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When Noshiko gets off her carriage and finds herself at the entrance of a gorgeous mansion, she’s a little intimidated. Oh, it’s not the riches that fluster her – she’s seen and owned enough of her own to not be affected by them anymore. It’s that it makes her remember how distinguished her hosts are, while she cannot speak a word of French. Of course, that’s why she brought Marc, her translator – she couldn’t have made her way around the country without him. However the Lord of the house speaks Japanese. From what she hears, he was a passionate traveler before he had to settle down – that's why he was eager to receive her. Noshiko feels self-conscious. She hates being outshone.
“Good evening. My father sent me to get you.” A sweet voice interrupts Noshiko’s thoughts as she crosses the gardens, the house’s helps following behind her with her luggage, and she looks up. A young woman is standing before her, wearing a simple blue dress and a white ribbon in her dark curls. Her face is pretty and her eyes a deep watery brown, but it’s her smile that gets to Noshiko: it’s impossibly wide and bright, all dimples and white teeth. She’s speaking in broken Japanese, no doubt taught by her father. Noshiko smiles back, her heart fluttering without cause, and curtsies.
“Noshiko Yukimura. C’est un plaisir.” It means « Nice to meet you » in French, or so she thinks. The other girl raises her eyebrows appreciatively and returns her curtsey, cocking her head on the side when she says: “I'm Marie-Jeanne Valet. Please come in !”.
Noshiko would describe the Viscount Valet as both a sad and fascinating man. She’s travelled a lot herself but the experiences of a powerful trickster and a clueless human are bound to be different. She listens with great interest, holding back a pitying smile whenever he loses himself in his own head. According to the order of succession, he was never meant to inherit the title and was content with his fate, ready to spend his years exploring the world. However his brother died, and the Viscount had to replace him. He could not look more like a man trapped in his own life.
His wife herself is not conventional. The shelves of their reception room are covered in trophies from hunting competitions. “I didn’t know women could participate,” Noshiko murmurs, Marc translating for her. “My wife is too talented to be held down by such bigoted rules”. The pride in the Viscount’s voice makes the kitsune smile. She notices that the name on the trophies is not Valet.
“Argent?” she quietly asks to herself when the Viscount has gone.
“It’s her maiden name.” Noshiko jumps. For all her training and experience, she did not hear Marie-Jeanne come behind her. The other girl is standing very close behind her, long brown hair spilling over Noshiko’s arm as she murmurs in her ear about her mother’s lineage, tracing the engraving on the trophy her guest is holding. “It’s an old name. Our ancestors loved going against conventions. All our women have great hunting skills. It’s a tradition by now.” Her breath is hot against the fox’s neck, her lips ghosting against her ear. However when Noshiko turns to look at her, her face is the perfect example of sweet and mild. No trace of the bold seductress she obviously is.
“All the women? Even you?” Noshiko asks, smiling back flirtatiously even as her heart goes wild in her ribcage. “Mmh, even me.” Marie-Jeanne grabs Noshiko’s waist, pressing her against her side tighter than necessary and displaying more strength than she seems to have. The second after, she’s gone, leaving behind only a trail of perfume.
It gets worse. When Noshiko sighs about her terrible French, Marie-Jeanne says she’ll teach her. The fox expects a study room filled with the smell of old books. Instead, she finds the other girl lying in the grass in the back of the garden, her hair and the material of her dress spilling around her. The sun is out but the air is a little cool, and Marie-Jeanne pulls Noshiko down and covers both of them with a light blanket. Noshiko tells herself that’s it’s alright – that she’s in control. However, as she’s parroting Marie-Jeanne’s every word, she can’t take her eyes off the other’s lips. Noshiko’s repeating coup de foudre for the third time when Marie-Jeanne kisses her.
She only tells her what it means when the sun is setting and they’ve touched each other everywhere the sun could, too.
From there on, it all goes wayward. Noshiko was not planning for any of it, and frankly, she doesn’t want any of it. It’s only been a decade since she buried her last husband. She’s tired of falling for humans, of loving and loving and finding herself crying over a casket before she knows it. She can’t refuse Marie-Jeanne, though. She can’t resist her smile, her voice and her sweetness. She can’t resist her strength, the one in her arms and the one in her eyes. When the Viscount’s daughter knocks on the door of Noshiko’s suite one night, she lets her in. She knows better, but she lets her in.
