fox that steals the sun

Tribe of Floating Stones

a spindly red-and-white tom with dark green eyes

Fox is a slender, long-limbed tom with a noticeably angular face. His pelt is short and smooth. It's mostly a dark red, ticked with minimal tabby markings except along his extremities. Additionally, he has white underbelly markings that creep up his throat and shoulders and around his muzzle. He has rather large ears and almond-shaped, green eyes which make him appear softer than he really is -when they're not narrowed. His muzzle is long and wolfish, with big fangs to match.

Describing Fox in a positive manner can be challenging. He's rather aloof and does things on his own volition, usually from a place of boredom. So in that way, he's not necessarily the cat everyone looks for when they need an honorable, brave, selfless individual. Of course, he wouldn't describe himself as cowardly or selfish. The way he sees it is that he comes first. That no one else is going to look out for him. He thinks others should view it that way too, in fact, and would like it if his tribe were more self-serving.

He prefers to do things alone, if he's not trying to use another cat for... purposes, so 'independent' is one way to describe him positively. He's more of a lone wolf, doesn't like going on patrols, finds working with others to be slow and tedious. Fox really does his best work when he is by himself, with no distractions from the mindless chatter of his tribe-mates.

He has a quick mind; clever, crafty. The name 'Fox' suits this tom well. With these traits, he makes an excellent hunter. He's also quick-footed, of course, which doesn't hurt, but he has a knack for tricking and ambushing prey. He loves to hunt that way, sometimes spending an entire day tormenting one squirrel because he knows that he has no chance of losing it. So, why not have some fun with it? Why not challenge his abilities?

Rather than coming from a place of ambition or jealousy or desire to prove oneself, Fox tends to do things for personal enjoyment; entertainment; or even for the rush of it. In order to accomplish these desires and feed the thrill-seeking behavior, Fox has become very good at manipulating a situation. Especially because, over the years, he's found other cats to be excellent sources of entertainment. Some of them are so easy to manipulate that it's hard for him to resist... because he knows he can.

Fox does think he's better than everyone else. He may not outmatch a stone-guard in strength or prowess, but he believes himself to be far superior when it comes to intelligence and logic-oriented thinking. He doesn't give in to his emotions most of the time, although in truth, Fox is not a true sociopath or psychopath. He has normal emotions just like the rest of the tribe, there's just.. something off about him. Maybe he acts the way he does as a defense mechanism. Maybe he's convinced himself he doesn't care when, deep down, he actually does. Maybe, or maybe it's just something he's good at, that he's realized can work wonders in his favor, and thus.. he enjoys it. And he continues to do it.. again.. and again.

The unfortunate reality of Fox's situation, regardless of rhyme or reason, is that he is selfish, and inconsiderate, and at times devil-may-care. The major problem with that, among many others, is that he tends to get others wrapped up in it. He doesn't take responsibility for the impact he might have on another cat or even for endangering their life - or, if he does, it's just barely. They shouldn't have been so stupid, then. It's their own fault, really.

Trunk that Splits the Stone was his father; he was a formidable, large stone-guard - of which he often bragged about to his kits. Fox always found his stories boring and predictable. The big, strong cat protected the smaller, weaker cats. Ok, whatever. Fox's sister, Sunrise, on the other paw grew hungry for such a life. She probably thought it was brave and awesome. Fox would usually roll his eyes at that. He always knew that his place in the Tribe would be as a hunter, and perhaps that lent itself toward the development of his personal fighting style. His sister was often out doing her own things, could never stay still for very long.

Fox didn't mind her shenanigans, of course. There were many a time when he would join her in her get-away adventures, if only to see what there was to see or stretch his legs. Even as a kit, Fox was... well, the explanation usually given was that he was 'mature' for his age. In reality, he was different - and he always knew that he was different from the other kits who would cry about this or that. Fox understood from the first time it was explained that he had to wait to show his true potential, that a kit's job was to mind their elders and stay out of harm's way. He also wasn't very ambitious, even from the beginning.

However, he did enjoy playing pranks on the other kits in the tribe. Life as a kit from the first moon to the sixth moon was often... uneventful and boring, in his eyes. He didn't want to join the silly games they played, so he'd play clever tricks on them instead to disrupt their games. He usually left his own siblings alone, letting them in on the pranks. Of course, he would usually pin the blame on them or make them do the hard work if they were apart of it.

When Fox became a to-be, he found that his playing field was much more broad. He could play even better [or worse] tricks on the other to-be's, much to their chagrin. There were more instances and opportunities for him to hone in on his specific set of skills, and hone he did.

Although he also, to an extent, took this seriously. He really pushed toward prey-hunting tactics, but even that was attempted manipulation. The way he hunted showed promise in a real fight, and for a moment some of the stone-guards were murmuring about his potential and trying to get him to practice fighting more. However, he lived alongside Sunrise, his sister... who was so painfully obviously trying to be a stone-guard and getting little to no recognition for that. Fox found that to be wrong, so he tried to think of ways to get their attention onto Sunrise. Most things didn't work.

Then, their mother died. Fox took it as an opportunity to step back from practicing fighting and tried to be as generic as possible. He feigned that he'd become average and distracted due to grief until he faded into the background. Or so he would tell himself. Perhaps there was truth in it, not that he'd ever admit that to himself. Although he does pride himself on his excellent acting and how fooled he'd had everyone.

After that, he thought that surely everyone would notice Sunrise's potential. He was quite satisfied with himself for creating the opportunity for his sister by stepping out of the limelight, confident that it would work and that he was getting great at manipulating things to go in the direction he wanted. However, much to his unpleasant surprise, they both became prey-hunters upon ranking up.

Sunrise was devastated. Fox was annoyed for her, but after some time he thought she should get over it and just accept her life for what it was. They butted heads on that, and he was sure she felt a little betrayed by his sudden shift in attitude about it. He just.. didn't really care after a certain point and found it too exhausting to enable anymore. He was relieved when she finally focused on her actual duties rather than a heroic fantasy. He felt that he could finally focus on himself and relax.

Fox often hunts privately, even refusing to go with his own sister most of the time, so that he can go back to practicing his clever way of tricking an 'opponent'. He's practiced his ambushing and trickster tactics on his prey, getting fairly good at them. Now he's comfortable enough with them that they're his go-to way of getting things done. He has much more fun with his grueling, tiresome hunter chores by putting his own spins on them.