It's been a couple days since Thorax reinforced the ceiling to what ended up becoming his chamber of the snow cavern network. Things have settled into a bit of a routine: he woke up with at least one of the young foxes curled up against him (so far, the first morning had Ears, the second had both him and Nosy, though on the current day it was only Spot), who raced away once their mother, who he'd been calling Vix out of a vague memory of what the term for a female fox was, gave the morning meal call. He checked his wings to ensure they were still growing back, wondered if they really were shinier than before, and slowly got up once the foxes were done with breakfast.

Usually, at this point, the younglings would be running over for him to start playing. However, it seems they finally got bored of him, and to be frank, he was running out of ideas. It didn't help that yesterday evening was when the bone chandelier incident occurred, from which he learned three things: changeling goo made a great adhesive for connecting the leftover bones, it wasn't nearly as good when gluing onto snow, and creating a toy that got the foxes to apply weight on an unstable ceiling was a terrible idea. Thankfully, the only reminders left were an indentation in the snow at the top of one of the tunnels and the last of the names he gave to the foxes, Hops.

What's especially strange was that he'd start playing with them with the intent to feed off of their joy and excitement a little, but by the time they finished, he had forgotten it entirely, and yet still felt a bit less hungry than he started. He was missing something, but couldn't tell what exactly. Either he was somehow getting nourishment, or his body had given up on survival... which still didn't seem right with how his wings were growing back so quickly.

Anyway, as the little foxes no longer had as much interest in what he was doing, he might as well follow Vix to her hunt. As per usual with her, she glanced at him to see what he was doing, but otherwise didn't acknowledge his presence.

He kept silent the whole way, especially once they left the cave network. While changelings did not hunt, at least, not in the traditional sense, it was fairly obvious to him that it would be a bad idea to shout to anyling nearby that they were a potential enemy. Besides, it wasn't as if she would talk back.

Eventually, she stopped and smelled the air, ears swiveling all the while. Thorax halted as well, patiently watching. As far as he could tell, there was no other creature around.

Soon, though, Vix bunched up her hind legs, kept into the air, and planted her head into the snow. The changeling just blinked, unsure of what he just saw, until she backed out of the hole she made, triumphantly carrying a small rodent in her jaws. He strained his ears to try and hear if there were other rodents nearby, but even if there were, he probably couldn't hear them through the layers of snow, unlike Vix. He then had the idea to swap to his emotional sense, and while it usually didn't work through solid things, the snow was fluffy enough so he could just barely catch glimpses of emotion moving around underneath, likely more of the same prey.

An idea formed, and Thorax turned himself into a copy of Vix, which caused her to jump back in mute surprise, though she calmed down again after sniffing him. Then, he scoured the underground while quietly moving until he found a relatively stationary bundle of emotions. Finally, he imitated her leaping pounce and successfully grabbed a burrower in his borrowed teeth.

The flailing against his jaws made him hesitate. He never, ever wanted to hurt anything, not even a small insect, and what biting down would do seemed far beyond that. Still, Vix did it all the time, and she and her young needed to eat something. That thought got him to strain his jaws closed, and he felt the struggling quickly still.

While he felt a little empty inside about doing that, he did notice when glancing at her that while shelled by the usual aloof indifference, there was a small amount of respect underneath, which wasn't something he usually has directed towards him. It did help a little with that, even if not by much.

Apparently satisfied, Vix turned around and wandered off, likely to go hunt for more prey somewhere else, leaving Thorax with his own thoughts along with his catch. Normally, he'd never do something like that, but the thinking about how Vix had to silence prey all the time as well as how overjoyed Spot and his siblings would be with it pushed him to do it. Was that... what taking care of someling a part of the family was like*?

*Thorax never had the opportunity to be responsible for another being. Firstly, none of the changelings in the hive liked him enough to be cordial with him, let alone sire nymphs with him. Secondly, Queen Chrysalis kept him as far away from the nursery and school as possible to minimize the chances of his ideas spreading. Finally, changelings never kept pets, as any decently sized animal that wasn't a mole of some kind was assumed to be a nymph practicing their shapeshifting and were placed back in the nursery, which hadn't always gone well.

Thinking about his family inevitably led to him thinking about his brother Pharynx. Unlike Thorax, he stayed behind at the hive as ordered by the Queen. The surprising part wasn't that he obeyed without question, as her temper was not to be tested, but that he personally wanted to stay. His calling was to defend the hive, and he felt that the invasion was far too risky for it to be good idea. Of course, this was told in private and in confidence, as disagreeing with the Queen openly was tantamount to treason, especially when she was thoroughly invested in a plan.

Still, Thorax had to wonder if his brother knew anything about his fate. Heck, before he came to this place, he had no idea there could be flat land covered in snow like the mountain peak Canterlot rested near. His best guess was that he must have gone quite far north, as the weather was a good bit cooler at that mountain city compared to the Badlands where the hive was. The rest of the invasion force might have landed somewhere even more dangerous, like a bottomless pit or an endless expanse of water. With his previous conceptions about how the world could look like busted, anything seemed possible.

He shook his head to clear his mind. Something about this place just made him think more. Maybe it was the blank white visible in almost every direction, the lack of anyling to talk to, or maybe the invasion gave him a lot to think about. Either way, he was always taught that too much thinking never helped anyling, and he knew he could help those foxes he lived with by hunting some more. And so, he did.

The wonderful mix of surprise and joy he sensed from the first fox he ran into when he came back to the snow caverns, Hops, made all that trouble worth it, and getting the same from her siblings just added to that.

Author's Note

By this point, I've mixed in a couple of red fox behaviors, including that it would be the wrong time of the year for an arctic fox to have cubs, assuming the Season 2 finale occurs in mid spring, which is what I'm using as a starting point. Oh well, I'm willing to bend science a bit of it makes for what I feel is a better story, and the fox kits make it all the better.