Scarlet's Epilogue

It had been almost a day since Scarlet had last seen either Red or her father, she was starting to get worried. An uneasy sickening feeling was building up in the pit of her stomach, something had definitely happened.

Scarlet was currently out combing the woods around her parent's home in the vein hope that she'd find either a scent or a set of tracks that would lead her to what she was looking for. It was hopeless however, the earlier snowstorm had erased any chance of finding anything like that. Scarlet knew she should have ignored her mother's advice and braved the storm, Red would have if she was the one lost, but instead she had to go and play the obedient daughter, hopefully it hadn't cost her everything.

She'd been looking for hours now, Scarlet had pretty much searched everywhere, she'd even been back to her and Red's earth, but still nothing. Crescent meanwhile had stayed in her earth, hoping that one of the missing foxes would turn up back there. It was starting to look more and more ominous that neither Red nor Eclipse were ever coming back. Unable to think of anywhere else to look and feeling the onset of tiredness, Scarlet began to make her way back to her mother, maybe she'd had better luck.

Scarlet had wandered quite far during her search, and consequently it took a number of hours to get back to her parents' earth. She arrived to find half of what she had been looking for, there stretched out on the floor of the den was her father. Scarlet had expected to feel happy and relieved at seeing one of the two male foxes in her life safe, but it wasn't the case, it wasn't the case at all. Finding her father alive just helped to heighten the anxiety she was already feeling at not knowing what had happened to Red. Surely if he was okay he'd have returned with Eclipse? She needed to know what had happened, she couldn't physically function anymore without knowing.

Scarlet strode straight into the centre of the den and stood before her resting mother and father, she cut directly to the chase. "Where is he?"

Opening his eyes Eclipse stared at his daughter, he could see the anxiety in her expression and the fear in her tear-filled eyes. He'd never seen her face look this way before, it pained him terribly, he just wanted to be able to make it all go away. If only there was something he could say to give her a little hope, but he knew all too well that there wasn't. Red had left and he wasn't ever coming back, he had made sure of that. He'd always had suspicions of who Red really was since Scarlet had first mentioned him. The guilt began to boil up inside forcing him to look away, he couldn't hold his daughter's gaze any longer, it was just too painful.

"What happened?" sniffed Scarlet unable to hold herself together any longer.

Eclipse looked across at his mate who was now awake too. She looked back and nodded, signalling Eclipse to tell the truth, he let out a loud sigh.

"I'm sorry Scarlet…but I'm about to tell you something you're not going to want to hear," explained Eclipse as comfortingly as he could.

Scarlet broke out into tears immediately, she knew what was coming, she collapsed to the floor. "He's…he's dead…isn't he?" wailed Scarlet as she second guessed what her father was about to say. "I've lost him!"

Eclipse looked down at his whimpering daughter, he couldn't do it, he couldn't tell her the truth, it would hurt her even more. Eclipse did the only other thing he could do, he lied.

"I'm sorry," acknowledged Eclipse keeping his vision fixed on the wall of the den just above Scarlet. Crescent immediately flicked her attention from her daughter to her lying mate. She didn't understand what he was doing, they'd agreed to tell her the truth, she began to scowl.

"I'm sorry Scarlet," continued Eclipse "he died trying to keep us all alive."

Eclipse noticed his mate's expression out of the corner of his eye, he hung his head, ashamed of his inability to tell his daughter the truth.

Scarlet couldn't accept what she was hearing, she didn't want to. An aching hole had opened inside her and it was slowly growing, eating away at the happiness and contentment she had so recently felt. She had to get away, everything around her was a constant reminder of him, she could even still smell his scent in the air. It was all too much to cope with.

Without so much as a word to either of her parents, Scarlet stood up and shakily made her way out of the den. She heard the stifled calls of her father call after her, cut short by the bark of her mother calling for him to let her go, Scarlet started to run.

The night was cold and piercing, but Scarlet didn't care, she continued to run on letting the darkness envelop her. She had no idea where she was going, that fact seemed inconsequential now, all she wanted to do was somehow outrun the pain she felt inside, it was an impossible task.

It wasn't until the unwanted interference of an old, gnarled root did she come to a halt. The darkness coupled with the stinging tears in her eyes caused Scarlet to miss an old root of a dead tree jutting out of the snow directly in her path. A collision was inevitable, her front paws clipped the root as she blasted full tilt over it, Scarlet was bowled over by her momentum and she crashed to the ground. There her grieving form stayed well into the next morning.

Scarlet's sleep was staccato at best, constant nightmares plagued her dreams, each one showing Red's final moments played out in crystal clarity. She stood at the side lines during each vision, unable to do anything to influence the events unfolding in front of her. She awoke at the end of each with fresh tears in her eyes, cried for a death she had never actually witnessed. It was the final dream however that was the most jarring of all. Scarlet watched in sickening slow motion as a human levelled a gun at Red's unsuspecting back, she desperately tried to call out, but her words had no effect. She cringed as she watched Red turn his head towards the sighting man, his expression suddenly turning from happiness to terror and desperation as he realised his fate…then she woke.

A gun shot rang clear and true through the air. Scarlet didn't move at first thinking it had just been part of the dream. It wasn't until she realised that her dream was over did she start to panic. Sniffing she stood up, ignoring her natural instinct to shake the concealing snow from her coat she looked around. The wood was dense with fog causing her entire field of view to appear as white as the snow at her feet. Scarlet stood still and listened, for a period there was nothing and she relaxed her taught muscles a little. However, the silence was punctured again by the sound of gun fire. Scarlet began tracking its origin, it was behind her somewhere off in the distance. Something suddenly clicked inside her mind and without registering the danger Scarlet began running back the way she had come last night, back towards the gun shots, back towards her parents' earth.

Scarlet arrived at the edge of the clearing marking the approach to her parent's earth to the sound of another gunshot, her self-preservation instincts finally kicked in and she willed her body to the ground. The view presented to her was easily the most horrific thing she had ever and would ever see. There in front of her was the bruised and bloodied bodies of her mother and father, both as lifeless as the rocks that surrounded them. Standing over them was a human with a gun slung over his shoulder and a dog at his side with a half-eaten chicken clenched between its teeth. She couldn't move, her motor skills were completely impaired as that sickening feeling in her stomach suddenly came back and became a torrent. In one day she'd gone from being on top of the world with everything she'd ever wanted to having nothing at all. The life she'd had was gone, wiped clean so quickly it made her head buzz. All she could do now was watch as the remnants of her now broken life were carried away in the arms of the human responsible.

Time passed slowly, without even realising it Scarlet spent the entire of the remaining daylight hours staring out into the clearing. Looking to the spot where her parents had lain before being dragged away by the farmer. Her mind hadn't been still all this time though, she been thinking two things. Why had the farmer attacked? Where do I go from here?

The first question had taken some time to formulate an answer to, but something she had seen and not registered had eventually drawn her to an all too true conclusion. The chicken in the dogs mouth, that was the reason for the farmers anger, it was an anger that was clearly meant for Red. He was the one who had been terrorising the farm, not her parents. Whichever way she looked at it the responsibility for her parent's death kept landing at Red's paws.

The second question was a lot easier to answer, she'd already worked out its answer the night before. She needed to be somewhere she could easily take care of herself, somewhere she could get away from who she was. There was but one place Scarlet knew of that could offer all those things, it was a place she had heard Red talk of many times, the town. Scarlet was about to become an urban fox.