(She expects Marie-Jeanne to be as sweet under the sheets as she is under the light of day, but there’s predation in her eyes and ferociousness in her every move. Noshiko thinks she’s never seen her hunt. Soon, she can’t think anymore.)
Noshiko’s French is getting much better. Having lived so long, she sometimes mixes up her languages, but French sticks well. “You must have practiced a lot!” exclaims the servant setting up the table for breakfast. Noshiko smiles quietly, thinking that she has no idea how much. She’s not a stickler for etiquette – at least, not this one – and often lofts around in the dinner room while the employees are preparing it, enjoying the smell of fresh bread and oranges. It’s been a few weeks since she came in. She got to stay longer when the Viscount noticed how close she got to his daughter. He probably hopes she’ll teach her about the world. In any case, the servants no longer tense up in her presence. When the stable boy runs in with a panicked grimace, the rest of the personnel following suit to huddle around him, they don’t even notice her.
She catches murmurs of “killings” and “beast”. Curious, she sneaks up on them, putting her hand on the shoulder of the girl she’d talked to earlier. “What is it about?” They hesitate, eyes searching each other, until the girl speaks up. “Well, Madam … it’s a harsh story. Are you sure you’d like to hear it right before eating?”
Noshiko nods, looking her in the eye. “Hum, well. It’s an animal” the girl says and then stops. Noshiko prods: “An animal? What kind of animal?”
“We don’t really know. They say it’s a wolf but … no wolves have ever done this. At least, not to people!” she shivers, eyes losing focus. “My poor sister, she lives around there…”
The stable boy, Dominique, rushes to explain : “The bodies are shred apart, I hear. Claw marks and everything! The farmers say they’ve never seen that. That if it’s a wolf, he’s a giant!”. He’s a sweet eighteen year old boy with red hair and a small face covered in freckles. He’s probably looking to impress Noshiko, maybe scare her so he could comfort her. It’s a technique he’s tried several times over, to her and Marie-Jeanne’s great amusement. However, in that moment, Noshiko doesn’t feel like laughing. She knows all too well the creature he describes, and in more ways than one. Swallowing hard, she nods with the appropriate amount of concern on her face and goes back to her spot next to the window.
Thoughts of old enemies and friends, of dead lovers and lacerated bodies cloud her mind until Marie-Jeanne comes in and takes her mind off it.
“Have you heard of the killings in the region?”
Noshiko’s standing in the woods, her shoulders wrapped in a warm plaid. Marie-Jeanne is a few feet before her, her silhouette cut against the light filtering through the trees and the shadows curling around them. The fox has been quiet for most of the past hours, watching almost religiously as Marie-Jeanne, a mere human and wearing a long dress, puts down wild beasts with the most terrifying ease in the world.
Well, it’s not that she’s not working hard. Noshiko can see the sheen of sweat on her forehead and above her upper lip, the shine of it in the dip between her collarbones. She runs, crouches, sometimes stays still for so long it seems she’s become a statue as she waits out her prey. Noshiko follows suit without complaints, fascinated by the grace with which she kills.
Right now, Marie-Jeanne is holding a crossbow, ready to fire. They’ve tracked a doe rather deep in the woods. Noshiko is grateful for how focused Marie-Jeanne is – hopefully she won’t notice how unaffected she is by all the effort.
“Noshiko? Are you listening?” The sound of her name on Marie-Jeanne’s tongue pulls her out of her thoughts. The huntress is speaking low, but … “Aren’t you worried you’ll scare her off?” She replies, equally low. She doesn’t dare move. “It’s fine.” Noshiko can’t see it, but she hears the smile in Marie-Jeanne’s voice. “Her coming out is exactly what I need right now.” She shuffles a bit, and the doe sprints from behind a cluster of trees. Not fast enough – Marie-Jeanne puts it down before it can get out of their sight. Letting out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, Noshiko joins her next to the animal. Normally, a help would come with them to carry the game back home, but Marie-Jeanne wanted to be alone with Noshiko. She sits in the grass and pats the spot next to her, looking at her lover expectantly.
Noshiko sits.
