It’s the beginning of a new day, the sun is setting, the air is clear, The Wolf is still looming outside, everything is going normal. The Fox had already gotten up and finished his meal in a new manner he found fun and a little concerning: just eat and ignore what you are eating.

Nevertheless, he didn’t choke or die, in fact it was rather delicious so both of them had left the meal satisfied about the start of their day. The check for the signs of The Wolf had already been started and completed with the verified results of: we are not leaving anytime soon.

‘We really can’t let this go on’

‘Well, I don’t think we can do anything about it’

Returning The Black Lily’s comment with fitting silence, The Fox decided that instead of bickering perhaps looking for options is better. He had just come back from the main crack because of the check and hadn’t laid down yet. Having paused at the entrance for a while to think he got an idea.

‘Hey, can you turn off your uselessness effect?’

‘HEY! I’M NOT USELESS’

‘.....I had meant the smell, but you being useless is true too’

‘.....I can’t…..rude pile of dirt covered fur’

Well, The Fox can’t say if the insults are better or just the same at this point, he probably had heard this one before somewhere among the many others. Well that isn’t the main concern at the time, the main concern is the fact that this smell can’t be turned off.

‘Hey, pile of roots, didn’t you have a thing you said you could do when you have energy? Do it’

‘I may have… already tried that….Nothing happened, I had too little to give yesterday’

At this point The Fox finds himself not in the least bit surprised. Just another day with the useless flower at this point. Moving on from internal insults about The Black Lily, there must be something that they can do.

After thinking for a few more moments, The Fox decides to go back to the second exit and see if he can do something there. The crawl through was peaceful and easy if you ignored the quiet muttering from The Black Lily about being scrapped against rocks the whole way.

Reaching the end of the tunnel and once again seeing the pile of rocks that let no light in, The Fox does a double take. The rocks really do look like they cover the entrance completely, but the fact that makes The Fox feel a little ashamed of his past inability, is that the “rocks” are loose clumps of clay and sand…

In a more practical meaning, this can be broken with little to no effort. Doing his best to not let The Black Lily notice the shame that had passed his face for a second on this realization, he gets on to taking a closer look again.

The pile can be broken easily like he had thought, but it would make quite the cloud of dust and such when it falls.

Suddenly, at the idea of a cloud of dust, The Fox remembers when he had the fight with The Wolf. During the fight he had managed to hide in a dust cloud, this had let him harm The Wolf before. Thinking about the fact he had damaged The Wolf before meaning that The Wolf will be weaker, The Fox then remembers he was also a pile of broken bones back then and he’s fine now, so The Wolf definitely is as well.

Briefly disappointed by this rise and then fall of his emotions, The Fox goes back to thinking of what to do.

With the fall of the blockage there would be a dust cloud, the emergence of the dust cloud would definitely get the attention of The Wolf. But being in a dust cloud would help The Fox hide himself and it might do something about the useless flower’s ability to make trouble.

With the hope that this would be the outcome The Fox decided to head back into the cavern for a second.

Reaching back into the cavern The Fox decided that today was the day for them to escape, they can’t keep waiting around. So knowing that if they escape the food here will be wasted, he decided to just eat it now in hopes that the energy will help with the soon to come fight.

In just a short time The Fox finished the remaining 3 mice. After fully digesting their energy within himself, The Fox looked at the time. It was currently the end of the light with the 1st Moon just starting to rise. The dark should provide some help, so this would be even better.

Unknown to The Fox, The Black Lily had just finished digesting the energy as well. She hadn’t interrupted The Fox recently because he had seemed to be on a roll in his mind. But even if she isn’t a part of this plan he is making, she wants to do something.

The Black Lily knows that she has actually been a detriment for them in recent times so she wants to do anything to hopefully assist The Fox here. The fact that we have just eaten the last of the food means that we are doing something right now.

The Black Lily had been endlessly frustrated with the current situation herself, not so much as that they are trapped, but that they are trapped and she is preventing them from escaping. Admittedly she has been bickering with The Fox because she has been feeling frustrated with this whole thing, not because he is actually doing something wrong or the like. 

With a little more resolve about setting herself back more, she decided to once again channel her energy into her ability. The energy she had just earned started to be drained like a tank that had not only been poked open, but also had the bottom half of it cut off. Almost the exact time that the energy consumption started she was already drained of all of her energy again.

Lucky for her though, she had managed to at least use enough energy to activate the ability if only slightly. 

For The Black Lily, the usual panoramic view of the world that is both in and out of focus disappeared. Her view then came back to her but now everything was clear instead of what just The Fox was looking at. The thing that took her a moment to realize was that this was no longer the cavern she was looking at.

She was in fact still attached to The Fox which calmed her down a little, then she noticed that she could now see herself at this moment. Her roots had turned a more vibrant green as they extend from her flower, but the parts of the roots close to her themselves are a blood red color. 

While that observation intrigued her for a second, the next one she made surprised her a good amount. When she looked at her new flower she was stunned by its appearance. The petals looked like glimpses into the night sky on a clear night, the stars on the petals seemed to move slowly making it hard for one to look away from their majesty.

It took her a few more moments to realize that she was entranced by her own petals to an almost unnatural level. It had almost felt like she was forced to appreciate the beauty of the stars.

Having removed herself from her short trance, she noticed the main thing she seemed to have not noticed despite its large significance. Time was not moving, everything that she could see was frozen in motion. 

Taking in the surroundings of this frozen in time world, The Black Lily observes one main annoyance to her, the air around them is full of a cloud of dust that would never settle to clear her vision in this state.

At least there were a few things she could see within this cloud of dust. First was The Fox, his seemingly transparent fur was strangely blending in with the dust cloud very well making it hard for her to fully focus on him as if he is both there and not there. The feeling was rather unsettling but she must say that when he was hidden in the dust cloud he truly was sneaky, except for the beautiful flower that was herself on his back.

Momentarily proud of her beauty for a second she then went to look closer at The Fox again. His expression seemed to be one of confidence, he was running through this cloud of dust with a purpose, and he knew he could accomplish that. While The Black Lily can assume that this purpose is likely good for them, she can’t tell what it is. 

When she was done staring into the confident expression that The Fox is wearing, she took another look at the cloud of dust around them. She only had to look for a moment before her nonexistent eyes shrunk in shock. 

Directly to The Fox’s left was a very very large shadow, the shadow of The Wolf. The thing that surprised The Black Lily about this shadow wasn’t his proximity to The Fox but rather his current action.

The Wolf had seemed to have just finished his leap forward, he was still suspended in the air currently. Comparing his current location with the look on The Fox’s face it means that The Wolf hasn’t been noticed during his leap. The leap of The Wolf put him directly to the left of The Fox, with his jaws open and teeth approaching The Fox’s neck. Still a small distance apart but The Fox is too late to notice and react.

As The Black Lily stared at the scene in shock, she suddenly felt a jolt. Her vision went black and then she came back to. Her vision was back to its normal blurriness everywhere The Fox wasn’t looking. The moment she had come back The Fox had just broken a wall of clay and sand and was running, his face full of purpose and confidence.

CplProtoss

My bad about no second chapter yesterday, I've just been trying to figure out how I wanted to get from point A to point B and was stumped for a while, and still am a little. I'll be doing my best to get a chapter out everyday, but that one I missed will just go down as owed, and I'll give a second chapter once I start getting some piled up, if I ever get to that point.