"I'm not helping you take care of the nhuxun," Jiro said.

            "You're not afraid of a little fox, are you, Younger Brother?" Taro said, leaning forward so that the two samurai swords strapped to his back shifted slightly.  He looked again from the wanted poster to his twin, who had narrowed his bright green eyes.

            "I'm not trudging up to the forest just to get some pesky nhuxun," Jiro said.

            Taro put his hands akimbo.  "Easiest twenty weights we'll make this season."

            "You know an easier way to make money, Older Brother?" Jiro said.  "Steal it from some Blue Zirks over on the coast."

            "But that's not nearly as much fun."

            Jiro frowned.  "I always manage to have fun.  You're the one that can't have any fun."

            "I'm always having fun!"

            Jiro rolled his eyes.  "Not that kind of fun, pecksmit."

            "Jerk!"

            "Dad's not going to let us trounce off for a little spending money.  He ordered us to wait another two weeks for him."  Jiro pressed his finger into his twin's sternum for emphasis.

            Taro looked from the poster in his hands to the light pink skies in the north. 

            "He'd be pretty angry, wouldn't he?" Taro said.

            Jiro nodded.  "And he told you specifically not to let me run off on a whim's notice."  Jiro grabbed the poster and sprinted off.  "So just see if you can stop me!"

            "Warrit, Jiro!"  Taro took off after his brother.

            "Whoever gets the nhuxun first gets twenty weights!"

            Taro didn't catch up to him until they had entered the northern pine forest as the second sun was setting.  Jiro was leaning against a tree waving the poster.  Taro grabbed it out of his hand and punched him in the shoulder.

 "Jerk!"

            "Pecksmit!"  Jiro said, taking a swing at his brother, who ducked.  He rubbed his shoulder and looked northwest.  "Can you feel it?"

            Taro hit his brother again.  "Yes, I can feel it, you pecksmit.  Why do-"

            "I was just asking, since I know how slow you are at magic.  I didn't-"

            Then Taro tried to trip Jiro, who hopped over it with a smooth step, and then they were wrestling among the pine needles arguing about who was better at casting swiftening spells.  Taro pinned his brother and was just offering him a hand up when the nhuxun broke into the clearing hissing and waving its seven white tails.

            It breathed out through its short snout, producing a squat cloud of vapor, and shifted its weight onto its haunches.  Its plume of feathers bristled, and its long whiskers were stiff and crackling with electricity.  Its black nose twitched in expectation.  The nhuxun leaped at Taro and whipped its whiskers around to paralyze him, but Taro jumped back and drew his swords.  Jiro lunged forward, but the nhuxun ducked under Jiro's first sword and skittered back from his second, and then the nhuxun was jumping forward again and would have wrapped the electric tendrils around Jiro's waist if Taro hadn't pushed him out of the way. 

            Instead, Taro bore the full shock across his back, and he tumbled through the brush.  The nhuxun leaped onto his chest, digging its claws in so that Taro cried out, but then Jiro tackled the thing and thrust his sword through its stomach.  He dodged its thrashing whiskers and ran to his brother, who was struggling to his feet.  Jiro took out a piece of quartz for a quick healing spell.  Taro cut the seven tails from the dead nhuxun as proof for the man who had posted the bounty.

            "Getting a little rusty, aren't you Older Brother?" Jiro said as they walked back into Soynoyon.

            Taro hit his brother upside the head.  "Nope.  My reflexes are fine."

            Jiro elbowed his brother in the ribs and sprinted off.  When they reached the door of the little house at the same time, arguing loudly about who had won the race, the man who had posted the bounty opened it with a confused expression on his face.  When he saw the seven white tails in Taro's hand, however, he took them, nodded, and closed the door.  The twins looked at each other, then Taro banged on the door with his fist.

            "What do you want?" the man said when he opened the door.

            "We want our twenty weights," Taro said.  Jiro nodded.

            "You're Eiro's boys, aren't you?"

            "Yes, sir," Taro said.

            "Well.  Eiro was here not thirty minutes ago said he was here for the bounty.  Said you'd be along in a minute with the tails.  So I have the tails, and you have your bounty.  I want no more to do with you runners than I have to."  The man shut the door.

            Taro and Jiro looked at each other.  Jiro hit his brother in the shoulder.

            "Pecksmit!"

            "Jerk!"

H. B. Keddie is a writer currently living in Central New York after having spent time in Vietnam, Mexico, and Ghana among other places.  Keddie splits leisure time between writing, traveling, and couch surfing, and hopes to travel to all seven continents before the age of thirty.  Keddie is currently preparing to spend two years in the Kingdom of Tonga teaching English with the Peace Corps.