So the snickering fox sibling of mine is apparently our elder brother and is the leader of our little pup pack. Well he’s still under our mother, so not technically the one in charge.

While I was running around *cough* I mean training my agility and reflexes. He made all of the other pups submit to him in one way or another and decided that I was too weird to even be worthy of being included in his quest for dominance over the other pups. Not like I would have let him be dominant over me or anything, but that is apparently making me the lone pup of the pack.

Well I guess the only thing I lose from not playing with them is the ability to learn and refine any natural instincts that would be used when playing with them.

So now running through the forest *cough* hehe, I mean the training obstacle course known as the forest. And its not like I’m doing it because of the feeling of the wind on my fur makes me forget my loneliness!!

No, I still have my mother and she at least thinks I can go in the forest now. Although not too far, I still have to be within eye sight of her when I’m in there.

A few days later

Dodging, climbing and leaping through the treacherous obstacle course known as the forest, has been fun. But getting leaves and other small things out of my fur has been a pain. The first couple of times that happened I had to get my mother to teach me how to safely pull them out without hurting myself too badly or giving myself bald patches.

I’ve also noticed that none of my other siblings have been brave enough to go into the forest not even the snickering brother of mine. Oh well, more room to run for me then!

Going back towards my mother and the submissive pup pack, I make my way towards the dead carcass that my mother hunted for us during our nap time. And I guess I’ve been acting normal lately because that snickering brother of mine decides that at this exact moment he needs to show his dominance over me.

Nope not happening, time to run back into the forest.

Apparently running back to the forest and waiting out my snickering brother of mine out, was not working. Every time I tried to go back into the clearing he ambushed me and I ran back into the forest, so he couldn’t pin me down. Finally fed up with his dominating attitude I pounce out of the forest, into the clearing and tackle his stupid body to the ground. Putting as much of my non-existent weight on top of him and cutting off his means of movement by putting pressure on his other limbs I start to snap at his face.

Then giving him the meanest growl I could muster *grrr* *grrrrr*

I know so evil, right. But luckily it’s enough, Snickers as I’m going to be calling him from now on slowly walks back to the rest of the pack with his head down in shame.

Tehe…. *sticks out tongue*

A month later

Mother started to teach us how to stalk and hunt our prey. And let me be the first to tell you it’s so exciting! It’s my first step towards independence. Well technically second if you count that incident with Snickers trying to be dominant with me.

So following Mother in the forest, all of us small pups diligently follow behind and try to keep pace with her. Running through the forest with others is not equally as fun as doing it by myself, since I’ve got to make sure I don’t run over anyone or block their paths. But it’s still fun, maybe only because I’m not alone anymore? Or is it just the wind in my fur making it feel better?

Regardless, it’s a productive day! I managed to stalk two rabbits and I tried stalking this frog, but it was no fun at all! Like come on, it hardly moved and when it did it wasn’t moving in a straight line!! It just kept hopping left then right then left then right! Frankly, I’m never EVER stalking a frog again.

My siblings kinda suck at it, but they get better later in the day. And that’s when mom calls it quits and we head back to our little meadow.

This continues until all of us have at least caught some sort of creature, either by ourselves or in pairs. Of course I caught the most because I’m awesome.

A year or so later

Nothing really new has occurred in a while, just practicing hunting and other foxy things. To be honest sometimes it’s exciting, like how I can now sneak up on someone and they won’t even realize I’m there until I pounce upon them. But then there’s some really negative things, for example owls… let’s just say I may have or may not have been carried off once or twice in the middle of the night. But obviously they failed because here I am!

I am now noticeably bigger than Snickers and the rest of the pups, so I’m pretty happy with myself since I’m no longer considered the ‘problem child’ by our mother. That’s fallen to the pups who haven’t been preforming as well as the rest. Although sad news, one of those pups did die a while back. Don’t remember which one exactly but there’s one less then when I first counted so yeah…

A week or so after I finally realize one of us is gone, all of us are resting in our little meadow that will soon be too small to contain all of us. Our mother suddenly swivels her head to the right, looking off in the distance and starts to smell the air.

I look in the same direction as Mother and what I see is a little scary. There’s a column of smoke rising above the tree tops and a burning smell is starting to invade our noses. At this point all of us are awake and alert. We wait for what feels like forever and that’s when I see it off in the distance…. Fire.

Correction from my previous thought, what I see is terrifying!

*POV: Human*

“Now boys gather around!” yells the human who seems to be in charge of some small group of adult men.

There’s about 10 or so humans grouped together at the end of the forest where our little fox is currently residing. They are all gathered here for one reason and one reason only, human greed. All of them are hunters or poachers in some way or another, and their goal is to collect as many little creatures as they can for the purpose of selling them off to the wealthy for multiple purposes.

All of the men have gathered and there’s nothing remotely remarkable about any of them in this bunch. Not even the leader is anyone special.

“In this forest behind me are some of the most exotic creatures around! And let me tell you, if u think that some of the animals in here are simple animals than your dead wrong!” The leader then pauses for dramatic effect to help raise the moral of the men gathered.

“This isn’t called The Jade forest for nothing! For as there are many different colours of jade there are many variations of animals in this forest that more often than not they evolve into magical creatures!!” says Leader

At this point most of the humans are brimming with excitement. They’ve travelled for weeks to reach this edge of the forest where they could start to burn some of the forest and have the animals run towards the river on the other side and fall into their traps that they’ve set up a week prior.

By setting the forest a blaze the smoke and flames would cause all the animals and magical creatures in the area to flee to safety, which is in the direction of the river.

“Men light your torches!! It is time to set this forest a blaze and get us some gold!” And with that the leader of the groups of humans lights various torches in his possession and throws them into the brush of the forest. All the other humans in the group follow suit right behind their leader.

The forest slowly starts to become filled with gluttonous flames from hundreds of torches and starts to work its way into the depths of the Jade Forest.