Chapter Text
This family of foxes was small and seemed incomplete. The mother bared her fangs and pinned her ears back, her breaths coming out fast and ragged as her pupils dilated with each cautious movement Link made.
Her two kits huddled behind her, wedged between the gnarled roots of a tall oak. Their eyes flickered between their mother and the strange giant blocking their escape.
Link reached out once more toward the arrow clenched in the mother fox's jaw. The bird carcass from his first successful shot dangled limply at the tip. Another growl warned him, but he pressed on; he was tired of eating baked apples for every meal — the only food he didn’t have to hunt for.
The arrow fell to the ground as her jaws snapped open and shut in warning, narrowly missing his fingers by a hair. A breathy hiss escaped her teeth with a lunge. Link paused his advances, sitting back on his haunches in a temporary surrender.
For a moment, the clearing held its breath.
The fox’s chest heaved as her ears pinned flat against her skull, eyes wide and bright in the dim light beneath the oak. One paw shifted forward, claws digging into the soil as if she meant to spring.
Link didn’t move; he recognized that stance. Slowly and carefully, he lowered his gaze—not fully, never fully—but enough that he wasn’t staring her down. His fingers curled loosely against the dirt, palms open to show he wasn’t reaching for anything.
The fox watched him.
Link tilted his head slightly.
Her growl deepened.
He huffed softly through his nose, a quiet, frustrated sound, and leaned back a little further onto his heels. The motion was deliberate and exaggerated, the same way he might back away from a skittish horse. Behind her, one of the kits squeaked, and the mother’s attention flickered for half a heartbeat.
That was when Link moved.
Quick as a darting fish, his hand shot forward. He snatched the fallen arrow from the ground and scooped up the bird carcass in the same motion before scrambling backward across the dirt.
The fox lunged.
Link instinctively hissed as she snapped at the air where his hand had been.
He skidded to a stop several paces away, crouched low, shoulders hunched, and ready to bolt if she chased him. His heart thudded fast against his ribs, and his breath came quick and sharp. The fox did not pursue; instead, she stood rigid at the edge of the roots, lips peeled back, watching him with unblinking intensity. Link slowly straightened.
The bird hung from the arrow tip again, feathers ruffled and dull. It was a small victory, but his stomach twisted at the sight.
Across the clearing, the fox finally relaxed enough to lower her head. She nudged one of the kits back toward the hollow beneath the tree roots, though her eyes never left him. Link's ears—figuratively speaking—burned. He understood that look.
Guarding food. Guarding family. Guarding a den.
His grip on the arrow loosened. For a long moment, he stared at the bird, brow knitting as something uncomfortable stirred in his chest. Then, with a quiet grunt, Link snapped the carcass free from the arrowhead.
He tossed it.
The bird landed a few feet from the fox’s paws.
The reaction was immediate. The kits burst forward with tiny, excited squeaks, and the mother spun in a tight circle, her attention snapping to the unexpected offering. Link stood awkwardly in the clearing, empty arrow in hand. His stomach growled loudly enough to startle a nearby bird from the branches above.
He glanced down at his abdomen as if personally offended by the betrayal.
“…Hnh.”
Across the clearing, the fox dragged the bird back toward the roots, still watching him between hurried bites.
Dinner, apparently, would be apples.
Again.
Link scratched the back of his neck and slowly backed away from the tree. The fox watched him the entire time, jaws working quickly through the meat while the kits squabbled at her paws. Their tiny squeaks carried through the quiet clearing.
Link paused at the edge of the brush.
One of the kits climbed clumsily over its sibling, paws slipping in the dirt as it tried to tug a feather loose. The mother nudged it sharply back with her nose, ears flicking in quick irritation before settling again.
A strange tightness settled in Link’s chest.
He didn’t understand why.
Families were common in the wild. Deer moved in herds, wolves hunted in packs, and even the birds that wheeled over the cliffs nested in pairs. He had seen it many times since waking.
But something about this particular family held him there.
The kits pressed against their mother’s side while she tore the bird into smaller pieces, carefully nudging the meat toward them first before taking a bite herself. Link watched the movement with quiet focus. A memory should have been there.
He could feel the absence of it, like a tongue feels a missing tooth—the shape of something that used to exist.
Someone feeding him. Someone keeping watch. Someone bigger standing between him and the dark.
His brow furrowed. Nothing came.
Just wind through the trees and the distant rush of water falling from the plateau cliffs. Link shifted his weight uneasily and rubbed the heel of his palm against his chest, as if he could press the feeling back down where it belonged.
Across the clearing, one of the kits lifted its head. Briefly, its bright eyes met Link’s. Then, the mother fox shoved it firmly back beneath her body.
Link huffed softly.
“…Right.”
He turned and slipped into the forest.
The fox’s scent faded quickly behind him.
The strange hollow in his chest did not.