple. It made him feel a bit awkward having someone spend so much attention on him eating. Not that it stopped him. Sen had developed a fondness for apples in the years before he became a cultivator. Unlike so many other kinds of food, apples held up well. Any food that wouldn’t go bad almost immediately was like pure treasure on the streets. He wouldn’t go so far as to say that apples had kept him alive, but he wasn’t quite willing to say that they hadn’t either. While those terrible days of want and suffering were long behind him, the love of apples had remained. He finished the apple and hurled the core deep into the forest. Turning his eyes back on Misty Peak, he saw that she was still just holding the apple.

“If you’re not going to eat that, give it back because I will eat it,” said Sen, holding out his hand.

The woman looked from his hand down to the apple she held in her hand. She drew it closer in what looked like a completely unconscious protective action before she took a bite of it. While she was busy eating and thinking about whatever it was that she needed to settle in her head, Sen withdrew the beast core he’d stored earlier. He let his qi and spiritual sense wash over it. It was still connected to the other one. There was an almost visible tether between them and he could feel the resonance. Good, he thought. It should work. He stored the beast core and looked up to see that the woman was still studying everything he did. He decided to take inspiration from Laughing River.

“Yes, I am a magnificent specimen of human perfection. I suppose I can’t blame you for wanting to spend as much time as you can drinking in the glory that is me.”

Sen watched with interest as the woman’s expression turned to one of embarrassment and her cheeks went a little pink. It only took a moment before her eyes narrowed back into a familiar glare.

“You’ve been spending too much time with my grandfather.”

“It was edifying. He said so himself.”

“I’m sure he did.”

Since the woman still wasn’t bothering to tell him what he’d asked about, he decided to ask a different question that had been bothering him a little.

“Is that what you truly look like or do foxes decide how you’ll look when you transform?”

Misty Peak rolled her eyes. “Is that what you want to waste your second question on?”

“Yes. Now you owe me another answer.”

For a brief moment, Sen thought the woman might actually stamp her foot in frustration.

“Stop that,” she demanded.

“Stop asking me questions if you don’t want to answer more of them. Standing here in silence while you brood isn’t exactly thrilling. I’m just trying to pass the time.”

“I wasn’t brooding. Brooding is reserved for men with inflated opinions of themselves. The kind of men who believe they’re deeper and more interesting than they are. I was thinking. You should try it sometime.”

Sen pressed a hand to his chest and feigned a wince. “Are you saying that I’m thoughtless? Well, I’ll certainly have to brood about that.”

“I bet you think you’re charming.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Sen. “I’ve been told that I have the social instincts of a tree stump. That sounded pretty plausible to me. You still haven’t answered my question, by the way. Either question, actually.”

Misty Peak’s lips compressed into a white line. Sen wondered if she was going to yell at him or even leave. In the end, she just shook her head.

“We decide.”

“Interesting. So, does that mean you don’t have a natural human form, or that you decide if you’re going to adopt that form or something else each time?”

“Why do you care?” asked an exasperated Misty Leaf before realization struck her. “Wait-”

“Oh, I’m just a curious man, by nature,” said Sen with a big smile.

“We have a natural human form,” said the fox through clenched teeth. “We decide each time if we’ll adopt it.”

“Will you show me what you really look like?” asked Sen.

“No,” said Misty Peak with an expectant look in her eye.

Sen knew that she wanted him to ask her why. It would let her reclaim control of the conversation. He cocked his head to one side.

“I understand,” said Sen with a sympathetic tone and a knowing look. “So, you were about to tell me what your grandfather did.”

Sen had to work hard to contain his laughter as he saw the strain it put on the fox to not ask him what he had meant with that I understand comment. He had to give her credit, though. She forced the question down.

“I don’t see any compelling reason why I should tell you,” said Misty Peak.

“Maybe there isn’t one. Of course, telling me doesn’t really cost you anything, either. Worst case, nothing changes. You haven’t gained anything, but you haven’t lost anything. Best case, you convince me.”

“You don’t strike me as someone who changes their mind very often.”

Sen shrugged. “In that case, I’ll leave you to decide what to do with the rest of your day. I do need to get on with my work.”

She let him get almost twenty steps before she called out after him. “Stop.”

Sen looked back at her. “Yes?”

“I’ll tell you.”

Sen walked back and leaned against the same tree again. Something about that seemed to annoy the woman, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what.

“Regale me with your tale,” said Sen.