Zig Zag is Copyright © Max Black Rabbit. Sabrina, Darke Katt and R.C. are Copyright © Eric W. Schwartz. James Sheppard, Marvin Badger, Rhonda Badger, Yohni, Alexi, Michael, Esteban, Mia, Wanda Vixen and Tamara Rabbit are Copyright © James Bruner. Jean LeBrun, Francois LeBrun, Marie LeBrun, Gabrielle Ryder, Theodore Bigglesworth-Farthington von Salzburg the Third, Roxanne Bigglesworth-Farthington von Salzburg, Timothy Bigglesworth-Farthington von Salzburg, Malcolm Grazer, Doctor Lupin, Doctor Fox Jones, William Pongo, Captain Archibald, Peter Spermophilus, Miranda Spermophilus, Leo Leon, Vincent Leon, Abu-Yusuf, Sergeant Otetiani, Lieutenant Black, Julie Black, Miriam Redtail, Lizzy Doe, Emma Grey, Rowena Spyke, Jeremy Mustela, William White, Hannah Vulpes, Richard Terry, Hantaywee Twofeathers, Professor Nutkin, Professor Moose Nicholson, Professor Werner Schnauzer, Professor Erica Belge, Charles 'Mouse' Mombay, Ulf Søndergård, Signe Enoksen, Gertrud Katze, Rita Sanchez, Agent Grochy, Agent Manchilla, Paul Donkey, Harley Davidson (Not the motorcycle manufacturer, obviously) and Pethouse Magazine is © Joan Jacobsen, 2005.
Legal Notice: This story is Copyright © 2005 by Joan Jacobsen. This story may not be sold or used for commercial profit in any form or fashion. This story may not be modified in any way. This story may not be posted on a mirror site or any other Internet site without the written permission of the author. This story may not be distributed on print, magnetic, electrical or optical mediums.
Permission to use characters that are Copyright other individuals was obtained prior to the appearance of said characters.
The author, Joan Jacobsen, hereby asserts moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is an independent work of fiction with no connection whatsoever to Max Black Rabbit, Eric W. Schwartz, E.S. Productions or James Bruner and is in no way meant to imply any connection with Max Black Rabbit, Eric W. Schwartz, E.S. Productions, or James Bruner. This story contains characters created by Max Black Rabbit, Eric W. Schwartz, James Bruner, Tigermark and Silver Coyote. Events and characters occurring in this story should not be considered part of the storylines for either 'Zig Zag', 'Sabrina Online' or 'Sabrina Online - The Story'.
In fact, as far as 'Zig Zag', 'Sabrina Online', 'Sabrina Online - The Story' and 'Zig Zag the Story' are concerned, this story does not exist. The artists disavow any knowledge of and do not officially sanction the events in this story.
Another day in paradise...
Gabrielle put her hooves up on the opposite chair and reached for her drink. It was a tall thing, in a frosted glass...tasting a bit like coconut and vanilla, and not at all like alcohol. The kind of drink teenage girls liked. Very sweet, and cleverly disguised so as to seem like anything but an alcoholic drink.
She wouldn't normally be drinking that kind of thing. But she hadn't paid for it herself. Yohni looked at her own drink, incredulously. Clearly, the mongoose had similar thoughts about the contents of her glass.
Overhead, a strobe light was flashing rapidly and a heavy, pounding rhythm filled the air. Twenty feet away, several hundred furs were crammed onto a dance floor.
Yohni sent Gabrielle a telling look. The filly could only nod.
They had been in Berlin for just over a week, and it hadn't been what either of them had expected. Truth be told, Gabrielle had to admit to herself that they had planned on going to Berlin to party. To enjoy life. But it wasn't quite the same after Copenhagen.
After 9/11.
It wasn't that they hadn't tried. They certainly had. They had made it a priority to visit museums and all the various important sights of the city. It had been both interesting and worthwhile. The problem wasn't Berlin. The problem was their reason for coming.
Gabrielle looked at her drink again and sighed. A young German had bought them a drink, after coming on to the both of them for half an hour. At least he could've started by buying them one. He'd left when he found out he didn't stand a chance. He hadn't even looked dejected. Apparently, he had other prospects in his sights immediately.
Mostly, Gabrielle wanted to leave as well.
Yohni emptied her drink and jabbed a thumb at the door, looking at her girlfriend. The filly just nodded. She was ready to get out of there too.
A moment later, they were both breathing the crisp night air.
