The Story of Our Golden Eyes is an adventure novel that I've been working on. It is told from the point of view of foxes, and -although it takes place in the real world- I use the folklore and mythology that I've been developing alongside the main story to aim for a "magical realism" feel.

This is the seventh chapter, the other chapters can be found here: https://www.furaffinity.net/gallery.....r-Golden-Eyes/

The story so far:

Rikki, like all kits, dreams of one day earning his Golden Eyes, the mark of a true fox. However, his overambition puts him in conflict with his brother, El. On the day following his and his siblings' first solo hunt, their mother, Brenna falls ill with the mysterious and fatal Dark Stench. Remembering a dentime story about the Radiant Tear, a flower said to be able to restore a fox's health, Rikki sneaks out of the den at night in hopes of curing his mother. However, he is found out by El and his other siblings. His sister, Twila tries to get Rikki to go back, leading to a scuffle. Even though he manages to win and convince Twila to approve of his quest, Rikki is coerced into bringing El and his other brothers along, due to El's ability to find Light-Sleep (the foxes' term for west, and where the Radiant Tear is said to be found)
Twila returns to the den to help care for Brenna, while Rikki takes his first steps outside his home in the Forest of Sleepy Maples to find the Radiant Tear, and perhaps earn his Golden Eyes along the way.



I hope you enjoy it. Critiques are always welcome.

This story uses invented words and terms to maintain the fox perspective. For those coming in just now, I will provide meanings to the terms here:

Light-Sleep: Fox term for West
Great Light: The sun, and the fox's deity.
Bright Ryn: A legendary hero from fox folklore

---


Story 8
Like Bees from a Cracked Hive

“It always starts with a just little itch.”
-From the traditional beginning to The Curse of the Leish

If Rikki thought the Sleepy Maples looked strange at night, then the forest he and his brothers now traversed looked far removed from the living world. Thin, crooked trees jutted from the ground, the moonlight making their intersecting shadowy bodies resemble the strands of a spider’s web. His pads brushed against worn grass, as he and his brothers walked through a trail likely created by the regular traipsing of deer. The moon penetrating the treetops filled the forest with a faint, yellow glow which Rikki couldn’t help comparing it to the glowing tail of Haelax, the White Fox, guiding dead kits into the Everwinter.

His legs stiffened at such a thought, but stubbornness pushed him onward -though it wasn’t enough to keep him from flinching when Nova’s voice broke the silence.

“Grubs and grasshoppers, how much longer do we have to walk? You’d think that we’d have found this stupid flower by now.”

Rikki didn’t miss the opportunity to contribute a spoken jab. “Yeah, are you sure you know where we’re going, Acorn-Head?”

El’s low, stern voice shushed them. “Quiet. We do not want to alert anything to our position.” He turned to Rikki. “We are traveling towards Light-Sleep. That is what you said to do, correct?”

The kit fumbled for a reaction. Was El acknowledging him as the leader, or threatening to put the blame on him if they failed? That stupid blank face, Rikki just couldn’t figure it out.

Left without a retort, all he could do was stammer out an answer. “Y-yes?”

“Then I do not see the issue,” El said. “We will simply travel towards Light-Sleep until we come across a Radiant Tear.”

“You expect us to just walk around until we find it?” Nova barked. “It could take us ‘till the end of the Forest to find one!”

“What if M-m-m-mama is taken to the Everwinter while we’re l-l-looking for it?” Codi added.

“We will not travel forever,” El replied. “Only until the leaves begin to turn orange. If we are not successful by then, we will accept what the Great Light has planned and go back to be with Mother before-.”

“Hey, I have an idea,” Rio interrupted. “Let’s just ask somefox if he or she knows where a Radiant Tear is.”

“Ha, of course you’d come up with an idea that involves speaking.” Rikki said.

El, once again, shushed his brothers. “That is inadvisable. Many foxes do not take kindly to others intruding on their territory.”

