The last two months have been hell, let me just say that, but they've been a lot less of hell than I think they would have been without a certain fox at my side. PT has been hell, and well, I'm glad I've had the help here, otherwise I don't think that I don't think that I would have made it…
What's also helped is that Wolford's suspended pending a review from Internal Affairs- and Jason's been passing along snippets of what he's overheard- he is a fox, and yes he can be sneaky, but having the two chiefs of one of the most prestigious precincts be your parents means that you kind of end up as a CI for the other recruits, whether you want to or not.
What's also still confidential is our relationship… I mean, I'm not going to tell my parents, flock no, I don't think I will until we maybe get serious…
But anyways, I need to clear my mind, because otherwise I'd panic, and well, seeing as I'm going to be wearing dress blues for the first time in my career, that wouldn't be good…
In other words, this sheep can finally hit the beat… well, soon enough. Precinct One, here I come!
It's Graduation Day, finally, and that means I'm up at six AM, on the dot, just like I'm supposed to be, just like the last four months of drills have pounded into my head. Jason's standing right next to me, bouncing on his heels. He's not a hybrid, like most people think he is, considering that his mother is a rabbit and his father a fox, but no, he's told me he's adopted, just excited, and I really can't blame him, I am too. He's been my bunkmate for the whole time that I've been in the Academy, he's taken care of me this whole time, I really, really like him, and well- yeah, I like him, that's about all I feel like I can say without winding myself up more, and I hope we're going to be partners on the force. Of course, if I'm not assigned Precinct One, it won't be the end of the world, but it'll sure sting.
"Ready?" he asks me, and I nod.
"You know it, mammal," he says, winking at me, and a smile creeps its way onto my face. The last four months have been something, to say the least. "You think we'll be partners on the force, Mary?"
"Karma willing, yeah," I say. "But what're they gonna think of us?"
"We're going to be Precinct One officers, Mary, we're the best of the best, they're sending us to work with my parents, probably, come on, we're co-valedictorians, we're just fine…"
"Yeah, we'll be fine if we make it on time, come on, Jason," I say, sweeping a hoof towards the clock on the wall and smoothing down my uniform, nestling my cap on my head. My mother kept a pouf of wool on top of her head, me, I keep my wool cut short. It's the small things, I had enough trouble during my time in the academy with the other recruits, heck, even some of the instructors, Friedkin excepted, that thought I was just the same as my mother, a conniving witch of a mammal who would do anything do get ahead and step on the necks of the predators. It took me nearly the entire time that I was here to get that idea out of the heads of most of them, and yeah, even to this day, some of them still think that I'm no more than a Dawn Bellwether junior, my mother's mini-me, trying to exert revenge.
There's a lot of things wrong with that, and firstly, it's that I'm my own mammal, I always have been and I always will be, that's not up for debate. The second is that I really want nothing to do with my parents, my father especially, I'm a grown ewe, not a little lamb any more.
Okay, time to turn thoughts into actions, let's go.
We head out to the stage that the Mayor, Lionheart's son Robert, has set up for all of us, and as soon as we do, I can see the flashes of all of the cameras that the reporters have trained on me, and I can hear all of their murmurs about me, that they can't wait to see me get sent to jail like my parents did, that they're starting an office pool at the paper, placing bets on when I'm going to get arrested, what I'm going to do to get myself arrested, yada yada, you name it. It makes me seethe, and I have to bite my tongue and force myself to keep walking to the stage and take my seat.
Jason sits next to me, they sort by rank now instead of last name, and I can see the frustration in his face, even though it's cool and set like mine. I've lived with him for four months, and you learn the ways of a mammal pretty quickly when they're mammals like him.
"Precinct One?" he asks, and I nod.
"Of course, Precinct One! Together forever, right? I mean," I say, blushing, as the ceremony starts, and it drags, but by the end, we all have our badges (and the crowd went suspiciously silent when they saw a certain quite literal black sheep make her way up to the podium; I think I heard a few anxious whispers and definitely a few boos), but I have my badge… and Jason and I are co-valedictorians of the class (and the whispers start again, saying that we must've cheated, how could Bellwether's daughter and a dam fox ever hope to succeed as cops, never mind the fact that we fought our way up here, and we'd never dare cheat, never…)... but we're there, and we're sure that we're going to be sent to Precinct One, that we're going to be partners on the force….
...and the second part is true, but what makes both of our jaws drop (and the crowd break into thunderous applause [I hate it, I hate them all] is that instead of Lionheart saying that we're going to Precinct One, City Center, we're going to…. Drumroll please…
Precinct Thirteen…
Which is in Happytown…
Oh, gods, life just got a whole hell of a lot worse...
