Chapter 33
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AN: Thanks to MindJack for helping me get his character, Felix Dire Sr, right.
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"Hi there," Judy said just a little tensely, meeting his paw with hers then gritting her teeth as he gripped back hard.
Nick nodded along, giving a particularly forced smile too. "Hi there indeed Mr Dire! It's a lovely day today, isn't it? Do you know what would make this day even nicer? Everything going peacefully and calmly and tickety-boo with nobody going on crazy revenge vendettas against anyone or anything! I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want your son's first protest to turn into a riot, would you?"
His hard iron gaze slowly moved off of Judy and fixed themselves on him. "My son?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah… You're Felix Dire Senior, so I'm pretty sure there's a Felix Dire Junior scamping around here, having a good time…"
"There is," he said, smiling a little. "Though he's not my son, and I think he'd enjoy a riot a bit more."
Judy blinked. "Hang on, if he's not your son…"
"He's my brother."
Judy blinked again. "You're saying that your parents gave you the same names."
"Yeah," he said, returning to hard and unreadable. "That's about right."
Judy, ignoring Nick's fairly conspicuous 'A-hem', carried on. "I mean, my parents have three-hundred kits, and all their names are unique and…" She shook her head. "Well, hopefully it's something you can laugh about now."
A corner of his mouth pulled up, ever so slightly. "It is."
"Yeah," she said, relaxing a bit and smiling. "Though you probably still hate them a little for it."
"Oh, I hated them for a lot of reasons. The good news is we were orphaned young, and got a better one."
Judy blinked a few times, not knowing how to process that. Nick meanwhile had his head in his paws.
"Now, the real question most of the rest of my pack has is this," he began, walking up. "Why shouldn't we riot, huh?"
"Well," Judy began, "I mean it could…"
"Spare me that," he cut in, his voice cold and hard. "Do you know what it's like to be scared, as a pup?" he pressed, leaning down and poking her in the ribs. She frowned.
"Excuse me, you do realise I'm…"
"-To be scared of those meant to look after you? Back so far where all your memories are a mix chopped together, and you're in this strange crazy world, and the only thing you're supposed to know for certain is that some mammals will care for you and love you… Only that's not true, you live in fear of them? Do you know what it's like to be scared as a pup?"
"No," Judy said, paws on hips. "But that's…"
"The Lang family knows. That, and what it's like to be alone, and scared, and abandoned. And we know that the thing you want most is for someone to come in and fight for you, to gun down those monsters and then hug you and take you in and do the job right."
The bunny opened her mouth again, insistent on carrying only, only to freeze as a paw landed on her shoulder. "Let the scary biker wolf finish," Nick said through the corner of his mouth.
Felix smirked. "That's a good idea, fox. Especially when it isn't some trailer trash parent or family member doing it, but some smug prick in the government doing it for laughs. He has everything he wants, but he's happy doing it for fun or greed. Do you know what we think about that?"
As if on cue, the music blared up behind. A set of pounding drums beat out, before the silver fox singer pulled himself to the microphone and started singing. "We're not gonna take it! No! We ain't gonna take it. No, we're not gonna take it anymore!"
He pulled back, his fingers playing hard on his guitar as the others joined in, before jumping back in and carrying on, his voice singing and screaming out across the plaza.
Felix glanced up, giving a proud little smile before looking down. "Yeah, that," he said. "So it's a pretty good thing that we know that you're also fighting for Kristofferson."
There was a second pause, filled in with the music from behind, before the bunny and fox sighed a breath of relief. One quickly followed by the bunny with a question. "How do you…"
"We do," he said. "Here's the deal, Miss Lang's gonna let you fight to get him out. We'll deal with the hippo after."
And then Judy cringed, feeling a winding kick hit her as she remembered what Nick had said before. "We're fine!" she coughed out. "I mean… we'll be showing what justice can do! We'll get him put in jail, and he'll rot in there, so no need for anything vigilante. Okay?"
He chuckled, the laughs made just a bit intimidating as they lined up with a set of descending chords that Conor was playing between verses. He glanced up at Nick, then down at the bunny, her nose twitching. "Worried we'll give him some hot justice?"
