Keruo

Initially, Keruo thought being a fox deity would be wonderful. However, she forgot how cruel the inhabitants of Earth could be. Once born, a Kitsune of the heavens would play in the heavens until the age of 300 years. This is to mature, and gain knowledge. On their 300th birthday, they would be assigned to a group, village, tribe, area, state, city, or anything else inhabitable. Once assigned an area. You cannot return to the heavens for 600 years. This is to build independence and to ensure only the strong lead the people of Earth.

Keruo woke up. Heart racing already, she immediately knew what day it was. Keruo was now 300 years of age. Racing to the elder's den, she accidentally bumped into her friend Fare. Fare was 36 years younger than Keruo. The pair looked at each other as they both realized the side effect of what this day brings. Keruo and Fare decided to walk to the elder's together. Slowly and steadily, holding hands. They both knew she couldn't join Keruo in the Elder's den. They would say goodbye very soon. Arriving at the aged wood of the door, they both hugged before Keruo went in. The elder looked at Keruo as she sat down, their fur a wonderful and true orange with some grey patches around their eyes from age. The elder spoke to Keruo with an authority she had never heard before. After a quick introduction, the old fox got to the point. "You will be watching over Neren, the isle of the forgotten." Keruo knew with a title such as that, they must be in need of help. Keruo got excited at the prospect of helping "The forgotten" outgrow the strongest of countries. Keruo nodded at the elder understandingly. The aged fox asked her to take his hand. "Close your eyes".

Keruo awoke to a breeze. Her shiny orange fur waving in the wind as she got to her feet. Looking around, Keruo noticed a peculiar sight. There was a child's face peeking around a nearby tree. Looking at her. Keruo knew that this was actually good. The child would run to his parents, tell them he saw a girl with fox ears and tails, once they all know there's a Kitsune around, they'll start to worship her. Keruo waved to the young boy, and he took off running following that gesture. Keruo decided to follow the boy to his village, to the people she must help. On the outskirts of the small village, Keruo hid. The village was mainly wooden, they had little technology, and were hardly advanced enough to make tools. Wheat farms seemed to be their only source of food, along with the ocean in which they fish. Keruo stood there watching the village, and before she knew it, days passed. Keruo hardly noticed, as she was so captivated on the villagers way of life. The fun the kids had as they played together, the dread they all felt about not knowing the new meal they'll have, the joy that comes with a new villager being born into the world. Keruo could feel their emotions all combined into a single medium to form her own emotion. She was connected with these people already, and yet she hadn't even met any of them yet. Keruo was too naive and inexperienced to know at the time, but the reason she could feel them all, was because they all believed in her

Keruo laid on the forest floor next to a river, defeated. This was no foul play however, Keruo was defeated by her own inability to catch a fish. Despite being fully aware of what shes supposed to do with the makeshift wooden speak she stole from the village, she was somehow failing at it each time, this time however was worse, the spear had bounced off of the fish as if protected by a force-field. Keruo found it mildly funny after it happened, but she was definitely starving. Keruo decided to take a break from fishing once again, and check on her people. Keruo almost shrieked in delight when she found that her people had made a shrine. She had wondered for the past few days what the random wooden structure was that popped up. Keruo had seen that there was a fish on the shrine already, and a brush made from the same string they made their fishing rods from, but sundried, and thus hardened. It was nearing sunset, so Keruo decided to wait for the people to go to sleep before she went to get her offerings. Right before Keruo decided to pounce, a child went up to the shrine. The child must have only been 8 or 10 years of age. The child knelt down and began to pray. Whispers filled Keruo's mind. "Please give us a bountiful harvest for this winter, mommy is afraid we may starve." was the first she could pick up on. "Please...save my sister. She's always in so much pain." Keruo felt as if she was kicked in the chest. The amount of anxiety, stress, dread, and sadness that washed over her within that moment was overbearing. She had almost forgotten about how short the lives of these people were, and how fragile they were. The child ran off to their small house. After a moment, Keruo went over to the house's "window" before even looking at the shrine with her fish on it. There was a small girl laying asleep by the window, shivering. Her mother and father sleeping to her left, and her brother sleeping to her right. Keruo felt the child's forehead. The girl was freezing cold. Keruo knew what she wanted to do. Focusing, Keruo had done what she hadn't in over a decade. Foxfire, roared to life. The controlled blue flame lingered around Keruo, orbiting her as if it were a moon. Feeling it, Keruo knew this blaze was far too hot for what the she needed. Slowing down her heartrate, Keruo lowered the temperature of the foxfire, and raised it up over the girl. The obedient flame stood there, dancing over the girl and bringing her heat. The girl stopped shivering as Keruo watched over her. Leaving the flame to keep the girl warm, Keruo finally went over to her shrine and picked up her offerings. Without even cooking the fish, Keruo's appetite made her bite into it. Fish were one of Keruo's favorite foods, and this was one of her favorite fish, the cod. Keruo's eyes lit up in enjoyment. Keruo even used the brush that she was given to brush her matted ears and tails. She knew turning into her fox form wouldn't allow her to brush anything, so that fur will have to remain matted for now. Walking back over to the girl, Keruo was determined to find out what was wrong with the girl. Placing her hand on the girl once more, she could feel something dark. Keruo felt a pain in her stomach. The pain grew and grew until a shock went throughout her entire body. Keruo removed her hand almost instantly. There was something very wrong with that girl.

