|
|
Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Aug 13, 2012 20:48:32 GMT -5
Having never owned an exotic pet before, Joshua had made sure to do some extensive research before he'd actually made to obtain his fennec fox from the breeder, and thus he understood what they were like as pets and how they were meant to be cared for. He had been recommended against allowing the animal to run wild in the house at night since he was nocturnal and would keep everyone awake with a desire to play. He'd felt wrong shutting his new pal up in a small cage, though, and so instead he had converted one of the spare rooms of the house into a rather spacey 'home' for the fennec at night. They could learn to adapt to the schedules of their owners but as Zerda (named after vulpes zerda, the scientific name for the fennec) was a new addition to the family he had not yet learned that night time was not everyone's time.
When he opened the door to this room upon waking up one weekend morning, however, he was immediately alarmed by the lack of excited yips or the sight of a tawny blur shooting across the room to greet him. Zerda was a friendly little guy and Josh enjoyed spending time with him when he still had some of the excess night energy to burn off. They usually hung out in the tennis court so that Zerda didn't need to be leashed all the time as Joshua tried to teach him to play fetch or respond to the sound of his name. There was no fennec in the room, however, and Joshua confirmed this with a quick look under all of the fox's favourite hiding spots.
"Shit," he cursed, running a hand through the back of his dark hair as he tried to figure out what could have happened or what he could do about it.
His thoughts went first to Bryce, his brother, remembering how the younger male had locked his blind cat in the ottoman upstairs for shits and giggles. It took him a moment to remember that Bryce was no longer an issue, that he was gone, that the house was safe. The Fire graduate breathed a sigh of relief, though it was temporary. If not his brother, how had the fennec gotten out? He went over to the window, which was closed. The screen was intact and there were no claw marks to suggest he'd tried to make an escape that way. Neither were any of the walls or floors damaged. He was about to give up and start searching the rest of the house when he saw his sister sneak guiltily into the room, glancing around as if she were hopeful about something. She then saw Joshua and froze, opening her mouth and then closing it again, clearly at a loss for words. He blinked at her, scowled. "I'm guessing you know where he's gotten off to, hm?"
... That was how, half an hour later, Joshua stood in the backyard with a few strips of meat, casting a gray gaze around the area. They'd found some tracks in the yard but it had been hard to follow them when they'd went into patches of grass. He wasn't trained in tracking, after all, he was simply a very irritated fennec owner who was contemplating sororicide. Annabel eventually ended up going back inside when Josh spotted the quick little fox far off in the nearest neighbours yard. He rolled his eyes, sent her back to the house and made his way over to the Ketill residence. He was hoping to tempt the fox back over to him with the meat but Zerda was either smarter than that, too stupid to notice, or intent on being a troll. It could have been either one. Whatever the case, he simply went deeper into the yard and Josh was forced to confront the residents of the house so that it would not be considered trespassing.
He went to the door and rang the bell, hoping that whoever answered was not overly concerned by the meat that he was holding. He could understand that it might look a little, erm, strange.
[why so cute .-.]
|
|
|
|
Post by KNOX CAESAR KETILL on Aug 31, 2012 18:18:14 GMT -5
-- WHO LET THE FOX OUT? && ! | [th]  [bg=000000][atrb=border,0,true] | tag ! taylor && josh ;; word count ! 608 ;;
setting ! knox’s front stoop ;; outfit ! jeans and a t-shirt ;; [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b] | He’d been far too happy when he’d handed off the cat to Raine again. The feline had been way too much of a stresser for his liking. He didn’t know nearly enough about cats to be very happy about having watched over it. He was only happy to see how happy Raine was knowing the cat was okay and relatively healthy. She had been so incredibly happy, her smile so bright. He loved her. He would never be in love with her, no, but he loved his best friend and probably always would. She was his confidant, his secret-keeper, his therapist. He only hoped he was as good to her as she was to him. He didn’t count himself quite the fair judge on that. He tried to be good to her. He tried to make her happy. That was why he had taken in the cat and taken care of it, even when the critter had escaped and he’d gone searching for it in the snow. Of course, that had been a while ago. It was odd how little stuff like that could stick with him. He liked lounging about in his room with the door open, not worrying that the cat could escape and run away and do some sort of damage in that sense. Why were animals so eager to run away? He knew they weren’t sentient enough to understand things properly, but he couldn’t stop himself from thinking anyway. Did they not understand they were safer at home, where it was warm and they had food?