Judy's nose twitched harder and faster, as she breathed in. "Despite all he's done, he still has rights, and murder is still murder."
Felix's smile pulled up some more. "Well, opinions are opinions. We had something different planned." And then his smile vanished. "Do you want to know why we're here? Why we hate that hippo in his high place so much? Let me tell you, this isn't our first rodeo with this kind of thing, oh no..."
"It… isn't…?"
"No," he spoke, his voice darkening, yet still managing to be level. "We get packmates from all over, coming here and joining, mostly wolves and some coyotes, but when someone really needs family we don't care 'bout species. And one day, out riding to Lake Bunnyville for the drag races, we found one young coyote lass by the side of the road, her bike broke down. We got it going and took her back to our Ma' Miss Lang, and Miss Lang being Miss Lang she got talking, and we soon learned that that little Gal was from the east coast in the States, and she'd just got out of two years at boot camp. Sent there for some crime. What crime? She'd bought an old scooter from a neighbour, and a few days later the police picked her up, it was stolen you see. Now, we in the family know stolen good laws pretty darn well, and she shouldn't have had anything to fear. A warning at most. But no, two years at boot camp, in which she'd fell in with a bad crowd and, after, decided to run away. And as Miss Lang listened, she heard how she and her parents had been told they didn't need a lawyer, how the judge would go easy."
His face briefly flashed an angry scowl.
"Miss Lang got her back home to her real family, but she was interested. She has a nose for sniffing out trouble, and she'd picked up on a stench. That judge happened to deal with all the juvie cases in the local area, and hearing more we found out that that coyote gal' wasn't the only one! First there were ten, then twenty, then fifty, then a hundred, and more and more and more," he hissed, beginning to tremble ever so slightly with a simmering rage. "And she was lucky as she was a Gal, because there was this brand new place built for the boys in the local area, run by those who ran the Gal's bootcamp by the way, and everyone that got out of there would shake and whimper when one of us said its name. But, they all told us of all the evil things going on, and of one inmate they all noticed. I didn't believe them at first, oh no, surely that one was too insane!"
He almost looked like he was going to growl, the noise almost seeming to come, yet dying away, replaced with the roaring music in the background. "Some frickin' conniving guard or someone along the way would say no way, he's way too young, he doesn't belong here! Not for anything, yet alone that! But no, he was, and they had their fun with him, yes they did… Because he was strong, brave, a fighter, I respect that, and they made it a game to see if they could break him and they did, physically at least. We looked at the court documents, and I swear when she read all that went on in the single minute where he had a decade stolen from him, pleading that he was sorry and he was just hungry and that he'd been promised they'd go easy on him if he helped out… I swear she was ready to call the troops and bust him out, who gives a damn about the law! I was more ready to join in on that, but she changed her mind, you see. She knew something else. Do you know what she knew?"
"What?" Judy asked, her voice a whisper.
"We'd found that that judge was quite a bit richer than you'd expect, and he happened to be good friends with the guys who built and ran those prison places… for a profit per prisoner per day, I might add. And that they often hung out together, the owner owing and paying back the judge a lot for 'something', and that one of our scouts had picked up some conversations of theirs about their little 'program'."
Nick and Judy both glanced at each other, sharing a mutual bad feeling about this. The wolf, like always, looked like a granite cliff face, but for all they knew it was about to collapse into a rockslide. They both stayed quiet, too afraid of being the feather that tipped the car over the edge of the cliff. He just cracked his knuckles. "He was especially evil to that little one as that little one was alone, and nobody would be there to fight in his corner then or later, so he was the perfect little cash cow for the both of them. But then Miss Lang was there, and we hired a lot of lawyers, and we rescued those victims, letting them go home, and gave the ones who'd already been through it a chance at justice. That Judge, he's in for three decades now, he'll die in there. He deserves far more. For a while we got interested in talking to fellow convicts, especially the lifers, maybe mentioning here and there a little tit-bit about their new guest…" For once, the wolf gave them a straight, placeable expression, a warm and casual smile. "There are fates worse than death, I told them. I like to think that Mr Judge thinks that every time he wakes up."