Yohni shook her head and sighed. "That wasn't exactly what we had expected, I think."
"I'd say so. Somehow, loud parties seem to be identical all over the world. And German techno isn't that good."
The mongoose nodded and took Gabrielle's paw, giving it a squeeze. "What say you we find something else to do?"
"Sure...like what?"
"Paris?"
Gabrielle laughed. She had to admit she'd given it some thought, herself. "A few more days in Berlin and we'll go to Paris. But you know...I'm thinking maybe we should cut the vacation down some..."
"You mean go home earlier than planned?" Yohni asked. She didn't sound like she had a problem with the idea.
"Frankly, yes. I mean, we planned for seven weeks and it could've been great but...the world isn't the same as it was when we left Ohio. I'm thinking if we take two or three more days here, then a week or eight days in Paris and the same in Rome...and then back home?" the bronco suggested.
"I kinda like that idea. It also leaves us the option of staying longer in any of those two places if we really like it there," Yohni answered and started walking.
Gabrielle followed. She had to, since her paw was still being held. It was a nice fall evening in Berlin. The city was beautiful and the equine couldn't help feeling that she would've loved it if things had been different. The difference, she realized, between how she felt in Berlin and how she'd felt in Copenhagen...was Ulf and Signe. They didn't know anyone in Berlin. It wasn't that the Germans weren't nice. They certainly were. Quite a few of them had also recognized the two femmes. They'd signed quite a number of autographs while there. Mostly for males, admittedly.
Maybe Paris would be different.
###
Marvin closed the door to the editing room behind him and smiled. The furs in there were hard at work already. Darke nearly bumped into him and uttered a string of expletives on the way further down the hallway.
"Glad to see you too, Darke," the badger grinned and turned in the other direction.
He was in a good mood. For the first time since...the attacks. But he didn't want to think about those days. There was a lot of work to be done and he didn't have time to worry. Nor did he want to.
Turning a corner, he nodded to Sabrina. The skunk was sitting behind her desk, apparently working on a cover-idea for the movie currently going through the cutting room. She looked...tired. Marvin stopped and canted his head slightly.
"Is something wrong, Sabrina?" he asked, leaning against the desk
The skunk looked up and adjusted her glasses. "Hey Marvin...no, no everything is fine."
"You sure? You look like someone ate your goldfish..."
"Well..."
Marvin nodded, encouragingly. Everyone at the studio liked Sabrina. She'd been there several years and she'd always done good work. Plus her penchant for collecting old Transformers-toys gave the rest of the furs there something to tease her about. Never viciously, though.
"Go on," he said, sitting on the edge of the table.
Sabrina shrugged and turned in her revolving office chair, until she faced the badger. "It's just...I'm having one of those days where I ask myself how I ended up making covers for a porn studio..."
"I don't know how, Sabrina, but I know we're all happy you did," Marvin said, honestly.
"Thank you. Still...I mean..." Sabrina started and gesticulated as if she was trying to find words. "Yeah, you're right. You know I like all of you...when you're being decent."
"Whaaat? Me? I'm always decent!" Marvin protested. "My wife would kill me if I wasn't..."
"I'm not talking about you, Marv..."
"Oh, so you don't like me after all? Now I'm hurt."
Sabrina giggled. "Oh stop it, drama-queen. You're not fooling anyone."
"Hah, got you to smile!" Marvin said and winked, getting off the table. "Is Zig Zag in her office?"
"Nope..." the voice of Zig Zag said from behind the badger. "She's not."
Marvin felt like he was going to jump through the roof. His heart catapulted into his throat and he gasped. "Good GOD, don't sneak up on me like that..."
Zig Zag blinked, momentarily stumped. "Whoa...easy there, Marv...you're not normally that jumpy. Sorry I startled you."
Sabrina nodded, smiling a bit. "It's okay...it's just Zig Zag..."
"JUST Zig Zag??" the striped skunk chuckled. "Good grief...that's new. I'm relegated to being just Zig Zag..."
Marvin chuckled and managed to get his breathing back to normal. "Sorry about that. I guess I'm still a bit jumpy, like you said..."
"Nothing to apologize for," Zig Zag said and put a comforting paw on her friend's shoulder. "What did you need me for?"
Marvin rubbed his face and took a deep breath. Truth was...he had been jumpy for several weeks. It was completely uncharacteristic for him. He was normally the solid backbone of the studio, the one nothing would shake. What was really unpleasant was that he realized it, himself...and he was starting to feel guilty.
