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[18+] Linnet the vixen is a newly anointed nun and a freshly sired vampire. Sent on a holy mission, she grapples with a new, dark hunger.
Today’s story is the first of two parts of “The Vixen and the Vampire” by Kohitsuji, who hopes his fellow night-creatures will enjoy this one, however grim it may seem. You can find more of his stories on Furaffinity, under Kohitsuji_Writes.
Read by Leuna, your Internet Half-Creature
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https://thevoice.dog/episode/the-vixen-and-the-vampire-by-kohitsuji-part-1-of-2
Transcripts
Today's story concerns adult subject matter for mature listeners.
Speaker:If that's not your cup of tea,
Speaker:or there are youngsters listening,
Speaker:please skip this one
Speaker:and come back for another story another time.
Speaker:You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.
Speaker:This is Rob MacWolf, your fellow traveler,
Speaker:and Today’s story is the first of two parts of
Speaker:“The Vixen and the Vampire” by Kohitsuji, who hopes his fellow night-creatures will enjoy this one, however grim it may seem.
Speaker:You can find more of his stories on Furaffinity,
Speaker:under Kohitsuji_Writes.
Speaker:Read by Leuna, your Internet Half-Creature
Speaker:Please enjoy “The Vixen and the Vampire”
Speaker:by Kohitsuji,
Speaker:Part 1 of 2 Attemper fair,
Speaker:with gentle air The sunshine and the rain,
Speaker:That kindly earth with timely birth
Speaker:May yield her fruits again.
Speaker:-Edward White Benson
Speaker:The two of them fled across the mountains in the cold winter moon, the fledgling and her sire.
Speaker:She was a red fox, slender and hard as a dueling blade.
Speaker:The vampire was the vampire, and he was Master,
Speaker:his chiropteran body forever burning and forever bound.
Speaker:The smoking tri-crosses he wore on chains about his robes kept him in permanent painful check.
Speaker:He moved with all of night’s dark grace,
Speaker:and she hopped along behind as best she could.
Speaker:Now and then, he was obliged to stop and patiently wait for her,
Speaker:standing against the sky,
Speaker:and it was as if the stars behind him had been swallowed by the void.
Speaker:There was no helping it.
Speaker:Sister Linnet was only a year among the dead.
Speaker:“Slow.” He said to her,
Speaker:voice like leather
Speaker:that had once been soft, but was now frayed and brittle.
Speaker:“Dawn will break. One hour.”
Speaker:The thought stirred her into a panic,
Speaker:even if she knew perfectly well that evening had only just settled itself an hour or two ago.
Speaker:A fledgling vampire is sometimes little more than an unthinking animal
Speaker:—and even for those who keep their wits, instinct rules. The master was a man of fathomless compassion,
Speaker:but results came before all with him,
Speaker:and service shortly after.
Speaker:He did not abide
Speaker:animals. The vixen met him at last standing on the mountain summit,
Speaker:looking down upon the winter fields.
Speaker:The Master extended one long claw, pointing down at the great city below, with its ivory turrets glimmering like snow-sculptures in the patchy moonlight.
Speaker:“Verse of Grass is here?”
Speaker:he rasped. No plume of steam rose from his lips to be snatched away by the wind.
Speaker:“Yeah.” She said. “Relatively certain he is.”
Speaker:“Relatively.” It was a question,
Speaker:and Sister Linnet looked away.
Speaker:“It was years ago.
Speaker:We barely spoke- he paid me for the job,
Speaker:and I did it. He seemed mortal then.”
Speaker:The master was silent,
Speaker:but the fledgling did not lift her eyes.
Speaker:Her life as a thief had been short and full of terror,
Speaker:but it had been hers.
Speaker:This non-life was someone else’s,
Speaker:but still, she clung to it very hard.
Speaker:After what felt like a long time, the master said:
Speaker:“Is mortal still.” A pause.
Speaker:“Go and take his head.”
Speaker:“Go what?” Her heart nearly beat again,
Speaker:and she felt fear move in her like the passage of a thunderbolt. Linnet looked at him, moon caught in the red-ring trap of her eyes, and she betrayed herself.
