[SnowStar]

Delta Velorum Foxes are tall looking foxes that are only located on the remote planet of Delta Velorum.

Standing between 2 - 2 1/2 feet at the should, Delta Velorum Foxes are very tall in appearance compared to Red Foxes on Earth. They tend to be long legged in appearance and are well known for their endurance and agility. Males tend to be more muscular then females while female are more slender and elegant in appearance. A Delta Foxes fur tends to be very soft and short, and come in a wide variety of natural colors. It is not uncommon to see them in roans and dun colors similar to horses and are commonly seen in cat colors and patterns as well (such as calico, tabby, bengal markings ect). However the combination of colors and patterns are limitless, and each Delta Velorum Fox is different from the next. No two are ever the same in looks. Delta Velorum Foxes can come in any eye color and combination - no matter if it's natural or unnatural. A fox with two or more eye colors (known as Heterochromia) is uncommon but not unheard of.

Variety: Short tail, Snip facial markings. Custom Mane, Heterochromia.
Genetics Code:
18 / 4 - 18

** Only Necrogerbil can post here for the time being! **

OH MY HAMSTER,YESSSSS-its finally open *O*

I would like to Adopt a Event DVF!

Username: Necrogerbil
DVF Name: Arsen
DVF Gender: Todd

Why would you like to enter? Because i love the whole idea with horse-based dvfs (and horses and dvf in general^^) ,and i also find great fun in developing a character through a continuing story of its past,especially when drawing is included. also,this is the first adoptable comunity i actually feel ..."homely" in,so its a great thing for me to participiate in the event <3

Have you read all the information given/main thread? yes ^^

Do you agree to follow all DVF rules and Event rules given? yup,that should be no problem

Will you complete all the Trials/Stages? i´ll do my best to do so

[$moke]

Trials/Stages:
Basics - Fill out the base form given (Joining - You start here!)
Introduction - Introduction/detailed information of the DVF.
Moving Day - Starting the Journey with herd/family. (story with art)
Separation - Midway of the Journey, separated from the herd. (continuing story/second entry, optional art)
Steps Forward - Finishing the journey with challenges on their own. (Finishing story/third entry, optional art)
Home Where the Heart Is - Finding/making a home of their own in the new land. (art with short story)[/

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Arsen

Oh ,hello- you want to get to know me?

Well, let´s start with the one basic thing that can either say nothing or all about the one it belongs to, my name .As you probably know already, my name is Arsen,wich sound like R -zen if you speak it out . I know,kind of...unusual pronunciation for most people,but what can i do...
As far as i know,its a variation of the word "Arsenic" ,wich is a substance known both for its extreme toxicity and its use against several illnesses-even though i bet the thing ´bout the deadly poison is way better known,wich is,to me,typical for society: everything and everyone has their good and bad side, their outer shadow and their inner light,its just that the most seem to notice the negative aspects first and primary. But anyway, i have always liked my name as well as my namesake for both of its faces,and i guess thats the thing that matters-i mean,i am the one who has to life with that name,so i think i am the one who´s opinion ´bout it is important.
I fear that i´m probably not the most interesting guy you´ve ever met,but here we go...

Favourite...
food: strawberries
season: late summer/early fall
place: flowery clearings
sound: wind rushing through trees
texture: sand between his toes
color: dark bordeaux
smell: lavender
animal: rats
plant: foxglove
gemstone: rose quartz
word: probably

Likes:
- poisons
- flirting
- sweet berries
- crafting accesoires,esp. with flowers+feathers
- cheering others up
- other beeing proud of him
- cuddling
- night skies

dislikes:
- foxes raising their voice
- disapointing others
- having his fur messy
- violence
- sickness
- imbalance
- deep water
- thunderstorms

I was born seventeen summers ago,some night in the summer,and even though i have almost no memories of what i did and felt during my early days and weeks,i clearly see the first thing i´ve ever seen,the starry night sky, in front of my inner eye as if i had seen it just a few seconds ago.Im still impressed by this memory,and i love to let it pass through my brain over and over again-until today,the view of a starfilled sky makes me feel extremely free but protected at the same time. Weirdly,i have much more of thoose...mind pictures i guess ? Its just that i see something and get an exact picture of what i have seen in my mind,it stays there forever and i can dig it out of my mental treasure chest and look at it everytime i want. I was born a male,and i never felt the desire to be anything else-i know that there are foxes who have the bad luck to be born with the wrong gender,but fortunately i got the one i automatically identified myself with.Sadly,i never had any sibblings,even though i always dreamed of a little brother or sister -i still think it would have been wonderfull to have someone to play with all the time,to never have to be alone...and maybe having someone to care for,someone smaller and younger than me would have helped me to feel more confident ´bout myself.

