White Foxes

Chapter One

AUTHOR'S NOTE :

Thank you for taking the time to come here! The journey begins here. This chapter is mostly a bunch of exposition and worldbuilding, and not much plot, but that'll come soon enough. Silas Moon is honestly kind of painful to write with his bigoted remarks sometimes, but please bear with him as he will face character development.

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GLOSSARY FOR THIS SECTION :

Eva in Gaudium - Christmas

Northmannie - human being

Vulpes - fox

Semi - half-fox

Primum Vulpes - the first of the sentient foxes

Aulani Ka'uhane - lover and partner of Primum

Album Vulpes - white foxes

Non-sentient white foxes - genderless sacred pets/beings

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I never asked for this life.

Everybody I have ever met has always assumed otherwise. They always compliment you and say how you have one of the best lives ever. You get to live with the most wealthy of semi families! You get to live in a mansion, with about twenty real foxes. Oh, and not just any foxes. White foxes.

My life was anything but the automatic assumption.

We are called the Vulpes. We were supposed to be a decently well-known species. We have been inhabiting the land since the beginning of time, after all. Apparently all the Northmannies - what do they call themselves, humans? They thought we weren't adequate enough to be counted into the kingdom. They called us uncouth savages and abandoned us during our hardest times. Our founder, Primum Vulpes, was shunned by his people after turning half human. He brainwashed them for this behaviour and lived an advanced life with the one human who had accepted and loved him - a Tahitian woman named Aulani Ka'uhane After that, of course, they performed feats like inventing lightbulbs, inventing various rules, ruling large lands. Who they didn't notice were us Vulpes, who knew all these since they met us. Ignorant humans wasted their entire energy on 'discovering' these when they could've just asked us.

I can't defend those ruffians. They hurt my family, my ancestors, and anything we kept near and dear to our heart. What did it matter?

Now, the Vulpes were characterised by their special attraction to foxes. Not in a creepy way, don't misinterpret me. We were just...drawn to them. We could sense their presence. We always had an instinct to protect them. There were many like Fennec foxes, Red foxes, Corsac foxes too, but we shall not kid ourselves. The most famous and prized was the white fox.

The white foxes, or if you prefer Album Vulpes, were mixed semis between Arctic Foxes, Marble Foxes, and the insidious, notorious Pure Foxes. In our culture, white foxes were regarded as sacred beings. They were only found by those who deserved them. Consider it luck. 

It was always a surprise for visitors to visit our obnoxiously large home and discover we owned a whopping twenty white foxes. My father always tried to introduce them. They would growl at him, although they were meek, they were mighty.

This is what always puzzled Vulpes. If we were, indeed, breathtakingly noble, then why were our white foxes so very cruel to us? They were generally regarded to be loyal and caring to their owners. My friends - if I could call them that - kept asking me this question.

To be honest, I don't really know.

Those foxes have been around with us before I was born, and they hadn't aged a bit. Sometimes, I wondered if they were really our foxes. I had asked my father. He just shoved me off to the side.

Semis were half-Vulpes. Very middle-class, basically . A not very diverse community. As far as I knew, I wasn't very diverse- the most 'diverse' thing about me was that I had about 25% Inuit blood in me, but that didn't account for much.. What I still didn't understand was that I knew we weren't the least bit middle-class. We were rich, posh, and above others. So I must inquire - if Pure Foxes, the full-Vulpes were mostly consisting of the same social class as us, why weren't we one of them? Of course I wasn't saying they were good people, those foxes- genderless animals, but still.

Sometimes, I had so many questions I wished I wasn't wealthy. Really, it's not as fun as it looks. My family is usually ordering me to go to some formal party or meeting or something important like that. It was still fun sometimes. For example, one Eve in Gaudium, my mother had gifted me with a spindle that could spin its own gold, so I could earn well-deserved money.

Besides the gift and the chance to get whatever you wanted, it was all for nothing. Most of the time, I wasted my money on pranking goodies, candy, and books. My mother frowned upon my excessive sweets usage, but I digress. If I ever got a cavity, I could spin up gold and pay for saving it. As if that would happen as long as I brushed my teeth as I was taught.

My parents thought I acted more smug and satirical that ever polite. 'Silas, no!' and 'Silas, that was rude, say sorry.' This was all the advice they ever gave me. Now tell me, what was I supposed to take off that?

This was why my life was suffering. In fact, for electives this year in school, they decided them for me. "You can't decide for yourself, Silas, darling, let me," my mother had prodded. Exactly, a sixteen-year-old couldn't decide anything for themselves. I was captive, I swear. A captive state of mind.

My friends weren't any better. Well - friend. Florence Hutchinson, another wealthy semi always came over for our massive, well-organised dinners and ate up. Very politely. She then continued to snort at me and give me a lecture on how it all is really done. "Be honest, you're just a socially awkward mess who doesn't know what they will do in four years. Don't act smug in school. You're not even that good at basic Vulpes-surviving skills. If your parents weren't paying for you, I doubt you'd still be going to a -"

At this point I would interrupt her in a fit of jealous rage and attempt to defend myself. "I know, all right? I know they baby me. I tell them to stop. They just go all ageist on me."

My parents have very obviously fooled by our interactions. Now that we're sixteen, they look at us hanging out together and boom! For some reason, we are romantically involved.

I don't even like Florence. As those dark, angst-filled aesthetics suggest, I am apparently a 'rich kid with a fake friend'. However, we're both frankly antisocial. She thinks too highly of herself, like she's in some elite group, and I just... I don't know. I never think for myself. The Hutchinson family have been family friends with the Moons for a long time, so I was always encouraged to talk to Florence.

I don't hate her that much. She's business-like and a clear cut perfectionist. A blunt and sometimes brutal prodigy. I'm me. Resident Silas Moon. Expected to be the best in the future. Defeat all odds, like a man!

Florence and I had first decided to be there for each other when we bonded over a weaker white fox that we had. That fox is perfectly fine, and it has even become my pet. If we really are that frustrated, we just sit down and pet the fox like real friends should. We had named it Angela. Angelo. It never seemed like their genders could be identified.

My other friends are those in the news I read. My inspirations the people that show up in the newspaper. Unlike newspaper readers, I wasn't academically intelligent at all. I read them just because it was amusing to see how I could relate to the glorious feats.

What always saddened me was how these heroes were always brave, smart, compassionate, and loyal all at the same time. How did that happen? How were they always so perfect? Maybe not anymore but certainly when I was little, I dreamed of saving a kingdom. My parents called my actions whimsical.

Now, of course, all I dreamt about was how I could impress my parents. The age of sixteen was supposed to be a magical ride, but for me, it was just a reminder about how long I had until I would lose all control of my world.

Like I have said countless times, I don't enjoy this life. I wouldn't like to be something as repulsive as a Northmannie, but couldn't I have something more?