Paradigm Continuum
A small fox struggles to survive in a harsh world.
Paradigm Continuum
by Winter
The bad rain had come again during the night. The smell of it tickled her nose in a way she didn't like, and when she tried to stick a paw outside the cave entrance, it stung. She shuddered. No way could she go out there now, even though she was really hungry.
Yesterday, a dim memory now that she had slept and dreamed, there had been no prey in sight, in scent or in hearing. Nothing. She had found some red berries that were sweet at first and sour when she chewed them, but they weren't enough to fill her belly. Now, though, with the bad rain, there would be no more berries. No grass. No trees. Nothing to eat at all.
She sniffed carefully, ignoring the tickle, trying to find the scent of the Other. It was there, faint but there. He hadn't been gone long. Why hadn't he woken her up? They could have left together. Now he was gone and she was left behind with no food and bad rain and...
She turned and headed back into the cave, deeper in where it was almost completely dark, where a trickle of fresh water still ran down the wall. She lapped at it, tasting more dirt and moss than water, but it quenched her thirst and slaked the worst of her hunger.
Was he dead now, the Other? Did the bad rain catch him without shelter? She tilted her head, trying to remember what he had looked like. They had only travelled together for a couple of days, and the sight memory had already begun to fade. Her scent, though, was still fresh in her nose.
Closng her eyes, she could recall the touch of his pelt, so much like her own. The word red had gone from the world, like all other words. He had been soft, though. Nice to cuddle with while they slept. Together, but now not together. Maybe he would come back, but they never did. Not once she had scared them. Maybe he had preferred the bad rain.
Without really thinking about what she was doing, she stood up on her hind legs and pressed her front paws against the trickle of water. It ran over them, in between her toes, and it felt good. Felt clean. She liked to get clean, another thing the Others didn't like. A shadowy memory came to her mind; another time when she had stood up, looking out over a bunch of Others, all staring at her. Someone snarled, another shied away. They had barked at her, yipped and growled and in the end, made her leave.
And now, this Other had left her.
* * * * * *
At the foot of the mountain, among rolling green hills, she finally found more berries to eat. These were no sweet at all, almost bitter on her tongue. Still, she felt better, a little bit stronger. Months had passed since the Other had left her alone in the cave, but to her it had just been a day after a day, lots of days after days. His memory had faded from her conscious mind, if not from her dreams.
There had been no more bad rain, though at times she could smell it on the wind, even see it fall far away. She had a new cave now, just where the hills gave birth to the mountain. There was a good-water stream inside, and she had caught a couple of mice who were tiny and skinny but tasted so good. And there were no Others, not even a trace of a scent of them. No one to see her when she stood up, even walked around on hind legs. No one to hate her. No one to love her, either.
This was her last home, somehow she knew it. There was nothing back the way she had come, and she couldn't go 'round the mountain. She had tried, but there was something wrong with the land, growing worse for every step she took.
Death lived there, she just knew it. The further she went, the more uneasy she felt. The ground was hot under her paws, and the air tasted... strange. She could just barely remember something like it, something she had experienced once before. The glowing places. Where everything had died and where nothing could go without dying. This was not as bad, but it still scared her.
* * * * * *
So she stayed, and she survived. She walked on all fours and she walked on hind legs, and no one was there to see. No Others. Nobody. The bad rain wouldn't touch the hills, it seemed. Maybe it was scared of the mountain, she thought at times, but it was a fleeting thought. She couldn't really form and keep such ideas, just barely touch upon them.
Hunting and foraging, sleeping and dreaming. Sometimes she just sat outside her cave and watched the plain below the hills, where the bad rain had passed and creatures began to stir. None that came her way, though. Not that she wanted them to. They weren't prey, they weren't Others. They just... were.
Other times she would gaze up the mountain. There were living things there, too. Large things that hunted and fought and sometimes she could hear them scream in the night. They stayed up there, though. Maybe they had seen her walk on two legs and hated her now, just like the Others. Because she wasn't like them, and never would be. Or maybe they were simply mountain creatures, just like the plains creatures were plains creatures. Only she was of the hills. She, and the mice.
When she dreamed, she once or twice touched upon futures, dreams of would-bes that her awake mind couldn't even begin to form. She saw kits - were they hers? - playing among the hills. All walking on hind legs. She saw mounds of dirt, with little caves inside them, where the kits lived. She saw Others like her, who loved her. Acceptance, and kin.
