RICHARD

Richard was born to two other kitsunes living on Lynxon, and in a similar situation to how he had started, neither had really ever been around any people, mostly living their lives as though regular foxes, and raising Richard to be the same way. Behaving like typical foxes, they didn't really stick around once Richard had grown enough to take care of himself, and everything since then he'd done on his own. When they were together, his family didn't really communicate much, and since his parents didn't know what other species referred to them as, the most he ever knew about himself was that they were 'special foxes', ones given the gift of a long life, so long as they were smart and careful. Richard took that to heart, being cautious about everything he did.

Things after that were rather uneventful for a long, long time. Richard had no interest in leaving the forest, and so he never did. Most of his days were spent hunting, and sometimes speaking with regular foxes around the area. He always stood out, being a fox that resembled one from earth, rather than the ones present on Lynxon, but it didn't affect any of those interactions much, since they were often brief.

Eventually, after being around for 230 years or so, loud noises were coming from near the edge of the forest, and he finally got curious enough to peek out. What he found was a lot of construction going on, renovating a small town that he'd been unaware was even out there into a much larger one. The process made him a little curious, but in the end he decided that the noise bothered him, and decided to leave it alone for now. He'd occasionally come back to the edge of the woods to see how it was going, but would leave each time as the noise was still overwhelming, even when the construction had finally stopped.

That small-turned-large town stayed busy for a couple decades, but around 30 years after he'd first initially checked out what was happening over there, the town had started dying out a bit. Whatever happened there economically had left it much emptier than before, and most buildings abandoned. There was still a good chunk of people living there, but it had gotten much, much quieter. And finally, after 260 years or so of living in the forest exclusively, Richard let his boredom overtake him, and he decided to venture through town. He'd sometimes encountered people in the woods before, but he'd always stayed very clear of them, as he did with anything that was larger than he was. He still kept this sneaky habit up while exploring the town, mostly hiding in dark spots and watching people. He wouldn't ever attempt interacting with anyone for a long time, but the sheer difference between how these 'animals' lived in comparison to everything in the woods certainly made him curious.

After spending about 10 years observing the town on and off, he'd managed to slowly start understanding some of the words people used, each word making it exponentially easier to learn more of them. After practicing by himself in the woods for awhile, he'd managed to figure out speaking as well. The first time he decided to try to speak to someone went rather awkwardly. He'd noticed the couple anthros in town, and so he'd tried to simply stand on his back legs and look through town more openly, but he was wobbly, and still sounded unnatural when he spoke. The two extra tails he had grown over time didn't help much either, just resulting in lots of stares and confusion. He didn't like having so much attention on him, and returned off to the woods again for awhile. But eventually, after accidentally managing to find out about his transformative abilities, he decided to try again, looking much more human this time, and without those eye-grabbing tails. Though before ever entering town again in that form, he'd managed to snatch some old clothes that had been thrown out by someone, recognizing that all human and human-adjacent people seemed to wear them, and not wanting to stand out again. He started talking to others again, not really interested in actual conversation, but just wanting to learn more about what was going on in this place.

He kept doing this for about another 10 years, figuring out how society worked, at least, for the most part. A lot of it still confused him, but the 'strange' way things were run here made him realize two things. 1. He really liked whatever that 'alcohol' shit people made was. Especially since it didn't seem to affect him for as long as it did other people in town. and 2. People seemed really dumb. Like, really dumb, in comparison to everything in the forest. They all seemed so well fed and comfortable, like nothing could ever possibly happen to them. And this second revelation gave him an idea. Why the hell was he wasting so much energy hunting forest prey, when there were so many large and stupid creatures filling this town. And so many that loved to intoxicate themselves for fun, only making them even stupider. He could appreciate the smarts it took to create something as cohesive as the town, it reminded him of when he'd watch bees or ants for fun a long time ago, but besides that? These things felt like they had no self-preservation. As he was told as a pup, he was a special fox, and he was both smart and cautious. And using all the things he'd learned both from the forest and observing people, he'd figured out that drunk people were easy to lure away from the bar, and how to pick out people who seemed alone, much like picking out weak/tired prey back in the woods. His go-to excuse at first was usually to offer just fucking around in the woods for fun, which worked for some of the more energetic drunk people, but less so on those who didn't care as much for playtime activities.

So his excuse was working for some, but he knew he could make it more effecient. And so he decided to try and imitate human homes and build a crudely made shelter in the woods. Near enough that it wasnt very hard for him to head back into town, but far enough that it was unlikely for anyone to accidentally come across it. Offering people to come back to that house seemed to work much better. Some would start getting anxious after getting deeper into the woods, especially when it started going off the main hiking paths, but Richard had gotten much better at talking and easing people's nerves, that by the time people would realize something felt very off, they were already far enough that it was too late, since Richard was often sober again by that point, and was stronger than most thanks to the parallel magic that was part of all kitsunes. Those drunks dumb enough to follow him never stood any chance, especially so if they did actually make it all the way to his house, where he'd started storing some actual weapons, mainly sharp objects like knives to make up for the lack of claws in his humanoid form, since while he could do many inbetween points from fox to human, it was hard to keep claws transformed without accidentally making his hands a little less human-like, and took just a tad too long to be able to do it stealthily.

