Nearing the top of the steep hill was the group of four small but equally brave mammals, two fox kits and two young bunnies. Each of them came from their own walk of life, but despite such great differences in what they did best and where they came from, they made a really good team and lended a paw when any of them were in need during the journey.
First there was Judy, a gray doe detective, dressed in plaid and always using her wise thinking to help the others out and avoid danger
Then there was the striped buck named Jack. From what he had said about himself and demonstrated, he was a pretty talented musician from where he came from, an instrument that he called a keytar strapped on his back.
Third in the group of mammals was Skye, with fur as bright white as fallen snow and a pair of delicate-looking wings like those of a dragonfly on her back. When she had met the others midway through the journey, she proclaimed that she was, in fact, princess of the fairies.
And then there was mysterious red fox kit that the others didn't know too much about. He called himself Nick, but he hadn't said anything else as to where he came from. Judging by the hooded reddish-brown cloak that dropped down his body and onto the dust below their paws, the other three assumed he was someone that knew magic.
Very different they were when it came to their backgrounds, but they were friendly to one another and happy to make each other's acquaintance. After all, they each had the exact same goal in mind, and that was getting to the tower and stopping that evil king ruling the land.
The walk up the hill felt like it was taking an eternity with each step forward with their small paws. Sweat trickled down their faces from the hot sun beating down upon their heads, and the four were very much glad to bear the top of the ascension.
"Just a few... more steps... guys..." the red fox said to the others exhaustedly.
"Whew," Judy remarked directly behind him, taking off her plaid detective hat and wiping her forehead before placing it back on. "Thank goodness."
Skye hummed a light melody to herself as she casually looked around. A blue butterfly came fluttering out from the left, and it landed on her white-furred paw as she held it delicately out in front of her. "Such pretty flora and fauna around these lands," she said positively, observing the colorful creature before it flew away into the skies.
The white-furred fox fairy fluttered the wings on her back and started to levitate just enough that her paws were above the ground, floating up ahead of the others. She touched the dust below a moment later and stumbled a moment, readjusting the crown made of pieces of tree branches on her head.
"Still learning how to use my wings better," she muttered. "Maybe someday I'll be able to fly much higher." Looking back at the three behind her by a short distance, she said to them, "The tower is not too far away."
"Maybe if you have wings it is," Jack, who was furthest behind, responded.
"That instrument you've been carrying isn't helping you pick up the pace," answered Skye.
The buck flipped the keytar on his back around and held it in his grasp, the gold body of the instrument shimmering in the daylight. "There was no way I could leave this behind. Music is my favorite thing."
"Come on, everyone," Skye compelled before she proceeded to float above the ground once more and head forward.
The others looked at each other before picking up the pace, their slow steps becoming as close to running as their tired legs would allow them. Surely enough, all of the progress of their journey greatly paid off; the tower, just as Skye said, was soon in their midst.
As everyone stopped for a moment to take a breath, the four studied the look of the tower with an equal amount of awe. The tower was one of giant proportions, its stony exterior, despite looking like it was greatly weathered, seemed to be strong and built incredibly well.
The four slowly stepped in even closer towards the tower, discovering rather quickly that the stone door to it was shut and locked up tight.
"There's no way in," Judy said to the others, stepping up to the door. She gave the stone it was made of a knock before reaching into her plaid coat pocket and retrieving a magnifying glass, getting a much better examination of the rough rock. "From what I can see, this is definitely hundred of years old."
Jack pushed his way forward and got a look at the door. "Let me try to push it open," he said, slipping the keytar behind his back again. "I'm actually pretty strong, if I do say so myself."
The striped jackrabbit tried to push the door open forcefully with as much as might as a mammal of his age and size could. He grunted as he struggled to open the heavy stone that proved unmovable, sighing upon realizing that he had failed to do what he thought he could.
"Perhaps some of my fairy magic will work on it," Skye chimed in.
She took a breath in and out before started to sing. The note she sung in became higher and higher until it sounded like an opera performer reaching beyond falsetto. The others watched as her attempt at her magic didn't work either.
