The first time Vixen ran through the temporal gate, she'd
been running from something large and noisy. She didn't know for sure what, but
a young fox didn't wait around to find out if they had any sense at all. The
charged air made her fir stand on end, and if she'd approached slowly enough to
feel it ahead of time, she never would have gone through. The disturbing tingle
wasn't the only shocking change. It had been deep after moon rise when she had
been out hunting, but suddenly it was just after dawn. The forest also suddenly
held twice as many trees. In fact, she had to swerve in her run to avoid a
giant trunk that sprung up in front of her.
She stopped, looking frantically around. Everything was
different, but familiar at the same time. Some of the trees smelled the same,
but there were new kinds, with new smells. The nearby creek smelled much
stronger. Despite the change from night to day, the air was cooler. She
crouched, remembering she was fleeing from a threat, but now didn't hear
anything but the wind.
Moments passes, and after a time, she heard a rustling
nearby, but this time it was the noise of something tiny. Despite the
strangeness of the place she knew prey when she heard it. She stayed crouched
and still, watching the direction the sound had come from and was rewarded a
second later with a wood rat crawling out of a pile of dried leaves. She was on
him in a blink and the creature never knew what hit him.
Grasping the carcass in her teeth, she trotted toward home
this time feeling the prickling along her skin ahead of time, but so hungry and
anxious to get her meal back to her burrow that she pressed on despite the
discomfort. She didn't remember the last time she'd had such a big, plump rat.
Possibly she never had.
She remembered that rat, and the tingling that came with it.
It wasn't too much longer before she searched for that tingle again. Her mate
had stopped bringing food to the den. She had tried to search for him, but had
no luck. Her pregnancy was advancing, and she was hungry often. She was drawn
to the place of abundant smells and fat rats.
Over the next week she hunted there regularly. She would
trot or dart through the gateway to minimize the discomfort with the
transition. She lingered in the new lush land longer at each visit, until she
began to tire and wanted to snuggle into her burrow back home. Then, completely
by accident she found a nice cozy abandoned burrow. Not perfect, but a good
fit, and it could be adjusted to be even better. It was near time for the kits
to come, and living here would mean no more icky tingles. She'd caught a young
rat this time, and took it into the new hole. She never went through the
temporal gate again.
Unknown to Vixen, that decision marked the official extinction
of red foxes in 2042, and their spontaneous reemergence in 2197 thanks to the
Temporal Species and Habitat Restoration Program (TSAHR), and one of the
Program's greatest successes.
prompt - moon, skin, caught
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