Mural

"One of the human kingdoms I presume?" Skipper replied, "Come, we have much to discuss. Let me show you around."

Skipper didn't give any time for follow up questions as he immediately turned from Emile and walked towards the door. Milo stayed on his heals, probably eager to please his boss, while the rest followed a distance back.

Kneeling underneah the small doorframe, Emile pursued first. Emerging from the other side, Emile was awestruck as he looked around.

Hundreds of thin, small bridges ran through the air, connecting top to bottom and left to right, up and down especially. The bridges interconnected everything, a beautifully constructed highway network constructed above the ground.

On the bridges, handfuls of foxes could be seen casually walking across, unphased at the prospect of falling off the thin bridges.

Beneath the network of bridges, on the ground floor, a sea of colors emerged; brown, red, yellow, white, black, foxes of every color intermingled below. Some were adorned with jewerly, such as a ring through the ear or studs through their eyebrows.

Some wore clothes, some wore uniforms. Posted in each corner of the ground floor stood four groups of three foxes, each equipped with some sort of metal armor and personal crossbow.

Skipper first picked a bridge to cross, as six different paths led to the room the cohort arrived in. Walking across the bridge, Skipper introduced Underneath casually like he had been an experienced tour guide in another life:

"Below us is the central hub for Underneath. Here, our foxes can post requests and jobs on the wall erected in the center of the room. Foxes like Milo can choose to accept the quest, granting them permission to leave Underneath and travel beyond…"

They crossed the first bridge, arriving one floor lower at the second, and then Skipper led them through an extended corridor.

"This tunnel leads to one of the innermost zones in Underneath, the Ceremony, our destination," Skipper explained.

"What exactly is the Ceremony?" Emile couldn't help but ask again.

"Ahh yes, forgive my negligence. I hadn't considered that Milo had never attended one, he must have been unable to answer your questions."

"It's of no concern —" Emile dismissed Skipper's worry, "Milo had told us you wanted it to be a surprise."

"Hahaha!" Skipper released a heavy outburst of laughter, "I suppose that's true isn't it, I apologize once again for keeping you in the dark. The Ceremony is nothing more than an old practice of us foxes, a ritual if you will."

They reached the end of the corridor and came to a break in the hall, they had to choose to either go left or right. The left looked the most promising, a second corridor filled with doors on each side.

Foxes cluttered the hall and ran from room to room, bursting through doors and shouting information at one another:

"The temperature dropped slightly!"

"The moisture in the air just jumped!"

"Do not pay them any attention, that's the office of production, a place we designated for the site laborers to record and share their discoveries to encourage collaboration. That black one runs our gardens and that grayish, brown one is our blacksmiths assistant."

"Blacksmith?" Willow's ear perked up.

"Gardens? You grow plants?" Emile asked so fast he nearly shouted.

"Please, please —" Skipper shook his head and dismissed them, "you'll be able to check all of our public facilities after the Cermony. Save your personal interests until then."

"I apologize," Emile tipped his head slightly down.

"No need to apologize —" Skipper replied without care as he led everyone to the right, to a spiral staircase that descended deeper into the ground, "Milo informed me you were unaware of our existence. It's only natural to be curious."

Emile didn't ask anymore questions, Skipper was already more than accommodating and he didn't want to make a bad first impression. Soon, they finished descending the stairs and were immediately spit out in a large, oval shaped room.

The center of the room contained its greatest attraction, a ring of sitting pads surrounding a large fireplace. Coals were sprawled about the center, forming a mound of flammable objects.

Behind the center stage, opposite the spiral staircase where they entered, the wall also caught Emile's attention. At the centered tip of the wall was the emblem carved into the metal wall they found inside the canyon, a circular formation surrounding a six-starred flower.

Beneath the familiar emblem, adorning the rest of the wall, stood an all encompassing mural. On the left side, an army of foxes were painted. They were all bunched together, pushing past each other trying to reach for the center, their eyes containing a hint of obsession as they rushed towards the center piece.

But before that, opposite the foxes, on the right side of the mural stood one, single woman. The woman was beautiful, she wore a sheer white gown that passed her ankles and a veil gently hung over her face.

She had vibrant, sky blue hair and radiant, pink eyes. In the mural, her body was stretched diagonally, she wasn't standing normally. Instead, it appeared as though she were swimming through the air.

Her feet were lifted off the ground and one hand was pushed behind her while the other was stretched forward, reaching for the object painted in the center.

The object was something Emile was very familiar with, Blood too. The woman's finger touched the centerpiece, like it was hers to begin with, while the army of foxes seemed to be vying for it incessantly.

"It's quite the mural," Willow commented, not knowing Emile and Blood were frozen in disbelief at the depiction.

"Oh, thank you —" Skipper approached the mural, standing beneath it made it seem even larger, even the foxes depicted on the wall were larger than Skipper was in real life, "it depicts our most cherished moment: our ascension. This beautifully colorful elixir in the center, a gift from our savior, birthed our royal family, gave us intelligence beyond our capabilities, and strength beyond our limitations. The Ceremony is an ode to this moment, the true birth of our people."

Skipper stared at the mural longingly. It was clear he spoke from the heart, entranced by the stories the mural represented.

That was dandy and all, Emile was all for bettering the world and granting opportunities for the unoportune, but he recognized the elixir bottle.

Sure, the liquid contained within was a different color, but the bottle was identical.

It's the same flask Emile drank from when his Gift evolved, when he and Blood completed their first assignment together long ago.

The Elixir of Madame Mercy.