Week 11 Story: Fox and Coyote

*An updated version of this story can be found on my portfolio, which is located here!*

*If you want to be extra immersed in this story, click to hear a Crackling Fireplace with Thunder, Rain and Howling Wind Sounds *

"We have to go." Coyote coughed and wheezed as the smoke rose around the two of them. "Come on, Fox!"

"Just a minute longer, please," Fox begged. His eyes widened as he stared at the flames consuming his once glorious and flourishing plot of land. "I can't just leave it all behind." But he knew that really, there was nothing left to leave behind anymore.

As he gazed into the ever-growing bursts of heat and embers, he saw the world he created flash before his eyes. This was no ordinary land that was now wrought with flames. This was home. This was home that Fox and Coyote built, even if Coyote protested at times. At the beginning of this decade, this land was nothing but but a vast expanse of ocean, black and deep. Fox had seen this and known that he could make it so much better. He had taken his arrow and bore two holes, one for sky and one for land. He had painstakingly taken his paws, each of his now charred and burnt paws, and stretched the land for days on end, lovingly and tenderly pushing it to the north, the south, the east, and the west to create space for Coyote to run free. 

"Fox," Coyote half-yelled to snap Fox out of it. "We have to leave, now!"

He could feel his whiskers start to singe, but he could not part with his beloved creation just yet. He squinted his eyes and searched the wall of flames for any remnants of the home he and Coyote had lived in. He remembered so vividly the day he instructed Coyote to build it out strong logs and pad the floor with plush grasses. How quickly that grass had burned up in the flames that now grew stronger with each passing second. 

Whoosh. Fox snapped his head downward and saw the white flash of a rabbit sprinting by him. He remembered then the way he so carefully and intentionally dreamt up each animal, each soul. He had chosen how many hairs were on little rabbit's head. The color of the shells of each tortoise. A singular tear dropped from Fox's eye then, and he knew the time had come. 

"Are you ready?" "I'll never be ready, but we can go."

As the pair turned from the blaze and started sprinting into the cool night air, Fox looked into the sky. As tears streamed down both of their faces, he looked upward to howl at the moons in anguish. For the first time four moons didn't seem like enough, and he desperately wished he had listened to Coyote when he suggested ten. 

The Silver-Fox

(Wikipedia)

Authors Note:

Well this story turned out way sadder than I had anticipated, but it's where my brain was telling me to go. This myth is based off the creation myth titled How Silver-Fox Created the World, which is from the Atsugewi tribe of the Pacific Northwest. I re-wrote this initially with the twist ending of the burning of the world, but it evolved into the whole dialogue between the characters and re-framed the whole story.

Bibliography:

How Silver-Fox Created the World  from Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest, especially of Washington and Oregon, by Katharine Berry Judson (1910).