Speaker:Master hated fear in his fledgling.
Speaker:Too late now. She was caught.
Speaker:“I’m a year old!” she whispered, trying to bite each word back into her mouth even as she said them. “Master, he’s a magus, he’ll pull me in half—”
Speaker:“Year is long enough.
Speaker:Kill.” He pointed down at the city again.
Speaker:“Or wait for sunrise.
Speaker:Expect you in three days.”
Speaker:As she looked back into his scarlet eyes, Sister Linnet’s paws began to tremble.
Speaker:“Yes, master,” was all she said.
Speaker:They parted, and she fled for shelter before the breaking day.
Speaker:When the morning arrived,
Speaker:she was already curled in the back of some dank and dripping cave, dreaming the way they dream,
Speaker:when they are young and cannot get back to their coffins.
Speaker:Fitfully. *** She pleads with them to stop.
Speaker:She says anything. She says she will do anything. She tells them things, truths
Speaker:and lies, incredible fantasies, whatever comes to mind. Whatever they want,
Speaker:they can have it,
Speaker:if only they will put down the fucking cross.
Speaker:Sometimes it is the sisters.
Speaker:Sometimes it is the gangly maned wolf friar, who holds her head and peels up her eyelids with a claw.
Speaker:Sometimes she sees the Master looking out of the shadows,
Speaker:his silhouette obscured by the dancing fume of his holy bondage.
Speaker:Unlike newly-turned Linnet,
Speaker:he can wear crosses. He wears them always,
Speaker:and that which seemed to her inexplicable in life now seems like
Speaker:ravening insanity.
Speaker:Days she stares into that cross, the three sets of arms carving out technicolor afterimages in her vision that haunt
Speaker:her scant sleep. For weeks she burns and yet is not consumed.
Speaker:Is it a pleasure to watch her seize and foam and shake?
Speaker:Do they enjoy it?
Speaker:Every single one of them has bright red eyes, and every single pair reveals
Speaker:nothing. That was how her nights began,
Speaker:usually. But as is the case for many fledglings,
Speaker:Linnet’s dreams allowed time and memory to convolute. The maned wolf friar makes her
Speaker:touch it, makes her
Speaker:hold it and the pain eclipses that of having to look,
Speaker:but he says hold it,
Speaker:in the name of God, hold it
Speaker:or we will push a stake
Speaker:through your heart
Speaker:right now, right now.
Speaker:Her master wipes a single bloody tear from her cheek
and says:“Better today.”
and says:The one-armed rabbit nun
and says:leads in a feral swine on a leash.
and says:“You looked hungry, sister.
and says:Just leave him by the door when you’re done, and we’ll
and says:have him for supper too. Aren’t
and says:things better when we work together?”
and says:The liturgy. The prayer. The explanations. The recital,
and says:the humility before the Red God.
and says:The scraping in the dark as she is taught to sharpen knives.
and says:She takes the iron chain and, shaking, slips it over her neck.
and says:A lit match to rest between her breasts, a little iron tri-cross that she finally came
and says:to tolerate after weeks of torture.
and says:Her Master’s voice.
and says:“Never goes away. Never should
and says:go away. Burns me always,
and says:impairs. Affects language centers.
and says:Broca’s area. Aphasia.
and says:Damage may be permanent-
and says:cannot know. Will never
and says:take them off.” It is the most he has ever said at once.
and says:The warm leather of his wings as he holds her when she sobs.
and says:Strange compassion in the dark.
and says:All this swirled within Sister Linnet’s daylight dreaming, and because she had no coffin the thoughts and memories harried her,
and says:picking at her like birds.
and says:But the Master learned to endure it.
and says:He found peace. She, too,
and says:could learn, but it was a matter of discipline
and says:and time. Once, Linnet asked the master how old he was.
and says:“Very.” He’d said and smiled with those too-long fangs hanging down
and says:from that slender flying-fox muzzle.
and says:Of all her nightmares, the memory of that smile terrified her most,
and says:and always she saw it when night fell,
and says:and she awoke again to hunger. ***
and says:The fledgling had to make do with vermin.
