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Do you know everytime you’re walking through a forest and you’re feeling as if you were being observed, that you are not completely alone even if you can’t see no one through the foliage, that weird wild owl seemingly looking straight to your soul? You were right, you were never alone since it’s in the forests where the supernatural lives to protect itself from humanity.
But it’s not as if the creatures living in the forests wish to harm you, they are just curious yet suspicious from most humans by nature, it’s not everyday someone comes into their homes uninvited.
But have you ever wondered how the lives of these creatures actually are?
This story is about a group of mismatched creatures that, by their own nature, shouldn’t get along as well as they do.
One of the members of this merry band of misfits was a fae.
No one but them being sure how old they actually were, some saying they were as old as the forest they lived in itself.
Still this fae loved to strike deals with unaware humans or to accept offerings from the pagan, the wiccan, or the covens in exchange for some protection when they used their forest to gather ingredients or renew their energy.
And from the many forms it was said this creature adopted, their prefered form was the one of a tanuki. And if they were to use a humanoid form, they would still have tanuki features, long bangs covering the eyes and pointy ones instead of little round ones.
This fae’s true name was unknown but, until they steal a new one, they answered to the name of Hikari.
Hikari lived with one with many forms, an animal shifter.
And while the shifter prefered to be in the form of one animal or another, his true form was a rather normal one, with the only outstanding features being his feline eyes, easily hidden by a pair of sunglasses, pointy ears, and his fangs, not noticeable until he smirked or talked, which was more often than not.
The shifter’s name was Sango and no one knew how they came to be. Some said he was a sorcerer cursed by the gods for their mischief in life, others said Sango asked a genie to be able to change their looks to feel comfortable in their own skin and the genie granted the wish but not exactly like the human asked for.
In reality, Sango just was born some centuries ago from a kitsune and a changeling, someone secretly substituted by fairies during their infancy, with a strange connection to animals.
The last and youngest member of the group was not a supernatural creature by birth but because of a series of unfortunate events throughout his life.
His name was Kouki and he was both a werewolf and a vampire, a werewolf since his early childhood yet turned into a vampire during a full moon when he was around his twenties.
Luckily for him, these two opposite creatures evening out the effects of the other, even if since then even during normal days Kouki’s “human” form still had wolf ears and tail, and sharp fangs to complete it.
The story of how they met was one as atypical as the trio they formed.
****
It was just a normal day just like the day before in the Yamorimo forest when Hikari found an unconscious child with one of their feet trapped into one of the cursed hunters' traps, no matter how he worked to get rid of them they seemed to appear out of nowhere since he now had to make sure those damned humans with their crossbow and newly introduced powder fire guns didn’t enter the forest.
The fae felt responsible for the hurt human since it was his job to protect the creatures, human or not, that passed through the forest as long as they did no wrong and so he decided to save this young-looking human, and to repair their damaged left foot to the best of their magic abilities.
It took a week of treatments and healing abilities for the young human’s foot to recover.
On the rare occasions the child spent awake, Hikari found out that the name of his patient was Sango and that they weren't a human but a shifter. The only reason Sango was in their true form when they were found out was because they had passed out due to pain and shock.
And even after recovering and leaving Hikari’s lair, Sango kept finding his way back to the fae and started staying more and more time there than where they came from.
And so when Sango was around his 150 birthday, they officially moved in with the fae, and they became the family they never had before, one looking and caring for the other, enabling each other’s shenanigans and getting their payback from hunters and planning sly mischief to trick humans and other creatures.
And somehow, while Hikari and Sango’s personalities were very different from each other they also were like one and the same, always seeming to be on the same page when it came to what they needed and wanted.
And without even noticing, centuries went by, the only changes showing the passage of time was Sango growing up and leaving their childhood behind as they transformed into the adult body they would have for the rest of his life.
****
It had been five hundred years since the fae and shifter lived together and they had met and befriended so many creatures that they didn’t feel as lonely as when they first met
Still, fate works in strange ways and it had yet another surprise by the cunning yet unruly duo.
It was during a rainy night when it happened.
Sango was running around and causing some mayhem as a fox when he crossed someone laying on the floor, curled up in a ball as if they were in pain.
That form smelled distinctly like wet wolf, which made sense since it would be a full moon the following night, but there was something incongruous in all this.
