AN: Some readers asked for an epilogue for my story "The Monster", at first I thought the concept of Judy becoming a vixen would be too complex for a oneshot, but I was afraid a longer story would get out of hand so I wrote a pretty long single chapter anyway.
….
This was hell, there was no doubt about it, Judy thought that being used as a mad scientists' plaything for five months was bad but this was somehow even worse. Now she was being forced to endure several medical examinations (from actually sane physicians this time) so they could evaluate the possibility for her to become a normal bunny again, even when her previous incarceration had left her with a very understandable phobia of both doctors and hospitals alike. It was disheartening to know that she went from one lab to another.
Sure these doctors at least had the decency to ask for her permission before jabbing needles into her arms and shoving her inside large contraptions like MRI and CAT scans, she could technically leave anytime she wanted to, but no matter how much she wished for this new torture to stop Judy felt like she had no choice but to oblige.
The only reason she endured all of this was her desire to be return to her normal species, and of course her parent's insistence, since they wanted nothing else for her doe daughter than to be one of their kind instead of the vixen Shalufuchs had turned her into. Nick on the other paw was as distraught at this whole thing as she was, she kept an optimistic façade around her parents but when she was with him the former rabbit didn't feel the need to act brave, so he was the only one who knew how horrible this experience was.
So now she sat in her hospital bed while two forces fought for her well being, each one getting angrier and louder with every passing minute. On one side were her beloved partner and her savior, Nick Wilde, telling everyone that she should be home to recuperate from her trauma instead of being once more poked and prodded by mammals in a lab coat, on that aspect Judy couldn't agree more. On the other side were her parents, as stubborn and overprotective as the canide in front of them, responding to the fox that the sooner the tests were done the faster she could be changed back to her normal form.
While she wished they were right at first, by this point she was beginning to lose hope on that matter. She could tell by the perplexed and sad stares she got from the whole hospital staff that there would be no easy way out of this, but she didn't have the heart to burst her parent's bubble just yet, so she endured the torture of being once more poked and prodded in spite of Nick's objections.
After a whole week of very awful and invasive tests the large team of stunned doctors finally arrived into a conclusion:
While reconstructive surgery could allow her to look like a bunny again, they could never match Shlaufuchs expertise. Even with access to her notes the results she accomplished would not be duplicated for several more years, the key to successfully carry on her interventions died with her.
The head of surgery of the Savannah Central spoke to the four mammals in front of him with as much professionalism as he could. When you work on his field long enough giving bad news becomes common but it is never a pleasant experience -"You need to understand that the changes she went through are not only aesthetic, she has right now a fully working canide nose and tongue, if we gave her a bunny muzzle she would lose both senses of smell, taste and maybe even the ability to talk"- the doctor said placatory –"Not to mention that we might not be able to make you look like a perfectly normal bunny either, the risk of scarring is too great"-
-"What do you mean by that?"- Stu Hopps said stunned, nose twitching. In his mind the idea of his daughter living as a vixen was so abhorrent it had to be fixed one way or the other.
-"It means that if the docs here try to change back what Shlaufucks did, its most likely that Judy ends up looking more like a botched Frankenbunny than an actual rabbit. Is that right?"- Nick asked the doctor with his usual sly careless way, doing a decent job at hiding his inner hurt and rage.
-"I'm afraid so, that vixen might have been a crazy bitch (without offense to she-wolves) but she was decades ahead of us"- The surgeon grumbled frustrated, dropping the professional act for only a few minutes before composing himself once more.
-"But there is a possibility that she will be fine, if we are careful maybe you can try to turn her back the way she was, right?"- Stu asked while Bonnie merely bowed her head and begun to cry
-"No there isn't"- Judy said calmly pointing at the coyote surgeon in front of them –"What doctor Sanders wants to tell us is that I'm better off staying like this, am I right doctor?"- At this point all she wanted was to get away from the hospital and begin the long process of having a normal life again, the way she looked didn't seem so important anymore.
The coyote sighed and nodded –"While being turned into a whole different species against your will is barbaric, you all need to understand that now Miss Hopps is a healthy and perfectly functional vixen, and dare I say she is actually an aesthetically pleasing specimen within the vulpine species. If we tried to reverse the procedures it's quite likely she will become a scarred rabbit. I strongly suggest you remain a healthy vixen instead of being an ill bunny"-
-"But… but… maybe if we try…"- Her father sputtered helpless, this whole situation was turning too awful to comprehend. He had clung to the hope that all this could be changed back the way it was but now that wasn't an option, and reality was crashing down on his psyche.
