1. death and resumption
Sam took a deep breath and stepped off the curb, eyes fixed on the WALK sign across the street. Her fingers knotted around the handle of her umbrella, trembling with the cold.
I hate rain, she thought to herself as the rest of the pedestrians she was with flood across the street.
I hate how cold it is, how it squishes in my boots, and how everything starts growing moss, and how slick--She didn't notice--none of them really noticed--the on-rushing car barreling toward them. It may have been drink, it may have been some poor old narcoleptic, or it may have been sheer cussedness behind the wheel, but the big old car showed no intention of stopping. Brakes squeeled--Sam looked up from her internal complaints about the rain long enough to note the license number of the vehicle--and then she found herself flying through the air.
Oh, was the only thought she managed before her head collided with the opposite curb. There was a crunching noise, a moment of intense pain, and then--
A bright red umbrella drifted to a stop beside the wet, huddled bundle piled over by the curb. It stayed there, undisturbed, until the paramedics removed it to put its former owner into a body bag.
"Damn shame she broke her neck. A damn shame..."
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In a world a million miles away from Samaridi's untimely demise, a fragile spark of life heaved itself up from the earth's womb and squalled. It was hungry, cold--ideas that didn't make sense at all to its inchoate mind. Hungry--no belly to fill, cold--no skin to feel the chill of autumn. Hungry, cold--
Look: an abandoned fox hole. "Abandoned", its last living residents the victims of a sudden collapse of earth, burying the vixen and her pups in the soil. Suffocation came quickly. But the earth wasn't enough to kill that little spark as it wound out from around the bones of the mother fox and her babies, bobbing to the surface of the earth and hanging there like an unseasonal firefly.
Hungry! COLD!As if the ardent squall commanded the very forces of magic, the spark imploded and the air spit forth a baby with fox ears and tail. He slumped to the ground, breath whining in and out of his tiny lungs, fingers dug into the ground. "Hungry..."
Who's going to take care of me? The earth had been his first mother, but it didn't want him anymore.
Who wants me now?I know what it's like to be hungry and cold, a little voice remarked in his ear. He twitched and sat upright, eyes gone round.
...who? Will you take care of me?Uh-huh. I'm Samaridi--and you can be Rufus. Okay, Rufus?Rufus. It felt like a good name. He nodded, ears rattling with the force of his agreement.
Okay!The spirit settled around him, like a warm shawl. He stopped shivering, the cold leaving his bones.
Now what? he inquired of the voice--Samaridi--almost sleepily.
Now--I don't know. But we can find some food, and then we'll figure out where to go from here.The rest, as they say, was history.
