Cinderwerefox!
By (in alphabetical order)
Sami Deveraux, (Vulpine)
And SilverDragon, (SilverDragon)
Prologue:
Once upon a time, a long time ago and a land far away, there lived a poor woodcutting family. The father had three children. His eldest son went to the forest with his father every morning early early in the day, and the middle child, a girl, came out every afternoon and helped them carry the wood home. The youngest, a boy, was a quiet lad of seven, spent most of his time playing with pebbles and stones in their wicket-fenced yard.
Until, one day, there was a little rustle from the other side of the fence, and the silent child looked up, its silver-gray stare meeting an identical one coming from a little fox on the other side of the fence. The boy, entranced, watched it as it sniffed at the fence, then ran away a bit, stopping and waiting. He slowly stepped towards the gate, and the vulpine wagged its tail a little faster.
The kit sniffs a bit closer again as the boy opens the gate, getting close enough so the boy can touch him. He gently petted the vulpine, the little fox then started to playfully jump around and the two of them played together for some time, becoming good friends. The next day, while the boy was playing in the yard as usual, the fox showed up again, both of them happy to see each other, they started playing again.
This time, the silver fox ran at a dash, stopping and looking over his shoulder, tail-wagging, whenever the lad hesitated in following along. And as the day drew on, he led the boy far into the woods, beyond the fence, past the thin outskirts of the larger trees, and into the knots of impenetrable thickets that were beyond the narrow river where he had only come once before, when he was helping his sister fetch water. The silver-eyed youth looked back worriedly, but wasn't sure of the way, and he followed the fox with apprehension.
A few moments later, they broke through into a wide clearing, where the royal purple bells of foxgloves rang softly against the cornucopian horns of a lighter shade of the same color. The scent of the flowers hung heavily in the air, and the boy's friend yipped happily. After they played for a few hours, the fox noticed that his playmate kept staring off into the distance, and dutifully lead him back home by the same route as they had come by.
As they approached the boy's home, his father ran to them, chasing away the fox and scolding his son for going into the woods alone. The boy then sadly watched as his new friend ran back into the woods. The next day, when the vulpine didn't return, the youngster went back to where they played the previous day. He searched everywhere for the fox and finally gave up his search after a while, deciding to get some rest as his home is quite a walk away. As he rested his head on the soft grass he couldn't help but fall into a deep sleep...
The boy slept solidly, and didn't wake to the far off calls of his parents, to the weird cracking noises of the wild boars as they hurried through the underbrush. He didn't even hear the howl of the wind through the trees. Strangely, he didn't feel cold either, though at night the wind blew quickly around the boy's cabin, which stood empty, his family searching through the forest for the lost lad.
As he slept, he had a dream, that he was standing in the field and his fox was there again. He reached out his hand towards it, but it ran away, stopping, leading him somewhere. What the boy didn't notice was the foxes' eyes were different. They were red, and the fox wasn't taking him somewhere quiet to play, but a different place entirely.
He arrived at the field of flowers with the fox and it was already dark, the full moon hanging almost directly over them. The vulpine yipped harshly, and the boy looked confused.
"Are you alright?" he asked, and that was the moment that the dream-fox lunged forwards, and bit down on his hand. The boy cried out in pain, and the red-eyed tod stared up at him coldly, watching as the drop of blood fell from the youth's palm onto the purple flowers, which looked gray in the light of the midnight moon!
The boy looked shockingly into the red the vulpine eyes staring back at him, noticing only now that they are not the eyes of his friend, but that this is a different fox. He then woke up, screaming from the pain as he suddenly felt it outside of the dream as well. Looking at his hand, he didn't notice anything and still he knew that something was wrong, it wasn't just some dream.
As the young boy walked home, he became quite aware of the moon, strangely knowing when the next full moon would be and also having this strange sense of direction that was leading him home.
When he got back to his house, all the lights were burning but no one was there.
He threw himself down on his bed, and closed his eyes, his hand hurting and throbbing slightly whenever he started to drift to sleep.
Late that night, when the dawn had almost come, he woke to a scream! He sat up and looked, and his older brother stood in the doorway, staring at him wildeyed!
He tried to talk, but the words wouldn't come; he could only make weird growling and yipping noises. And his clothes didn't feel right either.
The older sibling stared wildeyed and sloooowly felt around, not wanting to move quickly. There was something horrible in his little brother's bed. A creature that snarled and spat at him with silver-white teeth, a frenzied glare. The torn-up clothes which it wore looked like his brother's, and he was sure that the monster had killed the family's youngest, and could only think of revenge.
The youth continued trying to cry out, and watched in horror as his brother slowly made his way around the edge of the room towards their oven, the light inside their small hovel growing as the dawn began to swell, the sun still beneath the horizon, making everything look gray.
His brother slowly picked up one of the pans on the oven, determined to take down the monster in his brother's bed. The boy looked at his hands and noticed that he was not human, he then looked up with fear in his eyes as colour start to fill his senses again and his brother seeing something familiar within the beast, hesitating...
The youngster suddenly falls to the floor in pain as the first light of dawn strikes him, he starting to lose his fur as it melts away into thin air from the suns rays, as if burned from his soft boyish skin, and his brother, watching him... motionless, in awe of this strange sight, dropped the pan on the floor. The sound of it falling snaps him out of his trance and he steps closer, once it seems that the change is complete and helps his brother onto the bed, letting him rest a while.
Late that evening, the family discussed in hushed tones their youngest, who had curled up in the corner, exhausted, and slept.
"We have to do something. He turned into a monster!"
"Is he even really our son?"
"I'm sure he's our son! You saw how he was this afternoon, when he finally woke up."
There was a horrifically strange groan from the corner, and they all turned, though not soon enough to see the luxurious silver fur spring from the air silently, like the way snowflakes clump together to form a blanket in what seems like mere moments overnight. Their youngest, still unconscious, had shifted, his thin form filling out slightly, but growing bestial, his unclad feet changed to paws, and his hands different too, the furred digits much longer, and tipped by sharp claws.
The boy stretched, yawning in his sleep, and they all winced when they saw the lines of sharp white pointed teeth, the huge canines that shone with saliva. And when he ran his long tongue over them, licking his muzzle, and the black, damp looking thing that had been his perky nose just a few moments before... They all shuddered, and turned back, whispering quieter.
"Well, he can't stay here. What if he attacks one of us, and then what will we do? Can't very well go to the market looking like that!"
There was a faint snore coming from the corner as they continued.
"We can send him somewhere."
"What?"
"Remember, your aunt? We can give him to her. I heard she's a witch."
This got the boy's father a strong slap to the face, but the idea stuck.
"Hmm..."
His mother stared angrily at her husband from the comment, then burst out in tears when she realizes that it might be the only way to protect the rest of their family.
As the head of the family, his father glanced at the creature in the corner and then back at his family and then sighs softly.
"I guess... it's settled then, we leave with him first thing tomorrow morning."
***