For awhile this would be the main thing he'd do in town, since he wasnt much for conversation outside of it. But he'd eventually caught on that part of why inviting people to his house seemed to work better was because people were finding something about him appealing/attractive, and were expecting something else to happen at the idea of arriving there. Richard would eventually decide to indulge in that too, never at his own home, he didn't want anyone knowing where it was and leaving it alive, but he was willing to accept the offers of going to others homes and fooling around. Which also turned out to be a decent way of getting food, not quite as good as fresh meat, but the snacks he was allowed to have as a guest in people's homes were still appealing in their own way, as well as being introduced to movies by a few people as well. Whenever he was feeling especially lazy but still hungry, he'd start shoplifting from the local chain store. And also would manage to figure out how to set up some extremely basic electricity in his shitty shack. Getting himself an old old television that someone was giving away for free, and then beginning to shoplift movies as well (or sometimes just steal them from people's homes, if they showed him one he particularly liked). Most movies didn't appeal to him too much, but he found horror and thriller movies very fun. This addition also gave him more excuses to lure people back, since he could offer to watch a movie together as well. Things were pretty nice and settled for him by now. He had two easy ways to get food, and some social interaction with others that he could easily control. He was pretty satisfied with this. He wouldn't say he was necessarily 'happy' or anything, but he never really had been, life was mostly just satisfying his boredom and continuing to survive.

Stuff would stay like that pretty much as time continued to pass by. Richard would sit around watching stuff, maybe going into the town out of boredom, other times going into the town to try and grab more people from the bar, but mostly keeping to himself. About a year-ish ago from the current day, Richard would go to the bar again with his usual plans. After having spent so much time shoplifting in the store, he'd noticed lots of people tending to avoid one employee. The guy certainly looked weird, though he was incredibly friendly, but still, despite his pleasant demeanor, it still seemed that people always wanted to get away from him. Richard had paid attention to notice this much, but never really managed to notice anything else odd about the guy. He seemed like he'd be a good choice to lure back, I mean, everyone was avoiding the guy, it didnt seem too likely that people would freak out or anything if he went missing. But the store felt too public, and this guy never went to bar. ..Until one night he did for some reason. So Richard took that as an opportunity, this surely would have been an easy meal, the guy was so friendly all the damn time. While getting through how chatty he was felt like a chore, he still did manage to convince him to come back to his house. Though. He still didn't stop talking. But he also wasn't arguing at all with how far into the woods they were going, this guy felt like the embodiment of exactly why Richard started trying luring back people in the first place. Just. A complete lack of any self-preservation. He'd gotten him to come back with the promise of watching a horror movie together, and even when they made it all the way to his home, the guy was still as chipper as before and excited to watch.

Richard let his new 'guest' pick out the movie they wanted to watch, whilst he went outside for a moment to grab a knife to hide in his pocket and returning to join in. About 30 minutes into the movie, Richard decided not to prolong things any longer, also because his new chatty 'friend' had finally gone quiet, invested in the movie, and he didnt want him to start rambling on and on again. He went to go in for the kill, stabbing him right in the chest, intending to aim where the heart was, but not quite getting it. No matter, surely he must've still punctured a lung or something. ..But that wasn't what happened. Instead he'd get surprised by two things, one being that the blood that got everywhere was blue, something he'd never seen before, and the other... Being that the guy didn't seem fazed by it whatsoever, instead only remarking about how it'd be a pain to wash out, and how he should've figured something was up earlier but didn't. Richard would try again, stabbing him another 3 times, but still no dice, and also quickly noticing that while the wounds most definitely bled, and the guy was...well, sort of reacting to the pain, the actual wounds were quickly just healing back up. ...This had him freaked out now, what seemed like a genius idea was now a nightmare as the chance of this guy going back home and telling people what happened became a possibility. He was snapped out of his spiraling thoughts though when the 'freak of nature' he'd just stabbed 4 times suddenly expressed disappointment about the fact he stopped. After confirming, at least as best he could, that this guy wouldn't go telling people, Richard decided to let the night take a different turn and indulge in this weirdo's masochism.

While he'd admit it was definitely a fun time, he hadn't really expected it to be anything more, just like the times he himself agreed to go to other's homes before. He wanted to kick the guy out and send him back home after they were done, but he was convinced to let him sleep the night there. And the morning back as he showed him the way back out of the woods, the other guy, who he finally remembered was named Levi, as he didn't really care the night prior, but felt at least mildly obligated to use his name now, kept expressing interest in wanting to come back sometime. ...Richard wasn't really sure about it, being around someone who talked so much was absolutely draining, but, it was nice getting to let everything out on this guy, like a stress toy that actively wanted you to fuck it up. So he gave in and agreed, now he's...well. He supposes he's in some sort of relationship now. But he's not really sure what else to do about it. He might be sort of getting attached to the guy, but he just feels confused most of the time with how absurdly positive about everything Levi is, especially with him wanting to actually take him out places in town. It's definitely the weirdest situation he's ended up in, but hell, he's a fox that started disguising himself to act human, who is he to question his life at this point.