And he'd felt so good until a moment earlier.
He exhaled...and turned to look at Zig Zag. "Well, I was just wondering...you've gotten several phone calls the last few weeks, and you always come back smiling enigmatically..."
Zig Zag put a smile on her face. "Like this?" she asked.
"Yeah...like that, and don't think you're getting away without telling me what's going on, this time."
"Would I do such a thing?"
Sabrina groaned and put a paw in front of her eyes. "Zig Zag, stop posing like that. You can't look innocent even if you try."
"Drat," Zig Zag grinned and snapped her fingers.
"Well, you're already trying to wiggle out of it by playing cute with us..." Marvin pointed out and crossed his arms over his chest. "Not this time..."
Zig Zag mumbled something to herself about nosy employees. Clearly, it wasn't going to be possible for her to postpone it any longer. She had wanted to, until she had everyone together...including Yohni and Gabrielle, but she'd just have to wait and tell them later.
"Well...I've got an idea...for a movie. I've been asking around...you know, costume designers and so on..." she said.
"What about Lillian?" Marvin asked. Lillian Bishop had been the regular costume designer for ZZ Studios almost since Zig Zag founded the place.
"I am not going to ask Lillian to do as many costumes as we need for this, all on her own. And there are props that she can't make..." the skunk explained, shrugging. "She'll do as many as she can manage, for certain..."
Sabrina smiled crookedly. "I smell another big movie coming up...does this mean I get paid overtime when you need me to do web-designs and so on?"
"Probably," Zig Zag answered, smiling. "Why...you need extra money for Christmas or something?"
"Well it never hurts, does it?" the bespectacled femme answered and rotated back to face her screen.
Zig Zag laughed and shook her head. "I suppose it doesn't..."
Marvin smiled. He nodded to his boss and turned, heading back towards the editing room. A new movie...and a big one. It was still a way off, if Zig Zag hadn't told him about it yet. But it was something to look forward to.
Definitely something to look forward to.
###
The xerox machine was giving Lizzy trouble. It was one of those ultra high tech versions that would send your fax-message, brew a pot of coffee and play you a merry little jingle while you waited. Unfortunately, xerox machines that complicated were usually very hard to operate, and Lizzy had absolutely no idea how to actually get the photocopies she needed.
She grumbled and tried pushing a new button. The machine's display told her she had now changed paper format. The doe groaned and slammed her head against the top of the xerox machine.
"What's wrong?" a voice asked behind her.
Lizzy looked up and turned her head. Behind her was one of her new colleagues...one of several female felines. She had to get to know the names of everyone, and fast. She still had problems with it. There were a few she felt sure of the names of, but the problem at the consulate was, that there was a lot of coming and going. In a week or so, she'd probably be more comfortable with it all.
"It's just this damned machine," she said. "I need 20 copies of the meeting minutes, and so far I've managed to change paper format, the shading, get it to shut down and turn back on...but I still don't have my photocopies..."
"Don't worry...that machine was probably designed in the smelliest region of Hell," the feline behind her said. "Let me help you..."
"Thank you...I appreciate it." Lizzy said and stepped aside.
The feline took a look at the settings and tapped a few buttons. "I'm just resetting it's shading and so on. Look here. If you need to make copies you tap this...then choose this...and how many copies you need...then this...and then you hit the green button."
"Six commands, for photocopies..." Lizzy chuckled and shook her head. "Okay, I think I can remember that."
"No problem. Look, we haven't gotten introduced properly yet. My name is Gertrud Katze," the feline said and smiled, extending a paw.
Lizzy took the offered paw and shook it. Her colleague was a Bombay in her late thirties...smiling and with little wrinkles at the corner of her eyes. Hair done in a page-boy style.
"Thank you," she answered, "I'm Lizzy Doe. I take it you're German?"
"Well, originally, yes. I've lived in the United States for twenty two years so...well over half of my life, really."
"Well, you have absolutely no accent, so I would have guessed you'd stayed here a long time..." Lizzy said and smiled.
Gertrud chuckled and nodded, letting go of Lizzy's paw again. "Yeah...we do tend to keep that Arnold Schwarzenegger accent of ours for years. It's just that the two languages are so different in sound. Anyway...we have to make you feel properly welcome here. What would you say if I got some of the other femmes from the office together, and we go out for a few drinks this weekend?"
"Actually, I'd like that a lot. My boyfriend is off on a fishing trip with his best friend, come the weekend, so...some drinks and some intelligent company would be great."
