The fox gives a little amused huff, but the tail stops tormenting him, and he gets a little apologetic nose for his trouble.

"Thank you. Is it lack of entertainment? Should I sing?"

'Lack of entertainment' gets an immediate affirmative yip. The fox is more ambivalent of whether or not he should sing. It looks curiously at him, anyway.

"Ah, you haven't heard me sing. Well. I could give it a try and stop if you complain?"

Affirmative yip!

So he sings.

He has a nice voice and a good memory. He probably shouldn't quit his day job, whatever it is, but he could easily end up being the best singer at any social gathering with no professional musicians attending.

His vulpine companion finds this agreeable, and settles in to listen.

And in this way they end up at Tumbledown Pond not too much later.

As depicted on local maps, the road touches the side of the pond and then curves to the west rather than continue northwest into the rocky hills of which Tumbledown Hill is the most friendly and hospitable. The traveller stops at the bend.

"Well, here we are," he says. "And which way are you going?"

The fox gives him a somewhat wry look, then points with a fluffy tail. The direction is distinctly not towards the road.

"I suspected as much, but I didn't want to make assumptions. Well, as it happens, it wouldn't be very far out of my way at all to carry you the rest of the way to the tower."

... His fluffy fox scarf stiffens a bit, looking at him with at least some fraction of surprise, or perhaps alarm.

"Oh, did I not introduce myself?" he asks with something approximating innocence. "Isfain of the Crooked Hills. Delighted to meet you. People don't come to me with problems all that often, and out of all I've seen, yours is by far the most interesting."

The fox flicks its tail, then moves as if to jump down from his shoulder, but—that is kind of a long drop. It hesitates to actually go for it.

Isfain reaches up to offer it a lift down to the ground.

The fox accepts this lift, lands neatly on the ground, and moves out of arm's reach of him. Then it sits, looks at him thoughtfully, and politely bows its head.

He answers the nod with a friendly smile.

"I apologize for not saying something earlier, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to get to know you without my reputation in the way."

The fox looks at him. Archly.

"People tend to behave very differently around me when they know who I am!"

His vulpine companion does not look particularly happy, but doesn't really have much ability to reply. It settles for flicking its tail.

"If we continue on to my tower, I can try to figure out a more reasonable way for you to have a conversation. Something with letters, maybe, if you're a literate fox."

Affirmative yip. Then without waiting for him, the fox flounces off in the general direction of his tower.

He follows.

Clearly the fox has only a basic idea of where it's going, but gosh, is it going to go in that direction. Grumpily.

Since Isfain is still faster than the fox, it doesn't take him long to catch up and start leading.

Yes, fine, that's allowed. The fox will follow his lead.