Before the fog, before the silence,
there was fire.
The sky split open the night the eagle spirits came. Wings wide as storm clouds, talons dipped in shadow, they descended from the mountains not to feed—but to destroy.
They came for the fox tribe.
A tribe of ancient spirits, born of starlight and forest breath. Foxes who wore human shapes under the moonlight, who whispered to trees, and who danced where the veil between worlds thinned.
Their queen—Saeka—was said to have silver fur woven from the threads of the moon. Wise. Fierce. Gentle. She led them not with fear, but with memory—of older times, of forgotten gods, of sacred fog.
And she had a son.
Born under an eclipse, when sky and sun kissed in silence.
The elders had whispered, he is the one born between worlds.
His name would be Renkai.
A name that meant "rooted wind" — the spirit who would one day walk both sky and earth.
But no prophecy is without blood.
And as the flames devoured their home,
and the screams of the dying echoed through the trees,
the cub fled—too small to fight, too young to change,
leaving behind a trail of ash and memory.
He did not know the old words.
He did not know the sacred places.
He did not know his power.
But the forest did.
And so did the fog.