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Here's the first chapter from a novel I am working on at the moment it is call the Red Fox Tales. Hope you enjoy it, please tell me what you thought of it!

Chapter One
Eyes wide open

When Syet opened his eyes for the first time, the very first thing he saw was a black feather, a raven’s feather to be more precise. It was black in colour with a small stripe of blue across it. It was a mystery to how it had gotten there since Syet’s parents had never hunted a raven. Though, at this point Syet didn’t have any idea what a feather or a raven was. And he felt like there was so much he did not know and understand.
It had been two weeks since Syet had been born and, like his mother had explained to him a week before, he opened his eyes. He would have never been able to imagine all the colours and shapes of the world around him, let alone his home. Syet, like most red foxes, lived in a den. There were two dens in his family’s territory – the largest out of the two was used for the family to live in and the other was used only for food storage and emergency.
It was dark within the den. The walls consisted of rock and dirt, the floor was the same but Syet’s parents had lined the floor with grass as to soften the ground since it could be uncomfortable to sleep on without it.
Syet touched the feather with his nose and sneezed as it tickled his nostrils. A small bark sounded from behind him and he turned to gaze upon his five brothers and sisters. They seemed so different now that Syet could actually see them. Their fur was hardly grown, but he could see that they all were a brownie shade and their small cat-like eyes were coloured light golden. They were tiny little things and could hardly even take a single step. Syet’s parents, Hakan and Ivory had named them all with names fairly common to red foxes. His two sisters were Neo and Raine, and his three brothers were Silva, Feofil and Lyndon.
Life was very simple for Syet and his siblings in their first few weeks of their life. All their time was spent only by drinking, sleeping and barking and yapping. Time went slowly for the kits, but they didn’t even know what time meant.