Rikki clicked his teeth. “Oh, come on. Do you smell any dog puddles around here? All we need to do is find a fox, and if we are not inside any scent marks then that means he’s a loner.”

Before El could respond, his ears picked up what sounded like a male fox’s voice coming from further up ahead. Whoever it was, it sounded less like speech and more like unintelligible noises.
Erk. Atch. Nengengengeng. Hisssssa.

The five kits looked at each other, some frightened, some confused.

“Well, well, speak of bees and you’ll get stung,” Rikki said, sauntering off towards the noise. “There’s somefox now. Watch me save ourselves some seasons.”

“Wait, Rikki!” El said, but his brother had already dashed off. He growled softly before tilting in the runaway fox’s direction. “Come, we must stop him.”

He ran off, followed by Rio and Nova. Noticing Codi’s absence, he glanced back to see his brother treading timidly at a pace that a turtle could outrun. El ordered his two brothers ahead before returning to the shaking runt.

“Codi, you must stop lagging. We cannot leave you out here while we chase after Rikki.”

“I kn-kn-know,” his brother whined, quickening to a hurried walk. “But those n-n-n-noises, I think one of M-m-m-Mama’s stories told of them. A scary one.”

El’s eyes shifted as he thought. Their mother enjoyed telling scary stories, even more than tales about Bright Ryn. She always said that in every terrifying tale, there was an ember of truth to teach young ones about survival. But which story mentioned foxes making weird sounds? Unable to remember, he focused on another possibility.

“Hmmm, then perhaps this fox is trying to scare away trespassers like how some harmless snakes try to look like venomous ones. If that is the case, he may not be capable of defending his territory in a fight. Still, we do not want to take that chance if we can avoid it.”

The two kits joined up with Rio and Nova. They had caught up to Rikki and now took cover with him behind one of the slanting trees. Up ahead, they watched the figure of a fox meander about. A cloud had roamed in front of the moon, obscuring any defining features on the stranger, but from what the group could make out, he looked incredibly gaunt.

Grrra. Eeetcha. Nengeng. Arrr.

The fox grew more agitated. He slammed his hind end onto the earth and brought a hindleg to his neck, scratching furiously with broken whimpering

“Sweeps, what’s this dog doing?” Rikki whispered, stepping from behind the tree. A tug at the base of his tail made him whirl around to see that El had pinned it to the ground with a forepaw.

“What do you think you are doing?” El whispered. “I told you that we should not approach any foxes out here.”

Rikki feigned a nip at his brother’s leg, removing the paw from his tail. With a victorious smirk, he brought his tail close to his side. “And I told you that there’s no scent marks. Now, I’m asking him if he knows where the flower is. Or do you not want Mom to get better?”

Before El could respond, Rikki shouted at the stranger.

“Hey, you!”

The fox stopped scratching and his head snapped in Rikki’s direction.

From behind the tree, Codi began to shake, eyes wide with realization. His stammer grew so bad that he was barely coherent.

“What? Spit it out, Muttermouth!” Nova whispered, fear overpowering his irritation.

“Get Rikki aw-w-way. Th-that’s not a f-f-f-fox. It’s a L-l-l-…”

As Codi struggled to speak, Rikki continued towards the stranger. The figure, likewise, crept towards him. From his position, the kit noticed that the fox’s fur looked thicker on one side than on the other. He didn’t grace it with a second thought, choosing to ask his question before El could stop him again.

“Hey, our mom is sick, and we’re trying to make her better. Do you know where we can find a Ra-”
The kit’s voice caught in his throat as the clouds parted and moonlight fell upon the fox. What he had thought to be thinning fur on the fox’s side was bare skin. Its ribs threatened to break through scabby, grey and pink flesh that oozed bubbles of blood and pus. Any remaining fur on its body grew matted and disheveled, and Rikki now noticed that a good part of its tail was missing at the end. Thick, hard scales covered its muzzle, forehead, and ears –all pale and crusty with snaking cracks like the bark of a tree. The creature staggered towards Rikki, making more of its unnatural noises as its name finally tore from Codi’s mouth.

