This story is true.
The world you see with your eyes is not the fullest expression of the world. The world you hear, the world you touch and smell and taste, is not the fullness of reality. There exists another layer, a more subtle layer, built not of matter and energy but of symbol and idea.
Everything has a spirit. Everything is alive. Trees talk to one another. Cars drive themselves. The rain sings as it falls. Waves cry out as they strike the shore, dying as they dissolve into foam, only to be reborn a moment later.
In this world of symbol and idea, there exist symbols and ideas that do not fully map to anything in the prosaic reality of energy and matter. They are bound by its rules only when it suits them. And it often does not suit them.
These symbols and ideas are alive, as everything else is alive. And sometimes, they get bored.
-----
This is Faux.
He's standing at the top of a tall tree, in the cultivated parkland found in any city. The laughable attempt by mortals to introduce nature into their concrete jungles, as if it really mattered which sort of life they populated their homes with.
But parks are useful. Cities are chaotic, disorganised messes, each one unique in its own insanity. But parks have a special sort of order about them. They contain grass, and trees, and flowers. They are arranged into distinct patterns which can be found in any park, in any part of the world. The thrum of life is almost the same, no matter which city the park is pretending to inhabit at the moment.
Each park is so similar to every other park, in fact, that convincing the world you're really standing in a different one is child's play. "No, I'm not really in London," you can say. "I'm actually in San Fransisco." And the world, in its embarassment, will quickly correct its error.
The green fox closes his eyes. He whispers to the world. The world, embarassed, whisks him off to where he wishes to be.
-----
This is Doctor Gwen Mason.
She is the psychologist for the Prostitute's Guild. Not even a teenager yet, she has gotten herself legally declared as an adult - although she still lives with her adopted mother, and does her best to be a normal child sometimes. The skunk girl has vivid blue and white fur, and currently wears a pair of blue overalls, which hug her body a little more tightly than you'd expect a child's clothes to.
Unbeknownst to her, her life is about to take a turn for the weird. Or, at least, the weirder. She has attracted the attention of a powerful force she doesn't even begin to understand, her analytical, scientific mind not allowing her to gaze past the prosaic reality of matter and energy, except when she focuses her mind on the symbols and ideas that populate the heads of thinking beings.
She is accompanied by two friends. A red fox and a white mouse. They aren't really important in the grand scheme of things, but they will be allowed to make an appearance, in order to at least help along the flow of events.
-----
The mind is a plaything of the body. Even if a mind is thousands of years old, if it is squeezed into the brain of a young child, no matter how much it knows, it will find itself acting like a child. So it's really no surprise when Faux, having spotted his quary, leapt from the top of the tree towards Gwen, with a cry of "Fluffy tail!"
The red fox quickly turned his head, but was greeted only by a green streak for his efforts, nearly bowling him over. Gwen soon found herself knocked to the floor, with a green, shirtless but thankfully not panstless, fox hugging her large, fluffy tail.
The red fox and the white mouse stared for a second. Then, hands on her hips, the white mouse complained. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
Faux looked up at her, one ear cocked at a jaunty angle. "...Hugging a fluffy tail?" he hazarded, after a few moments' thought.
The white mouse was about to reply, when the red fox interrupted her. "You can't just... pounce from out of nowhere and hug Gwen's tail!" he protestest, arms crossed.
"Why not?" Faux asked, with honest, simple-minded confusion. "...Are you jealous? I could hug your tail, too. It's pretty fluffy." Faux managed to keep his face straight, even as the red fox turns all -sorts- of wonderful colours... But unfortunately was unable to keep his face straight when Gwen finally decided to stand up. "Wah!"
As Gwen stood, Faux continued to cling to her tail, resulting in the green fox being thrown to the floor. "...This is Faux," she said, after a few moments of trying to restrain her giggles. "We met a few days ago. I think he has a thing for my tail~" she said in sing-song voice, holding out one hand to help Faux back to his feet.
Faux grinned. The red fox and the white mouse found it somewhat disturbing, although Gwen didn't seem to notice. "Ah..." the white mouse hesitated, before being interrupted by Faux.
"Let's go get icecream!" he said, still grinning. "I know this place that just opened up nearby - you'll love it. Come on!" And without even waiting for an answer, he began to half-drag, half-lead Gwen off. The red fox and white mouse shared a glance, then quickly followed along.
The white mouse insisted insisted there wasn't anywhere to get ice cream in the park. Yesterday, she would have been right, too - but today, the foursome soon found themselves outside the gate of what used to be the play area for the park. The play area had grown in size, however, and instead of play equipment, there seemed to be -rides-... it was essentially a somewhat small theme park. There were even ticket booths!
The white mouse and red fox stared, dumbstruck, at this new replacement for the play area. Surely it was far larger than the earlier play area, but it seemed to still fit just fine... "This... wasn't here yesterday, was it?" the white mouse asked, with a bit of worry in her voice.
Faux waved a hand vaguely. “It’s not finished yet,” he said, as he wandered up to one of the ticket booths. After some unheard conversation with the unseen person manning the booth, he turned around and produced four tickets. “They said we can help test the rides and stuff! C’mon~”
The red fox peered. “This… seems pretty suspicious…” he mumbled, but Gwen just followed along happily.
Entering the miniature theme park lead to every little kid’s dream – a whole theme park to themselves, with no lines!
Faux grinned, grabbing Gwen by the hand and running off towards a Ferris Wheel. The white mouse and the red fox had no choice but to follow. They still felt rather uneasy… just what was this strange, green fox boy, anyway?