-"No Mister Hopps, that's enough. Judy has been suffering in this hospital for too long now, I won't let her be cut and stitched together again just because you can't accept what has happened to her"- Nick was done playing cool, bad enough was to have his partner kidnapped and tortured for five months, now he had to lay back while she put up a brave face so her parents wouldn't freak out, he would NOT let his Carrots be mangled just so the older bunnies felt more at ease.
-"Now who gave you the right to make an opinion about our daughter?!"- The older male rabbit spat at the fox
-"We did Stu, if it weren't for him Judy wouldn't have been found. Nick is part of our family now and you know it"- Bonnie scolded at her husband and lightly patted the fox's larger paw letting him know that he was still cherished by the family.
The buck deflated at that comment –"You are right Bonnie. I'm sorry Nick it was rude of me to yell at you like that, we all know you want the best for Judy as well but I just…"- The buck begun to cry and imprisoned the fox into a bear hug.
Nick rolled his eyes and patted the rabbit on his back, now he knew where Judy got her emotionality from. It was true that the fox had been assimilated into the Hopps clan without even realizing it. After all at least seventy percent of the huge work force he commanded while searching for Judy were members of her family, brothers and sisters willing to work for days on end without getting paid, searching data and spotting abnormal patterns regarding transactions and such. Little by little he grew close to those bunnies and before he knew it Bonnie and Stu were treating him like he was their son, too late he realized that rabbits tend to stick together, especially in times of distress. He understood that once you manage to get in a rabbit burrow there is no way out of the family that lives inside.
While having a family was great because there were now a whole clan of mammals willing to accept and take care of him, there was also a lot of more drama involved than he was used to, they begun to be as overbearing and nagging with him as they were to all their kits.
-"It's all right Stu, we're all doing our best to manage right here, and I know it's not easy, but Judy is the one calling the shots now. Because I'm pretty sure she's tired of being forced to do stuff against her will, so we should let her decide"- He eyed his partner with deep affection.
The new vixen smiled with humid eyes on the verge of tears, after what felt like an eternity she was finally able to regain some semblance of control on her life -"It's not that bad guys, I'll have to learn to live like a vixen now. If I'm healthy I guess I will still be able to be a cop like this right doc?"-
The coyote nodded, glad his patient was taking things so well, though he knew that was a common reaction on patients when their family members show distress. It's the way social groups work, when one member loses its calm the others will try to act rational to provide support -"Actually now you have an improved night vision and a very sensitive canide nose, if anything you are more equipped now to be a cop than before. I do have some concerns about your tail though, you only have sensibility and movement at its base where your natural tail was, the new longer appendage is functional and its possible that you achieve sensibility and movement in the whole area in the future, but for now that long tail of yours is like an accessory more than a useful appendage. I hope that doesn't hider you on your job"-
-"The chief says you'll have to re take the physical test before you're allowed on the field, that will let you show them what us foxes can do"- Nick told her in a smug smile, he nudged her elbow as if welcoming her into his species.
Things will start looking up she thought, they have to be.
Three weeks later:
-"For the love of Marian, Bonnie! Yes I'm eating well and working out, everything's fine in here!"- Nick groaned into his cellphone, damn! Judy's parents had over two hundred kits and somehow they managed to be helicopter parents of Every. Single. One.
Including the fox that somehow was dragged into that rabbit's den.
-"You don't look fine Nick, you have dark circles under your eyes"- Stu said accusingly from behind her, both of them were holding a baby kit on each arm –"Jennifer says you're stuck on the basement sorting through files all day and almost never go out, and she's an introvert, if you are locked up by her standards we know it's serious"-
Of course Jennifer would tell on him, she and her husband moved to Zootopia after Judy's disappearance like many of her siblings, she was from Judy's litter and had the same cute yet annoying perseverance as her. Sadly she also inherited her mother's ability to meddle into other mammal's lives without being asked to.
-"I told you guys when I headed the search I didn't care for menial things like paper work, but now that everything's in order I have to catch up on all those things, and with over three thousand clues you can tell I have a humongous mountain of documents with my name on it"- he did wish he could go with Judy to Bunnyburrow but there was too much work to handle now, besides the future of a very useful task force was at stake.
