CinderWereFox (Prologue 2)
#2 of CinderWereFox
Cinderwerefox!
By (in alphabetical order)
Sami Deveraux, (Vulpine)
And SilverDragon, (SilverDragon)
Second Prologue:
Knowing that he would never be able to change his fathers mind about sending him away, the boy kept quiet and silently followed his father and brother. They knew that they had to get him to his stepmother before nightfall, but they had no other choice but to walk. Being as poor as they are, they cannot afford to keep a horse.
Though this time, it may cost them their lives if they cannot get to town fast enough. Luckily they came upon a farmer who was heading into town with a wagon of straw and decided to pay him to take the boy with him. He agreed and the boy got onto the back of the wagon, silently staring at the ground.
"Here, take these few coins we have left and this, too..." The woodcutter pressed a small bit of folded parchment into his youngest son's hand. "Remember to give this to your stepmother the moment you arrive."
The child looked up at his father with sadness in his eyes and took the coins and the note, nodding slowly.
"I'm... sorry..." his father closed his eyes, swallowing a sob that welled up inside his chest before it could escape. Then he quickly went on: "but you know that we have to get you to town as soon as possible, and there is no place on this wagon for three of us."
There's a moment of silence before the boy nods again and his father wipes away his tears then hugs him tight.
"Goodbye, my son."
The ride in the cart was slow and lumbering, and the sun was high in the sky when the bored youngster was wakened from the nap that quickly resulted.
They were crossing a wide valley filled with oddly shaped crystals, which sparkled on either side of the road. The horse pulling the cart was breathing tiredly, and he shyly asked the driver where they were, but didn't get an answer in reply.
He had been oddly tired all day, but as the evening approached he quickly became more alert, and saw the glow of lights coming from over a small rise ahead. When they crossed it, the long shadows of the slowly setting sun cut lines lit by lanterns through the city that stretched in the valley below them.
"Your father," the driver said, "wants me to take you straight to see Lady Lovelace, but I won't have time to take this to market if I do. So you'll have to walk the rest of the way."
The man pointed down a cobblestone walk that lead off around the edge of the city proper to the right.
"Go that way, and when you see a house with three windows, one above the other, that is where she lives."
As the boy walked along, and the shadows grew longer, he remembered his father's warning to hurry. And he ran along quicker, until at last he came to a little rise, and reaching it, he saw the most magnificent thing he ever beheld, for on another rise a ways off, there was a fantastic palace with towers and a drawbridge.
He stood and looked at it for a while, amazed, and then ran along the path a little farther, reaching the house the driver had described a few minutes before sunset.
He knocked on the door hesitantly, and it made an odd booming noise, as if the entire building was hollow, like a giant drum.
After a little while, the door opened, the boy inside looking him up and down critically.
"Who are you?"
The younger lad blushed, and offered the figure the note.
The boy took it, and saw that it was for his mother, Lady Lovelace, but opened and read it anyway.
"DEAR AUNT PLEASE HELP OUR SON IS CURSED CAN YOU FIX HIM HE WILL WORK HARD FOR IT," it went in crooked caps of charcoal, the boy's mother, the best educated of the family, not the best at her penmanship.
"Hm..." The youth's new stepbrother said to himself, and gestured for the boy to enter and sit at the small round table in his mother's anteroom while he went to get his mother.
The young boy sat silently at the table, looking around the magnificent room curiously. As his eyes fell upon a colorful painting, he noticed that the colors started to slowly fade into plain shades of gray.
Just then, Lady Lovelace entered the room, reading the note. "So.. this letter says that you are..."
The stepmother began, but at sudden cry from the boy, who had been sitting quietly, she stopped and looked up.
"Aaa-a-a-aa-aah!" he cried out, and squeezed his eyes closed. It felt as if his skin was too hot, and it itched everywhere. He felt his shoulder crack! as something changed inside it, his torso growing slightly longer, his arms and fingers aching as they altered, too.
His stepmother just stood and watched as the boy transformed, fur growing over his skin and his whole body shifting until he was some kind of monster, "Ahh yes," she says to herself, "a werefox curse. I haven't seen something like this in a very long time."
"Be quiet, little one," she said, and the foxboy opened his eyes, which were a perfect shade of steel gray, and looked up at her.
He tried to whine, because his body still hurt, his fingers feeling like they were melting as the soft pads developed on his palms and the sharp translucent crystal claws sprung from his fingertips, but something was wrong, and he couldn't make a sound at all. The pointy furred ears he had grown pricked up at the faint tap-tap of his stepmother's fleshy fingertips on the edge of the doorway.
"In...teresting." She went on, seeing that he still hurt, but wasn't fidgeting very much. Stronger than he looks, she thought to herself.
"Do you know what this note says?"
He shook his head.
"It says your parents want you to stay with me for a while, and do chores, while I try to help you get well again."
The boy's eyes got really wide at this, for his parents hadn't told him anything about work. But he wanted to be better, so he nodded quickly, the look of panic I'd do anything, anything, just help me! Please! showing he was willing to do anything to get back to normal again.
"Good."