He shook his head in mild frustration, heading downstairs and looking around the empty house cluelessly, trying to figure out what to do. It wasn’t quite boredom, but a sense of restlessness. He didn’t want to sit still for a few minutes. He wanted to get up and do something. When the doorbell rang, he supposed his wish had been answered, though guests were hardly his favorite distraction. He hoped it would just be the mail man asking him to sign something, though that was unlikely. Neither of his parents was likely to order something that would be mailed to them and signed for. Sure, sometimes they got mail from family, but that never needed to be signed for. Maybe it would be something else, something simple, someone he could greet, be sweet to, explain his parents weren’t home, and then close the door on. It was unlikely, but he could hope, right?
Knox was exceedingly confused when he opened his front door. He recognized his neighbor, of course, and he recognized what the other male was holding in his hand, but that didn’t mean he understood quite what was going on. He blinked at the other for a long minute. The fire was holding strips of meat. Surely he wasn’t offering them so they could grill together or something. He didn’t look like he wanted to slap Knox with them either, though he felt as though the other was a bit frustrated as a whole. His lips parted, daring a question that wouldn’t leave his lips. He cleared his throat, stepping aside in case his neighbor wished to enter. “Di-did you n-need help w-wi-with-with anything?” he asked finally, throwing another meaningful glance towards the meat in his neighbor’s hands. He wouldn’t necessarily consider them friends. They were civil enough. He was wonderfully ignorant of the new exotic pet the man might have, though he’d met his girlfriend recently and liked her. That meeting hadn’t spurred anything friendly either, though. Did Josh even know his neighbor and his girlfriend knew each other? |
[/color][/size][/font][bg=000000][atrb=align,justify][atrb=border,0,true][/td][/tr] [tr][td] notes ! it's fennec season  /shot ;; [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b][atrb=cellspacing,0,true,bTable][atrb=cellpadding,10,true][atrb=width,410,true,bTable][/td][/tr][/table][/center] |
|
|
|
Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Sept 2, 2012 4:07:06 GMT -5
As he'd grown up in the mansion next door, Joshua was accustomed to the faces and knew the names of the people that lived within the house upon whose door he'd just knocked. However, it had been a while since he'd spoken with any of them for more than a few seconds and so while he was not exactly the type to be nervous, he had to wonder how they were going to react to him standing on their doorstep with raw meat fresh from the butcher's held in his hands. He was also vegetarian, which made this fact all the more strange, though he was not sure if he'd ever shared this information with them. Why did my damn sister have to let him out? She'd said that she felt bad for the excitable animal and that she'd wanted to give him some fresh air but what she didn't understand was that he wasn't like the cats, he wouldn't go outside for a couple of hours and then trot happily back home. He respected that Annabel was only trying to be nice but he was now understanding why a lot of people complained incessantly about their younger siblings. She could be irritating at times. These thoughts and more tumbled around in his brain like the cycle of a washing machine, repeating over and over without any kind of relent or resolve. It was not until he heard the telltale sound of a door opening that he snapped out of it (with no visible reaction to show this) and turned his mental attentions on the person who had pulled open the door.
Knox. A good memory supplied him with the name of the other elemental instantly. More information leaked through a little more slowly, though still with credible rapidity. He was a couple years younger than Josh and an Earth, they'd known one another as children, and... yep, that was it, that was pretty much the extent of his familiarity. He offered the other guy a smile because this was Knox's porch he was standing on, his door he'd knocked on. "Oh, hey, Knox." The other graduate stepped aside and Joshua almost considered entering before he realised that it would be counter-productive to his goal. "No," he started, before he realised that he was answering, do you need to come inside for anything?, which was not actually what Knox had asked. God, this damned fox had him flustered. "I mean yeah, shit, yeah, Jesus, I'm all over the place this morning." Anger tended to send him into these edgier moods and his usual intelligence almost appeared diminished as he stumbled over the words for a moment. A confident person, the slip-up didn't really bother or embarrass Joshua and he recovered quickly. "I'm uh, looking for my pet, actually. I was wondering if you'd seen him." There was a brief feeling of concern for Knox's opinion on exotic pets. Oh, Josh didn't care if people judged him, he just hoped that Knox wasn't going to lead him in the wrong direction so that the fennec could be free or anything like that.
