The Alpha In The Fox Kingdom

The werewolf pup won't stop crying.

She keeps wailing into the night until one out of three elders, Beta Sam, pats her back and says, "Shuush, shuush, little girl."

But she increases her wailing and they honestly don't know what else to do. The elders don't want to sell her off as a slave, this beautiful wolf, this cute pup with the angelic chubby cheeks and pretty hazel eyes.

But what choice do they have? She must be sold. It's why they are in the forest. The prophesy says she'll be worse than her dead parents, and her parents had truly been terrible. The late Alpha king and his luna enjoyed watching their critics burn alive. They cut off fellow werewolves' heads like it's a hobby and generally preferred partying to actual leadership. To get rid of them, the senate sat together and connived with the royal cook to poison their food, which killed both the king and queen slowly within a week. Now that they're gone, no one wants a replica of them. It's why their wolf pup must be gotten rid of.

So the elders keep advancing through the forest in the middle of the night like ninjas, ignoring the pup's cries, carrying her as they make their way past twigs, shrubs and giant tree roots.

The full moon shines above their heads like a ball of creamy stone. They track nearer and nearer to the forest's boundary where the baby will be given away to foxes.

Warrior werewolves have died fighting foxes at that boundary, since werewolves and foxes are perpetual enemies. Hundreds of bones currently lie there at the boundary as a testament to this fact, but tonight won't be for fighting.

"Be careful," Beta Sam whispers to one of his colleagues whose foot just caught a twig. "Don't drop the baby." Despite the evil plans they have for her, at the end of the day, she's only just a child.

The plan initially was to kill her, but kinder werewolves like Beta Sam had strongly objected, banging the table to make his point at the last council meeting. "Are you no longer ashamed of yourselves?" He had asked. "Trying to murder a harmless pup?"

"The prophesy says she'll be harmful," replied one elder named Beta Dirkhead, stroking his thousand-year-old moustache. "She has to die."

"If anyone has to die," replied Beta Sam, "then it should be you, old fvcker!" He turned around to face other elders in the room. "Don't tell me you are shitting your pants over a child. Even if we must punish her for her parents' crime, death isn't an option! Look, I've thought long and hard about this. Why not sell her off as slave to the foxes? She'll grow amidst those savages and forget her identity as a wolf, but at least she won't die. At least she'll have a shot at life there and even if she ends up dying, we won't have her blood on our hands. The foxes will."

"Done," said the head of the council and pointed at Beta Sam. "You and two other volunteers will take the pup to the boundary. I'll send word to the fox Queen myself. We want no issues. We only want to get rid of a wolf.".

In few more minutes, after over an hour of slipping through the forest in the moonlight, they are finally here at the death boundary and dry skulls crush beneath Beta Sam's feet.

The elders stop at a clearing to catch their breaths before noticing one important fact: the foxes aren't there yet. They're meant to be around to receive the pup.

Beta Sam's heart starts beating like a drum. What a moronic bunch of werewolves they are, he thinks. Walking straight into a clear trap. The foxes, with their age-long hatred for werewolves, must have planned an ambush, an attack on three adult fools.

But Beta Sam calms himself and awaits with bated breaths. Then out of the blue, without warning, some parts of the forest starts to ruffle, and one by one like ghosts in an urban dark, out from behind slim tree trunks and tall shrubs, the foxes emerge with eyes shining like torches in the moonlight.

"We're here in peace," Beta Sam quickly says and throws up a hand.

"What choice do you have than to come in peace," asks one fox whose voice is unnaturally deep, too deep it sounds like a giant's fart, Beta Sam notes. This fox must be their commander. He's got a red cape flowing from his shoulders down to the back of his legs. "Is that the child?" he asks.

"Yes, she is," says Beta Sam.

"Drop it."

"She," Beta Sam says to the fox. "She's a she and not an it."

"Drop it," repeats the fox. "Don't push your luck. We're in good moods tonight, but we could change our minds."

Beta Sam looks around the clearing. There must be nothing less than twenty foxes spread about the place like bats. Do they plan on eating the poor pup? Kill her? Tie her up to a pole and torture her?

Beta Sam changes his mind. What had he been thinking suggesting they sold her into slav.ery?

The deal is off.

He decides these foxtards should in fact go fox themselves up.

"We're no longer interested in selling," he says and tries turning around.

"Drop the child," the fox commander replies, his sloe eyes now narrowing into sinister slits, "Or I'll have your head rolling off your neck to join the skulls beneath your feet."

Beta Sam shivers.

With tears threatening to detach from his eyeballs, he drops gently on one knee and leaves the pup carefully on a collection of dead grass.

"Good," says the fox lord. "Now you and those two pieces of shit beside you, turn around and run along."

Sam and his colleagues hesitate. "Remember," he says with a stammer, "our deal regarding the pup. She isn't meant to die."

"Run along," the fox repeats himself, tightening his fists now. The werewolves turn around with slumped shoulders, walking away,

"I said run," the fox lord billows, bringing out his sword, his voice ricocheting deep into the night

Without thinking twice, the werewolves shapeshift into their wolf forms and gather momentum, flying like arrows into the forest and disappearing from sight.