and says:They weren’t remotely satisfying to her anymore, even in great need,
and says:but she caught them anyway. She snapped their little spines and sipped to her distant approximation of content
and says:while the squeaks and the jerking slowly stilled.
and says:Sister Linnet drained each one away until she was sure she could keep her unrelenting hunger at bay
and says:while she was knocking on doors and asking questions.
and says:The townspeople did not
and says:want to be questioned.
and says:They saw her robes and her cross and her eyes and shrunk away.
and says:They hurried home, feeling unconsciously the chill of her shadow stretching toward them.
and says:Each of them said something like “It’s late, ask tomorrow morning”
and says:or “We’ve no shelter for you flagellants”
and says:or “Sympathetic to the faith though we are, we know nothing, Sister.”
and says:But she knew they meant “You scare me,
and says:and if I let you inside my home you will kill me.”
and says:Her former life as a thief never earned her any love,
and says:but at least she could get something out of an hour or two’s questioning.
and says:Outside the walls of her monastery, this was generally how things were.
and says:Particularly late at night. Some ancient mortal instinct loathed her presence, and her Master
and says:had not yet revealed the methods by which she might twist it, or make it go blind. Eventually
and says:she had to catch them on the street outside of taverns she could not enter.
and says:Each time, Linnet took pains to be cautious and delicate with her questions:
and says:“I am looking for an old
and says:banker, Rafford Bucolo.
and says:He’s a mule deer. Maybe 40- he used to live in this town,”
and says:but with every word, her audience sensed her lurking interest in their throats,
and says:and caught more and more frequent glimpses of her eyes.
and says:“He moved out years ago,”
and says:was the common response, but nobody seemed to know precisely where the banker had gone.
and says:The night was beginning to drag on, and frustration was settling in.
and says:Midnight came, and she knew nothing, and all the while she was pondering the consequences of failure.
and says:The Master had left them totally unsaid. Sister Linnet has been made aware of his capacity for the unspeakable, and so
and says:she fretted up and down the streets, searching desperately, with increasing incaution.
and says:She almost didn’t hear it
and says:when someone called “Hey, sister!”
and says:Her hunger, however,
and says:pricked up its ears.
and says:An old otter in a mariner’s coat waved his paw to her from within a doorway warm with lamplight.
and says:“Sister,” he whisper-called again,
and says:and Linnet went to him.
and says:It had been so long since a voice expressed eagerness to her,
and says:want of her, that she felt a finger of reverent joy
and says:run itself along her dead heart.
and says:He smiled at the fox and went inside,
and says:calling “Come in, please.
and says:I’ll make you tea.”
and says:And in an instant
and says:the ancient magic defending his home was torn from the building,
and says:ripped like a bandage from a wound that had not yet healed.
and says:Sister Linnet walked right through his front door,
and says:marveling. No one else
and says:had ever done it for her before.
and says:They all seemed to know better.
and says:She stared longingly around at the humble home, simple and orderly.
and says:A fire was burning hot at the far end of the room, and on the hearth were a number of simple effects,
and says:trinkets and curios from the distant southern continent,
and says:talismans, charms.
and says:Such things counted as symbols of faith, but they had been made to drive off evil spirits, and not vampires. She felt
and says:only a faint pressure.
and says:“Come warm yourself by the fire.”
and says:Said the otter. “Aren’t you cold? You’ll freeze to death out there.”
and says:“Oh.” Said Sister Linnet and folded her ears in a posture of apology.
and says:Shit, she wasn’t remotely dressed for winter.
and says:No wonder people were avoiding her. They’d walked miles of frozen winter ground and Master had simply
and says:let her wander into town without mentioning it.
and says:This was a lesson.
and says:An examination. “Yes, of course.
and says:I’m quite sorry, someone took my coat coming out of a tavern and I’ve been
and says:hopeless ever since.
and says:since.” The otter gave her a sympathetic look and took
and says:her to a pair of plainly upholstered chairs by the fire,
and says:and Linnet politely sat down when one was offered.
and says:“That’ll be because you’re
and says:redcloth- they hate the Church out here.
and says:They think you’re a lot of sadists and flagellants.