Take a look on the outer shell

Arsen is best described as a tall but muscular young fox,a bit higher than the average male his age would be,with soft chiseled features and a pair of big,friendly eyes in a dark,clouded blue. His white fur is full of spots in caramel and various browns,its a bit shorter than usual,but extremely flossy and looks always like it was cleaned ten minutes ago.he mostly wears various items like a brown leather halter,a black and blue feather necklace (made of crow and bluejay feathers),a long red scarf or a black collar-he seems to have a never endig variety of accesoires,and he will probably never stop to make more. His neckfur seems like a mane similar to that of a horse,and he has an extremely fluffy furtuft on his head. A long,thin scar runs from his right ear down the face and ends at the muzzle.Arsen has a relatively short tail and a pink nose . He always wears a long,black feather in his right ear and is rarely seen without his dark red bag wich is decorated with a bird´s skull.

...and the things it hides:
happy|caring|romantic|insecure|doubting|philosophic|amiable
unresting,suffers from various phobias|loyal|enthusiastic|meticulous|skittish|curious|
intelligent|obsessive|childhearted|accepting|deadly/ruthless

Arsen is probably best described as someone who mostly seems to be happy without any specific reason,there is always this cheery joviality around him as if he was born with the ability to entertain himself,always jumping around while exploring something .Thoose who only see him from afar tend to think he is older than he actually is due to his size and muscular build,while thoose who actually meet him often judge him as younger,due to his exciteable,bouncy and slightly naive behavior-Arsen could be considered as foxification of the word "social butterfly" ,always happy and interested to meet new foxes, welcoming them immediately as new friends with his warm and sweet personality ,and its easy for him to talk to others or listening to them,he actually enjoys both quite the same. This might have earned him a lot of friends,but also makes obvious how easily to hurt or exploit he is,always seeing the best in others and believing the whole world is just as innocent as he is and everyone is waiting to befriend him.He is a caring individual,always wanting everyone to feel as comfortable as possible,and he will do anything to make sure thoose he cares for are save and have everything they need -once you´re friends with him,he will follow you into hell and back if he has to,and he would never abandon a friend in need,not even if they have treated him badly just before. Arsen is a neat and aestetic fox,caring a lot about how he looks and how he could make himself look nicer-its neither vanity nor does he think others would like him less if he would not look pretty,its simply something he dies for himself-he has the need to have a clean and shiny fur and some nice accesoires because he has thoose expectations of himself and wants to fullfill them,and he also just likes pretty things. He is a hopeless romantic,loving nothing more than to see things like fields of flowers,happy couples or blooming roses,and even though he may not be intelligent in terms of streetsmarts or fast adaption ,he can be surprisingly sly at some times(mostly much to the surprise of everyone around) and he is extremely competent when it comes to logic thinking ,technical intelligence and remembering things. Arsen is easily to motivate,always giving his best at everything he does, mainly because he would be dissapointed with himself if he would allow himself to do things half-hearted and therefore with lower quality than he could have done. But its not only this,he also wishes deeply to get praised when he does something well,getting aproved by others seems to make him feels safe and needed. Behind Arsen´s happy,bubbly personality hides also a really insecure,doubting little fox who is always fearing to be not good enough,to dissapoint thoose who count on him,and he has anything than a high self esteem-he simply needs others around him,beeing alone just gives his mind time to circulate around all the things wich are scaring him inside: especially wide,open spaces make him feel exremely uncomfortable,he just feels lost and small and helpless. He is kind of skittisch,know to jump into the air with all paws at once simply because something behind him made a suden sound,and its not only easy to impress,but to intimidate him,simply raising your voice will make him insecure enough to obey,wich is why he hates nothing more than arguments or fights . As long as he as thoose who care about him,he feels completely safe and actually likes to let his mind wander around,thinking about this and that,from banal questions about the behavior of butterflies to the pondering if his life is real or just a dream someone else is dreaming.
One thing that surprise most is arsen´s ruthlessnes in certain situations: confrotations usually scare him and thats why he does anything to avoid them,but there will be always situations in wich this is simply impossible,and then,the young foxe´s mind switches to something he calls "simply the simplest sollution"-thinking. In this state,he analizes the problem he is confrontated with purely logical ,finding the sollution wich guarantees the highest sucess and the smalles efford, without any inclusion of how he personally thinks about said sollution or if what he is about to do /suggest is moraly questionable. He just finds out what´s to do,and then he goes and does it,without any doubts or remorse-the best example for this would be his actions during the war where he killed the half of the neighbouring rivals via poisoning their water,wich actually had almost guaranteed his clan a win-the only reason they lost anyway was that their rivals had already made a contract with a third clan,agreeing to attack arsen´s clan together,and because thoose allies arived later,they where spared and the opponent had still enough foxes to defeat arsens clan. Nobody had thought that the harmless, sweet arsen would do such a thing,especially because the poisoned water killed not only the warriors but everyone in the camp who drunk it,from the smallest kit to the oldest senior,but for him,it was nothing to hesitate from because he only knowed the following : if there was war, someone has to die,that´s what he had learned from the old legends and stories. So,if he dont want his clan to die,the others have to,obiously. In his childhearted mind,he was never able to fully understand the consequences of his actions,he just ment the best for thoose he loves.By the way,he was only able to do it because there was definetely nobody in his clan who knew as much about various poisons and their effects like arsen,its one of his three personal obsessions (the others are crafting pretty items out of fur,feathers and flowers ,and observing the stars),and if arsen finds something that fasciantes him enough,he´s all about it,spending hours and days just with this thing.In poisons,its not so much the deadly impact on living beeings,but the healing effects most poisons have-he is deeply fascinated that something that is mostly seen as useless or evil by society can safe so many lifes,and he knows how to use almost every poisonous plant as an atidote or medicine.
In short,you could say that arsen is someone who deeply depends on balance in his life,as long as he has his regulated daily routine and caring company,mixed with a bit of adventure ,he is one of the most friendly,sweet and harmless beeings you will ever meet,but when he is thrown out of his comfort zone,he will turn either a nervous,restless scaredy cat or completely unpredictable.

