Orange-crest was having a free day. It was an odd concept, one that had taken Brother Scouring Medicine several tries to explain to the monkey. It'd been a struggle for him to imagine having a day that was not free. What unfortunate creatures men were, dominated so utterly by their betters and peers. Even the lowliest creature upon Mount Yuelu lived free.

  Daoist Scouring Medicine seemed to think he dictated orange-crest's schedule. Orange-crest didn't feel the need to disabuse him of this notion quite yet. His brother was a hard taskmaster, but orange-crest never lacked for new things to learn while under his tutelage. The moment he got comfortable or bored, his brother would throw new words or tasks at him. A dozen ways of chopping and mashing. Wonderous implements worked from stone and bough. Strange liquids used to draw out essences or preserve.

  It was a great bounty of information, some of which even seemed useful. Orange-crest had a great many ideas for new sorts of wine, but his brother refused to let him use the contents of alchemy drawers freely. He claimed their contents were 'expensive', which was some strange concept men made up to justify not using the nice things they had. From Scouring Medicine's descriptions, the monkey was pretty sure the wiggly worm-root thing he'd found had been 'expensive', but if he'd never eaten it, what good would it have been?

  What had followed was yet another lecture on man's mad conception of value and exchange.

  Truth be told, the orange-crest did not entirely believe his brother, when he claimed some men spent all of their waking hours chasing after the necessities of existence. Food was simply not that hard to acquire. How bad at foraging could men be, to never once have an hour free from hunting for food or sleeping? Only in the very coldest seasons would one be forced to subsist upon bark, evergreen needles, and sleep. Otherwise, there were always worms beneath the rocks, fruits upon the trees. All one needed to stay warm was their brothers and sisters close at hand, and a place sheltered from the biting wind. Food, warmth, sleep. What more could one need?

  The monkey shook such dark thoughts from his head. The day was too beautiful to waste it pondering, he could think perfectly well while peeling and chopping things. There would be no shortage of that to do when he returned.

  What, exactly, did he want? He had enough wine fermenting that he felt no need to set more batches into motion. He'd need to drink those first, to know if these clay jugs and yellow flakes his brother called 'yeast' were worth anything compared to good wood and green worms. It was a pity that wine making was such a slow art.

  His brother provided all the food he could wish for, but even his pantry did not span all the mountains and waters beneath the heavens. The thought lodged in his head. Waters. Orange-crest wanted fish! His brother had many succulent victuals, but no fat carps or toothsome river-worms.

  Plan made. Orange-crest set off, nose to the sky for the tell-tale smell of running water. Near Daoist Scouring Medicine's home, he found a small spring. He followed its outflow, watched as it joined with more small fingers of water into a stream worth the name. That stream terminated in a great pool twenty monkeys wide, a bowl of water so clear it shamed all his brother's treasured glassware.

  Orange-crest watched the mouth-watering carp flit about in the water, taunting him. So close, but always so quick. The monkeys of Mount Yuelu did not fish often. It was hard work, fish were twice as slippery as any worm and a hundred times quicker. But during the early winters, after the fruits were gone, but before the ice came thick and sealed away the ponds, they were a good food.

  "Pwuh." The monkey said suddenly.

  He didn't want fish. Well, he did want fish. But what he really wanted was to fish with red-eyes and quick-fingers. He never fished alone. They were far better fish-catchers, he found them many small-foods that fish liked, to draw them close.

  But orange-crest did not think men would fish with him. Maybe his brother, but likely no. Too picky. Too pill-demon. Perhaps big-shiny would go fish with him? Daoist Enduring Oath seemed more normal than his brother. Better fit to the world. His brother could never stop bending the world to the shape he wanted and appreciate it as it was.

  The monkey got up, and grabbed a piece of bamboo. Too much thinking. It neither caught fish or found answers. Orange-crest rubbed the end of his stick against a rock, trying to fashion a makeshift spear. Brother Scouring Medicine had shown him many interesting things these last few days, from the weapons of man, to techniques for the sharpening of knives. Unfortunately, grinding the end of the bamboo against a rock didn't make it sharp like he'd hoped. Oh well, it was still a good stick.

