Clocks on Fire

The tale of a hare named Luxord and his mortal enemy (and best friend), a fox named Axel. They quite enjoy having senseless discussions about life in general, and occasionally, poke fun at mythical creatures. No, really.

Author's note: Written for Sonia. Semi-inspired by Good Omens (Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett).

LÉ CASTTE LIST;

Axel (a fox with nine tails)
Luxord (a hare with a stolen pocket watch)
Bugs, March, El-ahriarah (Luxord's siblings)
Vulpix, Tails, Loxy (Axel's cousins)
Demyx (a sea unicorn; very annoying)
Sora (a magpie who collects keys)
Roxas (a pretty golden fox; pubescent and irritable)
Sonic (a blue hedgehog; mythical creature)
Chocobo (a chicken eaten by Axel)
Bumble Bee (an unimportant character)
Venus Flytrap (a Venus Flytrap; Dionaea muscipula)
Cheshire (a cat)
Fluffy (a dog)

"Escargot."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Garden snails."

Axel, a rather handsome red fox with an odd number of tails and a loose canine in his mouth, stared at his friend (and Mortal Enemy Number One), Luxord, in dubious awe.

"You got into a fight with garden snails?"

"Pretty much," Luxord nodded. "Almost scampered headlong into a gnome, too, past the fountain. One of those chipper-looking ones carrying a lamp and a spade. With green overalls and matching shoes. Can you believe that? Matching shoes."

"A gnome."

"Yes."

"With matching shoes."

"Ye-es."

"You're a riot, Lux."

Luxord glared his beady little eyes at Axel, thumped his foot on the ground and said, "Go home to your den, foxy."

"Too early for that."

"Quite the contrary, my deformed friend."

"Hey, hey! My deformities aren't deformities, bunny."

"You, you undernourished bag of bones, are a fox with nine tails. Tell me how that isn't abnormal. I would like to see what twaddle you come up with."

"Luxord, my dear, a fox with nine tails means something to the humanoid creatures of this world. Something all mythical-like with supernaturally unexplained powers over the element of wildfire. And there you sit, twitching your boofy button tail like the typical common rabbit."

"Hare, you shitface. I'm a hare."

"Whatever. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe, to-may-toe, to-mah-toe."

"Go home, you ass!"

"Fox. What time is it?"

Luxord, the hare, sniffed the air disdainfully and pulled out his pocket watch. He stole this pocket watch from an unsuspecting white rabbit that had wandered too close to his territory several months ago. Said rabbit was distraught when he found out he'd lost his prized possession and as a consequence, committed suicide. (And several days later, it was discovered that Alice never wound up in Wonderland for some strange reason).

"You're late," Luxord stated bluntly, clucking his tongue as he read the watch. "You're late, you're late, you're very late. You should get out of here. Clear off."

"Um."

"Bugs, March and El-ahriarah are coming to graze over here at this exact spot in about fifteen human-minutes. If they catch me talking to a fox, they would surely get the council to kick me out of our nest."

"And if Vulpix, Tails and Loxy see me talking to a rabbit—"

"Hare."

"—hare, I'll be the laughing stock of the den."

"Then, with all due respect, get the hell away from me."

"Love you too, Luxord."

"Hmph. You really should return home before I get spotted fraternizing with Public Enemy Numero Uno."

"Gimme another ten minutes, will ya? I like the breeze here."

Luxord's nose twitched and he scratched behind one ear with his hind paw. "What made you decide to come up here, anyways?" he asked loftily. "The homeowners see you, they'll shoot you down and mount your stuffed head on a wall. And maybe stick a tulip up your nose and spray you with air-freshener."

Axel stiffened, all nine of his bushy tails halting in mid-swish. Why had he come out here? The fox recalled the short exchange he had with his youngest cousin on the way out of the den.

---

"Axel, Axel! Hay thar, Axel! I made a new friend in the garden! He's sooooo cool!"

"Not now, Tails."

"His name's Sonic—"

"I said not now, Tails."

"Where're you goin'?"

"To hunt. I'm starved."

"Ooooh. Can I come?"

"Uhhhh, no."

"Aww, phooey."

---

Axel turned to Luxord once he'd broken out of his reverie.

"I think I was hungry," he said solemnly to the hare.

"Oh."