A bark caused him to glance back over his shoulder but he returned his attention to Knox almost instantly—it was too deep to match the yipping of the fennec and it sounded distant enough that it was probably from one of the mansions across the wide street. "He's a fennec, answers to 'Zerda', you know of them? They're desert foxes." He meant not to insult the Earth's intelligence but to ask an honest question. Some people really hadn't heard of the animals and so he had to take that into account. "He's not supposed to get outside until I've got him trained a bit better but my sister missed the memo or some shit." He rolled his eyes and scowled. He wasn't usually cruel to his sister and didn't talk ill of her in conversation but his anger could be a nasty thing. Taking a deep breath and then exhaling in an attempt to stay calm, he explained, "I saw him go into your yard, tried to get him back over with this," he held up the strips of meat, "but I have to hand it to him, he's pretty smart." Which he'd normally be proud of given that this was his pet and all but right now it was a mere inconvenience. He was talking a lot, more than usual, and that was likely due to the fact that he was high-strung at the moment. Damn anger issues. "Uh, anyway, I was going to ask if I could go and look for him? I don't think he'll cause you any real trouble but I'd prefer to get him back into the house and all." Zerda wasn't meant to be an outdoor, uh, fox.
|
|
|
|
Post by KNOX CAESAR KETILL on Sept 22, 2012 21:35:12 GMT -5
-- WHO LET THE FOX OUT? && ! | | [th][bg=000000][atrb=border,0,true] | tag ! taylor && josh ;; word count ! 665 ;;
setting ! knox’s front stoop ;; outfit ! jeans and a t-shirt ;; [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b] | Knox would eat both vegetables and meats. Of the latter, he preferred the lean sort with as much fat as possible cut off. He preferred healthier food to junk foods. He wasn’t big on candies or chips for the most part, preferring fruits for afternoon snacks. When offered soda, he usually declined and requested juice or plain water instead. He wasn’t huge on coffee either, but it wasn’t too bad and there were always worse options (like soda). The worst he’d encountered were energy drinks. They tasted like someone had mixed sugar and water together, except that there was way more sugar than water, however someone could manage that. They were disgusting, and the crashes they caused were usually exceptionally unpleasant. He usually felt worse afterward than he had before. So he stayed away from those, too. Tofu was worse, though. He shuddered just at the thought of having to eat it.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to eat the raw steaks Josh was holding either. Sure, maybe they’d taste ago if they were grilled or something, but he wasn’t good enough at cooking to even attempt it, and he doubted that was why Josh was standing in front of him now anyway. Likely, it was probably for some other purpose. He just had no clue what other purpose the steaks might have. Why would someone carry around two steaks in hand, let alone to their neighbor’s home? He looked a bit frazzled, too, which he was able to at least admit. That was good. He just wasn’t sure what was going on yet, which the explanation thankfully cleared up somewhat.
Though not entirely. Knox blinked at him in mild confusion. His pet had gotten out. That wasn’t very specific. What kind of pet was it? From the way he reacted to the bark, Knox guessed it was some sort of canine, though the glance could easily have been instinct to a loud noise, much like the earth’s jumping at loud noises. The bark had been fairly loud. He was pretty sure that it was the guard dog down the street, announcing the presence of a passer-by or a visitor or something else, maybe even just a leaf running across the concrete that had scared the animal. He’d learned from experience that the dog was much friendlier than its occupation would imply, and that it was twice as much a coward as he was. The dog tended to cower if anyone approached, barking more form fear than anything else, though he supposed it could have been worse. The dog could attack anyone and everyone who came into its view, in which case he didn’t doubt the police would have made the owners put it down ages ago. At least the dog wasn’t a threat or a danger to anyone else. It was just a nuisance.
