The Fox, Red

042 - End of One Problem, Start of Another

Morning comes as the sunlight breaks through the windows. I go to sit up but I can't move. My eyes open to the bright light causing me to flinch. I am stuck in the chair. I'm pinned under the warmth of another body. She fell asleep on my legs, or so I thought. I was sitting up but now I'm leaning back with a body blanket. The fireplace is still lit as well.

She must have woken up, fed the fire, and somehow managed to get me to sit back without me waking up. I haven't slept well for almost a week. Coercing me in my unconscious state probably wasn't hard to do. She's leaned against me to my right with her face nuzzled into my arm covered by her coat.

"Hey..." I whisper into her ear trying to ease her awake. "Madam Odette..." She's completely unresponsive to my words. My right arm is pinned under her so I have to mess with her using my left. I tickle the tufts of fur near the inside of her ear. It twitches lightly slowly getting more violent the more I mess with it. Her breathing changes as she starts to wake up from the annoyance. Her body tenses as she stretches her legs. She groans as she begins to move about.

As her body shifted I feel a strange sensation in my arm she was laying on. It's numb from the lack of blood flow. As she shifts I can feel it begin to warm up and the needle feeling begins to crawl from my fingertips to my shoulder. The sleepy fox rolls over laying on my chest to rest her face against me, "Good morning, Red."

She's still not awake. Her words are slow and slurred while her body acts sluggishly. "Good morning, Madam Odette." I try to be as polite as I can be while clenching my paw into a fist trying to get the blood flowing again. Every movement from my shoulder on is just needles. Anything that touches it is a weird mix of numb and stinging pain. It's one of the most uncomfortable feelings. But if it was Madam Odette, I would bare it.

She does one last stretch before she moves to where she can stand up. Her paws hit the cold wood floor sending a shiver up her spine. "Is the floor always this cold?"

"Has been since winter rolled in."

"How do you deal with it?"

"Thick socks."

It may sound like a joke but that's what I do to deal with it when it's really bad. The cabin was well-built. There are no drafts when the wind blows but when the ground is frozen, so is the floor. Madam Odette tip-toes around the cabin, "If I spend any more time here I may have you install heated floors."

I can't tell if she's joking or not. If she isn't I would not mind it but something tells me it would be on me to pay for. Even so, wouldn't be opposed to it. I'm quickly learning that winter around here is rather harsh.

As I laze in the chair getting the feeling back into my arm, I hear Madam Odette walking around. I hear the click of her heels again as she gets her shoes back on. I stand up to meet her at the door with a polite smile. "Leaving so soon, Madam Odette?" Her head rolls as she looks at me, "It's already much later than when I prefer to begin my day."

"Ah yes, the day-to-day responsibilities of Madam Odette."

"You joke, but a lot of people rely on me to make a lot of decisions."

"I know, I know. You're a very important figure."

She bids me a good day as she heads into the breeze and snow-covered ground. The pathway is still cleared but the snow on the ground is still blinding in the sunlight. That freak storm buried almost everything in the yard. The yard team did an amazing job getting everything packed up for winter before it got really bad.

In the meantime, I'm under house arrest. Not by any court order but by Madam Odette's order. She wants to make sure that nothing can happen while the deal with Uncle Thomas is taken care of, I haven't heard anything yet but I was told that no news is good news.