Chapter Text
Ajax was fourteen when his life irrevocably changed. Yet, he would not recognize it as such until many years later.
The boy was short and slim for his age. Being the middle child from a poor family in a remote fishing village meant that more often than not he went to bed still hungry. Suffice to say, he was much too young and ill-prepared to find himself lost in the woods surrounding Morepesok.
He came to be there as he sought an escape from the jeering words of his schoolmates. It would be one thing if he just didn’t have friends, but dealing with the hateful words tossed like knives from his peers hurt more than a physical injury. That’s why when the jeering words refused to leave his ears, he had decided to take refuge in the peace amidst the trees.
The words of his classmates rang in his mind, making him forget the words of warning against going into the woods; warnings much like ghost stories told to frighten children and keep them in line. Similarly, he was too lost in thought to notice the clouds hanging heavy in the sky, the increasing wind, and the worsening chill. A child of Snezhnaya was used to the cold, but more importantly they were taught its dangers and how to watch out for them. Yet, to his mind, the most pressing danger at the moment was not the snow and ice, the woods and their fabled monsters, but rather the continuous jeers of his peers that pierced his heart.
After sitting against a tree, crying into his red scarf heedless of his surroundings, Ajax realized his mistake. Looking around, he realized that as he cried, it had begun to snow heavily, and he could no longer remember from which direction he had come. Jumping up, the boy searched and searched for familiar sights, but everything appeared the same in the fresh snow.
He was helplessly and utterly lost.
Panicked, the young teenager runs around fruitlessly searching for a way home, only to be met with failure. He only stops as his adrenaline wears off and his energy wanes, his steps slowing and fears growing, before he finds a small hollow in the packed earth.
Too tired and cold to give up on an opportunity for shelter, the redhead climbs into the dug-out earth, using it as shelter from the snow, ice, and wind. It’s still cold, but at least he’s no longer directly in the elements. Pulling his scarf and coat tighter against his shivering form, Ajax slips into sleep, utterly worn and spent.
Awhooo!
Ajax jumps awake when he hears the sound of wolves hunting for their next meal. Terrified, he doesn’t know if his body is trembling from fear or shivering from the child. Yet, he listens as the wolves get closer until he can no longer handle waiting for the beasts to find and eat him.
Taking a deep breath to prepare himself, Ajax climbs out of the hollow and runs in the opposite direction to the howls, hoping to escape the lupi’s notice. Despite his best efforts, or perhaps because of them, the wolves drew closer, sending the boy’s growing anxiety.
His breath comes in harsh pants against his wool scarf and his heart hammers against his ribcage as the wolves grow close enough to see their piercing yellow eyes reflecting the moonlight; to hear their breaths in tandem with his own; to feel their lunges toward him as the creatures barely missed—alive and strong in their natural element.
Ajax’s direction is heedless as his only purpose is to keep away from those sharp teeth and snapping jaws. He runs and runs, regardless of where he ends up. This is both his salvation and his doom, as before Ajax can process what is happening, the ground disappears from beneath his feet and the small boy crashes down, down, down, only stopping to steal the breath from his lungs and the light from his eyes as his consciousness fades away.
When Ajax awakes he opens his eyes groggily, his vision blurring before it slowly clears only to reveal a sky obstructed by snow-covered trees. Attempting to sit up, the boy yelps in pain when pain shoots through his leg. Ever so slowly and gently, he forces himself to sit up until he can bend over his left leg, pulling up the pant cuff to get a good look at it.
However, seeing the injury only serves to make Ajax nauseous, he dry heaves, but nothing remains in his stomach to come back up. The teenager’s leg is painfully bent at the shin and ankle, swollen and purple from the clearly broken bones. The boy bites his lip to try and hold back his tears, now more conscious to the dangerous surroundings of the woods. What if he became distracted by his crying and the wolves attacked again?
Speaking of the wolves, were they gone? Looking up, Ajax sees that he had fallen off of a ledge, about twenty feet in height. He doesn’t know how long he was unconscious, but he doesn’t hear or see the wolves anymore, so perhaps he lost them in the fall? But, what was he to do now with his injury?
Taking a deep breath and clenching his jaw, Ajax attempts to stand, only to fall back to the ground with a pained cry. Damn , that hurt! Tears in his eyes the boy pounds his fist against the ground in frustration before taking another steadying breath and trying to move again. However, this time instead of standing, he switches himself to a crawling position, placing all of the weight on his right leg and arms, allowing him to lessen the pain in his broken leg.