Keruo awoke to cheering coming from the village. Quickly running over, she saw men that she had never seen before. The men had primitive looking pickaxes, and were being treated very handsomely. From among the chatter, Keruo could piece together that they were miners, and that their long mining trip had yielded gold and other minerals. Keruo was very happy to hear her people would likely be advancing quite a bit from this. She knew that if they got a good blacksmith that they would have a massive headstart. Excited, Keruo ran and ran looking for another village until she found a shoreline. This was not good. Keruo has seen the shore on 3 out of the 4th corners of this place. This was the 4th corner. She then knew that they were on an island. Keruo was afraid of water, she was afraid of what lurked in the depths, and hated the lack of movement options. Every primal instinct constantly told her to stay away from deep water. However, she knew her people needed someone to help blacksmith. Trying to figure out a way across without just swimming, Keruo sat down in a deep thought. Kero felt something. Something cold was under her. She had switched to her fox form without realizing, but what was even more surprising was that she was standing on water. The tide had fully risen while she was thinking. She was standing above 3 feet of water. Until, she fell through. Keruo doggy paddled like she never had before back to shore in a deep fear despite it only being a few meters away. Wondering how she could control her newfound ability, she jumped into the water over and over exploring different mindscapes. Keruo got almost frustrated at her lack of success. Her people needed her, and here she was splashing around on the beach. Keruo jumped again, determination filling her mind as she fell hard onto the water. Expecting to fall through, her limbs were not ready to land on the water like she did. Overjoyed, yet careful not to let the determination leave her, she ran and ran, jumping over waves trying not to look down. Keruo found land right before nightfall. This was a huge landmass, with castle gates near the pier she was heading towards. clearly, a really advanced civilization lived here. Rushing onto the land, Keruo blasted through the gates while appearing mildly invisible. Almost immediately, Keruo found a blacksmithing store. A father and his child of around 20 years sit there talking about techniques of the craft. Focusing, Keruo put it in the mind of the father to send his child to the isle of the forgotten. He then completely changed topics to telling him he should go learn and grow his craft independently at the isle of the forgotten. The child looked confused, yet a glimmer of excitement shined. Knowing that the job was most likely done, Keruo started heading back to her village for the night. But not before stealing some fish from the local market.

The blacksmith arrived 2 days later to the very primitive pier. The villagers had no idea he was coming, and were a bit apprehensive to let him in, but eventually, they let him setup a small area where he can live. The villagers grew with the knowledge of the young blacksmith. Eventually, the isle of the forgotten had many tools made from iron, and some even made from palladium. Since the new tools and blacksmith had come to fortune the villagers, they had all thanked Keruo for gracing them. This means that there were many new offerings, and naturally, higher quality ones too. Her passive goodluck had fortuned the villagers winters with little hardships. Villagers began building bigger, more advanced structures, they began using fish in new ways, they began new farms. The village was evolving because of Keruo, and all the things she had begun doing for them. Keruo loved watching over the children of the village specifically. Seeing them grow and being less and less dependent was so fun. Whenever there was a problem in the village, everyone would pray to Keruo. As soon as she could, she would do all in her power to help.

There was a death in the village. A young girl was crushed by a falling rock while out playing. The village had blamed Keruo. Offerings became scarcer and scarcer as the evolution of the village began to plateau. Keruo wasn't too upset about this, she had finally become quite the fisherman. While still trying to help the village grow, there wasn't too much more she could do, they had almost outgrown their island as a whole, and all land around them was already claimed by much bigger powers. All that there was left to do was to watch over everyone. However, one fox cannot look over so many people without a single fault. Another Death came when a sickness broke out. Keruo did all she could for everybody, getting everyone to fully recover, other than a single child. The child's immune system not being fully developed, they finally fell to the sickness. Because of how young the child was, the village were incredibly saddened by this death. The villagers finally stopped their offerings completely. This included the brushes that Keruo would use to brush herself. Her matted fur got worse than worse. Matted fur became dead fur overtime, this made her fur turn more grey than orange. Of course, Keruo felt bad for the village's loss, but it would have been much worse if she hadn't helped anyone. Still, she was responsible for the young baby's death, and that was a big weight on her shoulders. The grey Kitsune roamed the island more and more aimlessly as time went on. It was almost as if she was a resident of the island at this point, rather than the protector. Keruo started to help the people less and less.

Keruo awoke to find the sounds of the forest. Normally, there were many sounds of people. Blacksmith's banging away at tools, people talking, bartering, people farming. However, no noise of such origin came to her. Keruo walked around looking at each part of the town. Everybody had vanished in her week-long slumber. There was no blood, and hardly anything valuable was left. They were either taken and pillaged, or they moved to another land to settle. Keruo was devastated. She felt as if she failed everybody. She didn't do enough, she took it all for granted. Keruo had never felt so alone. As a great thunderstorm rolled in, the now grey fox had started to cry. Thoughts raced through her mind about how she failed everyone. The only thing for her to do now is to wait until her 600th birthday, when she can go back to the heavens.