"It's a deal then. I'll let you know in a day or two, all right?"
Lizzy beamed. "Sure. Mind if I ask...what do you do around the office?"
"Oh me? I'm just another glorified secretary," Gertrud said and chuckled. "It's okay. They call it all kinds of fancy things these days. Even 'Personal Assistant' has become politically incorrect."
"I wonder if that's what I'll do then," Lizzy said, slightly dejected. She did need the job but she had hoped for more than taking minutes and making coffee.
"I doubt you'll be underutilized like that, Lizzy. You've got a degree. It counts for something, you know. But it's likely that you will have to get into how things are done here before you get any really major assignments. The consul is not a bad fur. She's quite friendly, in her own way," Gertrud said and took the finished photocopies from the tray, giving them to Lizzy.
The doe took them and smiled gratefully. "I haven't actually met her yet. What's she like?"
Gertrud winked. "You'll get all those details when we're all sufficiently inebriated this weekend, I think."
Lizzy laughed and nodded. "That sounds like a plan."
Gertrud headed back into the office. Lizzy looked at the xerox machine and wagged a finger at it. She knew how to beat it, now. Tugging the paperwork under her right arm, she headed back to her seat. She had to run through the minutes before distributing them.
###
Emma sat down at her kitchen table. The swelling on her face had finally gone down. Needless to say, she hadn't been able to go to her job interview the past week, in that condition. She'd called and told them that she'd found other employment.
It had left her choking with tears when she hung up. It was a job she would've really liked. In front of her stood a mug. She'd made herself a pot of coffee, but she couldn't concentrate on picking it up and pouring herself something to drink. Her paws were shaking and she was afraid.
Jeremy might come by later.
After that last incident...she knew it was over. But she didn't know how to tell him. She was afraid he'd get angry again. Correction: she knew he would get angry. He'd knocked her unconscious last time. He'd only done that a few times but...once was once too many. She sighed and got up...turning on the radio and picking up an apple. One song was just ending. Another started.
The mink stopped and stared at the radio.
Suzanne Vega's 'Luka' streamed from the speakers.
She put the apple down again, with a shaking paw. Suddenly, eating didn't seem like a terribly good idea. Tears began running down her cheeks. Running into the living room, she opened a drawer in the desk where she kept her computer. The bottom drawer. It stuck a little.
She looked at the content and sighed. It was something she didn't like owning.
Picking it up, she turned it over in her paws. She'd never used it. She only owned it because her parents had insisted on it.
"It's dangerous in the big city," her father had said. "A young femme needs protection!"
She was holding her Smith & Wesson .357 in her paws. It wasn't loaded. It never had been.
The idea of owning a revolver had turned her stomach but her father had been absolutely insistent that she had it in the house. He'd bought it, helped her get registered and even taught her how to shoot. He had several guns...including one of the same make. She'd learned how to fire it, while waiting for the paperwork to be done on her own.
She had sworn never to use it. Deep down, she didn't think Jeremy would make it necessary to use it...but it was scaring her that she had even had the thought in the first place.
Quickly putting it back in the drawer, she went back to the kitchen to sit back down with her coffee.
But the fear wouldn't go away.
She put her head in her paws...and wept.
###
Malcolm grinned widely. Tonight was the night. First the attacks had postponed the big premiere...then two of the dancers had come down with a serious stomach infection. Everything had seemed to jinx the premiere. It was as if the Gods of Dancing didn't want it to take place.
But finally, it would happen.
He was ready!
In fact, he'd never been more ready in his entire life.
Tonight, he'd dance as if his life depended on it. Dance like the stage was on fire beneath his hooves. He'd make everyone in the audience forget the ugliness of the world outside.
He was sitting in his dressing room. Timothy had just left. The bronco would be there in the audience too. There were several hours until the curtain rose but there were last second rehearsals to be taken care of. Brushing up on a few steps.
There was a knock on his door and he turned around in his seat. "Come in."
The door opened. His boss smiled at him from the doorway. She was a graceful panther in her early fifties. She'd been a great dancer in her youth. One of the best on the alternative scene, which had just been emerging then. Malcolm had enough sense of aesthetics to know she was a beautiful femme, even at her age.
"Are you ready for tonight?" she asked and leaned on the frame of the door.
"Oh, about as ready as I'll ever be. I'll go out there and knock them dead..." Malcolm said and winked.
