Hidden Fox

Two

My paws thrummed the dirt, the wind whistled past the pair of ears settled high on my head. They twitched back and forth, picking up the stirs of startled sparrows and rabbits. A hoot of an early-rising owl echoed through the branches from above and I bounded over the heap of pellets that had collected at the base of an oak. A squirrel darted out in front of me, almost underfoot to the point I stumbled a bit. Regaining my balance, the easy rhythm of my paws like music, I charged on. I pushed faster and faster, feeling the muscles in all four legs starting to burn.

There was a spot in my path, one I was expecting, that changed my pace. Boulders created a blockade right as the hill becomes a mountain. After I scrambled over the boulders, the pace never returned to how it was, the terrain was too steep. The pine trees now protruded from the slope (before they were growing normally from the soil). Their roots were long, spindly fingers, gripping the rocky soil in desperate efforts to stay in place. Their trunks grew bent at an angle that seemed very unnatural for a tree, so that their tops could fight each other for sunlight. It was beautiful to me, the way nature existed to adapt to its environment. Those same trees, had they been planted on a flat surface, would have grown straight and tall; normal.

Now I bounced from tree to tree, launching myself to each tree trunk — the part that was flat, right before it curved up towards the sky. I knew where I was going, I had taken this path a hundred—maybe thousand—times since I had shifted two years ago. It led to my favorite lake.

I slowed my pace as I reached it, panting so hard my tongue lolled and flopped about. Saliva flung out in front of me as I trotted evenly along the path. When I reached the lake, I sat on my rump and stared, catching my breath. It never got any less amazing, no matter how many times I had come up here.

It was situated in a valley, where there were peaks on all sides. On the north side, I could hear the roar of what I knew to be a waterfall as it poured itself over the cliff edge. I had never been over there to see it myself, the roar had gotten too deafening the one time I tried. It frightened me; I was afraid my short limbs wouldn't be able to stand against the current and prevent me from plummeting over the edge. So, I avoided it.

The very tops of the mountains had snow running off down the sides, thin white streaks that curved and kinked and followed the path of the rocks around it. That would mean that even now, in the beginning of August, the water that rippled about in front of me would be bitterly ice cold. Still, I waded in just far enough that my paws were covered. A shiver traveled from my ears to my tail, but I didn't mind. The numbing almost felt good.

Tilting my head down, I stared at my reflection — slightly distorted from the small current of the pulling waterfall flow. Despite the ripples, I could make out my erect ears, pointing straight forward; my narrow snout, with a nose that twitched at every smell, every breeze; beady eyes that stared right back, swimming in a mottled brown: the color of nutrient-filled soil — the kind a crop-farmer could only dream of. Around my eyes was a mask of orange, looking like I was attending a masquerade ball or something. The inside of my ears were also that fiery orange, but wisps of silver made it look mottled, striped even. The rest of my face was silver too: the backs of my ears, the sides of my head, and my neck. Once it got to my shoulders, it became marbled again, mixing with the orange in sections all the way to my tail, which was fluffy and oval-shaped. The tip of my tail and the area from my midnight-black nose to under my chin was white.

I had never seen a fox in the wild that looked like me.

Commonly, we would spot the typical red foxes. The ones with a white muzzle and black tipped ears and black seal points. We're not sure why I was silver. Actually, we weren't sure why I was a fox at all.

I was larger than the wild ones too. Not by much, but enough to be noticeable. Werewolves were also bigger than their wild counterparts, so I supposed it made sense. But nothing else about it did.