Who do you belong to, kid?

Stubby fingers reached for him for the third time, making Fox step backward and pin his ears to the side of his head. He'd fallen asleep in a nice warm bit of sunshine, a rare occurrence on such an overcast day in late November.

I couldn't have been out for more than an hour and already people are bothering me.

The little girl paused when he stepped back, like she had the first two times he'd tried to distance himself from her, but her two year old brain clearly wasn't processing the situation. He couldn't blame her, she was a toddler. That didn't mean that he would just let her continuous poking and prodding go on. Toddlers learned from negative situations not to do said things again, and she was about to experience one of her first ones.

He pinned his ears tighter against his head as she awkwardly reached for him, stumbling forward just enough to draw Fox's final straw. Sure, he could have just up and left, but at the same time, he had been sleeping peacefully, not bothering anyone when the girl started grabbing at him. He shouldn't have to abandon his napping spot just because someone was not watching their child well enough.

Welcome to a new experience, kid.

He lifted his upper lip and growled, but unsurprisingly, the girl didn't even blink at the warning. Her little fingers wrapped around his nose as her other hand reached toward his right ear. Enough already. He gave one final, louder growl before jerking his head away from her grubby hands, then lunging forward. His bite wasn't nearly as hard or as damaging as he could have made it, but the lesson was learned quickly as his little teeth briefly cut through the skin on her right arm, then withdrew before her startled scream could get going.

The girl definitely had a pair of lungs on her, though. In seconds she was howling like he'd shredded her arm to pieces and wouldn't just require maybe a stitch or two and some antibiotic.

His ears flicked back, then forward at the sound of footsteps approaching quickly. Turning, he nonchalantly took a few steps back as the girl's mother dropped to her knees before her screaming daughter and picked her up. They were running off moments later with the woman holding a phone to her ear yelling about a rabid animal in the park.

Your daughter was the rabid one. She wouldn't stop trying to grab me, and I have no doubt that she'd have tried to bite me if I'd stayed still, too.

"Why did you do that?"

The deep, slightly annoyed voice drew Fox's attention up. Quite far up. The man towered over his small animal form, but it didn't bother him. He was faster, and as it were, it didn't seem like the man planned to act at that moment, anyway.

Definitely not daddy, then.

"I asked, why did you do that? You could have easily just walked away." He said as he squatted down a few feet away, staring at him as if he expected Fox to shift right there and explain himself.

You can easily walk away right now, too. Why even bother with the situation at all? Her and her distracted mother learned a lesson.

Flicking his whiskers, Fox turned and started walking away. He wanted to curl back up in his meager sunny spot, but he had no doubt that the woman who had just run off had called the police, or animal control... or both.

One way or the other, I still don't get to keep my spot.

"I know that you're not a real animal."

We've got a genius in the park.

Glancing over his shoulder, Fox flicked his white-tipped tail, then sat down with a yawn. He allowed his eyes to lazily wander up and down the man's form, not quite interested, but also not trusting enough to turn his back on him again just yet. His light brown eyes matched his own, and his hair was as dark as Fox's black markings. His cloth was nondescript, as if he was just on a run in some shorts and a tank top and had stopped when he'd heard the commotion.

Not a shifter, either.

"I don't care to get involved in these kinds of things normally, but you clearly and intentionally bit that girl when you could have made a hundred other decisions to avoid doing so."

And you clearly and intentionally walked over here to get involved in it, why? You aren't a hero and you aren't going to change the outcome.

With a haughty slight sneeze, Fox turned and bolted off into the underbrush of the nearby trees. He only ran for a few more feet before glancing out from beneath a large prickly bush. A police car pulled up at the curb a good distance away, shortly followed by an animal control van.

I was right. Both.

Looking back toward the tree where he'd just been, Fox's eyes widened. The man who had questioned him stood leaning against it, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his eyes staring, narrowed, right at where he hid within the bushes.

Fox glared right back at him, feeling his hackles rise. The man smirked at his reaction right before turning to greet the two officers that had approached. He offered them his hand as they discussed the report of a rabid dog in the area.

Fox. I'm a fox. It's even my name.

"I saw it, but it's not rabid." The man replied as he glanced briefly toward him before returning his attention to the officers. "It's just a punk who clearly has issues."

Punk!

He had half the mind to stomp out there and bite the man, but the catch-pole and gun either officer had were enough of a deterrent.

"Really? How childish to do something like that to a little kid." The police officer said, shaking his head in clear frustration.

All I did was react appropriately. It's not my fault the kid couldn't read the warnings and her mother wasn't paying attention.

"Did you see which way he went?" The animal control officer asked as him and the police officer looked around them briefly, clearly not seeing him in the bushes.

Fox backed up a little bit more, trying to keep himself hidden. He could outrun them easily, and he suspected that the policeman wouldn't shoot him outright, not for the nip he'd given the girl, but he wasn't going to dart unless he had to. He was still tired from a failed night of hunting rats, so his energy level wasn't exactly souring right then.

To Fox's surprise, the man pointed just off to the right of where he lie hidden. "He headed off into the forest just beyond that small field."

Both men thanked him before hurrying off across the field.

What the heck?

"We're going to talk now, kid."

A hand was suddenly gripping Fox's scruff and lifting him out of the bushes. He might not have reacted as badly if he hadn't been caught by surprise, but he hadn't been paying attention for the few moments it had taken the man to somehow sneak up on him. Without a second's hesitation, his instincts took over.

"You're really ligh—" The man's words were cut off by a grunt of pain as Fox sank all four sets of his claws into the man's wrist and lower arm. The action got him dropped back to the ground in an instant, and in another moment Fox had disappeared off into the underbrush, his heart hammering against his chest as he forced himself to run. He had never liked being touched, let alone picked up.

A few minutes later and he was finally on the other side of the field from the man. Panting heavily, he took a shaky step out from beneath a growth of vines at the base of a large tree when he felt something abruptly slip over his head, then tighten around his throat.

"Got him!" The animal control officer yelled victoriously.

Crap.

Fox tried to fight his way free, but the control stick easily let the officer drag him back across the field toward his awaiting van. The policeman joined them as they neared the tree where the altercation had taken place, but when Fox looked over toward the bushes where he'd run from the other man, he noticed that he'd vanished.

"Time to go, buddy. You're in serious trouble." The animal control officer said as he easily lifted Fox's minuscule weight up with the pole, since he clearly knew that he'd gladly attack him if he even tried to reach for him, then shoved him into one of the steel animal carrying cages in the van. A moment later the pole was removed through a small slot, then the door was shoved closed, plunging Fox into darkness.

Well, this turned out to be a great day. He thought as he slumped down onto the bottom of the cold cage and flicked his left ear twice. Just the best.