Sonya

By Marie Hoekman

The fox sang, searching, into the cold vastness, a song that echoed off the snow-laden
pine and spruce, which despite their close propinquity, emanated a sense of isolation. The foxs
only response was that of the cold and gentle crunch of snow underpaw and his own solo echo
calling back to him from the shadows of the trees.
Finns tracks were a solitary set, and they met no companionship within the chance that
his mate, Sonya, had passed that way earlier that afternoon. Finn called once more, but his voice
was stolen by a gust of wind that blew back his fur and sent a bitter chill from his muzzle to the
base of his claws.
The sun was beginning to set. One would have thought that the orange rays slipping
through the trees would offer some sense of warmth, but he found those patches to be
deceptively cold.
He headed deeper into the thickening trees. His muzzle rose to the wind, but he caught no
warm scent of his mate in the bitter chill of the air. He came closer to the den, a hollow dug into
the roots of a spruce, which had seen many winters.
Another desperate cry. His heart was in his throat, as he came upon the den and crossed
over its threshold. It was empty. It smelled like blood. His stomach heaved and threatened to
retch. His heart began racing, panic welling in his veins like a flood of freezing water. A
whimper. Another scent, a dangerous scent, stuck out amongst the blood, a musty, dirty smell of
coyotes, sending a sudden surge of dread through his veins.
He burst through the opening of the den, double taking over his shoulder, pants ripping
through his muzzle. His plea was desperate now.
Finn did not know where his paws were taking him, nor did he remember telling them to
run, but the trees began to pass in a blur. The cold winter air burned in his lungs.
A cry.
He came to a sudden halt in the snow. He shook his head, as if trying to dislodge
something in his ears. Hed not bring himself to be hopeful. Hope was vain.
A second cry.
Katrina!
He knew he had heard it this time. There was no mistaking the yowl, and he ran over to
meet it. There she was, lying in the snow, covered in blood, but a quick inventory revealed that it
was not her own. The cub squalled, miserable and cold in the snow. Her muscles quivered and
spasmed under a velvety grey coat, which had hardly been thick enough to keep her warm, even
inside the den.
He did the only thing he could think of and lapped at her fur that was plush like a rabbits
against his tongue.
The winter wind gusted, lifting up swirling clouds of powder that obstructed his vision
and stung his face. Another wail rose from Katrina, louder this time, and Finn inclined his neck
to gingerly take up the kits scruff in his maw. She seemed smaller than she should have been.
Her flesh was cold like that of a corpse against his muzzle.
 The moon was rising on the bitter cold horizon. The air felt like fangs in Finns pelt. He
could only imagine what his smaller daughter was suffering. He could feel the kit shiver against
his teeth, and he tried to assure her that is was alright with gentle chirps, but they seemed to have
little effect. There was a badger set not too far off the edge of the territory. It would be out of the
cold, which was all he could ask for.
There had been four of them, three males, and one female. Katrina, she was the smallest
of the litter. He wondered if it was her size that saved her. Perhaps her small size in comparison
to that of her siblings, she was considered not even the effort of killing or if that was the case,
eating by the coyotes hed scented in the den. Or maybe she had been carried off, only to have
had her kidnapper distracted and drop her into the snow. Maybe Sonya had made a last ditch
effort to save the last cub, taking the squalling pup into her maw, before she faltered, and she too
fell like her other two cubs, into the gaping maw of fanged death by coyote. It felt as though
those same jaws were grasping his chest, filling him with dread.
The moon was high, when they reached an abandoned badger set. A quick sniff told the
male that the den was indeed still as empty as he had remembered it. He set the kit down in the
back of the set, where a decaying next lay leftover from the dens previous inhabitants. She was
cold and shivering, but alive.
He curled himself about the kit, nosing her into the warmth of his belly, where quivered
for quite some time. He lapped at her pelt, long, slow strokes to warm her.
The kit squirmed against her fathers warm belly fur. She shakily lifted her infant head.
Her eyes had not yet even opened to see the world, though Finn and Sonya had been anticipating
that their kits would be opening their eyes any day now.
Was that last morning really that far away, like a distant memory, a good dream always to
be striven for but never to be obtained?
Hed woken up beside his mate that morning. Their cubs had been tucked into her belly
in a grey heap. One kit occasionally would whimper in its sleep, and hed wondered what kits
dreamed about. He imagined that they must have been warm and comforting dreams, because it
was all they had known so far. They had known so little, he thought. They had not known the
sight or feel of the summer sun, the red hues on the trees in the autumn time, the thrill of the hunt
nor the tender touch of a lover.
He leaned over her and lapped the back of the remaining Katrina.
The pup lifted her head shakily, still not very strong. A small, blue eye poked open, then
its companion. The pup held its shaky head there, squinting at him, as if trying to figure out what
exactly she was looking at.
His tail brushed against the dirt floor of the set, wagging, a happiness tainted with
mourning, thinking how much this would have meant to Sonya, and he vowed to make sure this
daughter of theirs would survive, no matter the cost.
Katrina blinked once more at him, then her head collapsed, too tired to hold it up any
longer, and Finn used his tail to brush her into place at his belly. He would make sure she had all
the time in the world to see all there was.
