Writing Prompt Challenge #3: Mine

Fan Amelia gave me some options:

Writing Prompts
1. A dying fire
2. Red hair in messy braids
3. A grey fox with silver eyes

1. Thin blankets
2. The last autumn leaf on the tree
3. Green eyes with tears

1. A storm
2. The old oak tree
3. A scar

1. Barbed wire
2. A scrap of blue fabric
3. Howling winds

The 'grey fox with silver eyes' has my attention, so I guess I'm doing the first one!

Mine

Deep in the woods, a fire is burning. It is a small fire, and it will not burn for much longer, but for now it fights valiantly against the biting wind and softly falling snow.

Next to the fire lies a child, disheveled red hair barely contained by the braids some caring adult had thoughtfully twisted into place many hours before. The child is too deeply asleep to notice that the fire is dying, that the adults have not returned, that she is terribly, terribly cold.

It's the sort of deep, cold sleep from which many never wake.

Perhaps that is better. There are things in the woods. They only came this way because the roads are too dangerous, the clash of steal and smell of blood never too far away. The stories of creatures from other worlds slinking in the shadows, of trees that moved, of paths that vanished, were not enough to dissuade the desperate travelers.

A vixen appears. She enters the clearing in which the child lies and the fire dies. The vixen is gray, almost white . She sits and surveys the scene, head slightly tilted as if in deep contemplation.

The vixen's eyes are perfectly silver, from end-to-end, no irises, no pupils. She is perfectly still, her tail wrapped around her feet, statue-like and not appearing to breathe.

Eyes glow between the trees. These eyes are not silver. Some are yellow. Some are red. Some are black and can only be seen if you know what you're looking for.

The vixen moves. The suddenness causes some of the eyes to retreat, but only some, and not very far. The vixen approaches the child. She circles her, sniffing.

The vixen lies down next to the child. She curls her body around the girl's. As she curls, her body grows and grows until soft, gray fur envelops the child, warming her through.

The child sighs. A bad dream vanishes. A good one takes it place.

Yellow eyes approach, close to the ground and hissing. The vixen raises her head and hisses back, louder and stronger. The yellow eyes pause. The vixen bares her teeth. The eyes blink once, then leave.

Red eyes approach, high in the branches, floating from one tree to the next. The vixen blocks the child's ears with her fur and howls at the red eyes in the eerie, high-pitched way of her kind. The red eyes watch a moment longer, then they too leave.

Black eyes approach. The vixen tracks their movement through the trees, which bend and crack as the creature crashes forward.

In a voice that, for the briefest instant, causes the stars to shine brighter, the snow to pause in its descent, time to stop, the vixen says:

"Mine."

The black eyes don't pause.

"Mine!"

The rustling sound of branches being torn from their trees still for a moment, then continue.

"MINE!"

The black eyes stop. For long minutes they stare at each other, silver against black.

Then, the black eyes retreat.

The vixen sighs. She lays her head upon the child's, but her eyes and ears remain watchful.

Footsteps approach. The vixen's head snaps up.

It is only the child's adults, their all night wandering in the woods at an end. They have found their way back to the fire and in moments they will stumble into the clearing.

The sun is rising. The woods are safer in the day. The vixen detaches herself from the child and melts into the trees.

The child wakes just as her adults appear. She smiles and waves and the weight of worry on the older faces drops away in an instant.

The vixen watches a moment longer, then turns to leave.