He didn’t consider it a nuisance for Josh to ask him for help, and he was certainly open to it. A fennec fox was a pretty interesting pet, too, though as far as he remembered, foxes weren’t technically canines or something odd like that. They certainly looked like most canines did, though perhaps a bit smaller, their snouts more narrow. They were pretty animals, too, even if the fennec variety had ears large enough to make them appear rather comical. It shouldn’t be too hard to find nonetheless. A fox with ears that large should stand out even in his over-sized backyard, right? He could only hope so. He nodded to Josh, closed the door behind himself, and led him along the side of the house to the gate that would let them into the backyard. A glance over his shoulder would hopefully assure him that Josh was indeed following him, and this would allow him to ask, in turn, “How big is he?” If they were looking for a tiny little thing, that would be much more difficult than searching for animal that reached halfway up their thighs.
|
[/color][/size][/font][bg=000000][atrb=align,justify][atrb=border,0,true][/td][/tr] [tr][td] notes ! Knox is being ickily silent >>; and I’m sorry I haven’t been matching your counts D8 Maybe once they get a bit more active >< ;; [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b][atrb=cellspacing,0,true,bTable][atrb=cellpadding,10,true][atrb=width,410,true,bTable][/td][/tr][/table][/center] |
|
|
|
Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Sept 23, 2012 0:43:11 GMT -5
As he was normally a rather quiet person who got to the point in as few words as possible, the fact that Josh was outright babbling in his explanation to his neighbour was a sign of how stressed out he actually was. He might have come across as stoic and intimidating but just as he had a soft spot for children, he really cared about his animals. He didn't like the idea of Zerda getting lost and falling prey to whatever might be lurking in the Canadian wilderness. Surrounding Maple Hollow was nothing but miles and miles of trees, mountains and lakes. If anyone or anything got lost out there, it was almost guaranteed that they might not be able to find their way back. Thankfully there was no real reason to panic yet, as he had not yet lost track of his pet's location, but he was here because he wanted to make sure that it didn't happen in the future, either.
He was glad to be invited inside and treated like a normal, sane person at least. He'd been a bit concerned for what his neighbour might think of his sanity when he'd showed up holding steaks and looking stressed out but it seemed that Knox was still the quiet and understanding guy that Josh remembered. He'd never learned much about the Earth, really, for they could not be described as friends. They were both the sorts that kept to themselves and that didn't usually lead to a lot of socializing. Still, Josh knew his manners. Exhaling in relief when he realised that Knox intended to help him, he breathed, "Thanks." It wasn't like he could have predicted this a couple of days ago and sent Knox a helpful text (he didn't even have the guy's number!) about how he was soon going to need assistance in a fox hunt but even so.
He was asking the question about the size of his lost pet and Joshua instinctively paused to stoop and lower his hand off the ground. "He comes up to about here. Not that big. He's almost fully grown but they're not large animals, fennecs." Zerda was dwarfed by the two large canines that also called the Dale mansion home. Balto was a husky and Nietzsche a German Shepherd named after the philosopher. That said philosopher was German had not been coincidental. As they passed the gate and stepped into the spacious yard of the Ketill household, Joshua found himself wondering if Knox himself had any pets. Animals were a common thing in a lot of households and so he would not have been surprised but it definitely tended to make people a lot more sympathetic to the plights of other pet owners. Joshua was not psychic, of course, and so he could not tell right off the bat if Knox was someone that enjoyed the company of cats or dogs. Or less conventional pets like the fennec itself, of course.
He was not going to ask, mostly because he wasn't the world's nosiest person. Then a more concerning thought jumped to mind. What if Knox had animals that might go after poor Zerda for enroaching upon their territory. Gray eyes cast around the yard. I don't see any. "Got any pets of your own?" Hell, what did it matter? The question was personal but not incredibly invasive and so he figured it couldn't do any harm. Plus it would help to ease any worries he might have about Zerda hiding for longer than was necessary. "He's pretty good at hiding so he might be under something or behind it." At the moment it appeared that Josh and Knox were outfoxed by the sneaky canid, pun intended. "Yard's a pretty big place, though. Any idea where we might want to start?" Knox knew the place better than Joshua did, of course, and so he figured it would make sense to place the lead in his hands at least for the moment.