The project he had created no longer had a purpose and now had to be dismantled, but many of the Hopps members and the street informants wanted to keep working there, some of Judy's siblings had accommodated nicely into the city and didn't really want to go back to the farm. No one in the precinct could deny that it had been an incredibly useful tool for many other cases that had gotten solved by the intel he collected. During his search for Judy, Nick had singlehandedly steamrolled through the criminal world, and in the process he ended up solving several cold cases. The information net he spread over the city had caught criminals like fish, and while the special force had some serious flaws (especially regarding proper procedure) with a few tweaks it could be an immensely effective tool against crime.
But it might also be expensive, even when many of the workers on that net did it for free the only way they could sustain themselves and their families was with the help and money of Mr. Big, the shrew made sure all those bunnies had everything they needed. The mafia boss also took care of the other mammals who were informants and criminals with a paw on the underworld, those did charged money and a lot at that, yet getting in the good graces of the shrew was usually worth a lot more.
Now that Judy was safe it would cost a lot of tax payer's money for the city to actually hire them, never mind the swath of red tape his net would have to go through and the laws it should abide as to not break civil liberties. But he saw an ambitious glint in Bogo's eyes, and the potential of this resource is too tempting to throw away. That's why he was so adamant for Nick to do all the paperwork and wrap this side project into a neat little bow, the chief was probably hoping that maybe with enough butt kissing and pandering to the mayor's office it could be turned into an actually official task force.
-"Nick you are working too hard, maybe we could send more of us to help?"-Bonnie said worried, you don't handle a family as large as hers without a huge spirit of cooperation
-"No thanks I have like a hundred Hopps working with me to finish all this, you have helped enough, so how's Judy?"- He said eager to change the subject
-"Ready to go back to the city I guess, but I'm not sure about this, she still can't handle to look at herself in the mirror you know?"- Stu said with his nose twitching and wet eyes, Nick prayed he wouldn't cry over the phone, again.
-"One paw at a time Stu, she'll get there. I'll have her call you as soon as her train arrives"- He said with more confidence that he actually felt, she had barely talked to him during her stay back at her family farm but luckily her siblings both in Bunnyburrow and Zootopia kept him up to date on her progress.
Judy's isolation had been necessary to avoid the media outrage, the headlines "Bunny cop turned into monstrous fox" and the like infected almost all news channels. It's a good thing Bogo was more than willing to speak on the press conferences, because Nick wouldn't have been capable to answer questions like "Is she a vicious carnivore? Is she deformed? Does she have the same killing instinct as a predator now? Is it true that she became a fox because her captor bit her like a werewolf?" without snapping at those fucking reporters and show them what a dangerous predator actually looked like
It was her brother James that told him the reason she rarely called was because she was having a hard time handling the excess stimuli provided by her now ultra sensitive sense of smell and powerful eyesight, the overwhelmed doe spent the first week at home locked in her room with the windows closed and the light turned off. Anxiety attacks had been all too frequent at first and she didn't want to worry her partner by being an emotional wreck over the phone.
But life goes on and luckily for them the media cycle has the attention span of a fruit fly on crack, the clean-up of his task force is almost complete and now her tragedy is forgotten because everyone is talking about the upcoming marriage between Gazelle and a famous mogul from the tech industry, it's as good of a time for her to come back as any.
So he patiently sits at the Savannah central station and stares at the clock, he swears time has slowed down because the minutes pass like hours. When the train arrives he can't help to jump out of his bench and rush to the large crowd that gets off the wagons.
When Judy steps on the platform she puts on a large smile to conceal how vulnerable and scared she really feels. The first time she came to Zootopia she was so hopeful and happy, but the city was quick to show her how difficult life could be, sure over time she overcame all the obstacles thrown her way even when she had tripped and fallen a couple of times. But back then she had been healthy and stable, now her world was upside down and she felt too bruised and battered emotionally to put up a proper fight.
Yet she's determined to go on, even when she can only muster the strength to move forward because lying in bed pouting has gotten boring after three weeks. The only thing that scares her more than this big city, is the prospect of spending her whole life sheltered and locked up in her family farm because she wasn't strong enough to face the world.
When he sees her, his heart swells and breaks at the same time. Enough of the bunny he knew is left that he could recognize her anywhere, the shade of purple in her eyes, the silvery glint in her fur, and the curve of her smile. But the bouncy exuberance that always characterized her personality is gone and all he sees is a sad little shy creature with a terrified expression on her eyes walking towards him. He goes to her and gives her a hug so gentle you would think she was made of glass, her smile is still there it just looks unhappy.
