The Chronicles of Time
Chapter  2. Just Living Day by Day


Alex sits on the stump in front of the shack, looking around the yard as he puts down his knife. He looks over at the bin where he keeps the wood then says to himself, “oh yeah I used the last of the wood last night, I’ll have to go get some more today.” He gets up off the stump and walks into the little shack like house where he sees Sara sleeping soundly on the old bed. He walks over to her, leaning over to give her a little kiss, he then turns away from her and walks over to the table where several pieces of old looking paper sit. He picks up what looks to be a broken pencil and writes, Sara went to get more fire wood, stay here, Alex. He puts the note on the table, sure that she’d find it, where he picks up his fathers chain and puts it around his neck. He then glances over at his sister still sound asleep and then leaves. He takes a rusty old ax from its place near the door and puts it in a very old looking cart near the wood bin, he turns to the forest grabbing the carts handles and heads toward it. He walks along the dirt path, the creaking of the carts wheels and bird songs fill the air as he reaches the entrance of the woods, where he looks up at some of the trees. A look of thought fills his face as he remembers the day his father taught him how to chop wood.

~Flashback~

A large Fox with dark red fur, his face hidden by shadows is chopping wood as A very young Alex is seen running over to him as he swings his Ax into a fallen tree. Young Alex says as his father wipes sweat from his forehead. “Dad you are so good at cutting wood, can you teach me how to do it like you do?” He looks down at him, a smile forming on his muzzle as he says, “Sure son, I’ll teach you how to do it, come over here.” His Father grabs up his Ax and sets it on the log, using the blade to make a notch on the fallen tree where he says, “now you want to hit it here for the best size log, you've got to be firm about it but careful at the same time.” His father Swings his Ax into the tree and cuts into the notch, swinging again making the ax cut into it farther. Alex watches father swing again, the ax cutting the rest of the way through the tree. He smiles as he says, “see its that easy.”
 
Alex with a grin on his muzzle takes a good grip on his own little ax and takes a swing at a much thicker tree, the ax making contact with a knot, it rebounds causing the butt of the ax hits him square in the forehead. Alex falls down and starts to cry, his dad sitting down next to him and puts his arm around him and says, “you know that same thing happened to me the first time I tried and you wana know what happened?” Alex looks up at his dad a few tears in his eyes as he asks, “What dad?” He says as he takes a look at Alex’s forehead, “My dad sat down right next to me as I was starting to cry and put his arm around me, then he said that you need to be careful where you swing at, Hit it at the wrong spot and it will rebound. After that he picked up my ax and showed me the right spots to chop into.” His father picks up his ax and shows Alex how to hold the Ax and the best spots to chop into.

~present day, In the forest~
 
Alex holds his ax, swinging it into an already fallen tree. After he cuts into it, he wipes some sweat from his head then looks over at the cart that has several dozen logs in it already; he’d been doing this for an hour or two already. He says as he takes the last few logs and puts then into the cart, “that should be enough for now, better get home.” He puts his ax into the cart next to the pile of wood and As he gets ready to pull it back home, Sara rushes over to him and says trying to catch her breath, “big brother why didn’t you wake me up? I wanted to come with you today.” He says as he looks at her, patting her head, “sorry sis you were sleeping so quietly that I didn’t want to wake you.” She turns and smiles at him, she then asks, “Ok, well can I help you bring it back then?” He nods as he grabs the handles for the cart then starts to pull as she walks alongside him. They walk along the dirt path Sara stopping to pick a few flowers along the way as Alex struggles to pull the now very heavy cart. He stops to get a better grip on the cart as Sara ask, “Alex, can we go to the flower fields today?” Alex nods, and says after grunting; trying not to lose his grip on the cart, “Sure Sara, I’ll take you later.”