[it's totally cool! it's mostly ramble on my part anyway, haha!~]
|
|
|
|
Post by KNOX CAESAR KETILL on Sept 30, 2012 11:43:33 GMT -5
-- WHO LET THE FOX OUT? && ! | | [th][bg=000000][atrb=border,0,true] | tag ! taylor && josh ;; word count ! 886 ;;
setting ! knox’s front stoop ;; outfit ! jeans and a t-shirt ;; [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b] | It was rather unfortunate that Josh’s fox had to escape in Maple Hollow of all places. It was surrounded by wilderness, far removed from the nearest city, and while fennecs were normally wild animals, he doubted that their home was anything like this particular region of Canada. Weren’t they from desert lands, and their ears so large so they could release the excess heat? He thought that was the case. He was pretty sure that was actually the same case for some species of rabbit, aside from the hearing factor, but he could also be incredibly wrong—like those people who thought that the seasons were caused by the distance the Earth was from the sun. Oh, the ignorance of some really surprised him. Of course, most people could not be truly blamed for it—some simply didn’t have the opportunity of education—but in those cases, he preferred the explanation the Greeks had. Having a god kidnap a goddess and the latter’s mother (conveniently goddess of nature) being depressed made more sense than the distance from the sun, to him. It was also far more interesting.
Admittedly, the truths in life weren’t always interesting. They could be quite boring, in fact. It took dramatization, like in the soap operas Raine loved so much, for something ordinary to be extraordinary (though, in his opinion, the soap operas didn’t get anywhere near extraordinary except in level of ridiculousness). That was why images taken of the nebulae in the vast universe were colored to show gases—they were boring shades of black and white otherwise. Personally, Knox thought that black-and-white photography was beautiful in its simplicity (though colors definitely added a new depth to it). There was a sense of the basic, of roots, of beginnings in those colorless pictures that spoke to him. It was like the picture hadn’t yet decided what it wanted to do in the years it might survive. He didn’t know what he wanted to do either. Maybe he was just creating false connections so he would feel connected to something.
Man, he sounded lonely.
He was wrong, too. He was connected to things and to people and to places. He had his home. He had his family. He had a handful of friends. He had neighbors. Of course, he didn’t think it was likely that Josh would notice if he suddenly disappeared (the two spoke far too rarely for that), but he knew there were people who would. Friends. Teachers. His parents. Damn, he hoped his parents would notice. They didn’t forget he existed, at least. They still bothered him occasionally, though that was too harsh a word for them. His mother asked about his grades occasionally, if he’d finally decided what to do with his life. His dad asked when he would be applying for a job and whether this would be something in law or medicine where stress was guaranteed and money was generally only hoped for. There were poor lawyers out there, just like there were poor doctors (though, apparently, the latter was rarer). But it also wasn’t common for lawyers to be extremely rich. They had to be good to be rich. Doctors had to be important specialists to be rich. The stress, for him, just wasn’t worth it.
Helping out a friend was worth a bit of stress, though, especially considering that stress (in minute amounts) was good for people anyway. It kept them on their toes, focused, kept them responsible citizens. Stress was that little noise in your head that said something was wrong and needed to be changed. Like the fact that this particular pet had made a most disastrous escape. There he went, being over-dramatic. Raine’s soap operas were really getting to him.
Knox let his gaze rove over the yard. Josh’s was an understatement. The vast green lawn was bigger than he felt anybody’s needed to e unless they regularly hosted weddings and balls outside. Sure, his parents had parties, but they were rarely quite this large and even more infrequently were they outside. They were usually small dinner meetings over cocktails in the kitchen and living room. He’d never realized before that the garden actually posed a perfect escape, if he was inclined to stare at the sky some evening when it wasn’t too cloudy. The wonders of living in a small town in a sparsely populated region (oh, the rich always wanted to live as far from their neighbors as possible because they knew how nasty most people were) included a sky that wasn’t nearly as polluted as he supposed those in the city were. He didn’t know. He’d only ever left Maple Hollow for vacations with his parents, and those were usually to areas with as few people as possible, but ones that still managed to be popular tourist spots.