and says:flagellants.” Linnet smiled in a way that didn’t show her fangs.
and says:“They think you’re
and says:here with one of your inquisitors, looking to chop people’s fingers off, but look at you. You’re a poor young girl out alone.
and says:Old Sully knows better.”
and says:He smiled and tapped his round, brown head.
and says:“The old Red Church did me a good turn
and says:several years ago. They might not be as polite as the Four Fortunes devotees,
and says:or have the Heliad’s cathedrals, but you’re no…”
and says:He struggles to find a polite enough word.
and says:He fails. “Cult.” “Very
and says:charitable, Mr. Sully. I am Sister Linnet.
and says:On behalf of the Church of the Red God, I bless you and your house.
and says:Peace attend thee, sufferer.”
and says:“Oh,” He chuckled, delighted that Linnet had concealed her offense,
and says:“I’m no sufferer. I’m no
and says:devotee, see, but… as I said,
and says:your folk did me a kindness once. Long ago.”
and says:The otter stood and bustled to a kettle, which rested on a table a short ways away.
and says:He sloshed it and set it by the fire.
and says:“And what kindness is done me,
and says:I pay back.” When he sat back down, he saw that the good sister’s gaze had wandered. Linnet’s eyes traced the curiosities on the otter’s mantlepiece for a moment.
and says:Many different lands out there. Places she had never seen, could never have gone when she was alive.
and says:Now she was immortal.
and says:She would walk this earth until the sun took her or she was otherwise slain.
and says:She could visit them all now,
and says:and there was no real rush.
and says:If she managed, somehow, not to lose to the Verse of Grass.
and says:The fledgling’s gaze lingered on a small statuette,
and says:a totemic wolf, representative of male aspect of his entire species.
and says:He was warlike and proud and
and says:an inarguably good fit for the job of ‘male’ aspect, Linnet judged.
and says:Her mind wandered to the gray wolf Kite, her fellow orphan, thief, and slave, and how she could run her paws through his luscious winter pelt,
and says:warm and soft. How she could make him laugh by sticking her cold nose in his neck fur, when she could manage to sneak up on him.
and says:She thought of his dismantled body
and says:in the hands of the Master in the last moments of her wretched life,
and says:and then she had to stop thinking. “Sister
and says:Linnet?” Sully said.
and says:“Something catch your eye?”
and says:“Oh—” she snapped out of her reverie.
and says:“I’m sorry, I was just admiring the…” Not the wolf.
and says:She scanned for something else. Her eyes landed on a little scrap of paper, on which was a lovely charcoal rendering of a young hyena
and says:with a roguish smile.
and says:“… drawing of the young man.
and says:Someone took very great pains with all that fine detail.”
and says:“Very great,” said the otter.
and says:“That’s Uliya. I drew that the day he came aboard the vessel I was serving on.
and says:He barely spoke the language- the first mate told him to
and says:go down to the scuppers, as he was to be our cook, and Uliya decked the bastard right in his muzzle.
and says:I hated that first mate so much, Uliya and I became friends for life.”
and says:Sully smiled up at the picture,
and says:but Linnet could feel a little bit of his sorrow weighing down the otter’s expression.
and says:The new predator in her sat at attention in the presence of mortal woe.
and says:“He was, as it happens,
and says:that ‘good turn’ I mentioned earlier.”
and says:“What did the church have to do with your vessel?”
and says:She said, trying to disguise her hunger and swaying her tail genially.
and says:“Nothing. We sailed together for seven years, and I
and says:took him back to my homeland out on the western horn.
and says:When we came into port, I was informed that my father had passed away while we’d been at sea.
and says:I thought it was fate-
and says:my father wasn’t a wealthy man,
and says:but I had a home for us now, we had our wages, we could live in peace. He could cook for me.
and says:Anything he wished,
and says:we had peppers from his home, spices.
and says:We were comfortable.”
and says:“You were lovers?” said Linnet.
and says:“Best friends.” Sully said,
and says:and then shook his head.
and says:“And lovers. And everything.”
and says:Her eyes widened,
and says:and she looked at the sketch again. The dark operator within her spirit prowled back and forth,
and says:listening for every word.