The boy crawls off and on throughout the day, taking breaks when his energy wanes or the pain spikes too much. His progress is slow, but he knows he must keep moving if he’s to make it out of this forest alive. He doesn’t want to risk getting cornered by wolves with his current injury, it would be a certain death.
It continues to snow as he crawls, the depth of the powder growing greatly from the harsh snow storm. Thankfully, it is not a blizzard, but the level of snowfall is still quite rapid. However, in some ways this works to his advantage. When the sun begins to sink down in the horizon and there is no shelter in sight, Ajax knows how to build his own shelter, even while injured.
Most Snezhnayan children are taught how to survive in the snow, and that is no exception for Ajax. In fact, with his love for ice fishing, he has gained an impressive amount of knowledge. While this information may have escaped his mind the previous day due to his distress, the primal need to survive is keeping all of those skills in the forefront of his mind.
Careful to not upset his injured leg, Ajax begins to build a snow shelter, known as a kuinzi in Snezhnaya. Using his arms, the ginger gathers a large pile of snow, packing it down with his body until it’s compact and strong. He removes his coat and works slowly to avoid building up a dangerous sweat, one which could be life-ending without a change of clothes. Of course, it’s cold, but he can put the coat back on once the manual labor is done.
Sadly, he doesn’t have the tools usually recommended for outdoor survival, so he has to make do. Not having a shovel, Ajax finds a chunk of wood fallen from the nearby trees and uses it as a trowel to dig out the center of his snow pile, making a place where he can comfortably sleep. He keeps the excess snow nearby, piling it against the door once he is safely tucked away inside. Once done, he creates a small hole in the door for oxygen before pulling his coat back on and making himself on his bed of snow.
He’s hungry and in pain, surviving off of nothing but snow to stay hydrated. Usually, he would be unable to sleep. But, his exhaustion from the day allows him to fall into a deep sleep in hardly any time at all, his body craving the rest in an effort to heal itself.
The third day was much like the second as Ajax slowly crawled through the snow, eating the same substance to quench his thirst and silence the sharp pangs of his stomach. But, his day was interrupted when he heard a sound of pained whimpering.
Brows furrowing in concern, Ajax crawls toward the sound. It takes a little longer to find than he expects—the sound easily echoing over the snow-covered surface—but, before long he comes across the pained creature. There, stuck in a steel-jaw leg trap, is a beautiful silver fox.
The fox has a coat of salt and pepper to create a beautiful coat, accented by coal-black ears and snout, and a fluffy white patch on the tip of the tail. The poor creature has its leg bleeding from the trap, though thankfully the limb appears to be in one piece for the most part. In fact, while the fox may be trapped, overall its injury is less severe than Ajax’s own.
The fox snarls warningly as Ajax tries to approach, stopping the boy’s movements immediately. Still, Ajax can’t stand to just leave the creature here, injured and alone, fated to either starve to death, be picked up by another predator, or waiting for a hunter to return for its pelt. He’s always felt a deep affection for animals, foxes being one of his particular favorite as he feels a kinship with the creatures.
Delicately, Ajax seats himself a few yards away from the creature, laying down in the snow to show that he does not intend to threaten it. He waits for the creature’s stiff posture to loosen ever so slightly before he begins whispering and cooing at it, offering words of reassurance. While the words may hold little meaning to the vulpine, he hopes that at least the calming tone will put the creature at ease.
Eventually, the fox cocks its head, staring at him curiously. At times it feels as if it can almost understand him as he delves into sharing his own problems, as though the silver fox were a therapist as the two of them are similarly trapped by their injuries. As he speaks, Ajax slowly inches closer to the fox over a span of hours, not willing to give up on the creature. He’s careful not to move too quickly, not wanting to frighten the creature whose eyes harden whenever he moves.
With time, as he continues to talk and share whatever worries are on his mind—be it his schoolmate’s bullying, his family’s poverty, his fear of dying alone out here in the woods, or his deep desire to aid the fox and his inability to leave it to its death—those suspicious eyes soften and the creature even begins to make little noises in response to his one-sided conversation. Sometimes they sound questioning, other times comforting, exasperated, or even oddly similar to laughter when he speaks of something funny. The longer he goes on, the more he feels as if the creature understands him. But, he doesn’t know if this is simply his mind holding onto any sense of comfort and company with the ever pressing loneliness and possibility of death.
As night begins to fall, Ajax ignores the dropping temperature and forgets about building a shelter, only interested in saving this fox. If he leaves or goes to sleep now, then what if some larger predator comes after the fox, stuck and unable to escape?
