Kitsunes

***Alas! An Ancient Relic!** This page contains information that may be outdated or incorrect.*

## KThe Beginning of the Kitsunes

   Long ago, when Elysium was at it's sixth stage of rebirth, a fox named Inari, named after a patron god of the Kitsunes, disguised in it's human form, gave birth to a child with another Kitsune, named Neriia. Neriia gave birth to what would be a founding member of the Kitsune society, named Koan.

#### The True Father of the Kitsunes

    He became one of the first Kitsune to integrate into Elysium, where he moved to an early beginning town of mostly humans, called Ursratl. He was welcomed with open arms, as his parents had taught him how to hide his tail and ears, and he was a handsome young man, strong and chiseled as he had desired to look, for the Kitsune is a master of taking on their own appearance. He was renowned for his wisdom, and magicaroprl peties that gave him such long life. He claimed he had been blessed by a god, and that he would live to over a thousand years. He lived an especially long life, outliving friends and family, outliving even the youngest of the humans in the town, and one day, a ruthless hunter named Srtrater came to the small town, and his dogs with him. The dogs had an excellent, keen sense of smell, and they immediately sniffed out the elder Kitsune, who had already been forgotten from the minds of the new generation, and had made many children with many of his wives over the centuries. He had already established a fortune and many devotees who bowed to him in the town as a supreme wisdom, and it did not matter to them what god had blessed Koan, for he could do no wrong in their eyes, along with his many children, who had inherited the ability to hide their fox-like features and blend in with the humans.

#### The Great Human Rebellion of Ursratl

   Not only could the dogs of Srtrater sniff out the old fox, who had become less sly and more comfortable in his place over the years, Srtrater could sometimes see glimpses of orange or black around corners, where Kitsunes felt comfortable in dark, narrow passages between homes that reminded them of the woods. They would take out their pearls, which were the embodiments of their souls, they could not live without these magnificent orbs that held their essence, granted to them by their fox god, Inari, to strengthen their magic, but also a potential safe guard for the people of Elysium to fall back on, for even though Inari was the patron of the foxes, he knew they were sly and quick, and if left without a major flaw, they would continue to be so sly that they would turn on their fellows. When Srtrater glimpsed these flawless pearls, he would take notes, and there they seemed to be, the people (whom Srtrater began to believe were not humans at all) would carry these orbs around, hidden in their sleeves, or on a single necklace, and Srtrater would notice that for a while, they would seem to not age at all, the small children would stay small, and the young adolescents would stay young. He observed these people for over six years before he decided to take action against these supposed devils, of whom he believed would take over the humans and ravage their towns, steal their children, and make a general mess of things, and try to eliminate them once and for all. He rallied up the townsfolk, placing whispers in the ears of the most powerful officials, being careful not to let old Koan, who was now not careful at all, despite his should-be wisdom, and planted seeds of doubt in the devotees of Koan, who were beginning to stage a secret revolt against their no-longer-wise master. Before long, the hunt was on for the fox-devils who had invaded the town, and some villagers even claimed that they'd seen foxes prowling their storefronts and taking children, (whom most were found out in the fields frollicking), and making general mischief. Of course, this could have been true, as there was a fuzzy line between two kinds of Kitsunes, and some that walked that fuzzy line inbetween. The good, celestial foxes and Kitsunes of Inari, were simply called Inari, named after the patron god and the father of Koan. The second type of Kitsunes and foxes were the Nogitsunes, the more mischief making foxes who were the devils, who usually were the ones to give the Kitsunes their bad reputation that some villagers and descendants from the village of Ursratl would still have prejudice against. A Kitsune sometimes walks the fuzzy line in between, called the Midorufokkusu, literally meaning 'middlefox' in their native language. All three of these subcategories were hunted without discrimination of the humans, until they were forced to reveal their true selves and flee the village in fear, where some stayed in the wilderness, or moved to various other villages. Srtrater became the leader of the village and continued to prosecute and hold trials of people thought to be, or be possessed by the Kitsunes. Not until almost three-hundred years later were the Kitsunes in the focus of many races again.

#### The Treaty of the Kitsunes

   The Kitsunes, who had split into many settlements and individual clans, mostly governed by one of their own, such as, smaller settlements that had less members to spare were run by a council of three, or five, instead of the traditional seven. These were the eldest, the council. Hunted by humans and other races, especially those hired by the latter, the elders became more wise, and the kitsunes developed new skills, such as their now almost effortless adaptation of their once and still incredible stealth making them almost invisible to the human eye, and incredibly fast, giving them the appearance of teleportation. As a son of a hunter from Ursratl would later say,

   "The foul, fox-tailed and eared creature would seem to disappear, with a smell and a woosh of woodland air behind them. My fellow hunters, many who tracked the use of mana as their special skill, would remark to me that it was incredible for a being who had little business in the art of teleporting to use it without seeming to use mana. It was not long before I discovered that it was not teleporting they were doing, but using their incredible speed and stealth to avoid the eye of any species not fast enough to see it."

- Unknown, son of a Kitsune Hunter from Ursratl.

   The settlements were tired of being hunted, and believed they deserved the rights that humans and other accepted species enjoyed. In one of the largest settlements with a council of seven, five were the eldest of all the Kitsune race. They convened along with the two next eldest, and all of the settlements of Kitsunes scattered across the land. Not only did women and children attend, the elderly, who were too young to die but too old and frail to rule made the journey, as did multiple of the human leaders. They all met at the council's room in Iesralia, which was much too small for all of them. The Kitsunes and humans with strained ears leaned close to the walls to hear what they discussed. Eventually, they had come to an agreement. A peace treaty was signed, and most of the settlements of the Kitsunes grouped into towns, with the majority of tailed folk such as nekos who had attended the meeting and some humans who agreed with the practice of the Kitsunes moved into a large town of Iesralia.