Another voice from beyond the doorway chuckled. "That's a dangerous expression, Mr. Grazer...especially around furs like me."
Malcolm froze up for a brief second. He knew that voice.
"Agent Manchilla..." he said and cleared his throat. "What can I do for you?"
"Well...you can give my wife and myself a fantastic experience up there on stage..." the leopard said and came into view. He was smiling.
"You're...not here to bring me in?" Malcolm asked.
"No, Malcolm...he's here to watch the show. But he did insist on seeing you and you know, when someone flashes an FBI badge under my nose, I tend to acquiesce and do as I'm told," the panther chuckled.
The Arabian drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly, grinning again. "Damned you had me there for a moment..."
Agent Manchilla smiled a bit. "Well, I have two reasons for being here. I wanted to tell you in person that Agent Grochy is facing disciplinary action for the cigarette stunt."
"You don't sound too sad?" Malcolm asked. "I thought you two were partners."
"We are, Mr. Grazer...but I serve the law before anything else. Anyway, he'd managed to convince me that the whole dancer-thing was a smokescreen. So I decided I'd come and find out for myself," the leopard said. "Anyway, I'll let you get back to preparing. Somehow, I think Tchaikovsky would find it hard to recognize his creation, but I have no doubt it'll be great. Go get'em, Siegfried..."
With that, he left.
Malcolm leaned back in his chair and wagged a finger at his boss. "You know, Rita, you could've found other ways...GENTLER ways...to get my adrenalin pumping before tonight..." he said, trying to keep a stern face.
The panther looked completely innocent, pointing a finger at herself. "Who me? Whatever are you talking about. I'm perfectly innocent. Besides, I just saw your boyfriend leave the wardrobe. I thought you might need something to bring you back down to Earth."
"If you weren't already wearing your best suit for tonight, I'd be throwing my makeup box at you, you wicked feline," Malcolm laughed. "Don't worry. I'm ready. I promise...you won't regret giving me this part."
"I know I won't, Malcolm," Rita said and winked, pushing off the door frame. "The others are waiting for you."
"It's okay, Rita...'An artist always arrives late', remember?" Malcolm said and turned back to the mirror, getting back to work on his mane.
Rita laughed to herself and nodded, heading back out to the rest of the troupe. Malcolm was a great dancer...and he hadn't let it go to his head. That was rare. She knew only too well why he hadn't made it to absolute stardom at the New York City Ballet...he didn't have that cutthroat mentality he'd need in that place. But he was perfect for her troupe.
###
Late afternoon classes were a bother. Jean had never liked them when she was a student and she'd learned to dislike them just as intensely as a teacher. The students were 'brain fried' at that time. An expression which, as far as she knew, was still in use. After morning lectures, they were simply too tired to pay proper attention. That wasn't really her problem, she knew that. It was her job to teach and it was up to the students themselves if they wanted to listen. But she also knew that what she taught was hard enough to understand without the listeners being tired.
She looked around the class room at the many empty expressions and sighed.
"You're tired, aren't you?" she asked, in a general way.
She got a lot of grunts and nods back in confirmation.
"Well, I'm sorry the lecture was moved to the afternoon, but tired or not, we've got to deal with this. Today's lesson...the difference between 'remains' and 'descriptions'. Can someone here tell me what we define as a 'remain'?" Jean asked and flicked the chalk for the blackboard over in her paw.
A couple of paws went up. Reluctantly, mostly.
"Hantaywee...let's hear it," Jean continued and motioned for the Native American.
"That's...a bit tricky. But I believe 'remains' would be something like an original document. The original Declaration of Independence for instance."
"Good example," Jean said and nodded. "I'm sure you can all come up with similar examples. What's a description then? Yeah...you in the back."
A beaver with an impressive mustache cleared his throat and spoke up. "That's when someone describes what has happened to someone else, but when it is already in the past, Ms. LeBrun. It's not ongoing anymore."
"Indeed. That's very important. If I sat down and wrote what happened to me when I was a student at this very educational facility, it'd be a 'description', because it's already happened. It's in the past. But if I were to show you my diploma, it's 'remains'. So...what source would you place the most value on...? And which one would be more commonplace?"
A few paws went up again. Richard Terry's amongst them, to Jean's pleasure. She nodded to the canid and smiled.
"Well, 'descriptions' would be more commonplace, but they'd be a lot more unreliable. You wouldn't be able to guarantee if they were completely truthful..."