For starters, the curled form didn’t look like a wolf at all but like a young human boy. And this young boy smelled too much like a vampire to be a lycanthrope.
Whatever the case, Sango wouldn’t or couldn’t leave someone in pain under the rain to suffer and so he transformed into a wolf, he thought if the boy came into his senses that’d be a familiar smell that wouldn’t alarm him, and carried the unconscious boy into his back and took him to his home to spend the night and until he’d wake up again.
It wasn’t until three days later that the stray boy finally awoke, but it took a couple more hours for him to take his new surroundings in and to understand why he was there as Sango and Hikari explained everything.
Well, more like Hikari did the explaining while Sango went to the human world to get some new clothes for the boy he picked up since his old clothes were torn apart to the point no sewing would help.
So once the boy was dressed, a plain black shirt with a plaid button up on top and a pair of cuffed jeans, he told the other two his name was Kouki and what exactly happened.
Kouki told them how he had been a werewolf since he was a young kid but he managed to keep it a secret from most people for years, even if he disappeared during the full moons and all that jazz.
As he explained his story, he admitted not to remember what happened since he was more wolf than human, but that he heard some movement somewhere behind him and suddenly something jumped him and, as he bit into it, everything went black and all he could feel was pain and his life draining from him, that he would probably have been dead had he been in his human form.
As he spoke, his new set of ears moved to the sides and a tail stayed unmoving between his legs as if to show the sadness and shame Kouki didn’t allow his voice to express.
With that kouki realized he actually still had his wolf ears and tail showing while in human form, making his eyes widen as he went to touch the top of his head and his lower back and making contact with fur to confirm his suspicions.
His mouth opened several times but no sound came out of it as if Kouki didn’t know which question to ask first.
It was Sango who explained his part of the story now, how he found him and carried him home. Sango also told Kouki that no matter how hard Hikari tried to get all the vampire blood he ingested out of his stomach, it seemed that he must have drunk more than he knew and expected when he bit the vampire as a defense mode.
So, yes, he was alive because he had been in his wolf form when he drank the vampire blood or he would have died of the wounds inflicted by the vampire, but since he was turned into a vampire while transformed, the ears, tail and fangs were like some kind of collateral damage, a side effect of sorts.
Kouki just took a deep breath and sighed, saying he would get used to having two sets of ears and a tail with time. Also the fangs and heightened senses were pretty cool to have either way.
And with that, Kouki prepared to go balk otto the human world before Sango jumped in front of him and reminding him of his new looks and how humans were to be kept unaware of the existence of the supernatural in the forests lest they had a repeat of the hunts like the ones when he was a youngling, the pain he went through all those centuries ago showing in his feline eyes and making Kouki understand he was very much serious about him staying, that he didn’t save him for him to get killed so easily.
And with that, the trio was born even if it still was in its early stages, with Kouki discovering his newfound hybrid existence and what that actually meant.
It seemed the vampire and the werewolf in him seemed to balance the other out, only having to drink blood every few months but being able to live on food the rest of the time yet not being able to stay out in the sun for more than a few minutes at a time, an hour at most.
It also meant he didn’t fully transform on full moons anymore, his wolf instincts would just go haywire for a few nights and having to dig holes in the ground and run around as if chasing a prey as if his life depended on it, he also grew a bit more furr than he already had on the daily basis.
All in all, Kouki guessed that, given the circumstances, he had been pretty lucky since he seemed to mostly get the best of both worlds in a way.
****
As Kouki became more and more comfortable with his new lifestyle, he also got more and more along with the ones that once were just his saviours but that quickly became friends.
Yes, it took some time, so… around a century for the three of them, but their lives were now entwined with each other. Kouki being so easily integrated into the duo Sango and Hikari were, contributing with his snark and salt as well as teaching the older two of what memes were, as well as nowadays slang. He also learnt to take Sango’s flirty remarks and nature with humour and teaming up with Hikari to get payback and get the shifter flustered for a chance.
With time, they became known as the “Trifecta of Chaos of Yamorimo Forest”, the unlikely pack formed of a forest fae, an animal shifter and a vampire-lycan hybrid that due to their circumstances had become more than friends, emotional bonds that made them mates in a platonic way.
They had become a family in a very not traditional way or sense of the word.
As an old saying says: “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”