Least favourite...
food: rodents
season: winter
place: deserts,open grasslands
sound: thunder
texture: ice under his paws
color: orange
smell: blood
animal: boar
plant: buckthorn
gemstone: likes them all
word: dissapointed

Random facts:
when thinking concentrated,he often crinkles his nose without realizing it
he sometimes talks to plants
he is completely obsessed with strawberries
he often makes himself and everyone around flower accesoires
he always has a slight scent of lavender around him,due to rolling in the bushes whenever he finds them
he believes deeply in the principle of yin and yang (even though he never heard of that specific name for it)
he is able to orientate himself via watching the movement and position of the stars
he is an surprisingly good climber
he speaks with german accent
he always leaves out the "a" when he wants to say "about"
he has a long,thin scar running from his righ ear over his cheek down to his muzzle
he is definetely neither the violent nor the intimidating type of fox,but his obsession with and his immense knowledge of poisons earned him sort of a "better not to mess with the little one"-kind of reputation amongst thoose who know him.
he mostly keeps said obsession to himself because he learned that beeing all about such things could be considered...unhealthy by many
his nose is pink due to a lack of pigmentation and sunburns easily

[$moke]

I thought i had nothing to loose...



As long as i can think back,there had always been times in wich i was unable to sleep because the distant screams and growls,the stench of blood and despair crept through my ears and nose inside my head and created images in there wich kept me awake.there had always been wars between the neighbouring clans,in some where our warriors involved and in some not,and all this violence and hate,this spiral of attack and revenge deeply scared me as a kit and the fear that my friends and family members would never return from their socalled „missions“ was always present inside me. During my kithood the battles got worse and worse,but finally, i think i was six,a fragile peace gave us all time to breathe,even though our warriors never stopped training and patrolling .the war might not have been actively present at thoose times,but it surely controlled us all inside our hearts and minds, even though thoose years without battles where wonderful and granted me a beautiful kithood. Back then,i was too young to understand the reasons for thoose wars,why the clans always had to kill each other in struggle for the best land or the most powerfull position,or to avenge earlier attacks. Today,im seventeen years old, a trained hunter and fighter,but i have to admit that i still have trouble to see why this all is neccesary...maybe im just too stupid to understand,who knows.
The only thing i know for sure about war is the following: war means that someone will die,there´s nothing you can do ´bout it . And the only thing you can do is to give your best to provide that it will not be your family who has to die. I did my best to help providing this during the current war,but it was useless in the end- this war -it came suddenly and nobody knew for sure who actually started it - would be our last,we had not the slightest chance. And now,our alpha had decidet that we had two options left-dying or leaving forever. I took a final look over the land i called home all my life, and i could not held my tears as the pictures started to flood my mind : the peaceful time during my kithood , jumping through grass as high as myself,climbing on rocks,swimming with my friends in the crystal clear ponds and the first time we tried it in the rushing,grat river. The forrest,so beautiful and bursting with secrets. The silent hill where the belladonna grew and the poppy field i loved so much...places i loved with all my heart ,places i would never see again. At last i saw the faces,the most precious but painful memory i had-the faces of the friends i had to leave there,the friends i could never see again because the war stole them from me. At this point,i started to see the land before me with a differend sight,now it was the place i lost friends at,a place full of hatred,violence and painful memories-the war had killed my home and turned it into something i could barely recognize,even though everything looked almost the same on the outside i knew that it had changed and would never be the place i had loved all my life. Raindrops started to fall down on me and a glimpse of hope startet to grow : whereever we would go, i would not be alone,my clan was there to protect me and maybe we would end up in a place where war was nonexistent...