"Huh..." Skye muttered. "Normally my magic singing does the trick. Let me try one more thing."
She closed her eyes and started to twirl in a circle like a ballerina, her arms stretched out in front of her. She started to hum something once more as she did this, and the three alongside her watched in awe as flower petals suddenly started to float towards them, blown to the spot despite there being no breeze then. The amount they were in was as if every petal from every blossoming tree flew off and came directly to her.
The colorful petals, as she took her arms and flung them out in front of her, flew towards the door en masse like a swarm of bees returning to their hive. They, despite being summoned with magic that only belonged to a fairy like her, did nothing to open the impenetrable door either.
"That's all I got." Skye sighed and looked back at three with a quizzical look. "Anyone have any other ideas?"
"How about you, Nick?" Judy asked the red fox to her side. "You have any idea on how we could move this to get inside?"
"Actually," the fox replied, "I do. But instead of calling me Nick... you can call me..." He trailed as he lowered the bulk hood off the top of his head, revealing a yellow bycocket that he was wearing underneath it.
Gasps arose from the others when they realized the true identity of the friend they had made, the hat he had been secretly donning enough for them to know his true name.
"Robin Hood..." they said in unified surprise.
"Yeah," the young red fox answered with a chuckle.
He unfastened the reddish cloak that dropped over him and unveiled the green tunic he had worn underneath it the entire time as well as a bag strapped over his shoulder.
"I knew it," Judy added. "My detective skills are never wrong."
"But you guys can just call me Nick."
"So, you have any ideas?" Skye chimed in.
"I think I do." The fox in green set the brown bag on his shoulder down on the ground, flipping it open and retrieving a bow and arrow and a good length of rope. "You know that window on the tippy top of the tower. I think I have enough rope, so I can shoot this arrow up onto the wall. Then after I find a way to secure it and tie it to something, you three climb up to there and stop him."
Skye looked up at the tall height and then nodded her head. "All right. Let's try it."
The two rabbits and vixen held onto the thick rope as tight as possible, nearing the window of the tower that remained widely open. Once they had reached the point the arrow that had been shot had reached up to, the three mammals, one by one, reached forward for the ledge and carefully crept in.
Now that they were safe from falling from the height they had climbed up, they started to search around the small space at the top of the tower.
"I don't think anyone's here," Jack said. He took the dark sunglasses he had been wearing off for the first time since the start of the journey, taking another quick look before putting them back on. "Oh, hello, what is this?" he added once something caught his eye.
He stepped towards the middle of the room and Judy and Skye stepped forward as well. On a small stone table sat a bowl of salted pretzels on a tray, a little card sitting directly to the side of them.
"Wonder why these were out here," Jack said to himself, reaching forward to take one.
"Jack!" the doe and vixen behind him shouted together, outstretching a paw to get his attention. "No!"
"No, Jack, don't touch those. It could be a trap," Judy added.
Jack, however, didn't listen to the warning and fell for the temptation of the salty snack on the tray, especially since they hadn't had some good food since the adventure's beginning. As soon as he picked up one of the pretzels and went to eat it, the three felt the floor of the room falling suddenly from beneath them.
The three shouted as they started to fall unexpectedly downward to somewhere darker than before, the shouting echoing around them. Several seconds later, they felt themselves hitting the hard ground and tumbling clumsily, getting back up a moment later.
"Yeah, definitely was a trap," Jack admitted with a nervous laugh. "Sorry about that, guys."
"Mm-hmm," Judy replied, knowing she was right about her hunch.
"How did you like that little trap of mine?" a voice inquired from within the space they had fallen to.
As the three friends were picking themselves up, adjusting their eyes to the lessened light and dusting themselves off, they turned in the direction of the mocking they could hear coming from the opposite side.
"It's him," Skye said to the others matter-of-factly as she pointed in front of her.
"The evil king," the three friends said in unison as they looked in front of them.
