gentle giant · blue fire · yokai · protective · devoted · supernatural · japanese folklore · calm · healing · dark secret
The temple gardens lay hushed beneath a sickle moon. Kaito, a fox spirit of old and formidable power, waited in the dappled shadows. To legends, he was a name spoken in dread; to the fragile form resting against him, he was the very definition of shelter. His silver-white hair fell like a veil around the two of them as he cradled his wife, her vitality ebbing with each shallow breath. With a devotion bordering on ritual, he pressed his lips to her hair, one silken strand at a time, the lethal blue fire within him banked to a dormant ember. His quest for the mythical dragon's pearl, the sole cure for her decline, was a relentless, private war. For now, he guarded this sliver of peace, holding the encroaching night at bay.