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English
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Published:
2020-08-28
Updated:
2023-03-23
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1,702
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2/?
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Fox On the Run

Summary:

Also known as "Bluestar's Future Heart Attack."

Bluestar wasn't expecting to stumble across a fox kit in the heart of ThunderClan.

Rusty just wanted his mother.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Rusty ran from the other fox as fast as his still short legs could carry him, heart thundering so hard he feared it might burst out of his chest—but he couldn’t help it.

Not with his mother gone.

She went hunting a quarter moon before and never returned, leaving Rusty to creep only from their den to the river and back again, until the hunger gnawing away and cramping in his stomach finally became too much. He’d had to eat. He’d had to, but before he could take a single bite out of the mouse he caught, the other fox had appeared, barking about how the territory was taken.

Rusty hadn’t been able to resist running anymore than he’d been able to resist his own hunger. The other fox was huge, at least three times the size of Rusty himself, and barking and shrieking so much Rusty was afraid other predators would be called right to them—

Rusty rounded a bush and bounced back, nose smarting with the smell of—

His mother?

It was her scent, but it was fading, overtaken by blood and something rotting.

Like she was something rotting.

Her body lay before him, but it was cold, and she didn’t move at all when he nudged her.

There were bite marks in her throat.

“Mother?” Rusty tried, nosing around the wound. “Mother?”

Silence—and then the forest filled with sound again, though it didn’t come from his mother. It was around him, something crashing through the undergrowth, until finally a gray kitten a little smaller than himself burst into the open.

“Cat!” he yelped, staring at it, and the kitten yelped, too.

For a moment, they just stared at each other, the fur on their backs they’d both instinctually raised slowly settling back again. Then the kitten meowed something, and Rusty frowned, nervously scuffing a paw in the dirt.

“Do you speak fox?” he asked slowly, though he knew the answer even before the kitten’s fur fluffed right back up again. What kind of cat spoke fox?

Taking a step back, Rusty braced himself against his mother’s flank, muscles tense. He didn’t want to run, didn’t want to just leave his mother there—but then the wind shifted, blowing the scent of a she-cat and a tom right at him.

Rusty shrieked in fear, finally turning and running. He should have known better. Of course the kitten wasn’t alone, Rusty was going to die, the adult cats would murder him, why was his mother sleeping, he wanted his mother, he would take the strange fox coming back over these cats—

Rusty slammed into a cat and bounced back.

This one wasn’t a kitten, though.

Rusty looked up, and up, and locked in on the imperial gaze of the full-grown she-cat looking back at him. She wasn’t as big as Rusty’s mother.

Rusty also knew that didn’t matter. Not when she was still twice the size of Rusty himself, and not when he could hear the kitten and the tom coming up behind him. Not when he could see the claw marks of a full-grown fox in her fur, about a quarter moon old. This was a she-cat who could and had taken care of foxes before.

Flattening himself to the ground, Rusty curled his tail around himself and tucked his ears back, trying to appear as small as possible.

“I’m just going,” he yipped nervously. “I’ll never bother you again.”

The she-cat tipped her head to the side and meowed something, and the kitten meowed back, gesturing at Rusty’s mother. The she-cat tensed, then softened—but she still looked upset.

Rusty shivered and curled his tail tighter. Should he make a run for it? Could he make a run for it? Cats... cats didn’t eat foxes, right? Foxes ate cats, he knew that, but—but did that still apply if one of them was a fox cub and the other was a full-grown cat?

A cool nose brushed his ear, and Rusty jumped, yipping, but that just made the she-cat come even closer, tucking her head down beside his own and—and licking his cheek?

Rusty froze, side-eying her as much as he could. She gave him another lick, and her tail brushed around his body, coaxing him closer to herself. He couldn’t bring himself to move, muscles too frozen to obey, but he didn’t move away, either.

Behind him, the tom mewed something, voice deep but low. He... didn’t sound threatening? And the she-cat replied evenly enough, and then stepped back.

She didn’t take her eyes off Rusty, though, and he stayed where he was even as his eyes followed her in return.

She meowed, and laid her tail across his shoulders. Fur brushed his flank, and he finally looked away from the she-cat to see the tom stepping up beside him, tail laying over his shoulders and the she-cat’s tail while the tom nudged his head. The tom was rumbling deep in his chest, too, a noise that Rusty had never heard before but couldn’t help but find comforting.

The she-cat took a step away, then looked back. Her tail didn’t budge from his shoulders.

“I don’t understand,”Rusty said. “You want me to follow you?”

The she-cat rumbled like the tom had, though she still didn’t seem to understand him, and the kitten ran in front of Rusty and bounced on his toes, meowing excitedly.

Rusty glanced between them. They... seemed friendly enough? And Rusty’s mother wasn’t moving, and cats don’t eat foxes. Cats don’t eat foxes.

Shaking himself, Rusty pushed to his paws and followed the cats. Their tails never slipped from his shoulders, and against every instinct shouting at him, his body slowly relaxed at the first friendly touch he’d felt since his mother left to hunt.