There was a long pause, the two small cops unable to think of a reply. The music in the background filled back in, Conor coming to the end of his song as he launched into a powerful, semi-improvised guitar solo that belted out across the plaza. Eventually, Judy found something to say. "You got everyone home, but that little one... you said he didn't…"
"We fixed him up, Ma made sure he got the new life he deserved. He's doing good now."
In the background, the sound of claws grating down the guitar strings, cutting the song to a dead stop, rang out. Conor stood there, panting hard, holding onto the microphone stand with a vice like grip before almost fox screaming into it. "Yeah, that we think! Can you hear us up there What-a-pain!" The silverfox pointed two of his fingers into his amber eyes, pointed them back at city hall, and then glanced behind him. His bandmates, a mix of both other Lang wolves and some other kids his age, nodded, before they carried on.
Out in the plaza, Felix Dire Senior walked off, nodding along to the new tune.
Nick and Judy stood there, quiet, not quite sure what to say. The chatter on the radio about an incident going on at the other side, and a request for backup, came as a blessed relief.
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Honey blinked, trembling slightly. "Gruinard Gal?" she asked.
The deer nodded. "Yes, we owe a great deal towards her, rest her soul."
"-Rest her soul!?"
"She's a martyr," the sea mink from earlier said, walking out. "A martyr for the cause, and we'll carry on fighting for her. In her memory."
Honey couldn't help but frown a little. Sure, even though it was a past part of her life, she did like the idea of having fans. She really liked it in fact, and were they just meeting up she'd probably have a smile on her face. But they were saying that she'd died for the cause, which was wrong."Oh, you don't need to do that," she said, waving her paw.
She was cut off as the coyote from earlier cut in. "Yes we do," she spoke, sounding a little insulted. "Do you even know who she is?"
"Duh, of course! I'm…"
"What's the truth behind all wolves?"
"Well," Honey said, blinking. "I used to think they were all brainwashed dumb-dumbs…"
"And what caused the mysterious incidents over the skies of Paris in '04 and '13!?"
She remembered those. Cases where something had fallen out of the sky in the middle of the night, interpol in particular quickly taking charge and hushing it all up. "Well, those were definitely cover ups for something. They literally said it was just classified military stuff, so they probably didn't want you to find out what. And I mean that's kinda also true if it was a mind control array designed to use the Mouton Rouge as a transmitter, which I now know is just silly…"
"-And the dark secret behind Dolly Baaton?"
"What, that Dolly's a clone?""
The coyote backed off, glancing at the others. "She does know," she whispered, before scowling. "So you should know that Gruinard Gal was vanished, disappeared out of the blue a few months ago because she was hitting too close to the truth! She was too much a threat to the cudspiracy. They've dipped her and sheared her, and you think she's not a martyr!?"
Honey blinked. "No."
"HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT!?" she screamed, lunging forward, Honey stumbling back as she saw her rows of teeth and outstretched claws. She was furious. "HOW CAN YOU DENY WHAT'S BEEN DONE! HOW CAN YOU DENY HER SACRIFICE! HOW CAN YOU NOT BELIEVE ANYMORE WHEN THEY KILLED HER!"
"-She's not dead!" Honey yelled back, finding herself shaking. She didn't like that coyote. She was loud, she was screaming, they weren't even letting her have time to speak. And her mom and dad had made sure she knew that speaking over others was wrong, and she didn't like doing it even when it was being done to her. She shook again as the canine grabbed her paws, holding her tight.
"She's not dead?" the coyote asked, the question hanging on her breath.
"She's still alive?" the deer asked, a whisper spreading through the small group around them. Glancing around, Honey realised that there were a few dozen of them at least.
"Yeah, but she's still their captive," the sea mink spoke, walking up. "Listen, from the sound of it you used to believe all this stuff, but you don't anymore, right?"
Honey nodded.
"-Of course she doesn't," the coyote growled. "She left us. She knew full well the truth and how bad we're treated. Yet she chose to abandon her brothers and sisters in our struggle for freedom and our civil rights, and turned traitor!"
"Woah," she said, "I did not turn traitor."