He puts on a smiley yet fake expression on his face as well, sometimes denial is the best strategy
-"You look great!"- He says with as much reassurance as he can muster –"Did you go shopping with fru fru?"-
Her chuckle doesn't sound that forced now -"Yeah, she came to visit me last Sunday and we went to the mall in Deerbroke, what gave me away?"-
He eyed the pink frilly dress filled with flowers and a large sunhat that made her look like a cross between a southern belle and a baby doll, exactly the kind of outfit the mafia heiress would choose for Judy to wear. Had she been wearing that as a rabbit the universe would have imploded by the sheer cuteness, but as a vixen she kinda managed to pull it off.
-"A lucky guess, soo… ready for work?"- He said holding up his arm like the charming gentleman he can be sometimes and she took it graciously in response. They didn't feel like being their usual casual selves just yet.
-"Yes and no"- She said honestly –"I can't wait to see the guys at the police and get to work again, be useful you know? But the first time I went to the precinct I felt kinda overwhelmed and now my whole life is overwhelming. You know I've been a bit too sensitive lately; most times I'm fine but other times… I'm not. It's like I don't have much control over my temper anymore"- She said shrugging, she was glad she could keep it together at least for the time being.
-"No one expects you to be perfectly stoic after all that's happened, you'll make it work, and if you get emotional then don't be ashamed about it. No one will judge you."-
Judy wasn't sure about that, showing weakness was not tolerated at the force, and she would hate to fight so hard to be taken seriously as an officer only to prove everyone was right about her when they labeled her as helpless.
They took a Zuber to her new home, it was an old mansion style building remodeled and turned into several smaller apartments located at the border between Savannah and Foxtown. Nick was familiar with the place, the "pink manor" as it was called by the mammals on the area, was a well known place for young predator ladies to stay and be kept out of trouble when staying in the big city. The landlady was a huge grizzly bear named Big Bertha, born with a giant stick up her butt and an overprotective personality, perfectly suitable to kick out any wondering male with less than holy intentions.
He had been one of those males in his teenage years, a ladies' male so to speak. Pretty naïve vixens often stayed there and he liked to keep an eye on the "merchandise" available and "going for the hunt" looking for a date and often something more. A quick look around the street and he could already see a young silver fox pretending to chat with a grey wolf while stealing looks at Judy with hungry eyes like a vulture.
"It must be karma" he thought groaning. Chasing vixens and getting his freak on with them was great back in the day, but now that one of those vixens was someone he cared deeply about he realized how nerve wrecking it is to be on the other side, and how disgusting it is to see horny males look at Judy like she were a piece of meat. He felt ashamed of himself for acting the same way less than a decade prior.
-"Carrots, why aren't you staying in the Pangolin Arms?"- He said adjusting his tie and praying the old landlady didn't recognize him.
She stiffed for a moment and her face fell, in a reluctant grumble she whispered –"Because they don't take predators"- Bowing her head in shame she averted her eyes –"That's why my family chose it at first"-
He sighed annoyed, of course they would! Their little precious naïve daughter would be living in a city filled with predators, the least they could do to ensure her safety is to keep her in a prey-only building. Even now they sent her to the safest place they could afford for someone like her. Ugh, that's water under the bridge now, sure Stu and Bonnie had been speciest to foxes in the past but he knew now from experience they were just good mammals with misguided ideas.
Big Bertha opened the iron gates of the manor and stood before them as tall and imposing as ever, with a critical eye she looked down on the two foxes, and then she bent down to stare at Nick right to his eyes.
-"Long time no see Mr. Wilde. Couldn't you even wait until this poor thing enters my manor to pounce on her like de pervert you are?"- Then she turned to Judy –"I would stay away from him if I were you, he has the habit of courting young ladies and then dumping them like old trash after he gets what he wants. I can also assure you that whatever promises he gave you, he will not keep them"-
Outraged the vixen stared at him accusingly; bunny or not she still looked really cute when mad.
Raising his paws in a defensive posture he told both angry females in front of him –"Look that was a long time ago, and I even I can see that was wrong from my part, but now I'm just a reformed fox looking out for my friend all right?"- He handed Judy her bag once she crossed the threshold, males are not allowed inside of the pink palace's gates -"Besides, I'm not the biggest threat you should be looking out for"- he said pointing at the silver fox not far from there, at this point the guy wasn't even pretending to mind his own business, he just stared at Judy and waved. A vixen would know that anything other than cold stares would be seen as an open invitation for the other fox, but she was a friendly ex-bunny that knows nothing of foxes' mating customs, so of course she waved back at him with enthusiasm and a friendly smile. And of course she was confused when Nick groaned dragging his paw over his face.
