Taming the Beast World with a Frying Pan

Ren stood on the lush, green grass of the forest edge, her chin tilted up in a pose of defiance. She had Altair by her side, a stretch of dry land beneath her toes, and for the first time in what felt like years, she held the winning hand.

Vex stared at her. He blinked slowly, his orange eyes tracing the smug, confident curve of her smile.

For a moment, the only sound was the gentle rustling of the forest canopy and the distant, wet squelch of the fat pink worms back in the mud.

Then, Vex threw his head back and laughed.

He crossed his arms over his chest, his three fluffy orange tails swaying in a lazy rhythm.

"You think you have cornered me, Little Rose?" Vex purred.

"I don’t think it, I know it," Ren countered, refusing to back down. "You want the cub. I know where the cub is. You don’t get one without the other. So start talking."

Vex clicked his tongue, shaking his head with a theatrical sigh. "I don’t have to put up with any of this amateur extortion. I am a Shaman. A genius of biology. If I truly want the cub, I will simply find it myself. Or, well..." Vex paused, a wicked glint flashing in his eyes. "...I could always just make another one."

Ren’s confident smile faltered. Her brow furrowed in deep confusion.

"Make another one?" Ren repeated, her voice pitching up. "What is that supposed to mean? What is Oreo, a sourdough starter? You can’t just ’make another one’!"

Vex’s expression morphed into a mask of infuriating smugness. He tapped a finger against his chin, looking her up and down. "I am not half as desperate as you seem to think I am, my dear. I have time. I have infinite resources. I do not need to submit to your demands."

Ren felt a surge of frustrated annoyance bubble up in her chest. She turned on her heel and began marching directly into the thick foliage of the forest, putting as much distance between herself and the swamp as physically possible.

Altair followed her immediately. His golden wings folded neatly against his back, his bare feet making virtually no sound on the dry leaves and twigs. Ren tried very, very hard to keep her eyes focused strictly on the trees ahead, fighting the urge to glance back and check if the eagle was at least trying to cover himself with a conveniently placed fern. He wasn’t.

To her lack of surprise, Vex followed them.

"If you aren’t desperate, then why are you following us?" Ren called out over her shoulder, slapping a dead branch out of her path.

"I am merely taking a stroll," Vex replied smoothly, trailing a few paces behind.

They stormed through the dense greenery of the woods. The morning sun was climbing higher, sending warm shafts of golden light piercing through the canopy. It would have been a beautiful, peaceful hike if Ren wasn’t currently locked in a battle of stubborn wills with a psychotic fox.

"Is it really so impossible for you to just tell me?" Ren argued, tossing her hands up in exasperation as she stepped over a moss-covered log. "What is the worst that can happen if I know? I am already involved in this mess!"

"Knowledge is power, Little Rose," Vex stated simply. "And I do not share power."

"But we are friends, aren’t we?" Ren pushed, glancing back at him. She carefully kept her gaze at eye level to avoid catching an accidental eyeful of the naked bird walking between them. "Kind of? Just a bit?"

Vex snorted.

"I am serious!" Ren shouted, stopping in a small, sunlit clearing. She spun around to face him. Altair stopped right beside her, standing like a beautiful, silent marble statue.

Ren pointed a finger at the Fox Shaman. "I know things that maybe only you can help me figure out. I have questions about this world, about the feral madness, about the weird dreams I’m having. I want your help, but I can’t trust you! And frankly, you have given me a mountain of reasons not to!"

Vex stopped walking, resting his hands on his hips. "I am a fox. It is literally in my job description."

"But I haven’t done anything!" Ren yelled, her voice echoing through the quiet clearing. "I have given you absolutely no reasons to not trust me! I never, ever went back on any of my words. I kept my promises to you. I didn’t sell you out. I didn’t let Syris chop your smug head off. I have never stabbed you in the back!"

She took a step closer, her green eyes blazing with genuine hurt and frustration.

"That was all you," Ren stated firmly. "You lied to me again and again. You are the backstabber here. Doesn’t that mean you owe me just a little bit of honesty? Just a crumb of basic decency?"

The clearing fell silent, save for the distant chirping of a morning songbird.

Vex stood still. The teasing, arrogant smirk slowly melted off his handsome face. For a long, stretched-out moment, he didn’t say a word. He just stared at her, his orange eyes searching her flushed, frustrated face.

Finally, Vex let out a long sigh.

He broke eye contact, turning away from her to pace across the soft grass of the clearing. He ran a hand through his hair.

"I don’t trust anyone," Vex said.

He stopped pacing and looked back at her.

"I don’t trust anyone, and I will never trust anyone," Vex repeated, his jaw tight. "And if you have even a fraction of the survival instinct I think you do, you should do the exact same thing."

Ren frowned, her anger slowly giving way to confusion.

"You think this world is a fairy tale just because a few beastmen look at you with heart-eyes," Vex scoffed, gesturing vaguely toward the silent, stoic eagle standing beside her. "But it isn’t. I learned the hard way that the Lion King wasn’t a far stretch from the harsh, ugly truth of the animal kingdom."

Vex crossed his arms, his eyes dark and cynical.

"Brothers kill brothers," Vex stated coldly. "Scar and Mufasa were just the tip of the iceberg. Trusting someone in this world just means you are handing them the knife they will eventually use to gut you."

Ren stood frozen in the center of the clearing.

The wind blew softly through the trees, rustling the green leaves above them.

Ren’s brain had come to a screeching halt. The gears in her head ground together as she processed the words that had just come out of the Fox Shaman’s mouth.

Lion King.

Scar.

Mufasa.

Her breath hitched. Her heart did a strange, frantic flip in her chest.

"Wait," Ren breathed, taking a hesitant step forward. Her voice trembled slightly. "How do you know about the Lion King?"

Vex dropped his arms to his sides. He looked at her with an expression that was dead serious.

"Because I’m human, Ren."