It was another snowy day in the eternally winter-coated city of Ishgard. Many things had changed in the time since Aya had come to the city. The Brume was being fortified, the Firmament being rebuilt, and most curious was the changing attitudes of a people long used to being at war. The sense of unease she had felt from the people here was now just the usual suspicion that mortals often had of outsiders. She had always been odd to those of this star, a foxlike woman, with large fluffy ears and four long tails. Her hair and fur the same sheen as the polished silver of the many knights that served the city. Were it not for the obvious foxlike qualities, and her elezen-like height, she could have been mistaken as an odd Miqoâte. Stranger still was the eastern garb that always covered the fox, which until recently, she had not seen any others wear. It was even more proof that things were changing. There were now foreign merchants within the city, many of whom must hail from a homeland similar to her own.
 The fox had found favor by the poor and downtrodden of the city, as she always worked to improve the lives of the less fortunate. Healing and restorative magics were always in high demand. Still, it was not as if her time here had not been without its troubles. Due to her preaching about a foreign goddess, she was always in and out of trouble with the remnants of the Inquisition. Still, the people of the Brume and Firmament both had always insisted she was just helping, and she had not caused any harm. Nor had she been caught directly blaspheming Halone, so the group had little recourse but to let her go.
 That, unfortunately, was about to change. She had been playing with children within the Firmament, when suddenly a man had been crushed by falling stones. Some adventurers had quickly moved the stone out of the way, but it was too late, the man was dead. There were not even any attempts to heal him, it was as if they all knew it was not possible to help. The vixen had suspected this for some time, but it seemed the healers of this land did not garner their power to heal from a true source of divinity. Or if they did, none of them were devout enough to receive truly divine magic. She had little time, the longer she waited, the less likely she would be able to call the soul back to its vessel.
 She knelt close and touched the brow of the fallen man. âIn repose, now gently sleep.â She chants softly, placing a copper piece over each eye of the fallen man, and spreading salt above him. This would give her time, time enough to mend the rest of his body. It would do the man little good to restore the man to life if his body was broken. She carefully moved his body in place, her hands humming with a soft white glow. He had been significantly damaged, so it took more than one casting of her spells to mend his body to how it had been before the accident. Next the fox pulled a small diamond from her pocket, even a diamond of this size was no trinket, it would have happily found its way into a ring or a necklace should a noblewoman have presented it to a goldsmith.
 Without care as to whom may be watching, the vixen continued in her work. She stood and slammed her ringed staff into the ground so that it may chime. Nine strikes, for the nine tails of her patron goddess, Inari. âI beseech thee, Inari, it is not yet this mortalâs time. Aid me as I guide his soul back to its rightful place.â
The diamond in her hand crumbled away, leaving not even dust in its place. However, her spell had started its work, and the body of the fallen elezen started to glow and hum with the same light of the foxâs magic. After a small flash of light, the man opened his eyes, bewildered, but very much alive. The copper coins clanked to the stone of the plaza before them as he sat up to inspect himself. Â
No matter the good intentions of the fox, it was apparent to the Inquisitor that had been watching that she had invoked some manner of dark magic to do what she did. This time there was no one who could stop the fox was being arrested. It did not matter at all, she was a heretic, and practiced her heretical magic right here in the Holy See. House Fortemps could not save her now. That red haired knight was not here to save her, either. He would see this sorceress chained in irons. Â He called for the closest knight to cuff her, and in her surprise and recovery from her magic, she was incapable of resisting. Once the iron touched her skin though, it burned. The fox screamed in pain, a scene that would definitely draw gazes as the iron seemed to glow red hot as it touched her skin. She could no longer escape, not bound in iron. Her spells were useless as well, as she could not muster concentration for one of her spells in such pain. Â A lone fox that had been watching the exchange scurried off, hurrying to find someone to help, anyone that could free the fox from the torture that this inquisitor was subjecting her to.
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