Leafpool's Choice

Bonus 2

If you don't like blood or gore, you can skip the ending. As long as you read the last sentence, you can still understand it. No author's note today. Thanks for reading!

Mint opened her mouth, inhaling the scents around her. The scents of the forest, plants, and animals surrounded her. She soon picked up her mother's scent, following it with her nose to the ground. 

It was just past dawn, and the sky was smeared with oranges and pinks. Sunlight pierced through the gaps in the leaves, dappling the soft forest floor. Mint pricked her ears, listening to the rustling of small creatures, the happy chirping of birds, and the mindless babble of her brother in the background. 

"Oh, shut up," Mint hissed. "Mother should've named you Babbling Creek."

"Well, she should've named you Shadow Paws!"

"I actually like that name." Mint purred with laughter.

Pebble gave his smaller sister a shove, and she stumbled towards a tree. Mint picked herself up and cuffed Pebble over the ear. "Focus. We have better things to do than crash into trees." Mint shook the bark and leaf mulch from her fur.

    ̶B̶a̶b̶b̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶C̶r̶e̶e̶k̶ ... I mean Pebble... walked on in silence, sulking. 

"Sniff the air. The fox scent gets stronger up ahead," Mint pointed out.

Pebble raised his nose and sniffed the air. "You're right," he meowed. 

Mint broke into a run, dashing into a sandy clearing. Pebble followed. 

Mint sniffed the air, padding around the clearing. This must've been the fox's den, Mint noted. The scent of fox was stale, though. 

Mint padded over to what appeared to be the body of the fox, lying beside a tree. A dried trail of blood made it look as if the fox had been dragged to the side of the clearing. The fox's face was frozen in an expression of fear and anger, pearly teeth bared. Its amber eyes were forever clouded. It was covered in clumpy red fur, frozen in place by dried blood, its pelt laced with horrible scratch and bite wounds. It smelled strongly of cat and fox, but even more than that, fear. Its tail, which appeared to have once been large and bushy, was clumped oddly. 

"Look," Mint meowed. "There are scratches on the tree. The fox tried to climb it, and it got up a few cat-lengths, too!" 

"Foxes can't climb," Pebble pointed out. 

"This looks like a small fox," Mint mewed. "Maybe it's possible."

"Mom killed a fox, mom killed a fox!" Pebble chanted.

But then why didn't she come back to us? Mint sniffed the blood-covered body, pressing her nose close to the hardened red fur. It smelled like fear, and a lot like fox, but underneath that, something familiar. 

Carefully, Mint lapped at the fur on the fox's cheek, and the blood started to disappear. Mint tasted its salty tang in her mouth, trying hard not to gag. 

Mint backed away from the fox, revealing that the fur on the fox's face was... white?

Mint froze in horror, and then her heart sank to her paws. No, no, no! Please, no!

She looked up to her brother with wide, sad eyes, breaking into her brother's cheerful chant with her quiet, solemn mew. 

"Pebble, I don't think this is a fox."