„please don´t cry mheela ,we are going to find a new home-a better one,one where we can life without the constant fear that today might be our last !“ i said softly to the weeping kit who walked beside me and gently nudged her shoulder-a try to cheer her up as well as to give myself some hope.And it worked. Sure,we both still had tears in our eyes,but a small,hopefull smile rose on our faces as we clumped through the rainy night in the hope to find a new sunny morning somewhere.



fun fact: Before starting the journey,arsen sneaked away from the group for some minutes to say every beloved poisonous plant in the territory goodbye. he also had personal names for all of them. what a weirdo.

[$moke]

...but oh,beeing proven wrong has never felt so painful.

i guess about three weeks had passed since we left our home,filled with hope firstly,but slowly falling into something hopeless and clueless after wandering through nothing but high grass and grey,clouded sky for days. This prairie seemed to reach from one horizon to the other,no matter in wich direction you would turn your head-this endless,painfully empty grassland would await you,and i had never felt so horribly frightened. It was partly the overall depressed,worried atmosphere around the herd,especially when the hunting groups returned without prey everyone secretly feared that we would never reach some place we could stay for longer than one day...the regular ranks and hierachy of our group had faded away days ago,we where no longer a clan-just a bunch of homeless foxes struggeling to survive the next day,and everyone had to paricipiate in night watches and hunting teams. But what scared me more than the thought of starving to death or to get eaten by large,unknown beasts was this endless,hostile land itself and the despaired look in our alpha´s eyes when he thought nobody was watching him. He had been the centre of my daily life since my kithood,our leader and guiding light,and i couldnt imagine that some day he would not know what to do,that he could loose hope like everyone else...until now,and this made me shiver inside like a little kit. This dreadful evening we camped beneath a buildup of rocks,the only higher point we had seen for far too long,and the whole clan tried to find a place that was sheltered from the sharp wind wich had started to rush over the grasslands since sunrise. It was dark as the darkest winter night when i opened my eyes again,even though it could not be much later than late afternoon-the thunderstorm wich was trapped high above us in the black clouds was about to burst its way into freedom. A small whimper escaped from my mouth -thunderstorms where one of the things wich made me loose my self controll completely- and i slinked nearer to the rock face, dropped ears and my tail beneath my legs in the subliminal hope that the massive wall could protect me from what the sky was setting free right now : the rain started to fall down like a grey curtain made of hard drops,and the roaring that rolled through the night made my shake and shiver. The only thing i remember clearly about the moment i found the cave entry was my massive relieve to get away from the storm,and the next thing i know is that i sat down in the small cave,my whole clan around me,here where it was save and dry. The warmth of the furry bodies next to me and the calming presence of massive walls around me made me feel better immediately,and after a while,i started to wander around in the cave with two of my friends,sheila and rakon,deeper and deeper inside the small alcove on the left side,followed by sheila and leaded by rakon . we just curled ourself up andi fell asleep cuddeled into the warm fur of my friends as a nightmare-ish uproar pierced my ears ,closely followed by a numbing silence...and then the foxes around me began to scream. What came next is nothing more than small,shattered pieces of memories,but the images of thoose moments are still burned inside my head : bodies jumped and run around ,crashed each other in mindless panic and the air was filled with a deafening sound created by countless screams as the cave started to tumble down. i jumped on my paws and started to run towards the exit of the cave ,following thoose who had already reached the save outside ,but than i felt a sudden emptiness under my paws as the ground caved in and i reached into nothing. I screamed in horror and tried to find a hold ,to pull myself uo somehow,but my paws just grabbed helplessly into the air. I saw sheila beneath me and heared rakon´s trembeling voice somewhere next to me as they tried to save me,but the ground continued to fall of-in a few seconds,it would not only swallow me,but my friends too if they stayed where they where. In a sudden flash of determination i gave the vixen a push with my head,tossing her forwards while tears streamed down my face as i stopped to fight against the fall . " Please,just GO!" i yelled ,while everything inside me screamed silently "DONT LEAVE ME !" as i fell into blackness.