It was in the early hours before dawn, that Katrina began to wail, a high-pitched squalling
that echoed off the packed, earthen walls. He checked her, she was not shivering with cold, and
her nose was wet. The pup let out another long wail, pitiful and pathetic.
Finn lapped in desperation at the fur along her nape, but she would not settle. If anything,
it only seemed to upset her more. Her yowling doubled in volume protest. He did not know what
she wanted. Sonya had been the one to care for their kits, while he brought her food in order to
feed her.
Feed her.
The fox rose from the nest, pausing a moment to shift leaves over the pup with his
muzzle, hiding her as much as he dared. The pup seemed to instinctively know to be quiet, and
she was so.
Slipping from the den, he pressed his muzzle to the snow. The thaw was late in coming
this year. Sniffing along the frozen earth, his ebony ears remained perked for any sign of life.
Hunting in the snow could be a hit or miss. There was a clearing a short ways away, a flat, white
expanse, undisturbed and emanating a foreign sense of purity.
Suddenly, his ears twitched at a muffled scratching beneath the snow, a low sound that
most would not be able to detect some yards off. A step, then another. Every muscle moved with
a hunters precision, everything with a purpose. Not one length was taken without careful
consideration for its consequence.
A half-step more. He froze, ears erect, stance resembling that of a hunting hound. Then
he sprang, muzzle first into the snow, half of his body disappearing beneath the white. When he
appeared once more, a mouse hung from his jaws. The blood made his mouth water, and it was a
severe fight against temptation not to simply swallow the morsel himself. But he would live
without this meal. His daughter would not.
He found his daughter still in her nest of old leaves and badger fur, though she had
squirmed out from the covering a bit, perhaps in a vain attempt to find a source of warmth. He
dropped the mouse before her and nosed it close to her head, which was lifted shakily to look at
him in response with bleary, unfocused eyes.
He nosed the mouse at her again, but the action only resulted in the cub squalling, mouth
wide, revealing two rows of pink, fleshy gums. How would she eat with no teeth? The obvious
realization made his pelt prickle with frustration and dread.
He laid down beside the wailing pup, tucking her into his flat belly once more, wishing
that it had been himself instead of his mate to have fallen into deaths jaws. At least she could
have given their daughter a fighting chance at survival, because all of his fighting had been in
vain.
It was some time later, he must have fallen asleep, because he awoke to the pup whining
pitifully and kneading weakly against his barren belly for milk. His ears flitted back, and he
licked the top of her head. There had to be away. He would find a way.
The sun was setting for the second time. The pup still continued to cry in intermitted
intervals. Finally, he could take her suffering no longer. There was no other option. He gingerly
took her nape up in her teeth. He exited the den, cub dangling from his jaws. He had caught the
scent of another foxs territory not too terribly far away, when he had been out hunting just the
other afternoon, before the attack. Had it only been the afternoon before? The memory of happy
times seemed like a lifetime away.
The den of the neighboring foxes was a short distance away and dug into the roots of a
gnarled old pine tree. He slipped into a bush downwind and waited. While he waited, the pup
began to shiver on the cold ground. He brought her to his belly, laying over her to lend her some
of his warmth.
There was no other way, he thought. He had to do this. To not to would be selfish. Then
he saw a streak of orange exit the hole beneath the tree and skitter off into the trees. He moved
in, taking the pup up by her scruff and beginning his way towards the den, poking the upper-half
of his body out of the bush, his ears perked for any sign of the other foxs return. There was not.
He was but a streak of orange flame against the white snow, slipping into the den, where
four brown bundles lie squirming in a heap within a dutifully-crafted nest of leaves, browned
grasses and clumps of fur. Very gently, he set his daughter in with the rest, hoping that their
scent would latch onto her before the mother returned. The pups did not discriminate, and they
accepted the newcomer as one of their own willingly, scrabbling over her blindly, as not all of
them had opened their eyes yet.
His daughter. He could not even pick her out from the rest of the litter anymore. They
all looked the same. She wasnt his anymore. She was never truly his. She was his mates. His
mate who could tell by the cries of her young, exactly what they needed, while he was always
left floundering for answers.
Unable to take the surfacing memories anymore, he dashed from the den and into the
bush he had hidden in before, while hed waited for the mother to leave the den. Now he waited
for her to return with baited breath, waiting, hoping for her to accept the strange new cub in her
litter. If she rejected her He could not bear the thought.
How long had it been? Time was lost in a sea of memories. Walking into his and his
mates den that eventful afternoon, and meeting their offspring for the first time. He could not
get past the idea of how small they were, how helpless. He would go out several times a day to
hunt for his mate, who was stuck in the den, caring for their young, keeping them warm against
her belly and soothing them with gentle laps from her tongue, when they became agitated.
The mother returned some time later. He waited on baited breath, peering through the
snow covered branches of the bush to see is she would accept the new addition to her den, or
pick up on the foreigners scent and dispose of it. His muscles tensed. There was silence,
followed by a chorus of excited squeals and whines, when the pups noticed her homecoming,
eager for a meal.
He wondered if his daughters was among them.