7. Unfair Everywhere
Many years passed. In those years, Feria and Alix traveled together to the furthest corners of Somnia. This was no small task, but also not as big a task as it could have been. They were still surrounded by mysterious, invisible barriers that prevented them from going too far. They couldn’t go further South, they couldn’t cross the Dolphin Pass behind the Impossible Wall in the West, and if you swam into the Sultry Sea it would just spit you back onto land.
Crassa, a black crow, watched the pair of foxes amble into her forest. She watched them with hatred in her eyes and sharp stones ready to throw onto their heads.
“I will get you your food,” Feria said, playfully nudging Alix. “You try to find another fox. Also, we’re close to the invisible barrier here. Mind taking a look? Surely you can figure out the secret?”
Alix laughed. “I’ll try, I’ll try.”
Feria’s gaze was pulled up. She looked straight in Crassa’s eyes, then moved her focus to the nest full of eggs beside her.
“Stay away!” yelled Crassa, a shrieking and shivering voice. “Gods should not take their animal’s babies! You are monsters!”
“I don’t do it with pleasure,” Feria admitted.
“It’s unfair! You should not favor one animal over—”
Feria yelled. “But we need the food. Alix is worth a thousand of you.”
Crassa crowed loudly, forcing Feria to protect her ears with leaves, then started her rain of rocks. The sharp objects, as large as Alix’ paws, crashed into his back. Feria dodged them effortlessly and furiously ran up the tree, biting at Crassa.
The weight of the stones wasn’t the issue. It was their sharpness.
Feria backed down when she noticed her and Alix were bleeding heavily. Crassa had an entire stockpile of sharpened stones.
And so did the crows living in all the other trees.
The rain of rocks turned into a storm of stones. Their fox fur was pelted from every direction, cut and scraped until Alix couldn’t remember where he was. A small river of blood ran from him, seeking to merge with the Dolphin Pass up ahead.
Feria roared, accessed her magic, and drew energy from all the hearts of the crows. Which stopped them.
Their eyes bulged and they fell from their branches. Feria had not killed them, only made them faint. All except Crassa—she could not keep such a dangerous crow alive.
With a guilt-ridden heart, Feria took some of her eggs and fed them to Alix.
Alix didn’t accept them. He sunk into the dirt, cleaning his wounds in the water. His eyes had lost their keen gaze for when he studied the universe.
“I am not worth it,” he mumbled. “All that food.”
“You are. Trust me, you are.”
“How can I be fascinated by life and animals … and allow you to kill dozens of them just for me?” Alix picked up one of the stones that the crows had thrown. “Fascinating. How did they get it this sharp? Have the Gosti tools spread to the birds too? Mami, again?”
Feria was used to Alix suddenly jumping to different topics now. She brought his attention back.
“Sometimes,” said Feria, “there are no perfectly good choices. And still a choice must be made. But we need brains like yours, we need to save the Giant Foxes, to maybe find better solutions one day. The crows would just use their brains for finding food and surviving, nothing more. The tigers would just use their brains for killing. You think further ahead, even if it takes a lot of food to give you enough energy for it.”
Alix’ face was painted in disbelief. “You really think I am worth all that?”
“You are. Absolutely.”
His pink fur turned pink and red. His drooping whiskers stopped touching the ground, and instead briefly weaved through the much shorter whiskers of Feria.
And so they traveled further.
They traveled to ice sheets, to tropical rainforests, to thick forests and barren grasslands. Their ice age was coming to an end, but variety existed even within an ice age. Pockets of land that were warm and filled with life, and pockets of land so jagged and hellish you couldn’t even stand there.
At some point, food would run out, or everyone would figure out that Alix could not defend himself. That all his food went to his brains and nothing else. And then they’d leave for a different territory.
Everywhere they went, the plants and animals were radically different. Only one species appeared wherever you looked, and when you least expected it: the Gosti. How they’d done so, especially with the lack of trees, was a mystery.
Feria had been hesitant to take Alix to all those places. But Alix had the power of adaptability. When they were in freezing cold territories, Alix would repurpose the fur from animals Feria killed. When they were in dry territories, Alix would save any rainfall in a hollowed-out stone, which he called a bucket. The fox’ body was small and flexible enough to adapt with it.
And so Feria held hope that they’d find at least one female fox in those habitats.
When they came close to the invisible barrier, the area was a wasteland. Trees were cut in half. Stone walls had crumbled and shattered. The Smasher problem had not gone away; no, they were certain there were multiple Smashers now. Animals fled to their Throne in droves, and they all requested they solve the issue.
They still didn’t know how. When they’d gone to hide the Marker Stones again, Darus noticed a few were missing. As long as the Gosti had all that energy, they could keep smashing.
Feria’s fur stood up, her spine tingling. She did not like to linger here, especially not with Alix weakened.
She looked out over the water and saw the faintest hint of another continent in the distance. Somnia was much larger than the tiny area where they’d been trapped. The area that had given her so many terrible experiences and memories already, thanks in no small part to Ardex and his stupidity. Oh, how she longed to remove that barrier and go there. Get her own patch of land without family troubles.
Alix, however, wanted to sleep. He did that a lot, to recharge energy. Sometimes he said he wanted to sleep five times a day, even as the sun shone bright.
For the first time, Feria could not suppress her urge. Her need to snuggle close to him, for warmth, for safety, like a shield around him. Maybe it was because they’d known each other for so long. Maybe it was because he was wounded and shivering.
She held onto her only chance at saving the Giant Foxes with her paws wrapped around him.
That’s why she woke up when he left her grasp.
He sauntered silently to the invisible barrier, just a few steps into the water. She smiled, thinking he was going to study the universe again and have something magical happen.
Instead, he stepped sideways and met up with a few sinister looking Gosti. They’d brought with them sticks, sharp stones, a very large magical dog … and a female Giant Fox.