A Foxy Find [Work Thread]

Or so he would. This wasn’t quite the typical job for the pale man, but he was already here, so he would at the very least give it a shot. He understood why this happened, albeit it was still somewhat unorthodox. For you see, he was already acquainted with his hyena-like customer, as he had come around in the past to help out the guy’s daughter with some issues, which contributed to why he was their choice of person for this situation. It would seem that they had found a small fluffy creature hiding out inside one of their underground storage holes. It was clearly injured, but they were failing to coax it out, as it was likely scared of them, on top of the fact that there were some communication issues occurring as well. While Onyx wasn’t an animal worker by any stretch, his ability of perceiving emotions and quicker understanding seemed like something that could be of use here.

With a mental sigh, the horned man would crouch by the hole in question, trying to peer down the dark space. Alright. It wasn’t about to be an easy task, he could tell as much. The little one down there was obviously scared, and most likely thought that coming out would only get it hurt more. Doing the best he could, Onyx would find himself spending quite a long stretch of time attempting to speak to the creature, and get it to either come out, or at least crawl close enough for him to reach for it. For a long while, it didn’t necessarily go as well as planned, with him receiving mostly no answers, though he had at least figured out that the creature could speak in some way. It just wasn’t in the form of full sentences, and wasn’t always completely coherent. Nevertheless, he supposed it was at the very least a bit of help in figuring out how to go about the matter further.

Deciding that the typical coaxing tactics weren’t about to be very successful, he would eventually switch to a different kind of approach, simply trying to make the furred being be more at ease. Which did indeed bring about a quicker progress. “Say, little one, what is your name?” “…” For a short while it appeared that he would perhaps not get a response to that one, as light pink colored eyes watched him from the darkness within the ground, but surprisingly enough, the small creature chose to share after a moment, its soft voice floating through the air. “Nep…hri..te.” Nephrite, was it then? As curious as he was about the name, that would have to wait for later, as he still had a task to finish here. Frankly, he had lost the track of time after a certain point, so he couldn’t tell just how long it had taken him to accomplish what he had set out to do. Nevertheless, in time, the small creature did poke its nose out of the hole, showing its sleek black fur with a rather interesting white pattern going through it. The pale man had no idea what species it was, but it did at the very least look similar to some sort of a fox, albeit a good chunk smaller than the typical sneaky canine one would normally imagine.

The poor little one appeared to be limping on one of its hind legs, most likely having been bitten by a larger, predaceous animal or being based on a quick inspection of the injury. Thankfully however, as much as it was a problematic wound for day to day living, it wasn’t really a life threatening one. Though, it was certainly a question as to whether the little fox would be able to survive by itself now that it was already unable to properly run from most enemies that could happen to target it. And even less so if it happened to be one of those recent threats that have surfaced with the latest jump. Watching Nephrite sniff at his leg warily for a moment, Onyx would turn towards the guy who had called him here. “Did you decide what to do now?” Well, he had done what he had come here to do, technically speaking, but he had to wonder whether there was a more thought out plan behind this too. Surprisingly enough…or maybe not..there didn’t seem to be one. “Err, Iunno man. We can’t really keep it, and I’m pretty sure my younger kid is a bit too rowdy to have a small companion by him safely, ehehee…” Right. Should have figured. These guys were a bit too large to take care of a small being like that. For all one knew, they could accidentally squish the fox and make things even worse than they were at the moment. Brushing a couple specks of dirt off of his coat, the horned man would give a humorless sigh. “You really ought to think ahead a bit more, Rhaig. I’ve told you that before.” “Yeah, yeah, I know. But this was kinda random, ya know? Say, how ‘bout cha keep it yourself? Ya know, just for a while so it can heal up at least. I’ll give ya some money to contribute for that too.” Well…that was not quite what he had been expecting when he agreed to come over and help back then. Still, what was he really supposed to do? “I guess I don’t have a choice, do I know?” He didn’t mind animals all too much, so perhaps it wouldn’t be that huge of a deal in the end. Although, he hadn’t been planning to share his living space before. Blinding, that’s for sure.

Still, he would coax the small one to let him pick it up, soon wandering off with a new little friend dozing in his arms. He had to wonder whether his place was going to be safe after this though…

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