"Yeah," the sea mink spoke. "Who knows what she's been doing the last few months," he said. "Maybe struggling alone since our leader was taken. After all, with all the pro-sheep propaganda going on out there, you have to be a really intelligent mammal to rise above it all and know what's really going on." He paused and turned to her, nodding. "That or they scared her into submission. You're scared, aren't you? They hurt you, to force you to change what you thought, didn't they? I can see it."
Honey paused, her paws coming together and fumbling together. "Well… Strictly speaking, yes, but…"
She was broken off as the little brown mink came up and hugged her. "Don't worry. I'm not saying you're not safe now, because we're all not, especially if we're mustelids."
"Yeah," the deer spoke. "Did you see the way they were shaking that cage! Police brutality!"
"I got it on camera," a bobcat from the side spoke.
"Good," the mink said, frowning. "Not that it makes much difference. I once worked in the Tundratown fish market. Someone was stealing the caviar from the large freezer room, so guess which mammal they went after? The one they thought could sneak in through the back pipe and snatch it! Blatant anti-mustelid speciesism at work; heck, if it had been you in my place they'd have got you instead," he said, looking up at Honey.
She blinked, her head tilting. "Well I don't think…"
"You don't if you're not woke," the coyote pointed out, frowning hard. "Maybe you're lucky so far, not getting in trouble with the law, but that's not an excuse to be an uncle Tom Cat!"
Honey's paws went up. "Literally just saying that I'm not good at fitting through pipes."
"And leave her alone," the mink said. "After all, they've already got her. They probably sent her to the Ministry of Cud to turn her into this and, well… -If you don't know how bad MiniCud is, you're not a true believe in the cudspiracy." He turned back to her, holding her paws. "Listen, I was once like you were now. Taking in their propaganda as fast as it came out, blind to the truth. But, in a way, that false arrest was the best thing that ever happened to me. Yeah, sure, a week in the joint meant my girlfriend left me, meant I was thrown out of my job even when they proved it was someone else, and meant I couldn't make rent and was out in the street in the middle of the Howler crisis, starving as the shelters turned me away and scrounging for meals in dumpsters. But then Wilde and Hopps took down Bellwether, and I realised what the sheep had been doing to us. I then discovered Gruinard Gal, and I realised for how long they'd been doing it! I was in that terrible place because of the sheep, all my suffering for all my life was because of them, and I was born again as I watched her, woke and fighting them! I found friends, I found a purpose, I found a truth! For the first time in my life my life had meaning, and we can give that back to you again!"
"I…" Honey began, her mouth beginning to tremble. "You had a normal life, until you started watching…"
"Yeah," he sighed. "A normal life just going about, being oppressed, thinking this was the way it was." He looked up and smiled. "But thank the world for Gruinard Gal, for putting an end to that."
"Yeah, well I worked it out before that," the deer spoke, pointing a hooflet at himself. "I was raised amongst those sheep, out in the meadowlands, just a sea of plain wool and ordinary boring mammals. God, thinking back I still hate it. All those dull bleating sheep and other prey all too happy to go along with it. Working 'hard', getting 'productive' jobs, settling down with mates and families so they could pump out all the more plain ordinary prey mammals to do it all over again, filling up identical houses and eating identical food and thinking identical thoughts. All while surrounded by a monoculture of the same kind, all while acting as if they hadn't built this world for themselves at the direct expense of others. All while laughing at me, saying it was 'the majority' or 'the market' that only a fraction of the shops or shelves catered for pred food, and that a minority of mammals up on the screen were preds, or how our entire education system is built around prey supremacy. Sheep supremacy. Pah, all the pred authors and experience they could talk about but no, it was all useless Sheepspear and Steinbuck! That garbage is dull and boring anyway. Everything was blatant prey supremacy, sheep supremacy, and I realised that and was calling them out on it day after day. Of course, they're all bigotted, they don't like hearing that they're the bad guys and deny their privilege and just say they don't see species. Yeah, they don't see the ones they're trampling over! I do though, I see the oppression preds are put under and I've fought against it! Fought against it as they ratcheted up my student loans, as they jolted the job market to protect themselves and leave me dry, and of course hurt oppressed preds even more. I fight as I live in a crappy flat on the bare minimum my privileged speciesist parents deign to give me to support my fight against oppression. I fought before I found Gruinard Gal and after, listening to a predator and her honest lived experience and being a strong ally. And one day we'll win, the speciesist society those sheep built will be gone, and I'll be there to show them who was right."