–"A beautiful vixen like her needs to get used to that type of attention, but I'll teach her how to handle herself properly."- Big Bertha looks at the red fox with a smug grin, it was about time he got a taste of his own medicine –"Be careful fox, you'll have a lot of competition"-
…
Working in the file storage room was doing wonders for her, she could do a lot of very useful work by uploading cold case files into the new database so Nick's task force could have a broader data bank, that way she was helping her friend and making the world a better place at the same time. In the quiet lonely darkness of the files room she was free to be herself, she could cry if she felt like doing so or mull over her thoughts without her workmates getting worried or feeling pity. Before she knew It, the fake smiles she wore to put her loved ones at ease weren't that fake anymore and little by little it got easier to get through the day.
Alas, all good things come to an end. There is a massive protest all over the city and every available officer needs to go to the streets and keep the peace, it's a good thing she has ample training in that matter.
The protest is for the ban of housing discrimination, a law that was about to be passed until the savage attacks happened and it had to be repealed, now that things are settled the predators are asking for it to be finally implemented. Because many landowners and realtors refuse to work with predators it is much more difficult for them to find a cheap suitable home that it is for prey, which means they end up paying a lot more to live in worse places than the rest of the population. With the price of rent on the rise and preds usually working in low salary jobs, it's becoming impossible for them to afford to live in their own city. On the other paw the preys wouldn't feel safe if they had to live in the same building as a predator so they made a counter protest asking the law wasn't changed.
Seeing the angry mammals on both sides of the conflict Shlaufucs talks into her brain from the dark recesses of her mind, that place where nightmares come from: "The rights that took years of struggle to achieve were removed and we still haven't managed to reclaim them, just because you ended the conspiracy it doesn't mean that the hurt you caused was cured all of the sudden" Judy can ignore that nagging voice now, the memories from her imprisonment are still painful but she can relive them without having a panic attack
She's part of the police barricade that separates the predators from prey, stuck between a koala and a lioness both holding signs filled with hateful speech. Her added height and strength are much more useful than her previous bunny form when it comes to command authority, Sanders was right her modifications did make her work a lot easier.
The lioness grows tired of wasting her breath on the stubborn koala that keeps throwing speciest insults at her, so she tries to talk to the cop vixen standing between them. –"Why aren't you on or side? This affects you too! Don't you have any problems finding a home?"-
She knows what the protesters are going through; the difficulty into finding a place to live is now an issue that affected her directly. The pink manor was safe for pred standards but Foxtown is a pretty dangerous place to be after dark, even as a cop she often needed for Nick to escort her to her new home, the few times she walked on her own she had to fight off at least two horny foxes and even a few wolves. The foxes were merely annoying at their flirting since it is up to the female to choose her mate; they just made sure she knew they were eager and available. Wolves were a very different issue, they saw vixens like easy prey and within the whole canide genus they were also seen as slutty, because of the difference in their culture the wolves were very aggressive in their courting. A couple of times Judy ended up sending those jerks to the precinct with a black eye.
But the first rule of being an officer is to leave you own ideas and prejudice behind, so she gave the same stern warnings to the mammals that rallied on both opposing sides. –"Both of you back off and stay behind your designated areas"- In her attempt to exude authority she forgot to hide her fangs while speaking, because she actually didn't know how to handle those yet and part of her new physiology made her more prone to bouts of aggression that she still hadn't learned to control. But since the dawn of civilization it was always seen as insulting from a predator to show its fangs to a prey, and the koala felt threatened.
-"You filthy pred! How are we going to be safe when the predators have taken over our security?"- He said while emptying a whole can of fox repellent on her face.
The spray quickly spreads all over her sensitive snout and eyes taking her nerve endings beyond pain, its liquid fire that infects her entire face and she can't breathe, it paralyses her and all she can do is curl into a fetal position on the ground gasping for air. And to think she was once willing to inflict this damage on another mammal like Nick, this is true karma, she had this one coming.
Lucidity doesn't come until she's at the ambulance with two paramedics. It took a few IV shots for her not to die of an anaphylactic reaction, but what she is most grateful for is the milk someone brought to her and spilled on her face, it actually calmed her pain.