When i opened my eyes, i needed a few minutes to realize that i wasnt dead,i even needed to bite myself on the tongue to make sure that i was still able to feel anything,that i was not some ghost trapped in everlasting darkness. once i at least halfly convinced myself that i somehow survived not only the earthquake and the resulting downfall of the cave,but also the fall down the earth fissue,i slowly started to analyze my situation-i layed in something warm and wet,in fact,my whole face was covered in it,so i must had hurt my head during the fall,but it already stopped bleeding,and as i moved my legs and paws carefully,i stated in relieve that nothing seemed to be broken...but why,just why was i horrified like this then? where came this fear from that felt like it was about to crush my head? the insight caught me like a hit in the stomache,and it felt exactly like this as i realized how silent it was around me,that my heavy breathing was the only sound i could hear...i sunk back on my paws and covered my eyes with my paws as my brain finally accepted the fact that i was completely alone.



fun fact: From his kithood to the described events, arsen wore his mane short. On his lone journey,he will decide to let it grow and arrange it into the fancy hairdo seen on his introduction picture.

[$moke]

But even after the darkest night...

The world had ended, it had fallen into the dark and i had accompanied its fall. But...when everything was lost and over, why did my head hurt so much,and why bothered me the sticky, uncomfortable warm thing that surrounded my face so much? (allmählich) i started to realize that i was not dead,that i somehow survived the collapse of the cave and the fall down the (erdspalte) -but for some reason, this fact that should have made me feel thankfull and relieved ,it caused nothing but a numbing fear inside me,and as i finally opened my eyes and tried to figure out something in the blackness around me,it hit me like the fall itself: i was completely alone. There was no sign of sheila or rakon or anybody,and i could not prevent that panic took over my head. „ Sheila, toby ,rakon- ANYBODY,PLEASE WHERE ARE YOU!“ i screamed,even though i already know that there would be no answer. Ignoring the burning pain in my head,i forced myself on my paws and somehow managed to scramble up the walls of the chasm . What i saw in the cratered cave brought the horrible certaincy: where once the entrance of the cave had been,there was now a heavy and unmoveable pile of massive rocks and sharp wreckage, making even the thought of escaping the cave completely impossible. Even though i already now that i had not a glimpse of a chance,i mechanically checked every little part of the blockade,searching for the smallest beam of light or the tiniest chance to relocate one of the rocks-but nothing. After a while (wich felt like hours to me) i gave up and sunk down to the ground,the knowledge that i was separated from my family and unable to communicate with them still circulating through my brain . I gave up to fight my tears,and my sobbing echoed through the darkness. In the strange logic that overcame me whenever i was in total despair, i already knew that my family had probably already given up on me-it was just to unlikely that i had survived,and even if they still believed that i was alive, it would chance nothing for they had absolutely no possibility to free me, and even if they had, it would take them way to long -the clan was already hungry and weak,they would never stay in such a lifeless aerea,risking the life of everyone just for mine, especially because it was not even certain that i was still alive...at this point,i stopped thinking and just let myself go, covering my eyes and ears with my paws to neither hear,think or see anything any longer,trying to keep the back-breaking ,suffocating feeling of beeing burried alive out of my heart.