He broke off his speech to a round of cheers. The coyote walked forward. "Yeah, yeah… And I lived through the howler crisis, finding out that the sheep were behind it, and what did they do? Oh, they just said it was a few bad sheep. Just a nasty mayor and her friends, who get stuck in jail. But what about the sheep? The ones running everything? They all think the same don't they, and even if they weren't part of her plan they liked the idea. Pounceheart is right, though still way too tame. We need to rip their institution apart and rebuild it from the ground up, the more of them left without a job or house the better. After all, Gruinard Gal was right too, we live in a world controlled by them, where us preds are oppressed, and cuss it, when I have pups I don't want them to have to live in that world anymore!"
"Yeah!" the sea mink and deer added.
"That's why I'm here! For the kits, cubs and kittens of the future" the bobcat spoke, looking down at Honey. "And you too. They may have re-brainwashed you, but we can re-woke you!"
"Yeah," the deer spoke. "Come with us. Fight with us! You saw how they treated those opponents to their tyranny, you heard how they hate mustelids like you! There's only two sides in this fight, the good fighting for civil rights, freedom and against oppression, and those against it, who are part of the tyranny or defend it with their 'both sides' arguments or lying statistics. So, are you going to fight with the good guys, or become a species traitor and side with the cussing grazers?"
Honey looked up at all of thinking, thinking through the things they'd said, trying to balance it all up against what she'd learnt, what she'd been through, the months spent locked up or even tied up, muzzled and in a padded cell. Tricked and manipulated, given drugs to take, made to trust a mammal who'd lied to her in order to teach her lessons. Against what she'd known from before then, and after then, and everything. Facts and logic, the truth, basic laws of politeness and the weird complexities which seemed to be weird and complex just to make her struggle. What should be said, what should not be said, what was right and what was wrong anymore?
They all looked to her as she raised a finger. "You know that grazer is a rude word," she said. It was true. They didn't need to call prey that.
The coyote laughed. "Ha! Oh don't worry. We deal with enough prey fragility and sheep fragility. We don't need you defending it for them."
"The sheep especially," the deer added. "Stupid freak eyes."
Honey's eyes narrowed. "Now listen, that's just rude."
"Oh god," the coyote moaned. "You're seriously defending prey fragility. They need to learn what it's like."
"Yeah," the deer added. "It's true, I've known something was up with sheep ever since I started looking in their freak eyes. Oh my family and school hated me, called me a bully for always reminding them of the truth, but that just shows how fragile they are."
"But they can't help it, it's mean…"
"Boo hoo," the bobcat mock cried. "The sheep are upset. The sheep think they're oppressed."
"Well," Honey began. "In certain ways I guess they are…"
"Oh and that's just a distraction ploy!" the deer spat. "Trying to direct the fire service away from the house on fire, to one where the grill is a little smoky. Who's side are you even on!?"
"I just don't want to be speciesist…"
"You can't be speciesist against sheep!" he announced.
"-Then what's Ovinophobia?"
"A stupid lie," the coyote said, crossing her arms. "A stupid lie they make up to deflect and guilt the mammals calling them out on their supremacy. Gruinard Gal herself taught me that!"
"Well it's wrong!" Honey shouted back, a tinge in her voice. "Stop being mean to them. I used to be mean to them, and it's wrong!"
"We're not being mean," the sea mink spoke, coming up to her. "We're just equalising. They've built up a method of oppression to keep us down, in effect being continually mean against all of us for decades. Doing it in a very clever and hidden way, yes, but still being mean. We're just evening the odds so we can fight back."
"But you're all still being mean. That's wrong!"
"No it isn't, and if it is they deserve it," the coyote boasted.
"No they don't!" Honey shouted again, her arms shaking. "Why can't you see that?"
The deer scoffed. "We only see the truth."
"No you don't!"
