Fox Magic

Chapter 1

Blaze's pov

I wake up feeling a sharp pain in my tail. It's dark in our den but I could smell my sister too close to my face.

"Cut it out, I'm trying to sleep," I grumble, yanking my tail out of her mouth.

"Well so is everyone else," she whispered, crankily, "Quit kicking me."

If I wasn't so tired I would've wrangled her out of the den, but I just growl at her to shut up then move closer to mom and go back to sleep. Girls are so fat. I have two sisters and they always hog the den.

The next morning I was the first one out of the den. Dad is finally teaching us how to hunt today and I can't wait to catch something. Maybe I'll catch a badger, or even a wolf! My sisters, Vix and Liz, come out and groom the dirt out of their fur while I anxiously look around for Dad. We live in a forest with our den right under a tree, the perfect home for a red fox.
After waiting a few minutes I finally see him. As soon as he comes through the bushes I run over to greet him, but I'm suddenly disappointed when I see that he's holding a rabbit.

"Aww, I thought you were teaching us to hunt today," I pout. My sisters come up behind me looking confused.

Mom comes over with a mischievous smile on her face and says, "Don't you want to eat first?"

"I do!" Liz says, her eyes lighting up.

"Yeah, I'm starving!" Vix says.

"Well you sure had a lot of tail last night," I mumble and Vix shoots me a look.

Dad gently puts the prey down and I notice he also has a mischievous look. I crouch down to eat, but before I could take a bite, the rabbit stood up! I jump back while my sisters squeal in surprise.

"We can't eat this, it's still moving!" Vix exclaims.

"Hunting lesson number one," Dad says, "Kill the rabbit."

"What?!" I say, still freaked out by the zombie rabbit. Mom and Dad both chuckle with amusement.
Liz smacks the rabbit experimentally with one paw and it starts running.

"Hey, come back here! I'm gonna eat you!" Liz says, then she chases after the rabbit.

I quickly run after her yelling, "No way! I'm killing it first!"

The rabbit is injured so it can't go very fast. I quickly catch up with Liz then push myself to get ahead. There's no way I'm losing my first kill to a girl! I managed to jump on the rabbit and tackle it to the ground. In my desperation to kill the rabbit before my sisters could get there, I forgot how to kill it, so I just claw and bite at it, hoping it'll fall dead soon.

Liz jumps in and starts biting the rabbit and getting in my way. At this point the rabbit has also started kicking back. I bite down on Liz's ear and try to pull her away. Vix appears out of nowhere and starts pulling the now screeching rabbit away from us. I let go of Liz and grab the rabbit to pull it away from Vix, who drops it and immediatly jumps on me. Within seconds, the three of us are fighting each other while the rabbit sits forgotten and shivering with the shock of its ordeal.

Suddenly, an ear splitting screeching sounds from above accompanied by the beating of wings. We all stop fighting and look up just in time to see a hawk flying away with our rabbit. We all sit in stunned silence for a moment until our parents come over looking disappointed.

"I am very disappointed in you three," Dad said, scowling at us.

"Liz started it," I tell him.

Liz growls at me and says, "Yeah, I started the chase."

"You just got in the way, I could've killed it if you didn't butt in," I shot back.

She smirked at me and said, "You couldn't kill a rabbit if it died at your paws."

That's it! I was about to jump on her when Dad yelled, "Enough!" We all got quiet again.

"You foolish pups will never survive with that behavior," Dad scolds us, "You were too busy fighting to listen to your own survival instincts. Did you even stop to think about how to properly kill the prey?"

It was then that I actually remembered how Dad always killed his prey.

"Bite the throat," I mumbled to myself.

"You were lucky it was the rabbit that was taken," Mom adds in, "That hawk could've easily taken one of you pups while you were distracted."

We all look down shamefully, realizing how foolish yet lucky we were.

"You three will work together to find and kill another rabbit," Dad said, "I'm sure you've learned plenty from this lesson."

"But what if we can't find one?" Vix asks.

"There's always tomorrow," Dad replies, "You can't starve to death in just one day."

We looked at him in horror, truly believing he will not hunt for us again today. I got up and walked away, with Liz and Vix trailing behind me, all sniffing for any fresh rabbit trails. Thanks to our inexperience, we never did catch a rabbit. We found one but it bolted the moment it saw us and disappeared. (Although I did manage to catch and eat a mouse while no one was looking.) To our surprise though, there was a squirrel that Dad caught waiting for us when we returned at dusk. Then in was back to being squished inside the den with two fat girls. All night. Yay.