Fox Den

Sundown

Soon enough, after about a sun-segment of travel, I finally saw the outline of the human-dens ahead of me. I smelled the air. Human scent, and mice. Kash smelled the scent of the prey as well.

"I know you're a few moons too young for this, but... I shall teach you how to hunt." I tell him, his ears perking up at the sound of learning to hunt earlier than most pups, "You must watch closely and be silent. Once I show you, I will have you try it out for yourself and see how you do." Kash nods and watches me intently as I sniff the air again, focusing on the scent of mice as I snuck through the small clearing. I heard the shuffling of the mouse as I crept up on it, waiting until I was just four rabbit-bounds away, and then I pounced, the mouse going limp almost immediately. I turn to Kash, who was three rabbit-bounds away from me.

"Your turn. I want to see how you do." Kash didn't say anything, but sniffed the air, and stalked away, catching the scent of what I smelled was another mouse. After retreving my catch, I stalked behind him, not daring to make a peep or a shuffle of a sound. I stopped once the mouse was twelve rabbit-bounds away from me, and observed Kash's movements. His paws were light and dainty, not making a sound as they hit the ground, his shoulders moving in sync with his legs, and his eyes foucused entirely on the mouse. Now, he was four rabbit-bounds away, and....

"Squee-!" The mouse tried to run, but Kash was too quick for the mouse, and he ended it's time on the Earth.

"About perfect. Your paws slammed on the ground on your leap, but you still caught it. A large piece." I affectionately push my head against his shoulder, "Good job, I'm really proud of you, Kash."

"Heh, I did it... I wish Mom, Dad, and Shiba were here to see it..." He picked the mouse up.

"You'll be a hunting prodigy by the time we get back. You'll be catching more prey than Dad!" I flick my tail to him in a motion meaning 'Follow me.' and I lead him to a den in a tree. Smelling around for a dangerous scent and finding a stale scent of what seemed like a wolf, coming from about two moons ago, I nodded to Kash.

"We're eating here?"

"Yeah. We won't go near the human-dens yet. It's red-sky right now, and it'll be late into diamond-sky once we get there, and it'll be hard to find somewhere to sleep, so we're borrowing this." Kash nodded, and I went in first, leaving room for Kash as I started to eat my catch. He came in and ate his as we looked out at the sky.

"Will our ancestors guide us home during diamond-sky?"

"They can't lead us home, but they can give us guidance. Other than that, we're on our own with our instincts."

"Well, mine say to stay with you." Kash looked at me, "No matter what."

"Mine say to protect you and get you home as soon as possible." I tell him, "You and I should rest up. We're going to be sneaking around a lot tomorrow, so I want you to be ready, okay?" I finished my mouse as he pushed his away.

"You have the rest of it, I'm full." He insists, yawning and curling up in the small den and almost immediately falling into the world of either nirvana-dream, ancestor-message, or- what I hope won't happen- black hot-spark terror.

"Nashi-kolenta..." I tell him goodnight as I finish off his mouse silently, looking out for danger.

I will never give up on getting home.