Blinking her eyes to adjust her vision she said –"thank you"- to the angel that helped her out.
-"No problem flopsy, I've had my run ins with that thing many times before. It hurts like a bitch doesn't it?"- To her shock the mammal in front of her was none other than Duke Weaselton. Judy remembered the protest was really close to his pirated movies stand.
-"Why are you helping me?"- She said confused.
The weasel turned serious for a moment before condescendingly patting the top of her head –"Wilde helped me patch things up with Mr. Big, as long as I kept my ears on the street to find a certain missing bunny. I really don't want to get on that fox's bad side so for now, just tell him that we're even and I don't want any more trouble"- then he disappeared into the large crowd.
Crap, maybe the rumors were true, Clawhauser said that while commanding his task force searching for her, Nick made Bogo look like a fluffy kindergarten teacher. Even to this date there is a general fear within the criminal element towards her partner, they say there wasn't a more fearsome cop since Eliott Fleece. It's hard to reconcile that image with the sweet cuddly fox she always spends her time with.
After the effect of the spray faded she tried to get back into the barricade, only to be stopped by the Chief himself calling on her intercom who ordered her to get the rest of the day off. There was one condition though, tomorrow morning she would be expected to be on patrol again, she won't be allowed on the files room anymore. The buffalo argued that if she could handle both a violent protest and fox repellant on the face without having an emotional breakdown, then she was ready for the streets. It was to be expected really, she had passed her physical test with flying colors and even set a new record on a few scores, the former prey understood now how easy preds had it on athletic trials.
That night Nick insisted that she stayed in his place, he wanted to keep an eye on her after her last misfortune and make sure she was all right. Judy didn't mind in the slightest, it was like the good old days when they had sleepovers and movie nights and things were just normal.
But things had changed, since the casual normalcy they tried to maintain was forced. As Judy snuggled next to him on the couch she could smell what her previous bunny self had been blissfully ignorant, now she could detect the pheromones of a mildly aroused tod. It was mind blowing how good foxes in general are when it comes to mask their emotions, there he was, seemingly interested by the dumb comedy in front of him totally relaxed, his body language casual and not a speck of tension in his muscles . Yet her nose broke through the illusion and told her that he was not only horny but also a little stressed. Sure it was amazing to be finally able to crack through his carefully placed mask, yet it was also a little disturbing to find so much awkward information all the time.
Big Bertha told her not to address the emotions she could sniff on other mammals; it was rude to remind them how easily you could probe into their personal lives. No wonder he had always read her like a book and played with her emotions, he could basically smell her thoughts. Sure he never crossed the line of indecency but he always knew when she needed and extra cuddle and used his knowledge to make her feel better.
But is this healthy? To let him feel this tense around her, as she plays the part of the ignorant? And if she wanted to talk to him about this what would she say? "Look Nick you're obviously horny and since we're watching a movie about an old elephant skydiving I'm pretty sure it's not about the film. Is it because I'm a vixen now? Suddenly you can't have a friendly relationship with me anymore because we're from the same species?"
No, the answer for the last questions she already knew. He had asked her out shortly before she got kitnapped, and while a little apprehensive about an interspecies date she did say yes, if only not to hurt the mammal she cared so much about. Besides try everything is her motto, even a date with her best friend. Then Shlaufucs took her away and all dating plans went out the window along with her previous life.
According to the book of fox etiquette she had been reading, it is up to the female to lead the courtship. Males who are interested in a vixen might flirt to signal her they're available but it is up to the female to take the male she chooses. It would explain why Nick had been so nervous when he had asked her out; it was the opposite of what his culture usually did.
After all they had been through lately she knew they were meant for each other, but right now she didn't feel brave enough to ask. She still covered all mirrors around her because her image is still something she cannot comprehend; sometimes the only way to keep her sanity is to pretend she's still a bunny and all that happened was nothing but an awful nightmare.
It would be very unfair for her to drag him into a relationship while she still felt damaged and emotionally unstable; he had suffered enough because of her already.
So one day, sooner than later, she would do what vixens are supposed to do and mark her mate. But not today, at least not yet.
First she needs to sneak into the bathroom and take a good look at herself in the mirror over the sink; she needs to embrace who she has become. If she manages to confront her own image without thinking about Shalufuchs's experiments and crying her little heart out, then maybe who knows, she might be able to make a claim over her tod.