Upon waking up, the fox checked his hind leg, finding the wound completely gone this time.  Happy at the thought of not having to wait for it to heal, he went out to snack on some berries.  Unfortunately, the nearby bushes were starting to run low so he would have to find more bushes nearby later.

He headed towards the human village again, hoping to find his human outside.  He was disappointed again however, as many children were outside, but not them.  Heading back towards the odd fields to the other side of the village, he set about exploring, ignoring the mice near the large structures this time.

He found several large squares of different types of odd tall grass, a few with trees, and some with bushes.  Checking one of the bushes, he found it had large juicy berries far better than those he had found in the forest.  Exploring further, he found enclosures absolutely packed full of odd looking boar and strange, extremely fat birds.

Ears pressed against his skull due to the noise of the alarmed birds, he left back the way he came.  Stopping by one of the squares of trees, he noticed they all had fruit on them.  The next square had nuts.  The one after that was one of the boring tall grass ones, so he quit paying attention.

He circled back around where the children were, heading back to the clearing where humans were removing trees.  Being careful to hide this time, including using his foxfire for illusion, he watched them as teams of three humans would bring down trees.  Two would hold a length of metal on either end of the tree while the third looped a rope around that tree and another, then pulled on it.  After a few moments of moving the metal back and forth, the tree would topple to the ground.

Once a tree fell, all three humans would work together to drag it to the structure in the middle, then one would light the stump on fire.  Following that, they would start removing branches from the fallen tree, and begin cutting it to fit a specific size.

Deciding it was boring watching them, he returned back to his den to rest until evening.  Along the way however, he spotted a squirrel and decided to test something.  Touching it with a tendril of energy and linking to it caused the squirrel to jump off the tree, landing close enough he could catch it before it could escape.  As he was still hungry and didn’t feel a sense of danger, he went ahead and shook the squirrel until it stopped moving before tearing into it.

Meal finished, he headed back to his home, curling up to rest once he arrived.  As he waited for sleep, he considered how he could use his link to help him hunt, inspired by the squirrel.

He awoke later than intended, with the sensation through the link that his human was nearby.  Leaving his den, he started towards the direction he was feeling, moving his foxfire through the air ahead of himself to help light the way.  After a moment of walking through the plains, he saw a bright ball of light in the distance with two figures walking below.

His human ran forward as the hunter that threw light slowly walked towards the two of them while shouting something.  He didn’t care much though because his human was healthy again and able to run.  He wagged his tail in excitement as he ran forward, moving his foxfire back towards his tail again, making excited squeaking noises.

Without thinking about it, he formed a tendril of energy and linked it to his human, startling them for a moment before they sat down.  As they pat the grass beside them, he could feel their thoughts to a degree, realizing they wanted him to sit beside them, and were worried if he would come back or not.  He quickly ran over, jumping over their lap and sitting down on the other side of them as they reached over to scratch his head.

As his human scratched his head, he reached up and lightly grabbed their hand with his mouth, feeling them scratch under his jaw instead.  He let go and rolled over, watching as the hunter arrived and sat down beside him as well.  His human began to rub his belly while the two began to quietly talk with one another.

He rolled back over and sat in front of them before expanding his foxfire into an illusion, showing first the snake going after the hunters, then the snake with his human as he fought it.  He let the illusion fade and waited a moment before he showed the mob in the village as he fled, pushing a questioning feeling into the strengthened link with his human.

The two talked for a while before his human pointed at him and sent a feeling of fear through the link followed by a sense of danger and hate.  They then pointed back at the humans in the illusion he had left, letting the feelings fade.

Curious, he decided to try something new, pushing the idea of a tree into the link, along with shifting his illusion.  His human was surprised for a moment before pushing a single concept of a noise through the link and making a single sound that matched.  He focused on his illusion, mimicking the sound as best as he could, only to be grabbed and squeezed by his human as it worked.  Both humans were showing their teeth but he didn’t feel danger through the link, just happiness.

They repeated the thought and illusion process multiple times over the night, and he learned each human had their own noise to identify them, but they also had words for groups.  He learned his human was called Dawn, the same as the time he normally met them.  The hunter who threw light was called Amilya.  The human with a small stick who helped Dawn not hurt was Monti.

After a while, Dawn and Amilya had to go rest, apparently humans didn’t like the night much.  He formed an illusion, showing himself sitting beside Dawn on the hill outside at dawn, asking, “Dawn at dawn?”  Dawn scratched him behind the ears and sent acceptance and happiness through the link before getting up and following Amilya away.  Wanting to avoid it snapping, he disconnected his link from Dawn as she left.