The king in which they spoke of was a fennec fox dressed in black, laughing as he looked back at them. The short mammal sat on top of a throne carved out of grayish stone, resting on top of some taller rocks that made him sit much higher over them. A line of rocks was carved into the wall directly to his left, making their way down to the middle of the space.
The fennec fox stood up on the seat of his throne and hopped onto the rock line, sliding down it as if he were a skater gliding across a rail on his board. Down from his throne and at the level of the three, he folded his paws and smirked at them. "So," he said, "I heard that there was a group that coming to try and stop me."
"That's us," Skye said to him, "and we will stop you."
"We'll see," the fennec king responded, proceeding to laugh heartily as he raised his arms upward. A mysterious, dark black orb formed above the king's head, no knowing of what power it held to the others.
With a flicker of her delicate wings, Skye lifted off the ground and started to sing at the high note she had down before, summoning some of the magic that ended up not having any effect on the king. Meanwhile, Jack flipped the golden keytar around and started to play a series of notes on it. An aura of golden light that matched the body of it emitted from the instrument's headstock, to which the fennec fox quickly shielded himself.
The king grunted before forming another orb in the same way, sending it towards the heroes. The three shouted before ducking, and the orb struck a wall directly behind them, splattering and leaving a black goo dripping down it.
Still levitating from where she was, Skye looked back at the two behind her with a determined look on her face. "Come on, guys. We can't give up..."
The children ran around through the bright backyard grass, giggling happily as the good friends played with one another on what was a great summer afternoon.
The gray doe and striped jackrabbit chased the fennec fox as he swiftly ran up the steps of the nearby swing set, sliding down the slide on the right side of it before continuing to run along.
"Not so fast," their other friend, a white-furred fox kit, said as she waved her paws around, pretending to cast a magic spell of some sort.
"Oh no," the fennec fox chuckled as the make-believe adventure between the kits carried on. "You'll never catch me."
"Oh, we'll see about that," the kit remarked before she continued to chase him with the others.
Nick watched for a brief moment from the steps of the porch before running over to join the others in the backyard, unable to do anything else but happily laugh as well.
The back door to the house carefully opened up, and Nick's mother stood outside and looked out with a warm smile. She had a paper plate that had celery sticks with peanut butter and fruit on top on it, and she held out in front of her while she stood there. "If you guys are hungry," she called, "I made some ants on a log."
Nick turned his head around and looked back at his mom, and his friends stopped running around when they overheard her call out to them. She always made the best snacks for him and his friends when they came over to play with him. "With blueberries?" he asked excitedly.
His mother chuckled back at him and nodded her head. "I made some with raisins and with blueberries."
"Yum!" Nick replied as his tail started to wag back and forth. He could already taste the fresh blueberries that his mom always bought from the local farmer's market that came to town, the best he had ever had out of any others. "Coming inside, Mom."
"Coming, Mrs. Wilde!" his gray rabbit friend said from the yard, waving as she ran up towards where Nick was standing with his other good friends behind her.
It was days like these, where the weather was nice and sunny, that were perfect for Nick and his friends to play together. It was days like these that confirmed why Nick loved summer the most out of all the seasons, as well as the reason he wished his summer break would never end.
Whenever they would meet for a day of fun like this, the usual spot of the yard would transform in their imaginations into places not seen in their world. Though the tales they spun while playing make-believe were among the silliest, with the characters they would pretend to be obviously incapable of coexisting in the same kind of stories, none of them really cared since they always had lots of fun and let their young imaginations run wild.
Author's Note: Hey there, everybody! Felt like writing something fun but also wanted to come up with another kind of AU story, and this was how I was able to put those two things together into one cute little story.
I originally wanted to write something where Nick, Judy, and some other familiar faces were all kits that were good friends with one another, and I thought it would be something fun to write about and quickly worked on this.
Definitely on the sillier side, especially in the beginning and middle part of this, but since I was writing about the kits using their imagination to come with a make-believe adventure as they played in a backyard, silly was what I was going for during that part of the story.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this little story of mine. And as always, your feedback, whether good or bad, is gladly appreciated. Also, thanks again to everybody that's been reading all of my stories.
'Til next time! :)