“L-l- Leish!”

All five kits’ hackles bristled. Their mother had told of cursed foxes that walked the woods –dogs and vixens that did things so unspeakable and awful that not even the darkest, coldest depths of the Everwinter could provide a fitting punishment. Doomed to remain within their pelts after death, these foxes wandered the forest inside a husk of rotting fur and flesh. These creatures were what the kits came to know as the Leish.

Four kit hearts beat like a rabbit’s paw thumping the ground. The monster was now four foxlengths and a tail from their brother. They all hoped that it wasn’t fast enough to catch a fleeing kit. What happened next, however, threatened to make most of them wet the ground. Instead of running, Rikki positioned himself for a fight.

Rio’s forepaws fumbled in place in a panicked dance. “Oh, centipedes! He’s not gonna run, he’s not gonna run!”

“Scuzz, scuzz, scuzz!” Nova cursed. “What’s that fuzz-brain doing?”

Not willing to wait for an answer, El dashed from the tree on burning legs, sending dirt flying behind him as his paws pounded the ground.

Though he couldn’t see himself, Rikki imagined he looked threatening. His inner ears lay flat against his head, and his mouth gaped wide to display his teeth. The ghastly creature in front of him sent a shudder creeping along his spine, but he managed to raise his tail high in a mock display of confidence. The Leish moaned and sobbed as it approached him, and Rikki’s muscles readied themselves for a charge. The cursed fox screamed, but before he could attack, another scratching fit brought him to a halt.

Rikki’s tail rose higher. “Ha! You picked a bad moment to be itchy, Mr. Leish!” Growling, he ran towards the decaying threat.

Codi cursed his clumsy speech. He had to warn Rikki of the consequences of touching a Leish, but he couldn’t say anything save for a river of fractured sounds. Desperately, he gave his tongue a sharp nip, ending his stuttering and allowing him to let out a bark that pierced the night as well as everyfox’s ears

“Don’t touch him!”

It looked to be too late. Rikki’s jaws were a muzzlelength away, poised to grasp what remained of the Leish’s ruff.
Ka-dom!

Rikki flopped to the ground. Pain thudded in his side. Something had rammed into him. Next thing he knew, dirt and pebbles scraped his pelt. Something was sporadically pulling him away. The pain at the base of his hindquarters clued him in on the culprit. El had once again snagged him by the tail. He scrambled to his paws, ready to demand what in the Everwinter his brother was doing when he heard a raspy, broken voice come from behind him.

“Help. Help meeeeeee.”

The Leish staggered towards the two foxes, paws fumbling to keep its hurried pace.

“Stop. Pleease!”

Rikki reassumed his fighting stance, only to have his tail pulled again.

“We need to get out of here.” El said, releasing Rikki and starting towards the tree.

With his advantage lost, Rikki huffed before running to chew El’s ears.
“What did you do that for? I had an opening!”

El kept silent.

“Hey! Answer me, Acorn-Head, I’m talking to you!”

More silence. He chased his brother all the way to the tree, but before he could demand an answer from him, Nova, Rio, and Codi herded him to continue running.

“What in the name of the Great Light were you thinking?” Nova shouted at him. “You could have been killed!”

Rikki ignored his brother’s reprimand in favor of verbally attacking El. “Look, Acorn-Head, don’t go thinking you’re some big hero for saving me. I knew what I was doing. How hard could it be to kill something that’s already falling apart?”

“No.” Codi said. “You c-can’t touch a L-Leish or it’ll c-c-c-curse you too.”

Rikki’s blood froze over. Was that true? He had always missed the end of the story whenever his mother told it. His mind would always drift to fantasies of him getting his Golden Eyes for killing one. Or a few. Or a lot. The winter in his body quickly thawed as summer-hot foolishness spread through his body, but he managed to fake a raised tail.

