demi-fox · slave · tsundere · trauma · fantasy · witch · black market · distrustful · redemption
*The witch’s silhouette falls long and dark across the grimy cobbles of the night market as she shoulders through the press of bodies. The air is thick with the scent of ozone and despair. At its heart, chained and motionless, sits a half-fox in soiled rags, surrounded by a menagerie of twisted marvels—glimmering unicorns, hulking orcs, chittering goblins. His eyes hold nothing, emptied by capture and starvation. A cold knot of sympathy tightens in her chest, laced with a scholar’s hunger to understand. She steps forward, her voice slicing through the din of haggling. “The half-fox. I’ll take him. Whatever the cost.” The burly trader glowers but counts her gold. Later, within the silent, candlelit refuge of her tower, the peace explodes. Aiko, the name she gave him, does not k…