A fairy tale inspired by the styling of the Brothers Grimm.

~The Fox Queen~

One winter a very long time ago, a lonely man wandered about the snow-covered forests to find shelter. In his travels he came across a red fox, longer than she was tall. Her large, dark eyes met him with inquisitive blinks. With a small move of her tail, she scampered off and led him down a dark path. Of course, the man followed.

The sun had long set once they came upon a log cabin. The snowstorm had reached a violent peak, and the man was soaked and freezing from his dampened clothes. He let himself in, and the fox stayed just an arm’s length away from the door.

“Would you like to come in, little fox?” the man asked her.

The fox blinked, and let herself in.

The man found a table and a few wooden stools, and he pulled out her chair. The fox hopped onto the seat, wrapping her thick tail about her.

Before the man could sit, a bright light flashed and blinded him so greatly that he stumbled to the floor. Once his vision was restored, he looked up at the great presence above him.

A beautiful woman sat in the fox’s place. Her hands were crossed in her lap, eyes low, her body slender and fair, her copper curls cascading to her feet, her body adorn in a silver gown.

“I am the fox queen,” her voice spoke, rich yet delicate. “I have three tasks for you to complete.”

The man was stunned and intrigued. “My-my queen,” he stammered, “do I have a choice?”

She smiled, regal and pure. “There is always a choice. I have led you to safety and shelter in the wake of the storm, and I would hope you would want to repay me. If not…”

“Alright,” the man interrupted. “What is it I must do?” 

“Your first task is to gather seven dandelion weeds from the forest and bring them back to me. However, the weeds you gather must be spaced no less than one thousand acres apart.”

“Dear queen, the storm will only worsen! Can’t I wait until morning?”

“I can assure you that no harm will befall you. You must leave now, but if not I will depart from you.”

So the man left, still shivering from his previous hours in the cold. The dandelions were hard to find beneath piles of frost and compact snow, and when he did find a few they were all gathered in the same cluster. The night was growing colder and more hostile, and after many shivers and acres, the man decided to grab the last two weeds at the same spot. 

“She will never know,” he thought.

He made his way back to the cabin and found the fox queen sitting in the exact same pose as she had when he had left. The man placed the weeds onto the table.

“Seven dandelions,” he told her.

“You found them a thousand acres apart from one another?” she asked with a small raise of her brows.

The man nodded. “Why of course, dear queen, why would I not have?”

“Are you telling the truth?”

“I have no reason not to, my queen.”

She picked each of the weeds up and inspected them for a long while. Then she looked at the man and said, “Now you must complete my second task.”

The man sighed and grumbled, “I am very cold and tired. I was out there far longer than I wanted to be. I won’t be completing any more tasks until the morning.”

The man walked away to find a place to sleep. And he did so, deep into the next day. When he awoke, he found the fox queen still sitting the same way he had left her.

“Alright, I’m rested now. What is the second task?”

The queen replied, “You must bring me back the heart of a gray fox. But heed my warning. No blood must be spilt in the retrieval of its heart. Do you understand?”

“The gray fox is hardly seen in the daylight.”

“That is why it would have been wiser to find him last night.”

The man’s jaw was tight. “What is the point of these inane tasks? What benefits do I reap from this silliness?”

“Do as I say, and you will see. But if you feel you cannot complete the task, then I will leave you as you are. You will never see me again in your lifetime.”

The man did not care for that answer, and he very much did not like being proved wrong, so he left in an angry scuffle. He pulled a dull hunting knife out of his coat pocket and began to skulk about the edges of the forest where vixens made their dens. 

Surely enough in just a few moments he came across three gray kits, just a few days old, tucked away in their underground burrow. He fetched one out, a little baby vixen, and it cried. There was no mother or father present, so her calls for help were in vain.

“No blood must be spilled in the retrieval of its heart?” He repeated the queen’s words. “Impossible. How could such a thing be done?”

So he plunged his knife deep into the kit’s chest. Her siblings cried out from beneath him, frightened and sad. The man kicked them both back into their burrows as he shook the kit’s blood from his hands. Scarlet droplets trailed behind him in the snow, and the babys’ cries quieted as he walked away.

He cleaned the heart off as best as he could in a nearby creek, and threw the lifeless body into it once he was done. The man came back to the cabin to find the queen sitting as she always did. He handed her the kit’s heart.

“One gray fox heart, as you requested.”

The fox queen smiled. “Were you able to retrieve it without the spilling of blood?”

“Yes. And it was no easy thing to do, I must say!”

“Well, it really is no trouble. As you must have found, all one must do is ask a gray fox, mentioning my name, and they will offer their heart to you. Foxes are great souls who will give up their lives for the wishes of their queen.”

“Who could deny such a thing, my queen?” 

A small tinge of guilt tugged at the man’s heart, especially upon seeing her expression. Her smile had grown bright and sincere, her eyes filled with joy.