“So. Have you heard about the killings?” Marie-Jeanne asks, and Noshiko nods slowly. “An animal has been attacking nearby villages, right? I heard it’s got people so scared they’re moving out” she says, eyeing the way sunlight filters through the leaves above them. Marie-Jeanne hums, pressing her side against Noshiko and resting her head on top of hers.
“Et connais-tu son surnom?” It only takes Noshiko a few seconds to grasp the meaning of her lover’s words. “Ah … if I know its nickname? Yes. They call it the Beast of Gévaudan, right?” Noshiko’s mouth is almost buried in Marie-Jeanne’s hair. It smells of lavender, and the fox thinks there’s better to do than talking about the Beast when Marie-Jeanne says: “I’m going to kill it.”
Noshiko freezes.
Marie-Jeanne can feel it. She straightens up, looking the kitsune in the eye. “I will hunt it and I will kill it. Only I can do it.” She smiles, and all Noshiko can do is smile weakly back at her. Inside, she’s crying.
It turns into an argument.
They don’t mean to fight. When Marie-Jeanne notices how scared Noshiko is for her, she tries not to mention it anymore. But Noshiko is observant, and she can see how it’s all that’s on her lover’s mind along the course of the next three days. Worse, she can see her excitement. Under the sadness and the righteous anger at what the Beast did to its victims, there is the excitement of the hunt and it drives Noshiko up the wall, because she knows exactly what’s awaiting the huntress.
“You’re enjoying it.” It’s an accusation. Marie-Jeanne sighs. She’s standing in the office next to her bedroom, although it’s more an annex to her armory. Noshiko’s leaning against the doorframe. Closing the case containing her crossbow, Marie-Jeanne turns towards her with pleading eyes. “Please, not tonight. It’s the last one before my departure.” There have been other killings in a village two hours from there, and the huntress is leaving at dawn. “Look … I know I can’t dissuade you." Noshiko begins. "You’ve made your mind. But please, at least bring people with you. You’ll need a lot of men to do this.” And perhaps that wasn’t the right choice of word, because Marie-Jeanne closes off completely. “I don’t need men to do this. I only need me.” Of course that wasn’t what Noshiko meant, but by this point she’s exhausted, hurt and angry. “If you cared about me, you wouldn’t do this.” the fox says. She hears the tears in her own voice and she hates it so she runs back to her suite, leaving the huntress alone.
The next morning, Marie-Jeanne departs. Noshiko can feel her hesitate on her doorstep before leaving the mansion. In the end, she doesn’t knock, but says from the other side of the door: “I’ll kill it. I’ll kill it, and I’ll come back to you. It’s a promise.” Noshiko hears the sadness in her lover’s voice and she feels terrible. It’s not like she can stay here in France forever. It’s not like she can take Marie-Jeanne with her either. The huntress is too proud of her name – not Valet, the other one, heavy with legends. She plans on making it heavier and Noshiko knows it. She knows they can’t be, not for much longer; still she is the one blaming Marie-Jeanne for following her own path. She knows she’s not being fair.
She’s also too proud to apologize.
She follows her, though. Slipping a dark light coat with a large hoodie on, she pays a carriage driver to follow Marie-Jeanne’s own. The village isn’t very far away. It’s harder to keep track of the huntress when they get there. Marie-Jeanne eats; she listens to street musicians and eats fruits. Everyone knows why she’s here and they feed her their stories, true or false, with hope. Marie-Jeanne takes them all. She looks serene. Noshiko knows it’s just the patience of the predator. She’s readying herself for the hunt.
Then the night comes, no matter how much Noshiko wills it away. She’s spent the day slipping from shadow to shadow, following her lover, wondering whether she should tell her the truth and knowing it wouldn’t change anything. Deep down, all she can do is protect her. Now, Marie-Jeanne is sitting on the edge of a well, looking grave. Noshiko knows why. The Beast won’t be found until it kills.
The huntress has to wait for someone to die.
It happens much sooner than the kitsune expects. A scream rings in the air from a farm to their left, followed by several others. Marie-Jeanne springs to her feet, quickly reaching the farm despite the weight of her weapons. She finds a lacerated body and a few wounded people. “Where?” she demands. She seems taller in the dark. They point her towards the edge of the woods and she goes without looking back. Noshiko comes after, quickly scanning the wounded to see if they were bitten. They weren’t. The Beast only bites to kill. The fox turns around abruptly when she hears a pained scream that fills her with dread.
