I was drawn into death, and I felt my soul being drawn into the massive engine that always brings me back... but something was different; it was almost as if there was a massive eye behind me that was searching for my soul.
At first, I thought this was a phantom left behind from my death, until I heard a loud hiss like a snake,
"Tttssss... Where art thou that steals the broken arc of the heavens...."
A deep fear filled my shattered soul, but the sound of the engine covered everything, and I felt the weight of my flesh settle around my soul, and the fear vanished,
I woke to my sister’s voice, and I breathed a sigh of relief, as the familiarity of it settled on me like a warm coat.
"Up, up, lazy cur. Elric, I say, wake up!"
Then I frowned, the voice of Mel was the same, the cadence was perfect, except it was now coming from a hand’s breadth to my left, low and slightly muffled, and there was a wet, rhythmic crunching underneath it.
I slowly opened my eyes and turned my head on the bedroll, and a cute silver fox had the silver orb inside her mouth.
For a moment, I just stared at the new presence in my tent. The fox was lying on its back, all four paws in the air, batting the orb between them and chewing it with evident, total joy, and every time its jaws closed, Mel’s recorded voice came out a little more strangled.
"Up, up, lazy c— lazy c— currrrr—"
Crunch.
"—I say, wake—"
Crunch.
"No," I said, as I sat up. "No. Give me that."
I reached over and pried the stone out of its mouth. It came free with a sound I will spend no further words on, slick and warm and faintly disgusting, the fox’s grip releasing with some reluctance, as if I was relieving it of its personal property.
I held the silver orb up in the light, and it was dented, covered with tooth marks, and glistening. Still, somehow, working, the inscriptions I had made inside of it were not too damaged.
Mel’s voice resumed faintly from inside it, slightly warped now, telling me to get up. Its proximity inscriptions must be damaged, and I don’t know whether I should laugh or cry at this new development.
The fox watched the orb in my hand with rapt, wounded attention, its big blue eyes staring at me as if I had just confiscated its entire world.
When it noticed I was not giving it much attention, the small fox rolled upright, before looking me dead in the eye, and said, in a perfect, tiny, slightly chewed imitation of my sister:
"Lazy cur."
I stared at it.
It stared back at me before tilting its head and swishing its tail, and I noticed that it had three tails, but when it was not swishing them, they stuck so close together that it resembled a single tail.
"Elric," the fox said, in Mel’s voice. "I say. Wake up."
∞
I would like the record to show that a moment ago I had watched a demonic god lift a thirty-kilometre pyramid out of the earth with one hand, crush a demon stronger than Vrakth into paste with the other, and erase me from existence with a shockwave before its palm even landed.
The world had ended. I had died a miserable death, and now I was sitting on a bedroll holding a chewed orb, and I feared I was about to lose my cool to a damned fox.
"You can’t do that," I told it, keeping my own voice low, mindful of the canvas and the camp stirring beyond it. "That’s hers. You can’t just... take it."
"Take it," the fox agreed, in Mel’s voice.
"Stop."
"Stop," said the fox, in my voice.
I went still.
It had me too, just from hearing me speak once. Where was the cute fox in my previous loop? Did someone change it while I was dead?
I don’t think I loved the sound of my own voice, especially when I noted that the fox had duplicated it perfectly. It had the exact dry flatness of my voice, and why did I sound so indecisive?
Hearing myself come out of a fox’s mouth so early in the morning was among the more unwelcome experiences of my many lives, and I told it so.
"That’s deeply unsettling. Stop doing that."
"Stop doing that," the fox echoed, in my voice, and then, clearly pleased with the comparison it was running, switched mid-thought back to Mel’s: "lazy cur."
I blinked, "You’re combining them now. Wonderful. You’ve been alive on this side of the door for one minute, and you’ve already learned to mock me in two voices."
The fox made a sound that was entirely its own, a small bright chirr, like a struck bell wrapped in fur, and I understood its intent, and the intent was, unmistakably, yes.
"Yes," it added, helpfully, in my voice, in case I had missed it, and I tried not to roll my eyes.
I gave up. I held out the ruined silver orb. "If I give this back, will you stop eating it?"
The fox looked at the orb. It looked at me. It very deliberately did not commit to anything.
"No," I agreed. "I didn’t think so."
The fox tilted its head, its blue eyes bright. Its tail swished once, twice, and I felt a pulse through the link, curiosity and a hint of pride, as if it had done something clever and was waiting for praise.
"You," I said, "are the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to me."
The fox blinked. Then it opened its mouth and said, in Mel’s voice, "Ridiculous."
I laughed, not able to help myself. It was not a strong laugh. It was cracked and thin, and it hurt my chest, but it was real, the first real laugh I had let out since the loop began. The fox’s ears perked up, and it said the word again, softer, tasting it.
"Ridiculous."
"Stop that," I said, but I was smiling. "You’re going to give me a complex."
The fox’s tail swished again, and I felt a wave of something warm through the link, not quite affection, not quite amusement, but something close.
"Mel," I said, pointing at the orb. "That’s my sister. Mel. Her voice is the first thing I hear every morning."