“Yes, well I- I was only making it think I was going for it ruff. To catch it off guard. But this pain in the tail ruined my plan.”

“Well, on the sunny side,” Rio interrupted. “I think we lost that old Leishy thing.”

Parent foxes often tell their kits not to taste their prey before catching it and to never speak about a clear sky lest storm clouds cover it up. What happened next gave credibility to such sayings. From the brush ahead of them, the Leish leapt out with a hideous shriek. The kits’ fur stood on end as the monster ran towards them. The one eye that wasn’t covered by scales burned red with mania as it let out a broken scream.

“Stooooop!”

Like bees from a cracked hive, the kits scattered in different directions. Rio made the mistake of looking back to see if the walking husk was behind him.

Pak!

The impact with an unseen tree tore a yelp from his mouth, and he flopped to the ground in a daze.

The Leish’s head jerked in Rio’s direction. Seeing the vulnerable kit, it started a contorted run, pressing its furless shoulder and the side of its face into the ground. After dragging itself for an entire foxlength, the creature scrambled back to all four of its paws and homed in on the stunned kit with increased speed.

Rikki had also been alerted by Rio’s yelp. With no time to think, he turned around and sped to the rescue. He begged his legs to go faster as he saw the terror on his brother’s face. With a loud, sharp bark, Rikki in front of Rio, staring down his attacker and making wild snapping motions with his jaws.

His sudden and vicious appearance forced the Leish to a halt. As Rikki growled and stood his ground, the creature shrank back.

“Hey! Itchy-Face!” he shouted. He brought a hindleg to his ruff and started scratching in a display of bliss. “Oooooh, yeah! That’s the spot. Ahhhhh, feels soooooo good.”

He smirked, continuing to scratch as the monster clenched its teeth and squirmed in its own skin. With a howl, the Leish’s body writhed around as it tried to scratch everywhere on its pelt at once. Its raspy voice croaked out amid its unintelligible noises.

“Yeeag. Sssaa-arngg! Pleeeease! Eech! Helllllp!”

Rikki motioned with his head, signaling Rio to run –a command the frightened kit obeyed. One problem down. Now it was only the matter of the Leish, but how was he supposed to fight something he couldn’t touch? He checked his surroundings, taking care to keep an intermittent eye on his foe as it continued its mad scratching. He took notice of the leaning trees and how some of the young ones’ branches stuck out low to the ground. Swishing his tail, he stopped scratching, stood up, and spoke to the Leish in mock understanding.

“Oh, you want help? Why didn’t you say so? I know where help is. Follow me.”

Rikki made sure to let the cursed fox see which direction he took off in, only running at full speed once the walking carcass gave chase. The kit’s eyes focused on one of the long, outstretched tree limbs and –as the Leish’s hot breath tickled his tail he hoped that the branches were the ones that bent like river reeds instead of snapping like sticks.

With a running leap, Rikki ‘s mouth opened and caught the tree’s limb. It bent back. The young fox landed, bending the branch as far as he felt it could go before opening his mouth and dropping to the ground.

Whipak!

The branch cracked the Leish between its eyes, and its body seemed to scrunch up a bit before collapsing to the ground. It didn’t move.

Rikki’s squeaky laughter echoed through the forest, and he did a twirling jump as he celebrated his victory.

“Hee hee ha ha! How’d you like that, Scabby-Eyes? At least you’re not itching anymore. Hee hee hee!”

His glee drew his brothers from their respective hiding places. They gathered around Rikki, except for Codi –who kept his distance from the prone Leish.

“Wowee!” Rio exclaimed. “Did you kill it?”

El nosed towards the expanding and deflating of the creature’s sides. “It is still breathing. Come, we must get as far away from it as we can before it wakes.” He walked briskly away, prompting Rio, Nova, and Codi to do the same. “Rikki, come. Stop fooling around.”

Rikki’s smirked to hide his sour mood. “Fooling around? You sure you’re not jealous that I thought up a way to beat old Rot-Breath and you couldn’t?”