There was a short silence in which neither animal spoke. Luxord knew foxes ate smaller mammals, sure. But Luxord also knew that he'd been Axel's good chum for years now. It was an Epic Incident that happened back when they'd still been little kits/pups. It involved a stray albino python, two eggs belonging to a sparrow and some chocolate fudge that a human had conveniently left behind on a patch of grass in the garden, but we shall leave that tale for another day.

The point was, Luxord knew Axel wouldn't eat him. Unless circumstances provoked the fox into doing so. But those circumstances would have to involve something worth killing a friend for. Like lollipops. Lots of lollipops. Axel adored lollipops. And maybe popcorn. That'd work, too.

"You know, I saw a sea unicorn once. Over at the shoreline fifty-two hundred hops east of here," Luxord said languidly.

"Sea unicorn? Did you make a wish, like you're supposed to when you see one?"

"I… forgot all about that procedure," the hare admitted sheepishly.

"Seriously?"

"He came up to me and kept talking to me in this absurdly annoying voice. I just wanted him to go away! 'Sides, I thought he was going to eat me. Had this certain glint in his eye. Crazy bugger."

"Ah."

Another silence.

A lost bumble bee meandered past slowly and eventually collided into a wild thistle, which turned out not to be a wild thistle but a relatively big Venus Flytrap. Said bumble bee was ambushed and now and forever doomed to an eventual Sticky End.

"Well," Axel licked a black-tipped paw thoughtfully as he eyed the struggling bumble bee uncaringly and tried to restart the conversation with a topic worth discussing. "Well…" he ventured, "well, I was walking along the outskirts of that cornfield north of the garden, yeah? And guess what?"

"What?" Luxord muttered.

"I saw a blue hedgehog!"

"Oh reeeeally?"

"Nah, just messin' with ya. Blue hedgehogs don't exist. What I did see was a magpie collecting a hell lot of keys."

"Keys."

"Yep. Near the cornfield. The bird was talking to a really pretty golden fox."

"Nonsense. Foxes don't talk to birds, they eat them!" Luxord scoffed, completely disregarding the fact that he was having a polite little chat to his Mortal Enemy Number One (also known as Best Friend, Axel). "And foxes don't come in gold."

"Foxes don't have nine tails," Axel stated sardonically.

"Point."

"Anyhow, I went up to them to have a chat—"

"Why, you sly devil."

"Fox," Axel corrected him automatically. "Well, so the conversation with them didn't get very far because the golden fox started telling me to shut up and go away and get constipated, or something along those lines. It was at that point that I was sort of forced to lose interest and lop away. It didn't help that the stupid magpie came at me and started dropping his keys on my head."

"D'aw, poor you."

Out of the blue, there was mewling and barking somewhere off in the distance.

"Aw, poop! Sounds like Cheshire and Fluffy have been let out of the house. Mother Nature blast those humans and their domesticated brutes!" Axel cursed.

He didn't quite like either of the homeowner's pets. Cheshire seemed to take the word 'kamikaze' to new heights and Fluffy, bless the beast, ain't nothin' but a hound dog. Which worried the poor fox to no end.

"Weren't you hungry?" Luxord recalled suddenly, as the both of them stood up on their hind legs in unison, lifted their noses to the wind and sniffed the air for the scent of impending house pets. They were upwind from the house, which was rather fortunate for them, given the circumstances. They could even detect wafting traces of freshly-baked cottage pie cooling on a window sill. And it smelt as though Fluffy had just done a number two somewhere.

"Starving, actually," Axel replied distractedly, even though he'd eaten a whole chicken last night. A very tasty chicken, in fact. Its name had been Chocobo. Its last words had been: 'WARK, KWEH, KUPO!'. Although the 'kupo' probably came from a bypassing Moogle. But Moogles didn't exist here, so it was probably the chicken.

Luxord shook his head. Then a brilliant idea struck him. "Oh. Hey. Why don't you try eating what I eat?"

"What do you rab—er, hares—eat?" Axel questioned.

"Grass, weeds, seeds, nuts, roots, legumes, dandelions, irrigation sprinkler heads. The whole shebang."

Axel spluttered a little. "How can you eat dandelions?"

The hare frowned at the fox reproachfully. "They are delicious and wholesome. And very pretty. Don't get me started on their health benefits, kiddo."

"Dandelions, for Mother Nature's sake!" Axel cried, quite scandalised.

"Indeed. Dente di leones. Try some."