  He circled the edge of the pool, looking for the perfect place. A big flat rock, near water-grasses, where the sun cast his shadow not forward, but backwards. Not-totally-blunt stick in hand, he waited. 'Rhino Eats Fish' he dubbed the stance, a fearsome new monkey art.

  Stab. Miss.

  Stab. Touch the carp, but it slips away.

  Orange-crest relaxes, waits. They're wary now, but carps are not creatures of long memories. His stick is not sharp, nor does it have fingers. He must pin the fish against a rock, not just graze it. He needs a particular carp, orange and fat. Big enough his stick will find purchase against its bulk, squish it against a rock until it cannot zip away.

  As the orange-crest waited, he composed a poem. Another strange concept, poems. It seems men used their good words like they did their good ingredients, but rarely. 'Not cultured', his brother said. Orange-crest would show him cultured, whatever that was. The true-tongue and the words of man mingle freely as he mouths them quietly, tasting their fitness for their places.

  A combination of words only orange-crest, or perhaps a King, might understand. But a rhythm any with ears could tell was pleasing.

  Monkey fishes alone.

  Wet feet. Empty hand.

  Soft grass, not-flat.

  Belly full. Brothers far.

  There. Very sad. As if listening, his quarry had drawn close. The monkey waited, patient as stone. The carp dipped forward, into shadow. The fishing rhino-monkey struck, goring it with his stave. Crushing as much as stabbing, trapping the fish between two different deaths. It thrashed, then stilled.

  The monkey fished the carp from water. Blech, he'd gotten the bad bits all over the good parts. Oh well, it was all fish. Juicy-wet, savory-fleshed, the most fruit-like of meats. He bit into it with relish, tearing at the pale flesh. It tasted like home. There was nothing wrong with persimmons and sausages and rice. But carp and worms and plums just tasted like home, and he missed them.

  Orange-crest stilled. It was quiet. Too quiet. The grim stillness of ambush. He grabbed his poor-weak bamboo spear, slowly turning. The turning was a lie. He listened with his ears, not his eyes, waiting to move.

  He completed a rotation, seeing nothing. The monkey relaxed.

  "You sing of loneliness, yet you do not intend to share?"

  The voice came from behind him, a series of yips and chuffs in the elegant patterns of the true tongue. Orange-crest turned, then looked down. A small white fox, like a puff of snow given life. A creature of brilliant achromatic contrast. Teeth as white as its coat, gums and paws like pitch. Its eyes were the sole hint of color it bore, opalescent orbs that shimmered like a lake beneath the sunset. Deep blues one moment, the golden fur of a newborn monkey the next, then the deep crimson of a heart's lifeblood in the third.

  "You hunger?" The monkey asked politely. Within his chest, his heart trembled with excitement. Men were all well and good, and a fox was no monkey, but she was a Speaker! That was almost as good as one of his brothers.

  "No. But your catch smells good."

  Orange-crest threw what remained of the fish to her, before taking up his perch once more. His heart beat faster. Too fast for good fishing. He tried for another carp, but they were wary now, and his mind was not in the labor. He'd seen no monkeys upon the Azure Mountain. No birds that spoke the true tongue even. He had many questions, but he waited for the fox to delicately pick at his fish.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "This formless-gleam thanks you, other-kind potential-friend."

  "Orange-crest is monkey." It was wonderful to speak the true tongue again. There was an elegance to it the speech of man lacked. A directness and honesty to it.

  "Formless-gleam odd name. Your coat gleams, but you have form."

  "Ah, do monkeys name themselves for what they are then?"

  "No. All monkeys make name. But yes. What else could we be named but what we are?"

  "Foxes are clever creatures. Sometimes too clever for our own benefit. Our mother had many daughters. She gave us names for what she hoped we could become. What we should covet."

  "Were the good names all taken?" Orange-crest asked, thoroughly confused. He'd never met a fox that spoke before, let alone whose command of the true tongue was greater than his own. He wondered what the King would make of her.

  "I suppose you could say that." Formless-gleam said, batting at the dead carp with a single dainty paw. She turned it over, looking for more good meat.

  "I eat guts if you no eat."

  Formless-gleam delicately shoved the half-eaten fish back toward the monkey.

  "Yum." He said, gnawing at the carp guts. "Worst part. Still good."

