Amilya panicked, checking the house again. Dawn had been complaining about the fox not visiting for a few days, and now she had snuck out at some point during the night. She had no doubt as to what had happened; Dawn had said she would bring the fox to Morris, which they had assumed was a joke at the time. Fumbling with a box in her bedroom, she pulled out a lock of hair and cast her tracking spell. It pointed towards the forest.
She sprinted for the guest house Morris was staying at, nearly tripping in her haste. Upon reaching it, she pounded at the door until she heard grumbling and the door opened, bursting in and shouting at Morris, “Hurry and get ready to go, Dawn went into the forest!” Before promptly racing back out, heading to Monti’s house at a slightly slower pace.
Monti greeted her from a chair in front of the house when she arrived, “Hello, Amilya, slow down a bit and tell me what is wrong.”
“It’s Dawn,” Amilya exclaimed, panting, “she ran off into the forest, we need you to come with us in case she is hurt! We can’t be too late!”
As she ran to the eastern gate, she called out to the guards, “I need several people to come help, my daughter is missing in the forest!” Agitated, she then began shuffling from foot to foot as she looked back. A moment later, Morris arrived with his staff and his familiar, the hawk Kel, perched on his shoulder. Shortly afterward, Monti hobbled along with his cane, moving at a surprising speed with it.
Amilya waved at the guards to open the gate and led the small group through, three guards joining them with spears resting against their shoulders. Along the way, Morris cast a spell on Kel, tossing him into the air to scout from above with his now enhanced night vision.
A moment later, Morris spoke up, “Kel found her. She isn’t in good shape, and there is a snake around her but it is bloody and not moving. She is breathing and also … holding something furry.”
As they approached, they heard muffled screaming before they could see her, finally arriving as Dawn sobbed against the furry bundle in her arms.
The guards quickly spread out in case anything showed up to threaten them, as Amilya ran to her daughter, crying. Monti stepped forward, casting a spell on the snake’s body, then sighing and remarking, “We got lucky, this is a non-venomous snake, it is going to take a while, but we can fix the damage. Venom is far harder to cure than broken bones.”
Morris stamped his staff into the ground, solidifying a thin sheet of dirt into a stone stretcher, as Monti cast a pain reduction spell on Dawn, looking curiously at the furry bundle in her arms as it shifted around. After a moment, a fox’s head was revealed, causing him to scramble back as Amilya steadied him. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I forgot to inform you that we found a fox that was most likely awakened. This is why Morris is here in our village. It already saved Diara from being bitten by a different snake when she was injured.”
As Monti’s magic blocked most of the pain, Dawn sighed in relief, loosening her grip enough for the fox to bolt out of her arms. It’s head darted from side to side, taking in that it was surrounded before it stilled for a moment and darted back to her, grabbing the snake’s head and shaking it. It then looked back at Amilya and laid down, shivering.
**********
The fox was terrified. He was trapped by his human, who was badly injured, and now there were other humans approaching. He tried again and again to get loose, only to get held closer once more. He couldn’t see from where he was being held, but he could hear footsteps, crying, and talking.
After a moment, his human relaxed a tiny bit, allowing him to get his head free. The human before him recoiled, and the hunter that threw light was standing there talking to him. His human relaxed more, letting him slip free completely. His head darted from side to side as he took in the situation he was in. He was completely surrounded by humans, including one that had hunted him before. After just a second of hesitation, he grabbed the head of the snake and shook it around before dropping it again, looking at the hunter again and laying down in submission.
He felt hope that they would understand, and was glad to see them communicating more instead of harming him. One of the others stepped forward as a bird landed on his shoulder, using his stick to draw a series of lines in the dirt. As they finished, they looked towards the fox and pointed at the dirt beside the lines. He crept forward carefully and looked at the lines in the dirt.
First one line, then two, then three. It almost looked like the humans’ dens he had seen from the hill near the village. But there had to be significance to each being one more line. He looked up at the human which tapped the dirt beside him. Guessing the intention, he used his nose to draw another figure with four lines enclosing the space between, then stepped back, looking towards the human.
The human nodded, then they scuffed the dirt with their foot, drawing a handful of circles. First one, then three, then five, with no particular arrangement. Taking a moment to look, he began drawing circles beside it, checking the existing set twice to make sure he was right, ending up with seven circles and then sat back again. The human nodded again, pointing towards his human, who was being untangled from the snake.
He moved back to them, hissing at the snake before curling up against his human who began scratching his head and talking.
A few moments later, two of the humans grabbed his human and dragged her over to an odd looking patch of ground. He whined at them and followed, curling up next to his human’s head again on the odd ground. Almost as soon as he was in place, he felt himself rising into the air, watching the ground fall away to the sides as the odd sheet was picked up by the two that had walked to either end of it.
Looking around, he spotted the dead snake being carried by one of the other humans behind him, and the one with the bird up ahead with the light-throwing hunter. Despite his situation, he felt safety radiating through the link with his human and decided to stay. Surely if they hadn’t harmed him yet they wouldn’t if he stayed with them.
A while later they approached the village, passing by the watchtowers he had previously tried to hide from, and headed towards the gate which opened for them without hesitation. His head swung from side to side as he took in the sights, watching as they headed towards one of the humans’ dens.