"Yes we do. We see the evil in the world. It's the sheep, it's always the sheep!" he yelled, the bobcat jumping in.
"It's all the cudspiracy!"
"That's WRONG! YOU'RE WRONG!" Honey screamed, a tear forming in the corner of her eye. It was obvious, it was simple, why weren't they listening?
"Saying we're wrong is just accepting oppression!" the coyote shouted. "If you were a prey doing that, you'd be a bigot just as bad as the worst of them! There is no middle ground! We're good, they're evil, this isn't politics, this is civil rights, and I'm sick and tired of mammals not listening to us, and the last thing I need is another pred siding with the enemy you Uncle Tom Cat. Who do you think you are!?"
"I WAS GRUINARD GAL!" Honey screamed. She broke off, panting.
…
The deer spat at her. "CUSS OFF!"
"Eeewww," she flinched, only to jolt back as the coyote growled and swiped at her.
"Yeah! How dare you take her name in vain!"
"BUT I AM!" she shouted, her heart beginning to beat. All of them were coming around her, beginning to shout, beginning to close in and scream. She… -They'd listened to her before, why not now? "I AM, I…"
"CUSS OFF!"
"UNCLE TOM CAT!"
"WOOL LICKER!"
"-They sent me to a mental hospital!" she managed to shout through all the screams. Her head was beginning to hurt, she was struggling to make out everything they were saying.
"LIAR!" "BRAINWASHED DUM DUM!" "SPECIES TRAITOR!" "GARBAGE MAMMAL BEING!"
"-LISTEN…" she begged, regretting it as they screamed louder. Her ears were hurting, her head was hurting, she was crying now. Couldn't they let her speak, couldn't they let her tell the truth? "I was wrong!"
"CUSS YEAH YOU'RE WRONG!" "CUSS OFF BACK TO YOUR SHEEP MASTERS!" "HOOF KISSER!"
"PLEASE!" she begged, beginning to glance around. They'd surrounded her, she couldn't see a way out, she was trapped, she was trapped again, she wanted out, she really wanted out, she deserved this, didn't she? She'd turned them into this. "I'm sorry!" she wailed, running forward into a gap by the deer.
"I'LL MAKE YOU SORRY!" he shouted, kicking into her side.
"OW!" she complained, though it didn't stop her. She marched right through, only for the screams not to stop. They were following her. "I'M GOING! I'M GOING!"
"YEAH, SCRAM!" "WE DON'T WANT YOUR KIND HER!" "THE REAL GRUINARD GAL WILL GET YOU ONE DAY."
"But I am…" she began, only to hear a bellow from up ahead. An elephant cop was coming in and her eyes widened as she brought out a shield and was blowing a whistle, screaming out and out. The others were screaming too, going to the sides where a hippo and tiger cop had appeared. She looked around. No, no, no, no… She didn't want to be trapped, she didn't like being trapped, and everyone was still screaming. It was nonsense now, she couldn't make it out, and she jumped away from the deer's legs before being hit by the shield and thrown back in, rolling over. Legs and feet were pounding down and kicking around her, and everyone was screaming so much she couldn't make it out, and she jumped as the coyote landed hard on the floor and turned, glaring at her and swiping. "I'M SORRY!" she bawled, down on all fours and trying to get out, blinded by tears and bashing into everyone's legs until she felt someone find her paw and lead her out.
"-I mean, I thought I recognised your voice and all. And I guess it makes sense now, don't worry I believe you…"
"You're, you're the sea mi...mi...mink?" she sobbed as they slipped through the small mob, the sounds beginning to die down. Her eyes were still messed up with tears.
"Yeah," he said. "And god, the cudspiracy got you good, didn't they?"
"I, -there isn't one. Please listen to me, I was wrong…"
"There there," he carried on. "But we can undo that…"
"-NO! I suffered to be normal again, I don't wanna fight the Cudspiracy, I…"
"Sometimes I think that too," he soothed, as they stumbled through different crowds. Music was playing off in the background, and everyone was talking, and there were too many mammals. Honey just wanted to be alone and in a quiet place. "It's hard. We suffer so much to fight for the truth, don't we? Fighting for the truth split my family apart. My parents are too far gone, the cud has them, they called me a speciesist and ovinophobe and cast me out. But that's the price you pay…"
"No!" she winced, realising that he'd done it because of her. It was her fault! "Please, I was wrong, you can go back to them! Listen to me!"