The fifth week in Syet’s life came quicker than he had imagined. The kits had grown more fur and become larger in the few weeks between their fifth, and they were finally able to walk. It was the week he was most looking forward to, it was the week that he would be able adventure around outside the den with his siblings under the watchful eyes of his parents. But since his father, Hakan was out hunting, their mother, Ivory, would be the only one watching them.
The kits seemed to buzz with excitement, and it seemed that all of them had been looking forward to this day. Syet’s mother led the way through the tunnel that lead to the outside world with the kits following closely behind her and Syet began to feel a little bit nervous. The tunnel was made of crumbled up pieces of rock and dirt. Some roots of plants stuck out and they had to be careful not to trip. Syet tried to see what was at the end of the tunnel, but his older brother, Feofil was in the way which was slightly annoying to Syet. At first the tunnel began to get brighter, and then it turned sharply upward and the kits had to climb up the slope. Syet watched as Feofil climbed out from the tunnel and then it was his turn. He took a deep breath – he had been waiting for this moment for weeks!
Syet poked his head outside of the tunnel and felt the warm air brush his fur. His eyes had to adjust to the sudden sunlight, but after a moment he could see his beautiful surroundings and his heart almost skipped with excitement. His mother pushed him to the side and he realized he had been in the way of his other siblings. Syet was embarrassed for a moment, but he glanced around the place and was amazed at all the things he could see, and soon forgot about it. The ground was a mix of half dirt and half grass. The sky was clear blue and cloudless, and a few gum trees grew around near by.
“This place is awesome!” Syet heard Silva bark beside him.
“Why didn’t you show us this earlier, Mum?” Feofil asked.
“It’s too dangerous to let kits out in the open when they are not ready.”
Neo looked around, “But what could possibly happen?”
“A lot can happen; an eagle could snatch one of you away, a dingo could take one of you, you could wonder off too far and get lost, and the list goes on.”
“But how often does that happen?” Silva said.
“You’d be surprised, it happens a lot.”
Syet’s mother glanced up at the sky and scanned it, “That’s why it’s always wise to check for eagles, dingos, or anything else.”
Syet pounced on an insect once he noticed the tiny thing resting in a small patch of grass. The insect jumped from the ground and Syet caught it in his paws. Feofil saw what Syet was doing then joined in on the fun. He began to fight Syet for the bug and it slipped from Syet’s paws.
Feofil pounced for the bug, but Syet pushed him aside. He reached the bug, but just as he did Raine reached him and snatched it up in her teeth. She swallowed the bug and laughed. Syet at first was burning inside with anger, but soon joined Raine in laughter.
“Keep your voices down!” Their mother barked, “A serious matter has befallen us!”
Syet and Raine stopped laughing and looked up at their mother, but her gaze was somewhere else. Syet followed her gaze to the clear blue sky and at first saw nothing, but when he looked closer he realised that a very large bird was soaring in the sky – an eagle.
“If we’re lucky it will fly off,” Syet’s mother told the kits, “But it is unlikely, we’ll have to take cover inside the den.”
The kits groaned with disappointment and annoyance, but obeyed their mother and climbed back into the tunnel that led to the den. The kits and their mother stayed inside their home for the rest of the day, waiting for their father to come home.
It was already night when Hakan returned to the den and all the stars were out in the dark sky. His fur was long and a shade of orangey-red. He held two large brown rabbits in his mouth and dropped the kill at Ivory’s feet. Syet gasped as he realized that Hakan had a deep red wound in his shoulder, which was oozing out dark blood. He wondered what could have happened to his father, but dared not ask. Ivory ran to his side and investigated the wound. She ordered the kits to leave the rabbits for her since the kits couldn’t eat solid food just yet and hurried Hakan out of the den. She was worried for him and couldn’t stand seeing him in pain. The two of them reached the other side of the tunnel and felt the cool night air against their checks. It was a beautiful night, the stars were shining brightly in the cloudless sky and apart from the crickets it was silent.
“Hold still while I clean your wound,” Ivory told him. “How did you get such a deep injury?”
Ivory began to lick at Hakan’s wound to clean it and he winced from the pain.
Between winces he began to tell her about what had coursed his wound, “When I was out hunting, I found strange tracks and scents outside our territory. I followed the scent and found these strange creatures walking around on two legs. There were a whole pack of them and they were discussing something in strange voices I couldn’t understand. They saw me eventually and I was attacked by something flying through the air.”
Hakan sighed, “I ran off and found the two rabbits which I brought back here.”
Ivory took hold of something in his wound and withdrew a small, strange, shiny object in her teeth, which she put down on the ground. It was a strange little thing and they had never seen anything like it before. But if they had known that the creatures Hakan had saw had been humans, and if they had known about guns, they would have known that the strange thing before them was a bullet. If that had been so, they would have realized that there were hunters near their home which could possibly kill them, and therefore they could have stopped a terrible event which was about to take place.

~*~*~*~*~

I like this, it has a very good air to it, which leaves the reader (me and everyone else) hungry for more. I like the language you have used to show the thoughts of the fox famly. i will be looking forward to any installments you make with a lot of enthusiasm.

Thank you for the feeback, this story has turned out to be a little bit of a lost cause, but for anyone who is intrested here is the second chapter:

Chapter Two
Discovering the Truth

Hakan awoke early the next morning and lay awake thinking about the strange creatures he had seen the previous day. His shoulder was still wounded and was throbbing with pain all over. He could hardly move without cringing from the pain.
He began to think hard about the creatures and about what they could want. If it was land they wanted he wasn’t sure if he could fight them off. Already he was wounded, and even though he tried to act tough, he didn’t think that he could survive in a battle with them. This was a different kind of enemy; they were too tall to be anything like a dingo, they didn’t have wings so they weren’t anything like a bird, and they were certainly weren’t rodents or some other small mammal, so what were they?
Usually nothing scared Hakan – not an eagle, dingo, kangaroo, snake or anything. Nothing made him shiver or worry about the dangers they possessed. This was nothing but the strange creatures he had just discovered.
After a few minutes of long, hard thinking, Hakan decided on a solution and nudged Ivory awake. And like most mornings she was tired and irritable.
“What is it, Hakan?” Ivory growled.
“I’m going out to follow those creatures I saw yesterday,” he told her.
“Are you crazy? It’s way too risky!”
Hakan sighed, “I know, but I need to know if they hold a threat to our family. If I don’t find out what they are or what they want, our whole family could be at risk.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”
Ivory gazed at him with fear painting her eyes. He touched the tip of his nose to hers to try and make her believe he’d be okay, and then he turned away from her and left the den.