  "I was most surprised, to meet another Speaker upon the Azure Mountain. How do you keep safe from the sect? Do they not hunt you?"

  Orange-crest frowned.

  "Is easy. Just have man name. Be disciple."

  "Brother..." Orange-crest frowned. Translation was hard. He shifted to the tongue of men for his brother's name. "Daoist Scouring Medicine is teach-protect-feed. Not boss or King."

  "How lucky you are, to have a tongue that can ape their words."

  "Yes." Orange-crest agreed. "Is easy. Men give much food when know right words."

  "How lucky you are." She repeated.

  Orange-crest considered the matter.

  "Maybe. Brother disdains rest. Makes monkey do much... Chop chop. No fun. Food good though."

  "Awp-awp?" Formless-gleam barked, struggling to make the man sounds.

  "Chop-chop. Is when you take not-food plants and make smaller with sharp-gleam-rock. Brother makes miracle-medicine-pellets from many plants."

  "I see. An alchemist."

  Orange-crest carefully hid his surprise. To know such an idea in the true tongue marked her as no common fox. That was a sound only the King might have known upon Mount Yuelu. No common fox indeed.

  "Why mountain so quiet?" He asked instead.

  "Why do you ask me what you already know? Lying ill-befits a Speaker."

  "No know. Only worry. Men."

  "Yes, men. They do not share. Not peace nor place, neither power nor dominion."

  "Not all hairless ones bad. Just many-most."

  "Not all tigers bad." Formless-gleam countered.

  "Very fair. But met good man. Two even! Never met good tiger."

  "Funny." The fox chuffed. Then she snarled, venom filling her eyes and words. "I can say the opposite. Men are just better at hiding their darkness than tigers. Everything in this world has a place they say. Do you know what they think ours is? They make false-skins out of us. Not out of winter-fear, but because we are soft. They covet our dead flesh because it is inconvenient to them that we hunger or shit, exist beyond serving as their adornments. So they cut out the part that lives, and wear our corpses."

  Orange-crest shrugged. He was under no illusions men were dangerous. Violent. It was the whys and how of their violence that intrigued and terrified him.

  "In deepest winter, monkey eat fox if catch. Rare meat. Sneaky-slippery, must catch in pack. Long-wait ambush. Drag down and smash. But will eat."

  The monkey looked to the fox, then up at the sky. She met his gaze without fear, an easy confidence in her eyes. Curious to see where he was going with this, but confident he would not, or could not, harm her. Orange-crest was a small monkey, but he was easily thrice the foxes size. Perhaps four times it. No common fox indeed.

  "Not winter now." He continued. "Full belly. Watch clouds?"

  "Watch clouds." Formless-gleam agreed. "Clouds good. Like memory of siblings."

  Orange-crest wondered if his brothers could see the same clouds from here.

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------

  "I'm looking for a place." Formless-gleam said suddenly. The two of them had watched the clouds for a long time, but now the sky was empty and dull. "A deep-cold cave, where the earth is close, and the sky is far. One the men visit at times, but do not inhabit."

  "You cultivate?" Orange-crest asked. He proudly watched the surprise flash across formless-gleam's face. Cultivate had been such a hard word to find in the true tongue, especially without another speaker to mind-spar-refine with.

  "You know what cultivation is?"

  "Am wise monkey. Know many things." Orange-crest boasted.

  "You know what the cave is, but do you know its location?"

  "I know a good cave. Deep-cold. Men sometimes, but less men-presence than the great-deep-worm-burrow cave." It was frustrating, that men did not speak the true tongue. There were so many man words he wished to use but could not translate. Fathomless Well. Abyssal Yin. Still, the fox clearly understood his meaning.

  "I would owe you two debts, if you showed it to me."

  "No debts. Debts man things. Get enough man-trade-nonsense from brother."

  "When on man's mountain, do as man." The fox retorted.

  "No." Orange-crest insisted. "Always do as monkey. Objectively superior mode of existence."

  "I see why men find monkeys so appealing. You are the most like them, of all beasts."

  "Am monkey. No care if like men. Not man."