She jumps in a ray of joy, tossing some of her flowers in the air. He stops for a moment, clearly struggling with the heavy load of the cart and as he starts to pull again Sara gets in front of him and grabs the handles with him. She looks up at him with a smile as he laughs, together they pull the cart along the dirt path until they reach the little shack. They pull the cart over to the wood bin then start to put the wood away. It doesn’t take long for them to finish putting the wood away, Sara tossing the last log in the bin. Alex says as he puts the cart and ax away, “we’re going to Mr. Millers house ok sis." She nods as she says, “k”

~a few moments later~

Alex and Sara walk to the market place, it was the only way to get to Millers house; Alex wasn’t looking forward to it. He stops as they reach the entrance and says, “ok Sara stay close to me they might not want to see us here after what happened yesterday?” She nods and takes his hand, they then walk through the market place almost everyone giving Alex a dirty look. Sara slightly frightened by it all holds onto his arm as everyone starts making remarks and other dirty looks as they walk along the road, still minding their own business. Then as they reach the store Alex had robbed the other day, he looks away. Suddenly the owner of the shop walks over to them as he says, “you have some nerve coming anywhere near my shop after what you pulled yesterday.” 

The shop owner looks at Sara with a scowl and says, “how long can we expect to wait before you start stealing you little brat?” Alex say pulling Sara behind him as a flame forms in his hand, “Hey! If you have a problem you talk to me leave my sister out of it!” The shop owner scowling at him takes a step toward them, Alex being forced to throw the fire at the ground near his feet. He backs away, Alex grabbing Sara’s hand and walking away, not stopping to say another word or to even look back. The shop owner, angry, grabs a rock and tossing it at them, Alex catching it just as it was about to hit Sara in the back of the head. The rock burst into flames in his hand as he then looks back at the now terrified shop keeper. Alex says tossing the molten rock in his hand, “Throwing a rock at my baby sister is the one thing I won’t stand for!” Alex in a rage tosses the molten rock into the his shop; the flames instantly spreading all across it. Sara grabbing his hand asks, “Alex, that’s enough, please put out the fires.”

He looks at her then the at shop owner then sighs, holding his hand out at the shop, the flames instantly shooting over to his hand. As all the flames zoom over to his hand he closes his fist instantly killing all the flames. He looks over at the shop keeper and says, “don’t make me do that again because next time my sister wont be here to stop me.” Sara hits his side and says, giving the shop keeper a polite little bow, “I’m sorry please forgive my big brother.” The two of them walkthrough the market area, with out so much as a whisper from the people in the area, all of which now afraid of him. They reach an older looking section of town and head over to an older looking house where a few chairs including a rocking chair sit on the porch. They hear sound of someone shuffling around inside as they get close. Mr. Miller makes his way out side as Alex and Sara walk up on the porch, He asks as he opens the door, “Why hello there, How are you two today?” Alex says giving a polite half bow, “Hello Mr. Miller we’re good and yourself?” The old fox says sitting down in the rocking chair, “oh I’m fine my boy, just a little bit of joint pain.”

Sara runs up to Mr. Miller and gives him a hug and says bouncing in excitement, “Mr. Miller look I grew 3 inches today.” He says rubbing her head, “did you know, well you know what I have a little treat for such a big girl.” Miller picks up an old jar that sits to his left and opens it then asks, “Would you like a piece of candy sweetie?” Sara who not often gets a chance to eat candy gladly takes three pieces from the jar and then says as she gives him a big hug, “Thanks Mr. Miller” He says with a smile, patting her ears, “Not a problem my girl, I can‘t eat it anymore and it would be a shame to let it go to waste.” He smiles, and then looks to Alex who has sat down in a chair next to him. Alex asks as Sara hops in his lap; tossing a piece of candy in her moth, “So Mr. Miller is there anything I can help you with?” The old fox scratches his head, pondering what he needed help with; clearly having forgotten. He then snaps his fingers and says, “Ah yes now I remember, There’s some Herbs that I need you to go and collect for me my boy, and wile your doing that would our big girl here like to help an old man out by helping him clean up his house a bit, I’ll give you a few medalins for your help?"

