It had soft petals, pearly white and delicate, smooth to the touch. It gave off an bouquet which made my nose twitch and filled my eyes, clouding my senses with that sweet, sweet smell. It had no thorns; I often wondered at that. It was the only rose in the garden which did not. But that was not how I distinguished it-I singled it out the first day I came, and it called to me, with a celestial song all its own.
If I had a vixen, this rose would've been she, and in fact I called it so after my first visit. My vixen, my beautiful snow vixen.
I had to be watchful every time I went to see Vixen, for though the garden was bordering the forest, Man was still up and about-along with their rifles. A Man family actually tended Vixen, and they would think me after their chickens if they saw me, though the coop was nowhere near the garden. Every morning I came, while my rose still slept, dew resting lightly on her closed petals. She would awake with the dawn.
I visited her at night as well, so I could see her at her peak. As the sun slipped below the horizon, I imagined I could talk to her.
"You are so beautiful," I said to her, not for the first time.
"You make me so," she replied, as always. "If you were not here, I would be the same as every other rose in the garden."
I shook my head, and my red fur brushed against her. "No, you are perfect. All the others have thorns, but you are pure."
And she answered, "You ignore my thorns." And I looked, and saw none, and I told her so. And so we bantered until night truly fell, and when she finally closed her petals in exhaustion, I sat and watch until darkness filled my eyes and I could no longer see her white glow.
Before she came, I was simple and incomplete, just a normal fox struggling to exist, not to truly live. I raided the chicken coop as my brothers did, but though they found a vixen and moved away, I stayed, left behind because of the still-childish look in my green eyes. But she gave me a name: Jade, and I know I cherished it more than any of my brothers cherished theirs.
Thirty moons after I met her, I noticed that she had tinge of autumn in her snowy cloak that had not been there before.
"Vixen, you are beautiful, but your whiteness has faded."
"It has, my Jade. The time grows short."
And I replied, dreading the answer:
"For what?"
"For me."
And surely, days passed, and her life dwindled, but I chose not to notice. Her once pure petals withered and fell, one by one, and I counted them on the ground, until only one remained.
"Goodbye," she said. "My Jade."
I wept the night away, and did not leave with the sun. I stayed on the dewy grass caressing her fallen petals. Man came out and shot but missed, while I gently lifted her petals with my tongue. I fled to the forest, and laid the petals down in my den.
Moons rose and fell, and I went into a living death, grief beyond me. I raided the coop once more, stealing eggs and chickens so lazily that the Man fired the plume of my tail. I did not care.
I made my way back to the den, swaying, almost dead by something I could not understand and glad of it. The grass felt like spikes beneath my paws; stabbing, stabbing, stabbing my heart. With every step, I saw her, saw her gleaming in the morning sun . . . She was there, near my tree.Knowing it to be a wish made of mourning, I fell beside my den, listless. My rose. My beautiful, shimmering rose. Dead.
Yet my dream did not vanish. It slowly moved toward me. So. Not my Vixen.
"Hello," I said dully.
"Hello," she answered. It was a vixen, her voice sounded like a tinkling of bells, musical, like my rose's. I looked up. She was covered in shining waves of white, and she gazed at me through deep green eyes. "My name is Rose. I was wondering-" She cut herself off as I stared at her in wonder.
"Your name is Rose?" I asked, infatuated.
"Yes," she said uncertainly. "Why-"
"Just a second," I said. "Wait right here."
I dashed inside the den, scooping away the concealing brush hastily with my paws. Dirt fell from the ceiling, loose from weeks of neglect, but I had eyes for only one thing. The petals were gone.