I dont know how long i was laying there,but at some point,i must have fallen into a dreamless sleep. As i opened my eyes, again, a sudden glimmering above me caught my eyes. I struggeled to stand up,but as i finally managed to stay on my paws and reach for the source of the lightbeam, a familiar scent crept up my nose and made my heart skip a beat- i was holding sheila´s halter ,her favourite accesoire she was never seen without -it was one of the metal buckles that caused the reflection. She must have lost it on her flight and probably got caught somewhere-one of the straps was broken, but the simple presence of it gave me the thought that giving up on my life and laying around here forever,crying till i finally died maybe wasnt the best option...yes, i had lost anything valuable to me,but who said that it was completely impossible to somehow get it back? For a moment,i struggeled- just remaining and dying seemed so much...easier,at least i would know what was waiting for me...but in the end,my hope grew stronger than my fear,and i promised myself that i would see the light again. Carefully, i gnawed of one of the leather bands from my bag and fixed sheilas halter, the slight smell of my clan comforting me. I even searched my bag until i found something i had found once and keeped save for a special occassion: a small pearl wich had exactly the color of early strawberries,and a little feather-made trassel wich shimmered in various colors,depending on how the light touched it. I dont know why,but decorating things had always helped me to ease my mind and feel less hopeless,it was just like...i could improve my situation just by making something around me more beautifull.and it seemed to work even in such a dark situation: as i attached the pearl and the trassel to the halter and slipped it over, (carefully avoiding to touch the long cut on my face,i immediately felt a bit consoled. As i started my journey into the inside of the mountain,i knew that i would not take of the halter for the rest of my life.




...the first light will chase away the dark.

At some point,i lost any sense for time and direction. I dont know how many hours,days or weeks had passed since i decited that it would be completely impossible to leave the cave though the former entry,the rocks where just to heavy and instable-they would have crushed me instantly if i somehow managed to move one of them,and so my only option left was to wander deeper inside the cave. I knew that there had to be another connection to the world outside,that was the only explanation why there was still enough oxygen for me to breathe without problems,and i knew that i had to find said connection,otherwise i would never see the light of day again. At this point, my brain had already reduced my horrible fear into a numb stitching inside me, probably to prevent me from going crazy-nobody can remain frightened for days, and so i was even able to embrace the strange beauty of the dark world around me : i rember that i entered a small,chokingly narrow tunnel just to come out in a cave with a ceiling as high as the pine trees of my homeland, filled with an otherworldy icy blue light that changed with every step i took-it was a crystal cave, the walls ,completely overgrown with light blue gemstones wich caused the light. of course,it was not compareable to the light of the sub,but it was light at least,and it was so beautiful that i felt myself shiver in wonder as i walked wide-eyed through the cave like a sleepwalker. at another point,i rested in a long tunnel filled with complete darkness,but somehow,i felt less fear than all the time bevore,mostly because the water that dripped from the cave caused an surprisingly calming melody once the drops hit the ground. After i scented the water for any signs of poisonous minerals,i was able to get rid of the thirst that had already begun to dry my throat out. As i sunk down to the floor, i saw faces appearing in the velvety blackness around me : my mother,her beautifull face filled with love and pride for her only kit,no matter how much of a shy,insecure weirdo he was. my father, who´s image was as clear as if i just had seen him yesterday,even though he died in war when i was three. My alpha,who showed nothing of the despaired hopelessness he had to struggle with when i met him the last time-now,he was strong and wise and the lodestar of clanlive again. my friend toby, his face serious and calm as always,but with an encouraging glow in his wise eyes. many faces passed me by while i was in this state in wich i was neither asleep nor awake. I must haven sunk into a deep,dreamless sleep after then,and when i woke up, i felt...surprisingly good. i knew that it was incredibly stupid to think that my family had probably already started to forget me,and that i was completely lost-as long as i kept their memory inside me alive,i would never be alone. i would always be with them, they in my heart and i in theirs. comforted and with new determination,i continued my journey through the tunnels. I remember that i came across an small pond in wich shimmering,small eyeless fish without any color drifted to the surface just to sink back into the incredible depth again...it was an eerie but fascinating sight,and it was also the first time i catched a fish. I wandered across bizarre rock formations, needle-sharp dripstones, caves filled with bones of long forgotten living beeings...i had to jump over canyons,climb on sharp,tissued rock faces, crawl through tunnels and rifts...i learned how to hunt bats and crabs in the everlasting darkness,i even got surprisingly good once i discovered that the main thing in bat-hunting is to disturb their sound-based orientation. My sence of smell and my hears became more efficient without me even noticing it,i had no troubles with orintating in the dark anymore,and my fear had been replaced by admiration and fascination for the world under the surface. And then it finally happened. I stood in the small cave and stared up to the hole in its ceiling, filled with this irrational fear everyone who was just one step before completing the goal of their life knows. I took a deep breath and then i started to climb up the cliffy walls,until i could protude my frontleg through the hole in the ceiling. i closed my eyes, and pulled myself up,back into the light. At first,i was blinded by the light and completely confused by the immense soundscape around me-the caves had been almost silence the whole time,and now the sound of wind in grass and trees, the whisteling of the bushes,the songs of birds and crickets where enough to stun me for a moment. i just sat there,staring at the grass under my paws until i suddenly bursted out in laughter as my brain finally realized that i had made it,that i was free. I got back on my paws and started to run,laughing like a litle kit and could´nt resist to jump up in the air like a goat from time to time. again and again i just let myself fall down and rolled around in the grass to make sure it was real and not some dream. I reached a river,a small rushing water that weaved through the grasslands, and as i stepped nearer to drink, i was irritated by the fox that looked back at me from the surface: it looked like me,but not like the me i used to know. It looked older,its body wirey and trained from climbing,hunting and digging. a long, thin cut run down its face,from the right ear down the cheek to the muzzle,and i knew that it would never vanish completely. The strange reflection hat also long,dark fur running down its neck and falling over its face,it looked almost like a horse´s mane...it was a strange me down there i the river,but somehow it appealed to me. it looked like someone who had done something,all by himself. i smiled ,and my reflection smiled back at me.
The first thing i though was that i must have been a long time under the earth,according to how much my mane had grown since i shaved it the last time,and the second thing i thought was that my journey wasn´t over yet. sure, i escaped the tunnels,i reached the land behind the hills...but i still was not home yet. home was wherever my family where.
And so, i headed north and just started walking,following my dream to be with my clan again.

