F0X09T Book 1 Chapter 8

Fox O'Nine Tales
Larissa of Foxwood

Chapter Eight

     Larissa could feel the pounding of her heart sharpen and quicken, as if there were a terrified trapped mouse inside her – and it wanted to burst free of her chest and flee back down the polished stone hallway to the sunlight and freedom outside!  It was then that Bea clasped Larissa's hand tightly in her furry paw and Larissa was greatly relieved to know that she wasn't the only one shaking with nervousness. She glanced sideways at Reggie and saw that he was pretending to be very cool and calm and matter-of-fact about all these fancy regal goings-on, but he kept nervously clearing his throat with little coughs that sounded like little muffled foxy snarls.  Only Lord Chamberlain Reynard seemed quite in his natural element, fairly prancing down the long broad hallway just in front of the shaky trio of nervous visitors.
    
     The seemingly endless hallway was as broad as a township avenue and the ceiling above was as high as a three-story building. Larissa thought it looked very much like a cave, but a cave with finely fitted and elegantly carved sections of stone wall, the stone wall ornamented with enormous oil painting portraits in gilded frames.  But why aren't there torches in sconces? she wondered. Where was the dim light that illuminated the hall – light like a dawn sunrise or a summer's evening sunset – coming from?  All she could tell was that some of the sections of wall seemed more like glass than stone, and they seemed to be emitting a sort of soft glow.  She looked up to the high ceiling and saw that some of the sections of ceiling seemed to slightly glow as well. Really high tech, she thought, or maybe just Dream Kingdom magic…  
     
     Then she saw them – and nearly tripped and fell, simultaneously realizing that the loud gasp she just heard was her own. And then she could feel the burn of the blush from embarrassment rising in her cheeks.     

     There were two of them.  They stood motionless before the two formidable oak doors that formed a solemn gate at the end of the long grand hall.  They were both at least six foot tall, towering over Larissa, Bea and Reggie, and even the tall-for-a-fox Reynard. But then, they weren't foxes.  Larissa had at first thought, as they approached the big oak doors in the dim light, that they were statues of some sort. Because surely there was no place for such scary creatures in Foxwood. But step by step by nervous step, it had finally become another new shocking reality for Larissa – who had only today (perhaps prematurely?!) decided that she hoped her Foxwood dream was really a real reality: These "statues" were alive.
     
     Larissa beheld, somewhat in awe and somewhat fearfully, her first wolves.
     
Reggie and Bea had spoken of these fellow citizens of Foxwood, but Larissa had assumed they would be funny and sweet and delightful – just like the foxes. Just like the foxes-come-to-life straight out of her drawings and paintings back home. Playmates. But these two silent Wolfen Guards, uniformed in black leather, wrapped in bandoliers of sheathed daggers, and each holding in his enormous black-clawed paw a tall savage-looking pike with a gleaming steel axe-head mounted on a long jewel-encrusted shaft, did not look to Larissa like anyone she might want to play with.  She stared as if transfixed at their fearsome black-furred werewolf faces with their blazing yellow eyes that stared straight ahead. She hoped neither would suddenly turn his gaze to lock his eyes onto hers – for she feared she might scream.   
    
        At Lord Chamberlain Reynard's approach, the Wolfen Guards slowly tilted their spear-like pikes to form an "X" across the huge oak doors.  Reynard puffed out his chest and huffed out a most annoyed "Huff!"  But the Wolfen Guards remained immaculately impassive, their eyes continuing to stare straight ahead.
    
        "OK! OK!" Reynard fairly shouted. "We don't have all day!  Our Visitor is here! – she has come a long way!  Her hosts have come with her, there must be no more delay! – of their appointed audience with the Princesses, do pray!"
     
       No response from the Wolfen Guards prompted Reynard to flip one of his finely cuffed and multi-finger-ringed paws ever so dramatically and dismissively in the air just in front of the Guards' faces.  Then he spun round to face Larissa, Reggie and Bea, angrily crossing his arms, his face twisted and darkened in an expression of utter disgust, his whiskers standing straight out and twitching violently.
    
       It was after what seemed to Larissa like forever, though it was actually only a few moments, that one of the Wolfen Guards slowly tipped his tall pike back to lightly tap its frightening axe-head against the oak door.  After another unbearably long few moments there was the sound of gentlest bell chimes – the origin of which Larissa could not begin to determine.
     