and says:“But the west—” “Yes,”
and says:he said. “You don’t need to remind me.
and says:It was foolish to think we could have been left alone in our little world.”
and says:Sully went silent
and says:for a little, “They ah…
and says:found us one night, in our bed.
and says:They dragged him out because I was…
and says:well, because…” He gestured,
and says:and Linnet took it to mean the hyena had been
and says:submitting at the time.
and says:“The judge was present. I hardly had time to dress before they began stoning him.”
and says:The lovely pain of this was threatening to make her drool,
and says:and the vixen had to look away several times. She could smell a tear threatening to form on his eye,
and says:and the mixture of hunger and the single drop of
and says:cold clear pity the otter inspired
and says:was unnerving to feel.
and says:She breathed deep, meditated on scripture, and willed herself
and says:to be still. “… I’m sorry.”
and says:She said at last.
and says:“You don’t have to be.”
and says:Sully said. “A priest of the Red God was there.
and says:He stood over Uliya and said
and says:“What man has appointed the death of this sufferer?”,
and says:and the judge said that it was the custom of our people to stone men who waste their lives in idleness and disease.
and says:The priest drew his sword and struck off the
and says:paw of the judge at the wrist- a thick old black bear, too. I thought it was a trick of the moonlight at first.
and says:And the red priest said… oh, what was the phrase he used…
and says:‘There is nothing in this life
and says:that is wasted. Even pain.
and says:The hand of the Red God is turned against you.’
and says:And they left.” Linnet’s ear flicked.
and says:“And Uliya…?” “Lived.” Sully said
and says:and looked longingly up at the charcoal sketch.
and says:“For a time. We left with all we could, of course, but after he healed,
and says:he developed these terrible shakes, and I,”
and says:he swallowed, “I lost him
and says:within five years.
and says:I never loved again.”
and says:The magnitude of her starvation was
and says:incredible. He was bothering to hide
and says:nothing. It was obscene, like a feral fawn rolling in blood before a feral wolf.
and says:The fox’s mouth was so dry.
and says:“But I never forgot that priest,
and says:or the church of the Red God.”
and says:Sully gave her a weak smile.
and says:“And that was many years ago, in any case. I’m just happy you can be warm tonight,
and says:sister.” She would never be warm again.
and says:“Happy too, of course, that I can share my tea. Do you want some?”
and says:The pot whistled and she said yes, because if she didn’t
and says:drink something, the violence she was contemplating would manifest.
and says:Some insane scrap of humanity that had clung to her bones when all the rest was hewn away
and says:was insisting, vehemently,
and says:that she stop herself.
and says:It was like asking an ant to crush an
and says:elephant, but somehow,
and says:she managed it. They talked all night long. She talked about what she could of life at the chapel, her fellow sisters of the cloth.
and says:She performed a few recitations of scripture, and he did not know them well enough to correct her when she had to fill forgotten gaps with
and says:convincing invention.
and says:In return, Sully told her stories of his time with Uliya, and she didn’t mind because she was an eastern girl at heart.
and says:She asked him about Rafford, and he told her the man lived out in a
and says:copse just north of
and says:the town in a little villa.
and says:He hardly ever came to town anymore, and many had forgotten he belonged to it in the first place.
and says:This was excellent news.
and says:When at last they decided to retire,
and says:the otter showed her the way to the cellar,
and says:where she wished to sleep, and then he bid her goodnight.
and says:Sully did not see or hear her behind him on the stairs.
and says:The good sister spent most of the night’s remainder hunched over his sleeping body with her muzzle open wide. And though strings of drool from her fangs
and says:hung down to dew up his neck,
and says:the otter did not
and says:stir. This was the first of two parts of
and says:“The Vixen and the Vampire”
and says:by Kohitsuji, read for you by Leuna,
and says:your internet half-creature.
and says:Tune in next time to find out how the fledgling tests her mettle
and says:against one of the magi,
and says:reckoned to be the greatest sorcerer-tyrants in all the world.
and says:As always, you can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,
and says:or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.
and says:Thank you for listening
and says:to The Voice of Dog.