Today in the woods I saw a cat up ahead of me on the path but it was sitting in light and shadow in such a way that it seemed to change shape several times as I approached including looking briefly like a fox and for a moment like a stick with cat ears that you might miss if you didn't look closely. As I saw the cat flicker between shapes I started laughing because foxes are shape shifters and then it dawned on me that the fox was interested in me for more than my deodorant which smells a lot like locust blossoms. Gramps once said that the thing that tipped him off about the right way to treat people like me and children who have been in our situation was the way the forest creatures and fairies continued to treat us like pure beings.
But not all foxes are relatively benign and foxlike humans are still humans as well.
Quite a while ago I started to hear that foxy saw our childhood relationship differently than I did. To me it was play among equals but she saw a status difference that didn't exist then and doesn't exist now. It disturbed me to hear about this but I decided to stash that somewhere I wouldn't see it very often and wait to process it when it seemed opportune.
Mom used to handle a lot of things herself that Squiggly and a lot of other people thought was totally beneath her so while Roxy was getting an upgrade Squiggly decided Foxy could take on those aspects of Mom's former role that were beneath a companion of mine. I don't want to get too specific about it but by splitting up the role it is possible for both Yums to lead reasonably respectable lives while still being fairly criminal, however, there is a status difference between the two of them, one knowing my status and the other still finding this a bit confusing so when there is more risk and less reward it falls to Foxy whose shape shifting is a bit different from that of Thousand Faced Goddess do deal with those issues.