      The two Wolfen Guards turned and slowly pushed open the two massive oak doors.  The leather-clad sentinels then stood motionless again, just inside the entranceway now opened for the visitors.  As if by design, the Guards left only enough room between themselves for Reynard, Larissa, Reggie and Bea to pass through in single file – with nary an inch of space to spare between passing Lord Chamberlain and visitors and impassive wolves.  Reynard went first, of course, followed by Reggie (after another of his snarly fox-cough throat-clearings), followed by Bea, who seemed, to Larissa, to curtsey (just a bit) to the wolves as she stepped between them, though she didn't dare to look up at them.  But as Larissa carefully stepped through the narrow space between the Wolfen Guards, she couldn't help but continue to stare up at the faces of the wolves, her gaze having seemingly become undetachably affixed to their terrifyingly fierce but truly awesome grim countenances.  It was just as Larissa stepped clear of the two Guards, her head still twisted backwards, her gaze still riveted to one wolf's frozen face, that that particular Wolfen Guard suddenly came unfroze.  He tilted his head ever so slightly, locked one of his great yellow eyes onto Larissa's startled eyes, and gave her a wink.  Larissa jumped! And she crashed into Bea, sending the both of them into a rolling tumble across the finely polished chamber floor.
     
       Larissa, her face once again blushing in embarrassment, could hear Reynard harrumphing, "oh my, (harrumph!), oh my, (harrumph!), oh my, my, my, my! (harrumph!!!)",  and she could see Reggie helping Bea to her feet, Bea having erupted in a full fit of her giggles.  As Larissa started to get back up onto her own feet, she was grateful for the helping hand extended to her, clasping her own hand tightly to that helpfully extended … hand.
     
        It was indeed a hand and not a paw.  And when Larissa looked up into the face of the owner of that hand, she saw not a fox's face, but the face of a young lady not much older than herself.  She had to be a Princess, having such a beautiful tiara on her head and such a beautiful matching necklace and matching bracelets on her wrists and rings on her fingers, all of it inlaid with gleaming gold.
Funny, thought Larissa, I had just assumed that the Princesses would be foxes, not girls like me!    
     
        "Hello, Larissa.  I am Winona."
     
         Princess Winona smiled warmly at Larissa and Larissa couldn't help but smile back, instantly enchanted by the serenely composed young woman with her mane of soft brunette hair that hung past her waist and her twinkling blue-green eyes.
     
        Lord Chamberlain Reynard suddenly remembered his station and began acting out, whirling round in great circles and making grand gestures with his arms and paws.
    

        "Larissa, Reggie and Bea!" he bellowed ever so importantly. "I welcome you to the Great Throne Room and Council Chamber of the Princesses of Foxwood!  And I present you, proudly, to Princess Winona, Belle of Leo, and Princess of your own home Province of Bliss!  And presently, she is, of course, in this season of Leo, and in the absence of King Anton, our reigning Princess of all Foxwood!"
    
        Reggie bowed a slow formal bow toward the Princess, while Bea dropped to her knees, her head bowed in submission nearly to the floor – and then she whacked at Reggie's ankles until he, too, fell to his knees.  Reynard pinched the bridge of his long fox snout and rolled his eyes in exasperation at the comically misguided, though sincere, attempts at royal etiquette being improvised by the Princess Winona's two loyal fox subjects.
     
      "Now none of that, you two," said Winona. "We're all family here."
      
       Larissa was stricken speechless, unaccustomed as she was to be holding hands with the reigning Princess of a Dream Kingdom.  She could only stare at Winona's face, as lovely and inviting as the Wolfen Guards' faces had been fierce and forbidding.  Princess Winona began gently tugging Larissa's hand, guiding her forward into the Chamber Room. She was saying something, but Larissa was lost in the visual wonders of the extraordinary art and ornament festooned rotunda she was now in, all of it washing over her eyes like a magical panoramic kaleidoscope, and washing out the sound of Princess Winona's voice in crashing waves of finely framed portraiture, elegantly crafted furniture, perfectly sculpted sculptures, intricately weaved hanging tapestries – and all in a breathtakingly imagined and executed architecture.
      
      Larissa thought the perfectly round rotunda had to be a part of the enormous central tower of the castle.  And it was indeed enormous, about a football field across, and with a very high ceiling. In the center of the chamber was a "Round Table" with twelve adjoined sections, each section complemented with its own ornate backless sitting chair. Larissa noticed that some of the table sections were neat and orderly with a few carefully placed pens and papers, while other sections were piled high with books and disorganized loose papers and other strange objects.  The center of the Round Table was an open space with a kind of round hearth with a fire pit built into the floor.  And there must have been a fire doused out just before their arrival, thought Larissa, because a haze of blue smoke hung in the air just above the fire pit.  Oddly, though the smoke seemed to be dissipating, it didn't seem to be at all rising. It just hung there as it slowly dissolved away, as if held in some invisible ball.
     