His teeth scratched across his tongue. Where to start? Where would be a good place for a fox that didn’t even go to their knees could hide. “Maybe… maybe he’s under the b-back porch-porch. D-does he like dark, cra-cramped areas?” He knew there was space under the wooded ledge, but he wasn’t sure if it would be something that would interest the fox. He didn’t know the animal like he supposed Josh would. |
[/color][/size][/font][bg=000000][atrb=align,justify][atrb=border,0,true][/td][/tr] [tr][td] notes ! His mind wandered so far away from the point >> ;; [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b][atrb=cellspacing,0,true,bTable][atrb=cellpadding,10,true][atrb=width,410,true,bTable][/td][/tr][/table][/center] |
|
|
|
Post by JOSHUA DONOVAN DALE on Oct 4, 2012 5:56:17 GMT -5
Knox was as quiet as Joshua remembered him from the rare times when they'd spoke, something that was welcomed by the Fire elemental. He wasn't the rambling sort either and it tired him when he was expected to babble endlessly about nothing at all when he was in the company of more talkative friends. Josh was the kind of guy that would talk if the situation called for it, would make conversation if he was around a friend, but who was perfectly capable of comfortable of sitting in complete silence for hours on end. It stemmed from being a loner and for spending a lot of time on his own, reading books to pass the time and studying to broaden his knowledge or perform better on tests. He'd occasionally mutter a curse at an inanimate object if it refused to function correctly for him, as was a habit of many people, but other than that he kept to himself and kept his thoughts to himself. Like-minded individuals, therefore, were a nice find in the chatterbox-filled world. And though he wondered whether Knox was simply quiet or whether it was shyness that strangled his tongue, he didn't ask. For another thing he was not was nosy.
Like the Earth elemental, Joshua's mansion had a lot more land than most people could get away with. The lake and part of the surrounding forest had been purchased so that Donovan would be able to utilize a boat house and keep a yacht bobbing on the water, a yacht which had been absent since his parents had left the place. Now the boat house was practically disused, for Josh couldn't swim and hated deep water. He couldn't see the appeal of sailing for leisure, as even large commercial ferries made him uncomfortable. It was easy to forget you were at sea once you were inside, they said, but what they didn't take into account was that a hydrophobic individual would not forget the subject of their fears so easily. So the boat-house was not used. Neither was the guest house, for the mansion itself had plenty of rooms if Josh and Nell wanted to have guests over. At least the girls made use of the indoor pool but it was another place that Joshua had promised himself never to touch. He wondered how much land in Knox's yard was never used, never paid attention. It certainly looked like they kept it up all nice and neat, it was practically against the law of being rich to let your house fall into a state of disrepair, but a neat room didn't always mean a room that was frequently used.
His gaze locked onto the back porch in question and he narrowed his eyes as if squinting might give him a quick glimpse of the sneaky fox that had slipped out from under his metaphorical grasp. "Their dens in the wild are probably dark and cramped," he mused, "and it would definitely make a good hiding place." The only problem Joshua could foresee if Zerda had chosen the porch was the fact that they might have trouble getting to him. He wished he could have asked Annabel to come and witness this so that she could see the consequences of her actions. Not that she'd take it as some important life lesson, that was probably too much to hope for, but so that she could understand the frustration her brother had toward her in that very moment. "It's probably a good idea to check." And so check he did, and he was beginning to doubt that they would have any luck when he saw the fox's eyes flash like bright beacons in the gloom. "I see him," he told Knox. "Any idea how we can get him out? I mean I have this—" He held up the meat in explanation, "—but I don't know if he'll fall for the bait. Is there any place good enough to corner him?" He seemed pretty content to stare at Joshua with his luminous eyes, mocking him from afar.