Usually these visions dawnfaded, but now and again some stuck in her mind. She sniffed around patches where the ground was soft, and she dug up dirt and she pushed it into mounds. But when she tried to make caves in them they collapsed around her and she had to wash.
Maybe if she had kits they would know how to do it, but how could one alone become a mother? No Other would ever want her, because she walked on two legs and they were all scared of her. Once or twice, she thought she had seen someone like her, down on the plains, but they never came close enough to be sure.
* * * * * *
It came down in the night, so quiet she never heard it before it was too late. Cold had come and gone, then come and gone again while she stayed alive and lived in her cave.
It was huge, big as four of her, and its claws tore into her flesh with pain and fear and death and... no, no... she couldn't die. Wouldn't. Fight, fight. Tiny teeth but sharp, biting. How she got away she couldn't remember, but she did live.
Many, many days passed while she healed, hiding in her cave. The thing that attacked her left as quietly as it had come. Maybe to hunt on the plains, maybe back up the mountain. She didn't care. The only times she left her cave it was to eat some leaves and berries and mushrooms, or to give back to the hills whatever didn't stay inside her. The mice were safe, for now.
Her front paw, her favourite one, hurt. Claws had slashed it, and it didn't want to heal. The wounds were gone now, but something inside wasn't right. So she walked on two legs for as long as she could, then hobbled on three whenever her back got sore. She would never run again, they way she had. A streak of red with fluffy tail, darting in and out of bushes and trees and hills. She walked.
On two legs.
* * * * * *
Another cold. And another. Though she couldn't know it, she had reached half her life. Stll surviving. Alone in her hills. They were hers now. The bad rain still didn't touch them, the thing with the claws had stayed up its mountain, and there were no Others. At least none who would come to her.
Her paws begun to darken, her tailtip was bushier than ever, and her best front paw hurt to walk on. Only the unluckiest mice found their way into her belly. But there were plenty of berries, more for every new warm. Even though she ate them bare they kept coming back. She couldn't know that she spread their seeds, even fertilised them, made them grow and flower and then she ate their fruit.
Maybe her kits' kits' kits would some day understand how these things worked, but not she. If she ever had kits. She would still need anOther for that.
* * * * * *
It had come dangerously close this time, the bad rain. She could still smell it, almost burning her throat. Many plains creatures had died, but their carcasses were bad meat. Bad rain made bad kills. On hind legs she watched them, tried to see if anything survived. The clawthing from the mountain screamed in the nights, sounding almost sad. Maybe the bad rain had come up there, too. She didn't know. Or maybe it sensed all the death and didn't like it. As long as it stayed away, she didn't really care.
Two sleeps passed. The bad rain smell faded. The bad meat smell grew stronger. She didn't like it, but it was better than the bad rain smell.
She ate her berries, caught mice when she could. Drank water from her stream. Survived.
The night's dream dawnfaded, as they usually did, but tufts of it stayed. Bits of dreams of memories that should have been gone but weren't. How the Others had shunned her, how one even braved the bad rain rather than stayed with her. It made her thoughts hurt and her eyes watered for some strange reason. Emptiness inside, though not hunger or thirst. At least, not hunger and thirst as she knew them.
Cold was coming again, and her breath steamed in the pale morning light. Bad good paw hurt. She stood outside the cave, on two legs. No mice would die today. The berries that grew during the cold were sweet, and she didn't have to walk far to find some. On two legs.
And there he was. Not the same Other who had left her and gone out into the bad rain. This one, she had never seen before. His pelt was like hers. His tail was like hers. His whiskers twitched like hers when their scents greeted their noses. He stared at her, and she shivered, waiting for his rejection. Waiting for the fresh sting of eyes-water. He tilted his head curiously. Then he stood up.
On two legs.
* * * * * *
Maybe their kits would rule the world some day. Some very, very faraway day. Or meybe they were a curiosity to shine and fade. In the then and now, it didn't matter.
The world had been ruled before, though they didn't know that. Ruled well, ruled poorly. Nearly ruled out of all life. Maybe, just maybe their kits would rule it better. Maybe they were the change to come.
They would never know. They didn't need to know. They had all they needed, and that was enough.