He was startled awake by a raucous pounding at his door. Liadain snorted disdainfully and he heard her shifting to her feet, as if she was going to answer the door with her entire lack of opposable thumbs. He glanced at the tiny bit of the outside world he could see through the gap in his curtains and groaned.
Not even sunrise.
"Soi, go be drunk somewhere else," he shouted, stuffing his face against his pillow.
"I'm no' drunk! Git yer arse out here, Desmond Gray, else I'll eat all yer food." Her voice was muffled but clear, and, a rare occasion these days, not slurred. It surprised him enough that he rolled out of bed, though he wasn't happy about it. His apartment was cold, cut off as it was from the forges when he shut all the doors, and he swung a robe over his shoulders, cinching it tight before yanking on his lounging trousers. His beautiful doe stood impatiently by the door, her head only half-raised in ire. She was not a morning deer, and looked about ready to beat Soi to death with her hooves. He threw open the door--
--and promptly had a large, wriggling ball of fur shoved into his face.
"Take it. It fits ye," Soi said as she released the thing into his arms. He caught it on reflex but nearly dropped it as it squirmed around like a small child after an adventure in the sugar bin.
"Fits...me...Soi, what the hell is this?" he asked, holding it up. With a start, he found a pointed face staring back at him, one eye like whiskey, the other like milk. The creature opened its mouth and let out the most godawful racket that he wanted to hand it right back to her. It wriggled so much that he did drop it, though it landed on its feet and promptly started running around his apartment.
"A fox I think. Wee tiny demon it is," she said as she dropped herself into his best chair. Normally he wouldn't have cared, but he noticed the mud stains on her clothes, the sticks in her hair, and frowned fiercely.
"Why is there a fox in my house?" he asked, watching with a growing sense of alarm as the creature darted about his home quicker than he could keep track of. The thing was brown and a bit bedraggled, as if it had fallen on hard hunting times. Liadain, very much not happy with the little intruder in her territory, was following the fox around like a dog after a rabbit.
The entire scene was so ridiculous that he almost laughed.
Almost.
"I don't want it," he said firmly, crossing his arms and glaring at the woman picking her nails with a dagger on his chair.
"Sure ye do. It's got one eye, just like ye do!" The woman suddenly leapt from the chair and snatched the fox off the floor just before Liadain could bite the creature's fluffy tail. Soibhan stood beside him and held its face up to his. "At least together the two of ye have a full set o' peepers."
Unamused, Desmond stepped away and went to stoke the fire. "Funny, Soi. Bring the blind man a blind fox. Harr harr." When the fox made that ear-wrenching noise again, he nearly dropped the poker in the fire as he spun around.
There it sat, staring at him with those two very different eyes. Its mouth was open as it panted, teeth tiny and sharp. The extreme fluff of its tail jolted once, twice, almost like a cat's tail would before it pounced. It barked, the sound not like a dog at all, before dashing away to investigate the tinder box.
Oh, this small creature was going to cause him no end of trouble.
"Ye see? Yer in love already."
"I promise you I'm not," he muttered, replacing the poker and warming his hands. "First a hawk, now a fox. Are you planning on bringing the entire forest home with you, bit by bit?"
She pulled a stick from her hair and threw it at him. "What'll ye name her?"
"Her?" He scowled, watching it run back and forth. Liadain still doggedly followed the thing, her ears as far back as they could go in her annoyance. He couldn't be sure, but it looked as if she were purposefully trying to step on it. Her.
"Vex."
Soibhan's face wrinkled in distaste. "Tha's an awful name. Vex the vixen? Are ye really namin' the poor thing that?"
"You gave her to me, didn't you? I can name her what I want," he said with a sniff.
"Och, fine. I'm goin' te bed." She waved at Liadain before disappearing out the door and shutting it softly behind her. The look Liadain gave the woman as she departed could have peeled paint from the hull of a ship. The fox, Vex, was sneaking up behind the disgruntled doe in her moment of stillness and before he could stop it, the little thing scrabbled right between the doe's legs, sending the guardian leaping into the air with an enraged noise.
A pain started at his temples and he felt a muscle jump in his jaw.
It was going to be a long night.
FIN
