# Wild Foxes

**Published by:** [Philosophical Foxes](https://paragraph.com/@philosophical-foxes/)
**Published on:** 2023-01-17
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@philosophical-foxes/wild-foxes

## Content

Welcome to the Wild Foxes drop. Here’s what you need to know.Plot pointsEnter Wild Foxes. A new species has arrived. These Wild Foxes, and the Wild Thoughts accompanying them, introduce new characters and narrative possibilities to our world. It also reveals that foxes are stranger and more varied than we initially thought.We are not alone. We had believed that all other skulks had died out. The presence of Wild Foxes illustrates that life exists beyond Shadowoods. Perhaps there are others? What else may our wider world – and its different realms – hold for us?We are being hunted. Or at least, that is what one of our new arrivals believes. A Wild Fox brings a tale of woe – and a warning.Solo thoughts remain a mystery. Even our new companions trail solo thoughts. What are these entities? To whom do they relate? The mystery remains unresolved.The MeetingAt the edge of Shadowoods, a few members of our skulk meet the 10 voyagers. They look different than our kind, with shimmering coats of fur and unusually shaped heads. Around them, new thoughts swarm, not unlike those that hover around our foxes. PICNIC, LIGHTNING First, I must say this: welcome. Welcome, friends. It is true, you do not look nor sound like us. Indeed, even your stench – or pardon me, scent – is distinct, powerful to our nostrils. We are used to our own kind, you see, so forgive those of us who briefly gagged. It was but a momentary reflex. While we may have our differences, we see that you are, after all, kin. No less a part of Terra Volpa than us; no less a thinking fox, a cogitator on four legs. May I express my admiration for the manner in which your fur glimmers? It is a ripple of color the likes of which I have not seen. We remember so little – and yet I sense that my mother (or perhaps her mother, let us regress ad infinitum) was one of you. I recall a shadowy maternal figure informing me that they were raised in a land of foxes whose coats flickered like gems. They must have been speaking of you. Tell us. Who are you? How did you get here? Where have you traveled from? AS LONG AS THERE’S LIGHT We thank you for our welcome and Do not be alarmed by our size or Smell. We have come from a far-land to be here And worried our presence would not be Well-received. Have you heard of Stogai? HANNIBAL It is a name familiar to us – but beyond definition. A remnant of a past life. The remembrance of a dream. AS LONG AS THERE’S LIGHT It is more than a dream, kin. It is, or was, our home. A land beyond the Feral Range, beyond Even the Great Schism that bisects our world. We do not know how long we have been awake. Do you? Perhaps a year, a little more, though Time feels like water, not stone. We cannot Touch it. We awoke in ruins. Great constructions, reduced to rubble. A library full of books, rotting, stinking, Filled with maggots which We ate. Do not judge us, There was no other food we could find. Where have all the birds gone? And the Voles and mice and even frogs who sing So beautifully and taste as sour as unripe cherries. We could find none in our land, which is Why we look as thin as we do now. Though we cannot be sure, we have divined that Our ancestors were perhaps twice our size. LAGUNA, LACUNA That is a frightening prospect, given how you tower over us already. We bear bad news, I’m afraid. If it was your stomachs that led you here, they are confused. We have found little to eat. A clutch of berries from time to time and one afternoon an egg of uncertain providence which we shared between a thousand. AS LONG AS THERE’S LIGHT That is, indeed, bad news, Though it was not the purpose of Our visit. In fact, perhaps you do not Know, but upon our journey, we found a River, not too far from here, in which Fish have begun to swim again. We have Been careful in our hunting – not too greedy – So they may continue to flourish. We journeyed here for a different reason: We believe we are being hunted. By what, I am not sure. But I have felt it – Sensed its presence around us. In the entrails of our broken civilization Something seemed to linger in the shadows, Waiting for us to draw close. I can not prove this, but I believe there were More of our tribe once. Indeed, I believe there Were perhaps many more that set out upon Our journey from Stogai. I could not give You names, nor could I describe their Faces, But I feel them somewhere. I feel Them in their absence. Something is eating at us, and perhaps has Been for some time. When we walk into the Shadows, when we stroll alone in the forest When night falls like a cloak and separates One of us from another, The Ellipsis hunts. It is a beast with poison as well as fangs We think. Because at the moment it Steals our kin it places a toxin in The brains of those left behind, A toxin that feasts on memory so When morning comes We have forgotten that there was Once another that we called friend. PICNIC LIGHTING This is quite a claim, I must tell you. HANNIBAL Quite a claim. AS LONG AS THERE’S LIGHT I understand your skepticism. Many of my skulk treated my Theory with similar unease at First. And so I set to test it. For seven Days, I did not sleep. As my skulk Slumbered, I pinned my eyes open With thorns and daubs Of spitting-mud. For six nights, I watched from My patch of photic-moss and Saw nothing. Some nights I could scarcely breathe from Exhaustion and great worms Of color crawled Across the surface of my vision. But on the seventh night At the hour at which the moon Took on a color of Blood, I saw a flicker in the bushes. And then – A sudden movement across The heads of the sleeping Skulk as if someone had shone A beam of light over them; A light of no brightness and no Color, a beam of blinding Darkness. Then, nothing. For a long time Nothing. I had begun to believe my eyes Had conjured it when the beam Shone again and this time it Landed on the body of one of our Kin, A young kit the name of which has Been taken from me and, Who began to melt into the Earth as if he were a piece of Rotting fruit sitting beneath a baking sun. I sprang from my bed and Bolted as quickly as I could to His sleeping, dissolving form. As I drew closer I saw That it was not a beam that hovered Over him but a figure whose shape Seemed to change and that I would Describe to you as: A circle of Terrifying Hunger, A square of Vital Lifelessness, A star of Absence. It was a great UnFox, Both kindred and alien And as I approached the kit’s body, Which was all but gone, it turned Its no-head and stared its no-eyes At me and without touching Crushed a blow that knocked me To the ground and sent me At last, to sleep. When I woke in the morning, The kit was gone. If you ask any others Of my skulk, they will tell you They remember nothing of the them, a child of our very own. And so I come to you, My friends, my kin, Who we have crossed A world to find and ask: What will we do?

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