The sun was high in the sky when Hakan reached the place where he had ventured the other day. The land was dry and small patches of grass grew here and there. There weren’t too many trees around, but Hakan didn’t really care about his surroundings, he was more focussed on finding out what the strange creatures were and what they wanted.
The scent of them was still there and he figured that if he followed the scent, he’d be able to find them. And was exactly what he did.
The scent led him towards a large dirt path lined with a few trees evenly spaced out. It was marked by strange tracks that he didn’t recognize. The tracks were long lines that ran all the way down the path. It frustrated him that he had no idea what the creatures were or what the strange tracks were. After a while the scent of the creatures mixed with a dingo, and Hakan could hardly figure out if he was still following the scent of the creatures.
The path soon went off two ways and Hakan couldn’t decide which way the creatures went and which way the dingo went. He thought for a while, considering both paths, but figured that the path with the tracks would be the right one to follow. He decided on the left and followed the path until he could no more. It stretched on as far as he could see and he wasn’t quite sure that he had picked the right way.
He felt disappointment at his mistake and knew that he had waisted too much time following the wrong path. And he began to wonder if he’d even have time to get back to where the path went into two and start following the other.
Sighing deeply, Hakan turned around and his heart leaped as he saw one of the creatures holding a long, silver, shiny kind of stick, though it wasn’t wooden.
Hakan dashed behind the trees on the side of the path and heard a deafening bang. His ears twitched and his heart was pounding so hard he thought that it might explode. Once he spotted some thick leafy bushes, he flattened himself under them and tried to calm the racing of his heart. He was more afraid and startled than he had ever been in his whole entire life. To Hakan it felt almost unnatural to feel this scared.
He peeked outside the bushes and saw the creature talking to itself. It spoke in a strange sort of speech and he couldn’t match it up with any other animals’ sound. A huge white rectangular shaped object stood beside the creature and something buzzed inside Hakan’s memory.
He started to remember his parents a very long time ago, telling him of strange creatures nearly exactly like these ones, no he was sure they were these ones. Hakan and his family had lived close to what these creatures called a city and that was why his parents saw them so often and knew a lot about them. It was also why they only ever came outside the den at twilight and night.
His father had called them humans and had told him that they carried these dangerous devices called guns, which shot out a shiny little thing called a bullet. If a fox is shot, especially in the heart or brain, they could or will die. Some of these humans are hunters and use these guns to kill certain animals for their fur or for some other reasons his father didn’t know. Hakan remembered from his father that the large rectangular shaped object was called a car or a truck.
He shivered as he realized how much in danger his family was. Though, the worst part of this situation was that he had no idea of what to do. All he knew was that he had to get back home to the kits and Ivory, and tell her what he had found out.

Syet was outside the den with his mother and siblings. Syet found that the place looked even more surprisingly beautiful the second time. Feofil and Silva were play fighting while Raine, Neo and Lyndon were fighting over a shiny stone they had found. But Syet, he simply lay in the sunlight enjoying the warmth.
Ivory’s ears pricked up as she noticed the sound of something coming towards her and the kits. She glanced towards the sound and realised that it was Hakan. She sensed danger from how he was running and quickly ordered the kits to return to the den. The kits were annoyed, but obeyed anyway.
Once Hakan reached Ivory’s side, he began to tell her everything he had found out and when he had finished Ivory was silent while in deep thought.
“What is that you are thinking about?” he asked her.
“Our family,” She replied, “How will we survive?”
“We could become Nocturnal to ovoid the humans and perhaps they will go away eventually.”
Ivory bowed her head in sorrow, tears welling up in her eyes, “But what if they don’t ever go away, Hakan? What will we do then?”
Hakan paused for a moment, considering what Ivory had said.
“I really don’t know. But we will deal with it if ever that time comes.”