She says with a smile, “Sure!” Sara happily hops off Alex’s lap and skips into Miller's house to get the broom. As she does this Miller leans closer to Alex and says, “now Alex the herbs I need you to get are in the canyon area just south of the village, shouldn‘t take you to long to get there.” The old fox continues with a smirk, “not with your true speed.”  He pulls out a little blue flower from his vest pocket and hands it to Alex then continues on explaining the task, “Now look at this one very closely, this is the one I need you to get pick for me but when you get there don’t just grab any flower that looks like this for there are two kinds of flowers that grow up there that look like this. The one I need you to get for me is a light blue one and has the smell of honey and spring mint. But the other one is a darker blue like the blue of the night sky and has the smell of beeswax don’t even touch those. Alex asks looking at the flower “Why do I need to avoid them?” He looks at Alex and says with a grim look, “the night sky ones are toxic to our kind, it’s the very flowers the Hunters use in there poisons. Now I’ll keep Sara here and keep her busy, it will be faster and safer for you to go alone but be careful, any sight of any kind of humans up there and I want you to leave right away, The herbs are not worth your getting hurt over.” He hands Alex a small leather bag and says, “ok now fill this pouch with them and there will be thirty medalins in it for you.” Alex nods and says looking over to the old fox, “Ok I’ll be back as soon as I can, please keep Sara safe and out of trouble for me.” Alex walks over to Sara and gives her a little kiss, telling her where he’s going and that she is to stay here. 

“lets stop here, for just a moment” Calls out a voice as the word comes to a stop; a gray scale replacing the color of the world. The older Alex once again appears, almost as if from thin air; still cloaked in his white hooded cloak. He says sitting in the chair the young Alex had just gotten out of, “perhaps its time for a little more back story, most of you must be wondering who the hell are the hunters, and what humans are doing in a tale about a fox. Well let me tell you a little bit about the hunters.” He stands and walks over to where young Alex stands, then leaning on himself as he goes on, “The hunters as some of you guessed are humans, no this world of ours is not just a place of humanoid animals like myself, and you know how humans are, some of them are such small minded bigot’s that the idea of sharing the world with a bunch of intelligent animals was completely out of the question. The hunters were a relatively large group of humans who choose to, oh how did they use to say it, oh yeah! To purify the land of our blight.” He walks over to the window and says as he continues on, “it was little more then a bad joke, an excuse to persecute and murder anything that didn’t server humans on bend and knee. The so called blight lived in harmony with the land, it took care of us and we in turn took care of it; sure we harvested resources just like the humans did, but we always went out of our way to try and to replace what we used. Humans how ever went out of their way to make things they didn’t need and in turn polluted and used every resource they could get their hands on. If anything should have been referred to as a blight, it should have been human waste and greed.” He says taking a look right at the forth wall, “but I’ve wasted enough of your time here, why don’t I just skip you a head a little bit, say to when I’ve reached the canyon where I was to pick the herbs for Mr. Miller here.” He snaps his fingers and everything is blinded in a flash of white light.

~half an hour later, near the beginning of the Canyon~

Young Alex is standing at the edge of a cliff looking down into the canyon he says as he takes a deep breath, enjoying the fresh clean smell of the air, “Wow it’s beautiful here I’ll have to remember to bring Sara one day.” Alex looks around and notices a large green area a little ways from where he was and says, “well might as well start there.” He walks over to the grassy area noticing lots of flowers and in many different shapes, sizes, and colors. He starts to look for the ones Miller needed him to find, crawling around on the grass finding several of the little flowers and making sure to avoid the toxic ones by taking a moment to smell them first. He picks the last of them, then putting them in them in the little leather bag which was getting full. He says as he looks around, “maybe I should try to find some more, Mr. Miller might give me a little more money for them.” As he walks down a path looking for more of the herbs where he hears the sound of a young fox girls scream. He turns to hear where it came from, but suddenly stops, a familiar gray scale stopping time. 

“can’t give away everything in one chapter then we’d have less of a story? We shall continue this in the next chapter, bye for now my dear readers.”

~end of chapter~