Luxord hopped toward a stray patch of yellow dandelion flowers a few feet away, tore out a few stalks with his little teeth, hopped back to Axel and held them out for the fox to take.

Axel homed in on the dandelions, poked at them suspiciously with one shaky paw before looking back up at Luxord.

"Are they really edible?"

"Well, if you're honestly hungry…"

"Right," Axel said, giving up. And he wolfed them down in one go, trying his best not to actually taste them.

Once they were all gone, the fox retched and stuck a pink tongue out.

"Eeee-yech! Ew, ew, ewwww. Blah," said he, wagging his tongue in the air.

Luxord looked a little concerned as Axel continued making articulate icky noises for the next few moments.

"You don't look too good. Maybe you should go home."

Axel reeled backwards in slow-motion and said, a little dazed, "Whaaaat'sa time?"

"Five to three," the hare replied, checking his pocket watch.

Axel's pointed ears drooped lowly as bright, rainbow-coloured spots danced in front of his eyes. "Triiiiippy. I thi-ink, urrrrk, I thunk I'm gunna be sick," he stated.

And the poor fox promptly vomited all over Luxord's prized possession.

Luxord squealed in a very un-hare-like manner. It sounded much like a kettle going off.

"THAT WAS MY ONLY POCKET WATCH. I WAS GOING TO TURN IT INTO A FAMILY HEIRLOOM!"

Axel giggled in a drunken manner. "Shud've whooshed, duuur, wished for an'xtra wun frum that annoying see unik-horn you saw, huuuurh?" Axel said through dry coughs, grinning, head high up in the clouds.

The hare seethed. And Axel spat the awful taste of dandelion puke from his mouth, along with several feathers from that chicken he ate last night.

Then, the pocket watch more or less combusted and burst into terrible flames.

Following that, Luxord, the brown hare, never spake unto Axel, the nine-tailed red fox, ever again.

The—

"—end. And that, gentlemen and lady, was the infamous story of The Hare and the Fox."

Zexion shut the book in his hands daintily and selected a second tome from the small (but really quite big) pile in front of him.

"Now here's the story of The Golden-Eyed Caterpillar and the Big Bad (Ware)wolf—"

"Now wait just a minute—" Xemnas cut in.

"That story was ridiculously inaccurate and not the least bit entertaining!" Larxene declared heatedly, her hand slamming against the polished wooden surface of the table they were all seated at. "Why weren't the silly mammals tortured to death?"

"I quite liked it," Axel beamed broadly.

"You would've," Luxord tsked, thumbing the Ace of Spades between his fingers reverently.

"It made no sense," Roxas muttered. "Who wrote it?"

"Naminé," Zexion replied, without missing a beat.

"Ahhh," about ten voices chorused together.

"Clearly the work of a young child," Vexen agreed.

"Very astute, Number Four," Xigbar snorted.

"It had a certain style to it. Quite pleasing to the listening ear," Marluxia said musingly. "Especially that bit with the Venus Flytrap."

"It was rubbish," Xaldin growled.

"Utter claptrap," Lexaeus nodded.

"Baloney!" Saïx boomed belatedly.

"Eh. Whatever happened to that sea unicorn fella?"

Everyone pointedly ignored Demyx and continued to bicker pointlessly.

"AHEM! Once upon a time," Zexion read loudly, cutting everyone off in mid-debate, "there was a chubby caterpillar named Xemnas, and he enjoyed eating bananas and crawling into empty plastic bags—"

To be continued…

But I lie.

So, The End.

Author's note: Yeah. Uh, I truly went crazy with this, eh? Aye, Bugs (Bunny) was said to be a rabbit and El-ahriarah is from Watership Down so he's also technically a rabbit, not a hare. Whatever. I have no excuse for Vulpix, Tails or Loxy, because they're definitely foxes (from Pokémon, Sonic the Hedgehog and Chicken Licken respectively). Tails cannot fly in this tale, regardless of your claim. Sonic is a blue hedgehog who makes no cameo appearance whatsoever. Fluffy is actually a three-headed dog in Harry Potter and Cheshire belongs to the world of Wonderland. Same goes for the March Hare and the aforementioned White Rabbit. Xion plays absolutely no part in this entire story, and for that, I regret. Do not be sad.

Thank you for reading. Please come again. Reviews would make Naminé very happy and proud (for she wrote the tale, of course). /insert smiley face here.