Change in Life

Chapter 39. Blake's True Worth

Time has a very strange way of toying with perception in the most apathetic way possible; it can take moments that wished to be everlasting and bring them to an end within a blink all within the same frame of making an arduous passage bitter and forever. Yet as watching the hands of a ticking clock, forever never seems so eternal than those wasted moments watching time pass, but by looking back at time over a shoulder does one understand just how fleeting an age is. Blake took this trip through his life with the latter as the guilt of his father's anguish settled squarely on his inability, and his inner trait's last grim whisper before watching his own clock tick ever forward. Yet despite all this, each look back made the world blur in watercolor as a time laps of polychrome lush woodland around the den, and he took it all in with pensive content, bordering on wistful revulsion. The leaves of the oaks changed with quick sways in the wind, shimmering from their green stems with red and gold while he watched time working its magic before him. Although happy for the pleasant atmosphere and smiling most of the time when his dear ones were near, his pensive quiet moments contemplated just what left there was. Jade was back by his side, but his father would always be trapped in limbo.

This ever lasting time watching the passing of autumn let him mull over his purpose. More importantly, his virtue. For so long he believed compassion was it; if he did the right thing by his heart for those around him, a brighter world would surly reveal itsself from the dark. This swift age of foxhood made him realize that that could not be more wrong. He had thought about it for a while, but now he knew compassion was more his vice than virtue. After their encounter, his father was more distraught than before and now with no clear sights for release. After reforming him, Brock had soon died which would not have happened if he did not become so devoted to his mates safety. And even Beryl, the charming quick lipped cub, had left with a shattered heart at being mislead for so long. Compassion turned more lives into disasters than to bliss.

So... then what was his virtue? What was the one thing that, when things got as bad as they had, had come to the surface that made a real positive difference?

It was Jade who finally took his paw and encouraged some free spirited living away from his failing thoughts. The threats were gone, a new home was found, friends were close, and food was plentiful. And now, all that filled his life were her beautiful eyes with the same lovely spark he first noticed from her. Seeing that his moping was not going to help but to only bring down both those who loved him, Blake took on the new burden as he had in the past by placing them dismissively away in the dark back corner of his mind and smiled as he let all notions of sadness to the wind and finally decided to live life how it was meant to be lived. Cherished. His life was going to be filled with a lot of unanswerable questions. With the passion of the one he cared for the most, his own qualms were not important. The ones he cared for were important. More than anything.

And with that, autumn seemed to go faster than usual that year as he was finally able to see the world in a brighter light away from the shadows of doubt. Everything was changing so quickly. The colors of the leaves turned from green to red or yellow in a matter of days and the tepid air soothed. Blake didn't know why it passed so quickly purely from a change of perspective. Perhaps, now that he had survived one year as a fox, and the stress of the ignorance of what his father really had in mind was instilled, he knew how long things took in the wild and what to expect of it. He and Jade, and sometimes along with Astrid, had fun in that autumn. Knowing how quickly things can go from good to bad made them live life to the full.

With all preconceptions of becoming a victim of gunshot all but obliterated, Blake took the clear headed time during the sleepy months to go through lessons with Jade and teach her all the tricks and traps that humans used. He had gone over the basics with her earlier in the year, but now he knew that all the danger was abated, he took the time necessary to show her everything about humans. From where they liked to live, to their social behaviors, and more about what they were doing to the land they lived in that was hidden from their eyes. If he couldn't describe what he was saying properly, he scratched it in the ground like a teacher on a chalkboard for a student. He wanted her mind to be full of knowledge so she could teach their next litter of cubs when he was out providing for them. With how easily Jade had still fallen for a simple baited cage even after his warning, he wanted to give the leg up for their children. But there was a deeper purpose for these teachings. Jade's impression on man had taken a beating from Doug and the children. Although all the distress they had gone through warranted an extreme prejudice, Blake wanted her to understand that not all men were horrible creatures bent on taking as many lives before their own lives could be extinguished. There was a wonderful beauty to mankind, one that Blake could not really see as a downtrodden teenager growing up in oppression, but wished he had.