fun fact: arsen found out that he loves spiders when he was unable to kill and eat the rat-sized,hairy white spider he found in the caves.


art by this epic person <3

[$moke]

Home is where the heart is.

~ two years later~

"Eh, poisoner, come over here and look at this ! maybe that will stop you from blabbering off my ears for a while..."
Caligarus´ harsh,raspy voice echoes over the hill crest and makes me prick up my ears ,and i carefully wrap the feathers i found in a piece of fur and store them in my bag before i jump on my paws and run over to the scarred ,silverwhite fox with the cold eyes. Im used to his tone,it stopped scaring me month ago...once you have accepted that he sees you and probably everyone else as incredibly annoying,he´s not that bad. I walk to his side,my nose crinkeling in curiousity " what´s it cal, whats it ?" i ask him,excited like a kit,but he just growls and points his head over the knowe " dont ask like and idiot,use your own eyes and look...you know how that works,right?" i jump the last few steps to the top of the hill,and gasp in wonder.

Open,wide spaces had always been a private horror of mine, they just made me feel lost and helpless,even meaningless ... but now,as i look over the endless sea of poppies in full bloom,i feel nothing but veneration. veneration and happyness that something like this exists. For the first time,i still feel flooded by the view of the endless flowerfield,but in a surprisingly comforting way-i dont feel lost, i feel free. It felt so wonderfull to be happy about something after such a long time of grieve,to appreciate the world around me again instead of seeing it as frightening.In this moment, caligarus´words from a few month ago come back to my mind : it was winter, and i was almost frozen and starved, almost insane because the burning desire to reunite with my clan never allowed me to stay anywhere ,or just to find rest in general...at some point,my paws could´nt carry my weight any longer,and i sunk down into the snow,slowly drifting into unconsciousness. when i opened my eyes again, they looked directly into someone else´s , a pair of eyes as cold and bitter as the weather outside. Caligarus is a loner , and i still have no idea where he comes from or what he does in this lonely place-and i pobably never will, because he just says that im a curious pain in the neck and that his personal history is none of my buisness. but the fact is that he saved me from death back then,and i cant say what i was more thankfull for-my life or the presence of another fox after such a long time of loneliness.he had a badly injured wound running down his whole body at this time,but with the help of me and various plants it healed quickly-one day during the time i stayed with him,i just felt the urge to tell him my story,mainly just to share my burden with someone else...when i was done,he examined me ,one eyebrow raised. "well puppy, when youre finally through with boring my with your endless sob-story,you could maybe consider how you´d like it to stop drowning yourself in self-pitty...just an advice from someone who has better to do than to play your private therapist. if i where your daddy ,friend or clan dictator or whatnot, id be pretty dissappointed how you barely got away with your life just to throw it away again , simply because you decited to chase things you cant have instead of making the best of what you´ve got...you dont die for your friends,smartass, you life for them. think about it once you figured out how that works."