Lady Lovelace smiled, and the foxboy shivered, although he knew not why.
"But we can't call you by your old name, no no, that wouldn't do."
She brought one of her gloved hands to her mouth and tapped at it, and again the boy's sharp ears picked up the much quieter noise, this time of skin on skin.
Why would he need a different name? he thought to himself.
"I know. You shall be called ..."
He held his breath.
"Fox."
Fox?
The boy looked down at himself in dismay, and could only see how fitting and true the name was for such a creature as he had become. But before he could reflect on this, his stepmother spoke again.
"Come with me," Lady Lovelace said. "You can speak if you wish."
That little move of her hand, with the complex flick of her fingers! This time, Fox was watching, and he watched very well, wondering if he could imitate it with his paws. But as Lady Lovelace had already stepped into the hallway, he had to hurry to catch up, and didn't get to attempt the feat.
He followed her up some stairs, then along a narrow hallway, then up some stairs again.
"It will be good to have your help. Heaven knows, my children do little around the house." the stepmother continued, not looking to see that the foxboy was having trouble keeping up, for the paws he was walking on now made it like he was balancing constantly on tiptoe, and he had to keep touching the wall to keep from falling.
"E...excuse me," he finally managed to croak, and his eyes grew wide, for the boy surprised to find that he could almost make words of a sort with his muzzle, having only been able to growl and yip before. Lady Lovelace stopped fast, and turned around.
"What?" his stepmother replied.
But under her cold stare, he was too shy to speak. A few moments passed, and she went on.
"I suppose it is getting late. Let me show you to your room."
She lead him down another long hallway, and up more stairs, and came to a small door, near the attic of the house.
"This shall be your room."
She opened it with a key from pocket, and inside he saw a small cot with a patchwork quilt, a little square desk with a candleholder in the corner and a few old books sitting on it, and a window. By the window there was a broom and dustpan, the former of which leaned on a rectangular dresser. The dresser was made of a dark maple, and looked like it once had been very nice, but now was in much worse shape. Two of its three drawers were missing, and the third completely empty. By the door, there was an old, worn chamberpot.
The whole room was very dusty, and Fox's eyes started watering and his nose started tingling the moment he took his first step inside.
"A..a...a..aa...choo!" he sneezed, sending a small cloud of dust back out into the hallway.
His stepmother coughed herself, and took a few steps back.
"There's a broom in there, you should probably sweep before you go to bed," Lady Lovelace continued, pausing to cough again before she reached to shut the door. "I'll close this, so you don't wander off and get lost."
The door closed with a click, and there was a metallic noise of the key in the lock as his stepmother locked him in.
He sighed softly and picked up the broom to start sweeping, as he didn't really have much of a choice. Every now and then he would stop to sneeze or cough, and then just continue cleaning his new room. After all the dust was on one neat pile, he opened the window to throw it into the gutter, scooping pan after pan of dust out of the window.
When he finally finished cleaning, the room was mostly dust free, and he sat on his bed staring at the window, for the first time thinking about his family. He cries a bit as he misses his family, not knowing how long he would have to live with his stepmother. It suddenly hits him that he will be able to go home once the curse is lifted and he takes a deep breath and stops crying. "I'm sure Lady Lovelace lift this curse as soon as she finds a way, I must just stay strong and do what she tells me for now and work hard." he says to himself.
His thoughts turn to his fox friend as he lies down on the bed, almost instantly falling asleep. The young foxboy dreams of his friend back home, they are playing in the same place where the fox took him the first time and he feels happy for the first time since this curse business started.
The fox runs out in front of the boy and he gladly follows. The boy follows the tod into another part of the forest, as he enters after the fox darkness befalls them and he once again falls to the ground in pain. "No, not now.." he cries to himself, but as he speaks his hand starts to turn into vicious looking claws and the all too familiar fur grows over his soft boyish skin, and he clutched at the grass, closing his eyes and shedding two large tears.
But instead of running away, his fluffy friend stays by him as he changes, pawing gently at his now furred arm. The oddly spindly second fox opened his muzzle and whined as he felt the last of the bones shifting into place as his change was complete, but then felt a warm touch on his cheek. He opened his eyes, and saw the little silver tod had stayed next to him, and was leaning up to lick at his cheek comfortingly.
"...Yip?" It said, and seemed to be asking if he was all right.
The foxboy could only nod, and blush lightly. He opened his mouth to speak, and a little "Yip!" of his own escaped.
"Yip yip!" his friend replied, then dashed a little ways up, stopping and looking over his shoulder again, as if nothing had changed.
Fox tried to stand, but rising felt uncomfortable and strange, and he hunched forwards slightly. His fluffy companion ran back to his ... hindpaws ... and stopped beside them, wagging his tail and looking up at him hopefully.
And the boy reached down with his clawed forepaws, his furred arms, and squeezed his friend in a tight hug.
In his sleep, Fox had wrapped his arms around his broom, and clung close to it, laying under the edge of the small cot, for he had fallen out of the bed in his sleep, and found the feeling of the cold hard floor through his thick fur more like his mat at home than his place in the bed.
***