       Across from the great Round Table, against the polished stone walls of the round chamber, were twelve elaborate thrones, each raised up from the floor by several stone steps, each situated directly behind and corresponding with one of the twelve seats at the twelve-sectioned Round Table. Twelve Princesses, twelve seats at the table, twelve thrones, thought Larissa. I get it.  Next to each throne was an arched portal doorway, leading, Larissa could see, to a deeper interior quarters.  Some of the doorways had plush velvety curtains drawn across them. Some had magnificently embroidered tapestries hung across them. The only other thing Larissa managed to take in, as Princess Winona led her across the chamber floor toward the Round Table, was that there was a mezzanine level walkway high up in the chamber, circling the entire chamber wall.  She could see a single arched doorway, just visible behind the low forward wall encasing the walkway. Why a thirteenth doorway? wondered Larissa.
     Larissa's attention was finally jarred away from the architectural and artistic  wonder of the Council Princesses' Chamber by the Princesses themselves, all twelve of them, who had now surrounded her near the Round Table and were firing questions at her – all the questions seeming to be some variant of wanting to know if she had noticed anything peculiar or out of the ordinary in her passing over from her waking world to the Kingdom of Foxwood.  All the questions blurred together into one confusing buzz in Larissa's ears. She felt faint. Princess Winona put a protective arm around Larissa's shoulders and hugged her close. Her gesture greatly soothed Larissa's once again racing heart.
    
     "Sisters! Sisters! Shame on all of you!" scolded Princess Winona. "Poor Larissa has not even been properly introduced and you are interrogating her about matters she can't possibly even know anything at all about! How could she know if there was anything unusual in her passing over?!  Does she make the trip regularly?!"
     
      The other Princesses, soundly chastened by Winona, becalmed themselves and lowered their eyes, it being their turn for embarrassment. But just as quickly their solemn expressions brightened and warm smiles began popping up like springtime flowers.  One by one, the elegantly gowned and marvelously bejeweled young ladies began stepping forward to extend their hands in welcome to Larissa and introduce themselves to her.
     
       "Welcome to Foxwood, Larissa," said the dark-eyed Princess with silken ebony skin, who was gowned in flowing chartreuse, and whose jewelry favored sapphires. "I am Zenobia, Princess of Glory."
     Larissa could only clasp the elegant young lady's fingertips and offer a nod, words having absolutely deserted her.  She felt quite frumpy and underdressed, in her jeans and sneakers, to be the center of attention for these beautiful young women, all of whom appeared to be decked out for the most spectacular fantasy ball.  Thankfully, Princess Winona stayed close at Larissa's side, steadying her and whispering bits of Princess addenda in her ear.
     "Zenobia," whispered Winona, "is the Belle of Virgo, so she'll be taking over reign of the Kingdom from me in two weeks, as the late summer moons arise."
     Another princess stepped forward.
     "Welcome, Larissa," said the Princess with green eyes, blazing red hair and a sunburst of freckles on her face and shoulders, who was gowned in dark magenta, and whose rings and bracelets were all inlaid with jade. "I am Ronaele, Belle of Pisces, and Princess of Patience."
     Larissa again awkwardly clasped the Princess's fingertips and again awkwardly nodded a "hello," wondering if maybe she was supposed to kiss her jade ring or curtsey or do some other something or other.  She wished Princess Winona would whisper some sort of guidance. Then the next Princess presented herself and Larissa was sure she was seeing double.
     "Dearest Larissa! Welcome to Athena, the capital of Foxwood!" said the extra cheerful redheaded Princess, who was the spitting-image of the just previously introduced Princess Ronaele, except this Princess was gowned in bright red and she wore a dazzling diamond necklace that Larissa was certain couldn't possibly be real. "I am Eleanor, Belle of Aries, Princess of Morning!"
     Larissa tilted her head for Princess Winona's whisper, eager for explanation.
     "Ronaele and Eleanor are twins," whispered Winona. "Ronaele rules the last weeks of the winter and Eleanor rules the first weeks of the spring. Their reigns are the 'bookends' of every year's ending and every new year's beginning in Foxwood."
     
     And so the introductions continued, Larissa worrying that she surely wouldn't remember every Princess's name and "reign" and home province. (She hoped Princess Winona might have a "guide" or "roster" for quick reference.) Even as questions sprung up and began pinwheeling madly in Larissa's head – were the Princesses born here? or are they from the waking world? how were they "elected"?  do they stay the same age forever? (they all appeared to be between about twelve and eighteen years old)!  are there other "people" in Foxwood besides the Princesses?  –  she nonetheless found herself increasingly becoming overwhelmed by a giddy feeling of awe and most sublime pleasure, a feeling of sheer joy and happiness like she had never felt before in her entire own twelve years of life.  It was all just so perfect the way the Princesses all had their own signature fashion color schemes and identifying gemstones, and the way their personalities seemed to match the names of their home provinces and their "seasons of reign". (Taylore, Belle of Aquarius, and Princess of Sorrow seemed as dark, mysterious and taciturn as Jazmine, Belle of Cancer, Princess of Harmony seemed bright, chatty and friendly!)  As an artist, Larissa's inborn instincts for gathering mental images and spiritual impulses for translation into her artworks were humming and buzzing and burning like they were on fire.  Here was a lifetime's worth of inspiration for her drawings and paintings – and she had only been in Foxwood Castle for about an hour!  But then, there was something else, too, also pinging in her head… Oh, yes!  Oh, no!  Larissa suddenly realized that so drowned had she become in the pleasures of her newfound joy that she had completely forgotten her poor dear hosts, Reggie and Bea!