  Formless-gleam followed the monkey as he navigated back towards the cave he'd found the two disciples in a few days ago. Orange-crest was fairly certain it was what she was looking for. He hoped the fox would become a friend. She was very knowledgeable, yet she did not treat him like a subject as Daoist Scouring Medicine did. It would be nice to have a friend or sister that was non-monkey, who did not boss him around. But he was not blind. The fox hated men, and wanted him to hate them too. And she was more than a mere Speaker, perhaps even a sort of fox-daoist. Clearly not a King, but far more than just a fox.

  But, if men truly kept the mountain barren of Speakers and monkeys alike, he had few choices of companion here. If they must share territory, better to have peace than strife.

  And he cared little for the secret of the cave. His brother clearly knew many caves, he would take him to another if wanted the orange-crest to do another cultivation. He'd gathered that men coveted and fought over access to the cold caves, but that seemed misguided to orange-crest. It'd only taken a few hours to do his last cultivation. Spending all your time to protect a cave you only rarely needed was silly. There was an asymmetry to it that made it foolish. A man might spend all his hours guarding one cave, but a monkey needed only a short period of access to any cave on the mountain. It was clearly better to be the attacker than the guarder.

  "Here. Is cave." He said, after they walked for the better part of an hour.

  The cave was much the same as he'd left it. Tucked away in a dense copse of trees where the cliff bent back into itself, it was difficult indeed to see from the path. Only when one approached, wending their way through the densely packed spruce and fir, could one feel the wisps of musty frost emanating from the thin crack in the cliffside.

  Formless-gleam shivered.

  "Promising. Perhaps you are indeed a wise-monkey."

  "No. Was lying. But do know many things. Remind show wine sometime."

  "Wine?"

  "Is good. Best secret."

  "Very well. Still, I cannot accept such favors from you without repaying them. Allow me a moment to inspect the cave to see if it is suitable for my cultivation. If it is, I will bestow a boon upon you in turn."

  Orange-crest watched as the little fox leapt through the crack in the cliff, floating through the air like a puff of snow driven by the wind. He remained outside. The cold caves were simply not comfortable.

  He found a sunny spot to rest, returning to watching the clouds. It was such a rare luxury, to be able to watch the clouds blow by this close to the cold season. It left orange-crest in a pensive mood. He wondered what the future would hold. It was the first time in his life it'd ever seemed like a relevant question, that his life might be different in some way the next year. On Mount Yuelu, there was but better or worse. Years of plenty and leanness, more peace or more strife. But now, the future seemed bigger than the horizon. This mountain or that one? That one choice alone would mean two completely different lives. And Brother Scouring Medicine had implied there were far more than two mountains. And that there were other choices, choices more numerous than the mountains.

  The thought of so many places and lives made Orange-crest sleepy. Formless-gleam was taking a while. He had almost dozed off, when he heard it. The silence. The monkey rolled without thinking. The screamed as a lance of white-hot pain carved a furrow into his back. The blinding heat faded in the next moment, replaced by the slowly spreading warmth of blood seeping into fur.

  "Got him."

  "Run." A voice whispered in his ear.

  Orange-crest hadn't needed to be told once, he was already in motion. He bared his teeth, snarling scare off the pain.

  "You made your worst mistake here." A voice said, distantly familiar. "And it seems today you've made your last one too."

  Despite his better senses, orange-crest looked backward as he ran. Two men stalked towards him, emerging from the dense woods. With every step he took, the monkey drew farther away, yet they seemed unhurried in their chase. One of them held a stick bent in a strange, ineffective looking, shape, curved like the shifting-moon. His eyes tracked orange-crest with detached precision, taking in his every movement like a monkey watching distant birds.

  It was the other man though, the distantly familiar one, that made orange-crest's blood run cold. His face feigned mirth, even as murder bloomed in his eyes.

  "Want to be a man so badly little monkey?" He said with hollow glee. "Then let me show you what it means to take responsibility for your actions. You'll have run out of bones to break, by the time I'm through with you."

  Orange-crest ran, galloping on all fours directly towards the densest of the underbrush. Even as his blood dripped down his back and the cold fingers of fear reached for his heart, part of him rejoiced. The doubts that clung to him, making him second guess every interaction he had with the hairless ones, they all evaporated like mist before the morning sun.

  The quarry might be a terrible role to play, but it was one he knew.