"Very good, Mr. Terry, you win a cookie," Jean grinned and sat on the edge of her table. "That's Critical Thinking 1.01, everyone. Please write down what Mr. Terry just told us. The 'description' is the more commonly found source...but the least reliable one. If you have both 'remains' and 'descriptions', you're fortunate, but often...you will only have the description. How do you make sure you have the right information then?"
Nobody put up their paws to that one. Jean chuckled. It really was late afternoon.
"I'll let you get off easy today," she said. "The way you make sure...is by researching several independent descriptions to look for consistency. If several descriptions, independent of one another, corroborates a story, it adds to the scientific believability."
A few students groaned at the prospect. One of them shook his head and looked up.
"You make history sound like it's a matter of reading the same material from 20 different authors to make sure they're telling the truth..." he said.
Jean smiled crookedly. "You won't hear me argue that point. Often, that is exactly what we have to do. We don't read history as historians...we read sources and then we create history."
The same student groaned again and slammed his forehead into the table. Jean remembered more or less the same thing happening back when she had been a student herself. There was always someone who didn't understand that principle until it was fed to them with a spoon.
"Since you're all clearly tired, I'll assign you some homework for next time and then I'll let you go. I want you to scour the library. Find five examples of corroborated historical descriptions, and five examples of uncorroborated ones. I want the corroborated ones to be supported by at least two other sources, in each case. You have until next week. It shouldn't take you long and if you're in doubt, remember my door is open."
The students looked relieved to get off relatively easily. Jean knew it wasn't quite the case. She had given them a very vague assignment description. For the brighter students, that'd make the job easier. For the slower ones, it'd be a nightmare. It was one of those tasks she didn't like handing out, but her job included such things. She felt pretty sure the groaning group wouldn't like that kind of assignment.
The students left the classroom.
Jean sat down and looked at the empty room. For a moment, she could almost hear the voices of her own classmates. She could almost see Emma, paw in the air...
Emma.
She sighed and ran a paw through her hair.
"Is something wrong, Ms. LeBrun..."
Hantaywee's voice came from the door and Jean turned her head to look that way. The Sioux smiled reassuringly.
"I don't want to bother you if it's something you don't want to talk about..."
Jean shook her head. "It's okay...it's just something...well...I can't really talk about it."
Hantaywee entered the room again. "I just forgot my bag. You know...if you ever need someone to talk to..."
The vixen smiled. "It's nice of you..."
"I understand..." Hantaywee said with a crooked smile. "You have to keep a kind of distance between yourself and the students. Right?"
"That's part of it...but it's also something that's hard to talk to others about," Jean said and shrugged, apologetically.
Hantaywee smiled and picked up her bag. She turned and looked at the vixen behind the desk. "You know...maybe you should apply a little critical thinking to yourself, Ms. LeBrun..."
Jean looked up and canted her head. "How do you mean?"
"Maybe you need to stop trying to solve everyone else's problems...without wanting to share your own."
The statement came without any malice of any kind. Hantaywee's voice was considerate, even slightly concerned. Jean felt stumped for a moment...her mouth opening and closing yet no sound coming out.
Finally, the vixen cleared her throat and nodded. "Maybe you're right..." she finally said.
Hantaywee winked. "I think I'm a pretty decent judge of character, Ms. LeBrun...and you try so hard to seem strong and self assured that you're probably managing to fool yourself too."
Jean nodded, very slowly. There was some truth in that. "You know...Hantaywee...for years...years...all my friends would see of me would be when I needed someone to whine to. Someone to complain about the unfairness of life to. I'd rant and rave for hours on end about how the world was a horrible and gruesome place, designed solely to annoy and upset me. I was...a pest...and a bad friend. I got better. I got over it. I got help. But maybe I've got a bit of a tendency to fall into the opposite ditch..."
"You mean nowadays you don't share your problems with anyone because you don't want to be a bother? I know other furs like that..."
Jean nodded. "What do you say to them?"
"I tell them that I'd be a very bad friend if I couldn't lend a shoulder when they felt bad...and that I'd be an equally bad friend if I didn't share my feelings when I felt bad, as well as when I felt good."
Jean nodded and sighed. "You know what? I don't think you may be right. I know you are..." she said and ran a paw through her hair. "Thank you. I'll take your advice...and talk to someone..."
Hantaywee smiled and headed out of the room. "You're welcome..."
The vixen leaned back in her seat again and crossed her legs. Maybe it was time to talk to some old friends...