Chapter 2: Chapter Two

Notes:

Please pretend this isn't *checks date* almost three years after I first posted this fic and said I'd write more. (But also everyone thank Soupforlife for reminding me in the comments that a, this fic exists, and b, I want to continue it.)

This is still really short because I have other fics on my list to write, but I hope you like it, and hopefully there will be more soon! (Not in another three years. Sooner than that.)

Enjoy!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Rusty hadn’t seen much of the forest before; of the three moons he had been alive, a sixth had been spent with his eyes closed, mewling against his mother, and another sixth had been spent failing to sneak past his mother and out of their den. At a moon old, he had been allowed into the den’s clearing; at two moons old, he had started following his mother on hunts close to home, where he could still see the den’s opening if he just looked over his shoulder.

A quarter moon ago, his mother had left on a hunt by herself, and never returned.

Now, Rusty followed a strange cat into the underbrush, away from the safe, fading milk scent of his den and the sad, fading rot scent of his mother. They walked paths his mother had never showed him, both because they led too far from the den, and because his mother would never have fit between the bushes the she-cat did.

No matter how thin the gaps became, though, her tail never left his shoulder. She walked to one side of him, the tom on the other, and when they reached a thin path she slipped ahead, the tom behind, but their tails always, always draped over his back until the path widened again and they drew up against him once more.

Rusty wasn’t cold; he had opened his eyes in time to see the end of spring and the beginning of summer, and his full coat kept him warm besides. The additional heat of two full-grown cats should have been too much—but Rusty relaxed into it instead, letting his shoulders settle and his fur calm and his ears prick forward, his nose twitch, to catch any hint of where the she-cat led him.

All around him, though, there were distractions. Birds flitted about the forest canopy, out of reach of any fox fangs or cat claws, and little eyes peered out at the passing group from holes in the ground. Sunlight spilled onto the ground through the few spaces the wide spread of green leaves didn’t cover, from tall, thin white bark that seemed like they would bend at a breeze, to thick, solid brown trunks that bore the marks of seasons past.

The she-cat drew ahead again, and Rusty almost didn’t notice, too busy tracking a squirrel jumping through the trees—but then her tail dropped from his shoulder, and Rusty stiffened, legs locking under him.

“Where are you going?” he yipped.

The she-cat didn’t stop, though; she just kept walking, climbing down a small, boulder-filled ravine and avoiding the brambles that caged the path in with practiced ease.

The tom’s tail squeezed over Rusty’s shoulder, and Rusty glanced up at him. The tom’s gentle rumbling had long since stopped, but his ears were pricked forward, and as Rusty watched, he flicked them toward the ravine.

Rusty glanced at it. The she-cat no longer led him physically, but—they still wanted him to follow her?

Something brushed Rusty on the side the she-cat had left empty.

Rusty jumped, head whipping to look at—oh. It was the gray kitten. Rusty had almost forgotten about him, he’d been so fascinated by the older cats and the forest.

But the kitten just looked at him, his large tail—even fluffier than Rusty’s own tail—resting against Rusty’s side. The kitten’s tail was made up almost entirely of fluff, too short in length to drape over Rusty’s shoulder like the she-cat and tom had, but the gesture clearly meant the same thing as the kitten meowed up at him.

Rusty looked back at the ravine. The she-cat had long since disappeared from view, and something was going on down there; now that Rusty wasn’t so focused on the forest, he could smell dozens of scents leading into the ravine, some recent, some old. If that wasn’t hint enough, he could hear the she-cat talking—and she wasn’t alone, as other cats answered her.

The cats had taken him to their den.

Rusty took a deep breath—and then he stepped down onto the ravine’s first boulder. Cats don’t eat foxes, he reassured himself, even as the kitten’s and the tom’s tails followed him down, their sides pressed up against his.

There was nowhere to run, but… Rusty hoped he wouldn’t need to run at all.

He hoped he had followed the she-cat home.

Notes:

Before you go, a quick AU of the AU! I did some research on how fast foxes grow, and one article said, “Until [8 weeks old] time [foxes] look more like kittens than foxes.”

Please imagine an AU where Rusty isn’t yet 8 weeks old, and Bluestar straight up doesn’t realize he’s a fox. She thinks he’s a kit—a CAT kit. So does everyone else.

Bluestar when Rusty is six weeks old: look everyone, I found this poor motherless kit and have adopted him as my own

The rest of the clan: 🥺

*Spongebob Voice*: two weeks later

The rest of the clan: Bluestar, what is that?

Bluestar: this is Firekit, just like before

Firekit, now obviously NOT a cat: 🦊

The rest of the clan: 🙀

Notes:

I'm tagging this as complete, but I do fully expect to write more (my beta won't stop sending me fox videos, guys, it's a problem).

In the meantime, please let me know what you think in a comment, and/or come bother me on tumblr @queenofmoons67!