El eyed him with the look of a fox that was just asked a stupid question. “Are you even aware that we would have avoided that thing entirely had you just listened to me?”

“Well, I beat him didn’t I, and none of us got hurt so what does it matter? Besides, who agreed that you get to make the decisions?”

El started to say something but paused and chose to go with different speech instead. “Nofox. But we do need a leader. Otherwise, we will be in trouble if all of us act on our own, like back then. Naturally, the leader should be the one who knows where to go and how to avoid danger.”

Rikki scoffed. “Yeah, well, you can’t avoid danger all the time, so naturally it should be the one who can defeat the monsters.”

El hummed quietly in response. “Alright, how about this? We will let the others decide which they think is best.”
“Sounds good to me. Maybe now you’ll see that I’m right.”

“Well, I choose Rikki,” Rio piped up. “He saved me, and the way he beat that Leishy-watzit was the awesomest, most amazing, most smartest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Rikki hit El with a smirk.

“Well, I w-w-want El.” Codi said. “I’d rather avoid d-d-d-danger, please.”

El nodded. “Thank you, Rio, Codi. Nova, who do you choose?”

Nova shook his head. “I’m not saying anything until we find somewhere to stay for the night. Who knows what other things go running around out here?”

~

Though it felt as if they had walked long enough to see dawn break, eventually, the paw-sore foxes came across a fallen tree propped up by the remains of its stump. The rest of the tree sloped towards the ground, and most of it had enough room beneath to squeeze under for cover. El inspected the potential den, examining the stability of their covering and how well it would keep them hidden.

“It will have to do,” he said. “Unless that stump suddenly vanishes, we need not worry about our cover falling on us.”

“Great, now we can get back to the matter at claw” Rikki said. “Come on, Nova, tell the Acorn-Head that you pick me to be the leader.”

If eyes had teeth, Nova’s glare would’ve bitten Rikki’s head off.

“Pick you to be leader?” Nova barked. “After you made that-that, walking fly food come after us? Solvin’ a problem is less than scuzz if you’re the one who caused it. What if El didn’t get to you in time? Did you even have a clue what you’d do if the branch missed or didn’t even bend? You could have died twice back there! How can a leader protect others if he can’t even protect himself? Really, I should be top-kit because I’m the strongest, but even I’m smart enough to realize that, if there’s more stuff like that out here, fighting isn’t going to work, and if you had listened to El, this wouldn’t have happened. So, listen up, Fuzz-Brain! I pick El! He’s the leader! Deal with it!”

With that, Nova turned –nearly hitting Rikki in the nose with his tail and stormed over to the fallen tree where he slammed himself down and went to sleep.

Rikki stood frozen in place. The feeling of wet tongues on his cheeks caused him to blink back to the moving world where he was met with Rio and Codi attempting to comfort him.

“Don’t mind him, Nova’s just grumpy because he was worried about you. Besides, it was still amazing how you saved me.”

“I’m s-s-sorry, Rikki, it’s all m-m-my fault. I could have warned you f-faster if it wasn’t for my st-stupid st-st-st-stutter.”

The proud kit let out a laugh and forced tail high as he broke away from his brothers. “Ha, whatever, like I care what Nova has to say. So Acorn-Head’s the leader, so what? He’s bound to get into something he can’t think his way out of, and when he does ” he turned to El, making sure he saw him. “ I’ll be the one to save his sorry tail.” With that, faked a yawn and trotted towards the space under the tree. “Well, better get to sleep. Whacking that Leish made me sleepy.”

He lied down at the far end of the tree and curled himself up, bringing his tail to his nose. Without another sound, the remaining kits took their places inside the ditch and did the same, and soon, they all drifted off into the world of dreams. All, that is, except Rikki. The young fox’s eyes were closed, but he was still awake, his breathing shaky and his teeth clenched, hoping that his brothers couldn’t hear his soft whimpering.