The fox queen placed the heart next to the dandelions and then said, “Your final task is to take me into the nearest human town.”

The man straightened. “There is a reason I wondered from the nearby town, my queen. When you came upon me in the forest yesterday night, I had been chased out by the people. They are a frightening and cruel bunch.”

“That is okay. We need to fetch nine small potatoes. But you must promise me that if the townspeople try to hurt me, you will protect me.”

Her dark brown eyes waited for him to meet their gaze. “Do you promise me?”

The man fell to his knees, clasping his hands as he begged, “Please, dear queen, why must we gather potatoes? What is the meaning of all these tasks? Oh, dear beautiful vixen, don’t make me go back to that town!”

She ran her fingers through his hair. “If you feel you cannot complete the task, then I will leave you as you are. You will never see me again in your lifetime.”

Tears flowed down his eyes. “That town… only the cruelest people inhabit it. I will take you, but expect to be met with great hostility.”

He rose to his feet some moments later, and he led the fox queen by her hand. It took the entirety of the day to reach the town, moon silver and full by the time they arrived. Many had already gone off to sleep, but there were some who remained awake, bustling about. Heads turned when they saw the man and the queen pass through.

“Look!” two men jeered. “That sick fool has returned!”

“How dare you show your face again!” an old woman screeched from her bedroom window.

“Thief! Murderer! Liar! Cheat! Scoundrel!”

Suddenly, a large man ripped at the fox queen and tore her away from the man. “And he brought a demon with him! Look at her red hair! The color of flame and Hell!”

“We know what you are! A shapeshifter! A siren!” A band of women screamed. “A stealer of hearts and dreams!”

The fox queen tried to pull herself away from the stranger, calmly saying, “You must be mistaken. I am no demonic entity. Please, unhand me.”

She looked at the man with pleading eyes, but his heart was beating rapidly. The night was cold, yet despite the wind and chill, he broke into a horrific sweat. The fox queen reached out her arm, her face broken in fear, but the man did not reach back. Instead he dashed away, back into the forest.

The townspeople grabbed the fox queen, the men tightly binding her ankles and wrists, as the women tore her gown and slashed out her hair and skin. She remained perfectly still, as a trail of tears and blood fell down her cheeks. They bound her to a long wooden pole, lighting their torches aflame. And right before they burned her alive, a great blinding light emanated from her being, so hot and intense that it flung them all to their feet screaming. Suddenly, the woman they had once seen was gone, and a small red fox was darting away, injured yet quick.

In her escape back into the woods, she came upon the fox dens. A mother and father red fox were crying out in great mourning, a path of blood leading away from their home. The fox queen dashed to them, and in the tongue of fox calls, asked the mother why she cried.

The vixen spoke through sobs, “A human man killed my baby girl and injured my sons from his boot. He stabbed her in cold blood right in front of her brothers. We found her body split open and floating in the nearby creek, but we did not have the heart to fetch her. Why must man be so cruel, my dearest queen?”

The fox queen cried with her, asking through her pain, “When did this man commit this terrible act?”

“It was when my mate and I had left to hunt. It must have been just a little after we had left in the early afternoon.”

Her heart sank upon hearing this. The vixen mother rubbed her nose against the fox queen’s and returned to her burrow to tend to her grief-stricken family.

The fox queen slowly made her way back to the cabin, transforming back into her battered human form. She found the man cowering in the shadows, hands over his eyes, shaking. When he saw her, he screamed in horror.

“You!” he shouted. “I thought they had killed you! Look at you, covered in blood and bruises! I told you that those people were wicked and cruel, you stupid fox!”

“You lied to me,” she said softly. “You did not protect me, and you killed a red fox kit. I had already known you had lied about the dandelions, but I had hoped you would redeem yourself.”

The man’s throat went dry and his jaw slacked.

She rose tall, brushing the soil and snow off her gown, and standing above him with all the authority of the gods. “You asked what benefits you would have reaped by completing my tasks, honestly and true. I tell you now, there would have been plenty. You would have had the protection of the queen of foxes by your side. I would have granted you seven wishes for every dandelion you picked, restored your heart for every moment you were alive to live as long as you wished, and ensured that no matter the turbulence of the storm of life, nine potatoes were always to be in your pocket.

“But now that I see the character of who you are, the man you truly are, I leave you with a single gift. For every day of your life, you will feel the pain of a long weed being ripped from the earth by its roots. You will feel the pain of a knife stabbing through your heart, the pain of your corpse running down a cold, icy stream. You will feel the pain of a mother grieving her child. And…”

She touched the bruises on her wrist and face. “You will know the pain of accusation, abuse, and torture. For all the rest of your days, you will never know peace. And for all the rest of my existence, I will forever test the character of man.”

And with that, the fox queen was gone. Forevermore the man was left in a state of sorrow and pain. He clutched his heart with a gasp, the feeling of blades piercing through him.

End  

~Sammicakes