Have Yourself A Foxy Little Christmas

[Tessa Van Patten]

The brothel had been open five days already and business was promising, even with the day being Christmas and thus supposed to be sacred. Ha! Tessa anticipated a fair few well-to-do gentleman escaping to The Painted Lady from the suffocating holiday that called itself Christmas. She couldn't blame them wanting to escape from excitable children and nagging wives and for those without families, what better way to spend their evening than with tasteful company?

Of course, being only midday, business was not exactly bustling but she was confident there would be plenty of custom later on. Ordinarily, had circumstances been different, Tessa would have been in very good spirits but she wasn't. Her clothes didn't fit right, things hurt that usually didn't, she was exhausted to the point of acting like a zombie by the time she collapsed into bed and she couldn't transform. With Lorna she hadn't even been an animagus and hadn't had to consider it but now it was a cause for concern; what if she attempted to change and ended up in a situation similar to splinching? The prospect had kept her consistently human, not wanting to test out that theory unless she got solid proof it wouldn't happen.

It was perhaps this situation (and the fact that she hadn't gotten Lorna a single thing for Christmas) that gave her the idea. Lorna hadn't got a pet to take to Hogwarts and while Tessa didn't feel the girl needed indulging in every whim, she had immediately liked the idea once she had had it. What better than to get her daughter a little fox? It even came with such positives as being able to communicate with it once she could transform again and find out if Lorna had been up to mischief she wouldn't approve of.

Finding one had not been easy, not when she couldn't transform but having the mind of a fox meant she at least had an advantage over the average human. The particular specimen she had found was very young and surprisingly out in the open which lead Tessa to believe some misfortune had separated it from it's mother. The creature provoked a disturbing amount of maternal feeling towards it. Ick. The little furball had spent the night curled under her sheets, much to Tessa's annoyance, and now lay wrapped up in a cloth while Tessa went to find Lorna in her room. She gave a brief knock before she let herself in. "There you are!" she announced, realizing suddenly that presenting her with a Christmas gift so voluntarily was rather embarrassing and she might get the impression that her mother actually cared about her. It might be true but Tessa didn't care to let Lorna know that.

Table by Lola