Marie-Jeanne found it.
Or rather, it found her.
Noshiko’s fast, but the woods are thick and tortuous and she’s not used to this type of landscape. Giving up on chasing after a werewolf and an experienced huntress between trees, she climbs a small cliff and runs along it. Her vantage point helps her: she spots Marie-Jeanne running after something huge and dark unlike anything she’s ever seen. She runs faster, hoping to outrun the Beast – the werewolf, she corrects herself – and land on its other side, trapping the wolf between Marie-Jeanne and her. The weight of her katana heavy on her hip, Noshiko realizes the Beast stopped running a beat too late. She brakes hard when she sees it turn around in a small clearing, waiting for Marie-Jeanne to come at it. And she does.
The huntress sprints out of the woods, her weapon case hanging from across her shoulders, a blood stain blooming on her side like a huge flower. Crossbow in hand, she shoots two arrows at the Beast in the time it takes Noshiko to jump and land on the other side of the clearing. As Noshiko straightens herself up, the Beast smacks her lover right in the ribcage. She shouts in pain and tumbles in a cluster of trees, her bag spilling open. Noshiko runs towards her, but she’s already sitting up, shooting more arrows at the Beast. Her accuracy compensates her weaker speed. She gets arrows in the wolf's legs and torso, but it’s still walking forward, shifting back and forth between its animal and its human form, probably trying to scare the huntress. She doesn’t falter. Noshiko pulls out her katana as the Beast closes in on Marie-Jeanne, ready to strike …
… that’s when Marie-Jeanne pulls out her spear. She throws it at the Beast with all the strength she has left. Noshiko sees its tip pierce right through the werewolf chest and back half a second before she herself buries her blade in his neck. She knows she didn’t do anything – he was already dead.
Marie-Jeanne did it.
She killed the Beast.
“N – Noshiko…?” The wet murmur brings the kitsune out of her daze. She pushes the Beast’s body on the side and kneels next to Marie-Jeanne. The hunter is bleeding in copious amounts, with a new gash across her right shoulder and clavicle. There’s blood seeping out of her mouth. Noshiko moves to stop the bleeding and Marie-Jeanne starts with a gasp. That’s when the fox sees it – the shocked, confused air on her face. Her kitsune’s rage hasn’t subsided yet. Her eyes are probably still glowing.
They stare at each other in silence until Marie-Jeanne raises her shaky hand towards Noshiko’s face.
“What are you?” she breathes, tracing her eyelids with the tip of her fingers. Then she turns her head towards the Beast. “What is he?”
“If you let me save you, I’ll tell you all about it” the fox answers softly, tears pooling in her eyes.
Noshiko does her best to bandage the wounds. She’s sobbing and trying to hide it, brushing Marie-Jeanne’s hair out of her face every now and then. “You’ll be fine.” She needs the huntress to believe it, even though she doesn’t. When she’s done, she takes her back to her carriage, carrying her in her arms. “Please don’t die”, she murmurs when Marie-Jeanne loses consciousness. The crowd awaiting them back at the village opens up a path for them. People are hesitant to ask if it’s done, if the Beast is dead, but Noshiko can see the question in their eyes. She doesn’t care.
The driver goes fast, whipping the horses to make them run harder, faster, but they’re tired. Soon, they can’t go on. So Noshiko makes a choice. She rips off her dress above the knee and orders the man to stop. Then hoists her lover up on her back and starts running, abandoning her katana in the carriage. She hears him call after her but soon everything is a blur. Her legs and arms ache, her lungs ache but it’s worth it. It’s all worth it.
She gets there in time. They lay Marie-Jeanne down on her bed, clean her wounds and close them. No one asks Noshiko why her dress is ripped off, how she carried her or how long she did it. They fuss over the huntress for hours until it’s certain she is safe. All the while, Noshiko stands in a corner, exhausted. When they turn to her, to finally ask her exactly what happened, she’s gone.