"Shhhh… I'll help you get better again," he said. "We'll undo what they did to you, get Gruinard Gal back, and then carry on the fight."
"It was all nonsense!" she screamed, tugging away. He held on, and was lifted up with her paw.
"-Listen! I'm not going to give up on you! I'm not going to give up fighting the Cudspiracy! You saved me, I'll save you, even though it's hard. Believe me. It's hard! I lost everyone I loved because of it! They thought I was a monster! Even my twin brother!"
And then she felt her heart slice open. Her sister was always on her side, had been since the day she was born, and his brother would have been like that and she made him lose him. "I'm sorry!" she wailed, as she grabbed his body with her other paw and threw him off, before racing through the crowd, wailing, bawling, hating herself as she realised that she really was a bad mammal. She was a nasty, cussing bad mammal! She stumbled past others, who shrieked and jumped away, and they were shouting too, asking things, asking if she needed help. "GO AWAY!" They didn't listen, more were surrounding, more were speaking and shouting. "I SAID GO AWAY!" she bawled. "LISTEN TO ME! WHY DON'T YOU LISTEN TO ME! I WANNA BE ALONE! I WANNA BE… BE… BE ALONE…"
She broke down into a fit of sobs, just curling up on the floor. Why couldn't they listen to her? Why couldn't they just leave her alone, and realise who she was and that she was wrong. She was literally telling them… They'd listened to her before.
Why, why, why, why….
And they were still speaking, still asking, they were all around her and the noise was horrible. "I… I… I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE…" she bawled through her hoarse throat, turning in and sobbing.
They were still talking, still asking, and she winced as she heard a young voice… still a kit… say that he was like her. Oh god, she'd messed up a little kit too! She curled in more, her paw coming up to whack herself on the head again and again and again. She deserved it. She deserved it real good. The pain felt good. She deserved it.
By the sixth one her head was aching, she deserved that, and she grit her teeth and breathed in and out, noticing that the kit was speaking again. "Leave her alone. I know what it's like. You've got to leave her alone…"
She briefly opened her eyes, spotting a figure walk in front of her, paws out to keep the crowd off. Small and brown, a tanuki. Another, much taller figure, was keeping guard, keeping an eye on him and her. She flicked back down, sobbing.
She was such a stupid, nasty, mean mammal, wasn't she?
"There, it's quiet now," the voice said. "I'm not gonna ask dumb questions."
That was good, she hated them. She'd give an answer and everyone would just ignore it.
"They never listen, do they?"
"Uh-hu," she sobbed.
"You can cuddle my tail if you want."
She glanced up, seeing it, and pulled it in. It was small, but it was bushy, warm and comfy. "Thank you…" she said. She was still a stupid mammal, she didn't deserve this, but… but it was nice.
She felt a paw glance hers, and she gripped it tight. "Back in the orphanage, they'd always get my name wrong. I'd scream and scream at them, it's Thrash not Trash, but they'd always get it wrong. Didn't matter how many times I yelled or cried..."
Yeah, that sounded like it. She felt tired, her nose running, but she felt a bit better. She was still a stupid worthless mammal, but she felt better, and she grabbed his tail and blew into it.
"You could have asked for a tissue," came a calm yet slightly irritated no nonsense voice from above.
"Mom, it's okay… It's okay…"
"It looks like it is," the boy's mother said again. "You did something brave and noble that many wouldn't. You did a good thing Max."
"Yeah," he said, his voice going a little cocky. "Well maybe I'm a bit of an expert at these things." He reached down and gently petted Honey's head… That felt good. She looked up, seeing that he wasn't a tanuki, but a racoon with a brown torch-key colouration.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Thrash," he said, giving a cocky smile and a secret agent accent. "Max Thrash."
She smiled. "H-hi there," she managed, before pausing as she heard a commotion. She looked over, spotting Nick and Judy break through the crowd, the bunny's eyes meeting hers and gasping.