In the next few weeks the family of foxes didn’t see any more humans and Hakan began to hope that perhaps the humans had gone already. Not much changed for the family, the kits were growing, Hakan went out regularly to hunt, Ivory cared for the kits, and life went on.
Before long, several months had past and the kits had grown a fair bit. It was their fourth month since birth and their fur was growing longer and they had become more of an orangey colour. The kits had already eaten their first solid meals and were now able to eat meat like their parents, but that meant Hakan had to go out even more on hunting trips.
Syet gulped down a few blackberries that his father had brought back for him and his siblings. Syet loved the small berries; they were his favourite snack as well as sunflower seeds.
Syet found that life was a lot more exciting now that he could eat real foods. The different tastes and textures made life so much better.
“Do you ever stop eating, Syet?” Neo giggled.
“Food’s too great to stop eating!”
The kits chattered away while they feasted on the blackberries. It was a cheery night and even their parents could relax and talk.

Hakan was hunting when he heard a loud bang. He turned his head around and saw nothing but the dry grass around him and the trees. But when he squinted his eyes to see behind the trees, his heart began beating wildly. A human stood near one of those trees with a gun in his hand. Not far from it stood three other humans who also had guns.
Hakan sank down low in the grass and watched the humans as they began yelling at each other. He knew that they were probably the most dangerous creatures he had ever known, but they were fairly interesting. The way they walked, spoke, hunted and lived was all a wonder to him and he wanted to know more about them.
He snuck up behind one of the trees and was able to get a closer look at the humans. Their faces, fur and limbs were strangely different to anything he had ever seen.
Hakan wanted to be even closer, but suddenly he heard the voice of Ivory and saw her fearful eyes in his mind. He would never do something so senseless, nor would he ever do something like this to his family. Hakan gazed upon the humans once more, then turned and left in the direction of home.
Later just as night had fallen Hakan and Ivory discussed the matter of the humans and tried to decide on what to do next. They spoke outside of the den so that they wouldn’t wake the kits, who were sleeping silently.
“I’m not sure what we can do, Hakan,” Ivory said, “We need to do something, though. I don’t want to risk me, you or the kits getting shot.”
“I won’t ever let them shoot any of us!” Hakan growled, but added, “I think it would be wise if we didn’t let the kits out of the den for the next few days, it could be dangerous. If the humans get any closer to the den, we’ll have to stop coming out at day and become Nocturnal.”
“I’ll do whatever we have to do, as long as the kits are safe.”
He nodded and returned with Ivory to the den where the kits slept peacefully. Hakan lay down in a curled up position and went to sleep immediately, but Ivory gazed upon her kits. Her mind was buzzing with the information Hakan had told her on humans. She was worried for her kits and husband; she didn’t want to lose any of them!
Ivory curled up next to Hakan and tried to let her mind go blank, but it was hard when the thought of humans kept entering her mind.
The next morning while Hakan was out hunting, Ivory explained to the kits that they couldn’t go outside the den for the next few days.
“Why can’t we?” Silva yapped.
“We aren’t going to get taken by a dingo or eagle, mum,” Raine said.
“It’s not about dingos or eagles.”
“Then what is it about?” Feofil demanded.
Ivory turned to Feofil with inpatient eyes, “It’s because I say so!”
Feofil shank back as Ivory’s bark filled his ears. The kits hung their heads in shame of being so demanding and Ivory immediately felt badly about yelling at the kits. She turned away from them and dashed through the tunnel. She began to think of the humans; maybe if her family wasn’t under the threat of being shot, maybe she wouldn’t have been so harsh on the kits.