(Click above to find this story on Facebook, or listen to the audio adaptation on YouTube.)
To Gain Everything
-Hapsan 101-
It so happened that Rulatani and Quip, who in their early days together had yet to travel the length and breadth of the Great Wood, found themselves in regions no more than a few leagues from the border of the Underwood most of the time. Ever since the passing of the Elderbuns that place had been known as a source of nightmares, and thus most sane creatures sought to avoid it. For Rulatani’s part, he could recall little if anything of the age in which he wandered there, alone, and though he shuddered to think of it, there was a certain attraction all the same. Like moths to a flame or rats to the piper it was not a healthy attention, and he spent many clear summer nights peering towards the dark wood’s edge, lost in the memories that had made him.
Quip, who was loyal to a fault and might just as soon have talked her friend down from his morbid fascinations, found that she could not do so, for her loss was no less painful. On the contrary, she found in his behavior a modicum of affinity, for the age of ice had ended, and she could not visit the northlands across the emerald strait from where she had come. Even could she have done so, there was no reason to believe any trace of Barzan, the bearded city of ice, remained.
On the colder nights they huddled together, their eyes averted to the Rula, the darkened moon turned somber red, who guided them by riddles only they could hear.
On a warm summer’s eve, when fireflies danced among the tall meadow grasses in the larger clearings, The ‘Two Friends’ (as they were known) came across a band of foxes who were sharing a meal. Had the friends been more worldly this might have struck them as odd; foxes are solitary hunters, rarely known for their generosity in the kill. The foxes numbered half a score, and upon noticing the friends came out immediately to sniff them. Quip returned the gesture, such being considered proper and polite in canine society, but the Wildbun drew back with alarm. As a giant among his kind Rulatani was full the size of an adult fox and nearly doubled one in girth, but unlike his encounter with the stoats so many years ago, he no longer held the passions of kin to protect, and he was still working through the muddled memories that rang between his ears. Being a stubborn soul he would have faced them anyway, but Quip raised her hackles and laid upon the foxes a withering gaze.
“He is my friend,” said she to them, and added: “Whosoever of you would make sport of him will answer to me.”
The foxes thought it strange that their cousin would befriend a plump meal, but as a Borzoi Quip was many times their size, and her white fangs gleamed in the moonlight. They backed down, their ears flat against their skulls, and by way of apology invited the two friends to dinner. Quip, whose stomach had good cause to rumble of late, readily accepted. Rulatani followed suit out of politeness, but contented himself with the berries he had foraged.
The meal was a large one indeed.
“Tell me, to what do you attribute your success?” asked Quip, who had noticed more than one emaciated owl or marten of late, “I have found this region to be so sparse that I can hardly keep myself fed, much less if there were ten of me. It is as if there is no game here at all.”
The foxes wore toothy grins. Their leaders made assurances that Rulatani would remain unmolested, then led Quip away to a glen where a bold creek babbled. By its banks there was a stockade built of gathered timbers, its perimeter stalked ceaselessly by vixen guards. Within were housed flightless prey creatures by the very hundred: voles, mice, squirrels, and chipmunks were sequestered there, alongside a dozen other species. Young groundhogs and badger cubs wailed for their mothers, while a line of terrified frogs were hop-marched to the gulag from their homes along the creek bed.
“See what we have done!” The fox leaders declared. “They cannot be found because we have rounded them all up!”
Quip watched as mothers turned their young away in terror. “What have you done here? This is not hunting at all!” She declared in shock. “You have broken the chain—taken more than your fill! There will be nothing left at this rate, and we will all starve!”
The foxes lanced her with a wary gaze. Quip, who was a prudent sort, fell silent, for though she towered over them she was now outnumbered by fifty to one. Though it pained her, she turned her back on the cries of the helpless, gathered up Rulatani, thanked the foxes for their generosity, and was on her way.
The moons waned for several nights, and when they were new the Two Friends returned under cover of darkness. They slipped past the vixen guards, but when Rulatani threw aside the gulag gate, the inmates did not move.
“Fly, fly from this place,” Quip urged them. “My friend and I will spirit you to freedom, go quickly!”
“Will you not eat us too?” asked a dour red squirrel.
“I will,” Quip replied honestly.
“Then why set us free?” asked a cautious vole.
“Because this is not the way,” said Quip. She might have added more, but the vixens, whose numbers were substantial, took note of their presence and were quickly upon them.
“How dare you!” They declared. “We are only storing food, as these creatures do. We mean only to see our young through the worst days of subotal.”
“You fill the bellies of your pups but rob them of who they are,” said Quip. “Is it not already so?”
One of the vixens faltered. “My kits have still not learned to hunt. They are too old not to know.”
Another spoke up: “I have become slow and weak. I am always here. I go nowhere else.”
“I am fed here, but I hate living this way,” said a third. “Am I wrong to feel thus?”
“Your leaders have made you dependent on an untenable system, and have shamed you against speaking out about it,” Quip explained. “You slave away in tasks that do not suit you, existing without life, while they think only of gain. But to gain everything is to have nothing. There will be no prey left to sow seeds and spread them throughout the wood; when there is no food left for them, there will be no food left for us.” She thrust her paw at the gulag and the haunted faces therein. “Do you think they will flourish and multiply like this? We are hunters, not gatherers, and at the top of the chain we are the weakest, most dependent part for the many rungs that hold us aloft.”
“But they are our leaders,” one vixen replied. “What can we say?”
“Tell your leaders what I have told you, as it is all the moreso for them,” said Quip. “From my master I once learned the truth of it: A leader is the greatest servant of them all.”
The vixens exchanged tired glances, and as one acquiesced. With Rulatani—who was himself a prey creature—to reassure them, the inmates burst forth in a frenzied bluster, taking off for the safety of the wood.
On the morrow the vixens and their reynards confronted those who led them, and bade them be reminded of the mandate by which all rulers rule. The gulag was abandoned, and the foxes of the Great Wood became foxes again. Their pups grew up healthy and strong, taking only what they needed from the world beyond their dens.
And the Two Friends continued on their way.
© 2026 Scott McCloskey ("Bunzoi", "Bunzoi.com").
Image created with GIMP/CSP support; Character designs by Jessie Greenhalgh. Bunzoi is committed to the avoidance of generated text and/or images.