Noshiko never returns there, although she doesn’t leave France right away. She travels a little more, keeping away from the eyes of the high society. She hears on country-side roads that the Beast was defeated. “Did they find its body?” she asks in her shaky French. The barman throws a glance at her, discreetly trying to see under the large hood of her coat. “Yes. It was a huge beast” the man nods, “a real monster with large claws and fangs. But the villagers couldn’t look at it too much. Doctors from the capital took it, ‘said they’d study it.” Noshiko hums and doesn’t press the issue – as far as she's concerned, it's a good thing. Each country has its own people devoted to making sure the supernatural isn’t exposed.
A few months down the road, she meets her former translator again and asks about Marie-Jeanne. The maid of Gévaudan, as people call her now, is getting married. It breaks Noshiko’s heart. She thinks of how she wasted their last night together and barely holds her tears back. The fox knows she can’t go back though, so she shuts off the memories of how her laughter sounded and how her skin felt, and focuses on the rest. She laughs hearing how Marie-Jeanne reclaimed the name Argent. How her husband will wear it too. She remembers the eagerness in Marie-Jeanne’s voice when she talked about exploits and legends, about broadening the family’s legacy. It’s bittersweet, but the kitsune knows by experience that it’s all it can be when falling in love with a human.
Soon after, Noshiko leaves France. She never goes back.
“Mr Argent, is there any way you could help us find out who the Beast is?” Scott asks, his voice drawing Noshiko out of her reverie.
She’s leaning against the doorframe of Christopher Argent’s office. He’s rented an apartment for his time in town. It’s impersonal, empty save for an impressive amount of weapons and a family picture. Noshiko’s eyes linger on Allison. After so long, her memory is fuzzy, but the girl reminds her of Marie-Jeanne. Sighing, she looks around the room, her eyes settling on Allison’s father. He looks older, tired, but that hard gleam she’d seen in the eyes of a beautiful huntress all those years ago survives. It’s ironic, Noshiko thinks. She left Marie-Jeanne because she’d been exposed. She’d thought without her, the girl would have no choice but to forget everything – how a man had turned into a beast and how Noshiko’s eyes had glowed the color of fire.
For a long time, Noshiko had felt somehow guilty. She should have known the huntress wouldn’t let go of such a great challenge. Of course she’d go after the supernatural, after the unknown. She made the Argent name legendary, but for centuries Noshiko had only associated cruelty with it. She had thought, “Maybe I should have let her die”, hating herself for it the minute after, because she knows Marie-Jeanne wouldn't have approved of some of her descendants' choices. Noshiko had made her peace since then though. What was done was done. She could’ve never let Marie-Jeanne die.
“I don’t think I can help you with that. This is all I have on the maid of Gévaudan …” Chris sighs. He pulls a huge cardboard box from the closet next to his desk. Journals, letters, weapons. Noshiko’s hands itch – she wants to take it all, to read it, to remember. She refrains herself. That life, that love, have already ended. Noshiko turns her attention outside. It’s a lovely day. No one would guess a murderous chimera is roaming the streets at night.
“Oh, wait … did this belong to her?” she hears Kira ask, cutting off the older man in his explanations.
“Mm, I’m not sure. It was found among her weapons the night she killed the Beast” Chris answers. “The reports do say the Beast’s head was cut off, although Marie-Jeanne doesn’t say anything about it in her journals.” The hunter’s words draw Noshiko’s attention. She turns around.
Kira is holding her katana, the one she’d left behind in the carriage that night. Noshiko swallows hard, walking over to them and tracing the patters on the sheath with the tips of her fingers. “Is it very old? Is it a good one?” Kira asks. Her mother smiles at how excited she is, holding that antique. “Yes, it’s a good one.” Looking over at Chris, she asks: “You wouldn’t mind, would you …?” There’s more emotion in her voice than she’d like. The hunter considers her for a moment. Noshiko sees the way he narrows his eyes and thinks maybe he understands what this is. If he does, he doesn’t say anything but: “Of course.”
When they leave, she tells Kira to treat it right. “Is it that precious? Maybe I shouldn’t use it…” the younger kitsune answers, pensively turning the blade between her hands. “No, you can.” And, after a beat: “I’m happy that you have it.” Kira doesn’t pick up on the meaning of her words. Noshiko is relieved. She thinks maybe one day she’ll tell her everything.