Back then, the loner´s harsh words where extremely painfull for me, and to be honest,i was scared as heck of this cold fox who seemed to hate everyone and everything,but i was too afraid to be alone again to leave him. I still accompany him,and by now i have spend enough time with him to know that he is not as horrible as he seems- sure,he always seem to think that other living beeings simply exist to annoy the heck out of him,and this is definetely not an act,its just how he rolls...but as often as he may curse me and say the day he saved me was the day he made the biggest mistake ever because he will never get rid of me again ,i simply know that this is not exactly the truth. i know he could chase me away violently whenever he wants to,but he simply doesnt do it...and sometimes,he seems even relieved to have someone who distracts his thoughs from where ever they might wander otherwise.even though he considers my love for poisonous plants as simply weird,he admits that it makes me kind of usefull,and when i caught a fever last month,he not only hunted for two and made sure i had always enough water-no,as long as he was sure that i was asleep and wouldnt notice anything,he even watched over me for hours.

Now, as i look over the poppyfield and feel the wind plaiyng with my long ears and mane, i start to understand what caligarus had ment when he said that you should not die for your friends,but live for them : to be honest,it was almost impossible that i would see my clan ever again,and the driven search for them would not only rob me off my physical strengh but also my sanity. i would hunt for a dream,only to discover one day that my life was over and i had never lived it,and this was definetely not what my family had wished for me. they would never fully leave me,for i would always carry them save in my heart,but now it was time to let go and start to make a life worth living out of what was left from my life. As i decited to life my own life instead of searching uselessly for my clan, it felt not like giving up,but like setting free. I have come so far on my own,and with the memories of my friends and family in my heart and my uncommon friend at my side, i will never be alone. I love this place, it feels like something made just for me-the poppyfield,the unbelieveable old trees surrounding it,the small waterfall and the den under the birchtree...i think i will stay here,maybe starting to hoard healing plants to be able to help anyone who passes by....im surrounded by so many unknown plants ,mushrooms and mosses,and i cant wait to find out what they can be used for,and i also want to apply the gemstones i collected in the caves to my halter...after such a long time,i feel alive again, and i love that. I may have lost the land i was born forever,but i learned an important lesson from this: home is not a place ,its something you build deep inside your heart, a mix of feelings,memories,wishes and experiences,and your loved ones always have a save spot inside there. no one can take it from you. home is where your heart is,and therefore i am at home right now.

A happy end ?
decide yourself...




fun fact: even though its mainly arsen who is scared or intimidated by caligarus, cal himself finds it pretty eerie when arsen tests new plants on small animals to find out the way they could be used as medicine,even though arsen makes always sure to have all sorts of antidodes at reach before he does so.

[$moke]

Relationships with other foxes:

-PixieStoryteller´s Tobias,commonly called "toby" by arsen,was both a best buddy and the older brother arsen never had to the young todd since they where kits. Arsen admired toby´s strenght and bravery,and he always feeled save to talk about everything that came to his mind to the dark todd,for he knew that toby had never laughed about him or called him childish. They both where more on the thoughtfull,quiet side, as well as the ones who prefered brains over muscles,wich might explain why they got along well. Arsen was relieved that toby survived the war with the neighbouring clan,and he hopes dearly that his bud has gone well though the great movement.

- Caligarus saved arsen from freezing or starving to death after the young fox got separated from his family ,and the two formed some sort of partnership -cal takes use of arsens immense knowledge of poisonous and healing plants,and arsen is just thankfull that he is not completely alone. While arsen truly sees caligarus as a friends and protector whom he values highly, caligarus is mostly just pretty annoyed or weirdet out by the young todd and is usually complainig about his clingy/childish behavior or pushing him around ,even though deep down,he really cares for the worldly innocent stranger and feels somewhat responsible for him. In fact, arsen helps cal to overcome his own antisocial behavior and inner fears,even though caligarus refuses to notice or admit that.

-want your character to be arsens friend too? no problem,just message me, arsen is always happy to meet new friends : )

fun fact: Arsen made a flower crown out of white an dark purple lilac and belladonna for caligarus, as a thankyou-gift for saving him. Caligarus gave him a dab on the back of his head and fussed around that he´d rather sink his head in the river than walking around with flowers on it in public. but he secretly kept the flower drown in the darkest corner of his den