|
|
|
|
Post by KNOX CAESAR KETILL on Oct 27, 2012 1:28:40 GMT -5
-- WHO LET THE FOX OUT? && ! | | [th][bg=000000][atrb=border,0,true] | tag ! taylor && josh ;; word count ! 740 ;;
setting ! knox’s backyard ;; outfit ! jeans and a t-shirt ;; [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b] | Knox considered the porch for a minute. Though it felt even when one walked across it, the ground beneath it was uneven and sloped due to the natural formation of the earth. Rather than displace dirt from elsewhere on the back lawn, the construction workers had simply built supports. The area wasn’t likely to suffer water damage, and ti posed a good hiding spot for children anyway. That was probably why Zerda had made his way beneath it. That, and it would be cool under there, thanks tot he shade, and dark. Were fennec foxes nocturnal or diurnal? Josh would probably know, considering the fact that he had one as a pet, but Knox didn’t want to distract him from possible strategy as he studied the building. There was one curious spot on the side at which the ground met the porch that might be useful. There was a single section that opened up to the yard. If they could somehow corral him through that opening, they should be able to catch him. How to corral him though?
The earth elemental knelt beside and bowed to look under the porch, trying to find the light reflecting off the fox’s eyes to determine his position. Maybe he should just push the animal out with some Earth power. Why hadn’t that occurred to him before? He wanted to slap himself in the forehead for his stupidity. “I know what to do,” he muttered to the fire elemental, still immensely irritated with himself. It was probably why he hadn’t bothered with the stutter. As soon as he found the fox under the porch, he shoved the dirt up in walls around the fox, then pulled these walls in the direction of himself and Josh. The fox would probably be a bit frightened, but at least it’d be safe and home with its owner. As the boxed-in animal came out from under the porch, Knox brought the walls of dirt high enough that he hoped Zerda wouldn’t be jumping from them. How high could fennec foxes jump? Well, he’d be doing some research enough. He nodded to Josh to grab for the fox. “There you go,” he offered. Could be a worse thing. He was lucky there wasn’t any substantial amount of rock beneath the porch, or he wouldn’t have succeeded.
He took the meat from Josh’s hands, grimacing at the texture. It was too warm out for the meat to b any good condition much longer. Flies were probably already on their way to nibble on the fat that lined even the leanest of meats. “I… I’ll ca-carry th-this… over t-to your pla-place,” he offered, the stutter renewed now that he was distracted again. He was fine with meat. He ate it on a regular basis. The protein was good for him. He just didn’t like the slimy feeling of it beneath his hands. Of course, it had the most nutrients like this, but it also had the most bacteria, and he was just shuddering. He was definitely taking a shower after this encounter. Did Josh have anything additional planned? Knox’s expectation had been that the stress of even so short a search (he didn’t know how long the fire could have searched over at his own home before realizing the fox had escaped the house) could be quite hefty and require some recuperation, even if only for nerves. He wasn’t sure if he could provide that. Better the man’s fiance than his awkward little neighbor.
Starting to lead Josh to the gate again, he considered their upcoming union. He didn’t know how to react to it. He had no plans to get married anytime soon, but who was he to begrudge someone else the process? He didn’t know enough about their relationship to judge. He’d only met Nell relatively recently. He’d known Josh for quite a while, but they had never been close. He just didn’t think it was really his business to butt in and ask about how things were going. He was more a curious friend than a nosy neighbor, and he didn’t want to make the latter expression. He liked Nell. And he liked Josh. He didn’t want to alienate them by asking a bad question somehow. So he kept his mouth shut again, had tilting forward to watch his feet as they left a second set of prints in the still-wet grass. |
[/color][/size][/font][bg=000000][atrb=align,justify][atrb=border,0,true][/td][/tr] [tr][td] notes ! I know I powerplayed a little, but I hope you don’t mind since we were discussing ending this thread pretty soon anyway ^^; if you’re not cool with it, go ahead and let me know and I’ll change it ;; [cs=2][bg=060606][atrb=border,0,true,b][atrb=cellspacing,0,true,bTable][atrb=cellpadding,10,true][atrb=width,410,true,bTable][/td][/tr][/table][/center] |
|
/shot ;;