He shivers and his teeth chattering, the fox looking at him with seeming concern in its eyes. When he begins to fall asleep in the growing cold and snow, body shivering, he is startled awake by something sharp digging into his hand. It’s not enough to draw blood, but enough to make him jump awake.
Looking around, the ginger sees that the fox is looking at him pitifully, whining as though it’s growing increasingly worried. Ajax chuckles, “sorry about that, lisa . Did I worry you?”
The fox bobs his head in a way that resembles a nod and Ajax narrows his eyes, tilting his head in confusion. Is he imagining things? Well, if he’s not, maybe this fox is smarter than most, or maybe he’s simply built a bond with it over the passing hours? Deciding to try again, Ajax asks, “will you let me help you? To free your leg?”
The fox appears to hesitate, but then bobs its head once as Ajax gasps in surprise. Ever so carefully, not wishing to get bitten, Ajax leans forward and reaches toward the leg trap. The fox doesn’t move to bite back, so ever so gingerly the teenager grasps the trap that holds the injured leg. Taking a deep breath, he uses all of his strength to press on the two springs on the sides of the trap, forcing the sharp steel jaws to open.
Without wasting a moment, the fox rips its leg free, limping away from the trap in a rush as though it might attack them once more, before looking back at Ajax. The teenager can’t help but smile, glad to see that the animal’s leg doesn’t appear to be broken like his own. The injury will likely heal leaving the fox healthy and alive in time.
“You’re finally free!” He cheers with exhaustion, the cold sinking down to his bones and making him sleepy. “I’m so glad. I’m going to rest a bit, but you stay safe and don’t get caught in any more traps, yeah?”
The fox continues to watch him, but Ajax simply lays his head atop his arms, ready to rest for just a few minutes. He’ll build himself a shelter once he recovers, he just needs a moment. All too quickly the world goes black and Ajax loses all awareness of his surroundings, falling into a deep sleep induced by the freezing temperatures. The last sensation he is aware of is loud crying from the fox, seemingly panicked. Yet, he is too sleepy to understand why or what’s wrong as his mind slips away.
Ajax wakes up to a warm comfort surrounding him, which is only disturbed by the annoying beeping sounding from nearby. Groaning, the teenager opens his eyes, only to find himself in a brightly lit room. Squinting, he looks around and realizes that he is no longer in the woods, but rather in what appears to be a hospital.
No memories of how he got here, the redhead is utterly confused, looking around and not seeing anyone. Finally, he spots a remote attached to his bed, adorning it is a large red button that reads ‘call’ along with an illustration of a nurse. Pressing the button, Ajax only has to wait a few moments before a large woman with a kind smile and graying hair enters the room, appearing very much like a kind mother who would spoil a child with all the dessert they may want.
“You’re awake! I’m your nurse, Annika. How are you doing dear? We were so very worried about you,” The woman’s tone is warm and comforting, her brown eyes filled with care.
“What happened?” Ajax’s voice is sore and deeper than usual as he asks in lieu of answering the question. He doesn’t even know how he would answer, as he has yet to gather his bears to understand how he feels. Certainly, the I.V. attached to his arm, no doubt with pain killers, is part of the reason why.
“A young woman brought you in, said that she found you lost and passed out in the woods with injuries,” Annika’s brows furrow in concern. “Quite a bit of damage was done to your leg, once your vitals were stable from the cold, you were taken to surgery for the fractures. You will need to keep the cast on for six weeks. Can you tell me what happened?”
Ajax feels his head swimming with all the information, who brought him in? How did they find him? “I went into the woods and got lost. I was there for… a few days I think?” Ajax really is unsure of just how long he was there after passing out. “Who brought me in? Is she still here?”
The nurse shakes her head. “No, she said she must go, that it was just a happenstance that you two met but that she was repaying a debt.”
His brows furrow at that. Who owed him a debt, a stranger at that? It was quite bizarre, but he had more pressing matters at the moment. “Do my parents know where I am?”
Once again, the answer is a shake of the head. “The woman was unsure of your identity. All she could tell us was that your name is Ajax. Please, where are you from and who are your parents? We must get in contact with your guardians before you can be released.”
Ajax fills the woman in on his information and she leaves to contact his family, ensuring that he can go home for the rest of his recovery now that he is stable. Eventually, he falls asleep again, dreaming of a silver fox and the most beautiful woman he has ever seen with skin the color of ebony, hair the shade of snow, and eyes the color of silver.
While he slept, he was completely unaware of the blessing the mystical fox spirit bestowed him with. Now, harbored deep within his form glowed a magical fox’s pearl, a blessing that will protect him in the years to come.