Foxcraft || Reader Insert

Chapter One

Her paws landed on the ground, the soft padding of the ash beneath her muffled her paws as she landed. Her brush hovering just above the ground. Her gaze was focused on a brilliantly green beetle.

Her pelt was a beautiful shade of p/c with o/c flecks that seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. Her paws, which were normally a stunning p/c, now had small flecks of ash dancing on their sides. The lower part of her l/l, l/t legs were a stunning shade of o/c which mixed brilliantly with the p/c of her upper leg. Her ears were a vibrant shade of o/c. Her brush was t/l, and t/t, and had a shimmering o/c tip that seemed to reflect the light around it. Above her e/s eyes and her n/c, n/s nose she had streaks of o/c that outlined her unique facial features.

The beetle shuffled along the ground, trying in vain to find some sort of food or greenery.

The b/l cub wiggled her haunches slightly. Before she could pounce on the sparkling creacher a large something landed on the beetle making gray ash billow into the air around the large fox that landed on the beetle.

“You need to be quicker if you want to catch anything, Y/n,” as the ash cleared slightly Y/n could see her older brother standing in front of her, his eyes glowing with a vindictive sort-of triumph, the beetle clasped firmly in his jaws.

Y/n coughed, the ash from his landing seemed to be suffocating her. It seemed like a good long while until Y/n’s airways were clear enough for breathing.

“How do you expect to make it on your own if you're too weak to even breathe?” Her brother questioned mockingly, he was her largest sibling. Dark orange with flecks of white flickering on his pelt and tail tip. He always mocked Y/n's breathing, it was hard for her and the ashy landscape around the den didn't help.

“Giya!” Snapped the voice of an elderly fox from the entrance of their skulk's den, “Go make yourself useful and find Greatfa and I some fresh bedding,” Greatma snipped, her muzzle was gray with age and she often complained about how weary her bones were.

Giya shot Y/n a rather unfriendly look as he stalked off, “Next time I'll kill you instead of the beetle!” He snarled. “This is why Fa will never love you!” He bounded away through the ash on the ground leaving dark gray paw prints in his wake.

Y/n looked over at Greatma. Her beautiful e/c eyes shimmered with flecks of golden light. Greatma looked back at her, sympathy clouding her brilliant e/c eyes which the same pretty color as Y/n's

‘Just be patient with him, he doesn't understand what it feels like,’ Y/n didn't know how Greatma and her could share thoughts, it just seemed natural. It was the same with her brother Lycan. The two of them would often talk through their thoughts, exchanging wonders about their day. However Y/n never was able to share thoughts with both of them at the same time, and she didn't think they did it with each other.

Y/n didn't respond to Greatma. Giya was always pushing her around, he would deliberately kick ash up in her face because he knew she couldn't breathe well, and his death threats were a daily occurrence. Y/n knew the only reason he didn't actually kill her was because Greatma, Ma, and Lycan would force him out of the den to fend for himself.

Y/n felt a prickle on her back, her fur fluffed up convulsively. She turned her head to look at what it was. Small flakes of ash were falling from the sky onto her p/t, p/c pelt.

The Ashlands were called that for a reason, everything was coated in a thick layer of ash. Greatma says she can remember a time when the trees weren't charred and blackened, she says the hills used to be alive with bright green grass and more food she could ever imagine, not just the occasional beetle. Greatma says she can remember tall inverted dens that the furless used to live in. Now the dens were in ruins, charred and blacked. Greatma says that everything changed to the gray, ashy, charred landscape it was now when a wildfire raged through the land, it had been the first of many wildfires. Greatma was just a cub when it happened, the land still hasn't recovered from the fires even though it's been many, many moons since then.

Lycan would often take Y/n out to the ruins, where the rocks of the burnt inverted den would scrap against her paw pads and black chars would fall onto her p/c pelt. Lycan would teach her how to karak, though Y/n got so good at it that he eventually just started coming alone and practicing slimmering, Lycan wasn't very good at it, and he didn’t let Y/n join him because he wanted to be able to teach her how to do it. Lycan would always do that, he wanted to do things on his own, to figure it out himself, and then teach Y/n how to do them.

Greatma did something similar, she would take Y/n out to a quiet patch behind the den where the only sound was of the wind whistling and teach her pashanda, where she could summon knowledge from the wind. Y/n could know when it would rain, if her siblings were approaching, or if she was about to be ambushed, all with pashanda. She would focus on her o/c paws, and breathe deeply through her n/t nose, and use the chant to activate pashanda. The only downside was that she couldn't use pashanda all the time. If she could, Giya wouldn't be able to sneak up on her because she would already know he was coming.

Y/n walked to the hole in the rolling hills that made up the entrance to their den. Her p/t cub paws seemed to contrast the ash that bathed the ground. Y/n walked to the furthest point in the den, where there was a bundle of gray-green moss. Y/n padded over to the nest and curled up, laying her b/l head on her p/c paws. She wasn't really tired so she just turned her head around the den scanning the other foxes in there.

Y/n spotted two of her siblings sitting by the right wall of the den; her sister, Shyla, a vixen who was orange with p/c paws, and ears, and her brother, Kark, a reynard who was pale orange with red ears.

Shyla never even acknowledged that Y/n existed, the only time she did was to critique how her p/c pelt glimmered in the sunlight. For some reason Shyla hated it. Or maybe it was Y/n's Fa who pushed Shyla to criticize her.

Kark was only slightly different, he would talk to Y/n, on occasion, but only when Fa wasn't around, when Fa was around Kark would feebly try to insult Y/n. He wasn't very good, not compared to Giya and Shyla at least. Now that Y/n thought about it, being compared to Giya and Shyla was probably part of the problem.

On the other side of the den Y/n spotted Ma and Fa chatting lightly, Ma, a vixen with a p/c pelt that looked remarkably like Y/n's, and red flecks on her pelt and red ears, she had an irritated look on her face while Fa, a reynard with a pelt that was various shades of ginger with a white tail tip and white paws, had an angry look on his.

Ma always treated Y/n the same as her siblings, she never favored any of them. Ma also didn't stop the bullying, she didn't even try to help, part of that was Fa.

Fa was part of everything. He didn't like Y/n, he always tried to belittle her. Fa believed that Y/n was less than her siblings because he thought she had less maa then the rest of them. Milque didn't believe that was true, she was good at the foxcrafts she had practiced and it was well known that foxcraft cost a lot of maa. He favored Giya above all his other cubs, but Shyla was a close second. Obviously Y/n was his least favorite, he was ashamed of her and since Lycan was kind and sweet to her obviously Fa hated him too, only slightly less then he hated Y/n. Fa had neutral feelings towards Kark, he thought Kark was a coward. Fa liked to play favorites, it was his favorite game.

“I don't care if you want to keep her safe,” Fa's voice sounded softly across the den, so soft that Y/n had to prick her o/c ears to hear. “She's a liability, he can't meet her!” Fa snapped.

Ma looked at him, her eyes glistening with worry, “I don't want him to meet any of them,” she whimpered, “You shouldn't bring him here, he's evil!” Ma finished a faint trace of pain in her voice.

“He's coming, I don't want to hear another complaint about him!” Fa snapped back, glaring at her, his emerald green eyes narrowed to slits.

Ma looked as if she wanted to protest, she started, then trailed off. “Koch…”