So I had a family of pink squishy humans. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised by them, even though it had been only a few days. Some humans can take years to bond closely, but others can bond with shocking speed. Mere days, really.

However the dismaying thing was my own sense of rapid bonding. Dlamisa are not exactly solitary creatures, we’re actually more social than a great many species, but still… How did it come this far, this fast? I wasn’t sure.

I tried to focus on what I could, I was quiet on the ride home, trying to remember everything. The white hot fury when I saw Wolfbeard’s hand on Fauve’s arm, watching her try to fling it off… his insistent hold…

A true dlamisa of science would have watched, would have only observed, would not have interfered. It’s basic professionalism for observers to do nothing to interfere with the subject of their study.

But I thought of how she listened to me talk about my home, and throwing that blasted ball, how much fun I’d had, her kindness and consideration in preparing me something to eat… my predatory, primal instincts, things I, like all dlamisa, considered long buried and suppressed by modern conventions… brought out in one single moment by one single gesture toward one single human.

My human.

Mine.

By some impossible measure, in some unthinkable way, in an impossibly short span of time, they’d become mine.

I should have felt bad about biting Wolfbeard. I should have felt bad about the way my claws extended out of my fingers and ripped into his flesh. I should have felt awful about his wailing. He is after all, a sentient being, and harming sentient beings is not something that should be lightly done.

But I didn’t.

I couldn’t.

I did regret that he tasted so utterly foul. I did regret that I had inconvenienced William and cost him money, and I worried about what he might have to say about that when the car slowed to a stop in front of his house.

“Fauve, go inside.” He said to his daughter. She was in the front seat beside him while I rode in the back, and from where I sat behind Fauve I could see between the seats that his knuckles were still white from the tension of holding hands clenched on the steering wheel.

“But dad-” Fauve snapped her head to the left toward her father, protest still brewing past her quivering lip.

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“Now, Fauve. I just need to talk to Bailey for a few minutes.” He said and gave her a weak smile that was barely there at all. She looked back over her shoulder toward me, then back to her father, then exited the car without another word.

The door slammed shut and I felt myself jump a little, I lowered my head and would have curled my tail if I could have. “Sorry, Mr. Walker. I didn’t mean to cause all that trouble… I hope it wasn’t too expensive, I’ll go through whatever process you need me to in order to make sure you get your money back and-”

I stopped speaking.

I stopped speaking because I saw his eyes reflected in the rear view mirror, and they were thick pools of tears.

“Thank god you were there, Bailey…” He said it in a rough voice that was a mix of haunted and relieved, “Don’t apologize! Don’t you dare apologize! I love my daughter, but she’s a little reckless. Her mother and I taught her never to be shy and to speak her mind, not to be afraid of anything… but it also has made her a little heedless sometimes. I guess a parent can’t do everything right, but I tried. We both did, we tried really hard and then we weren’t there when she was in danger… what if he’d taken her somewhere… who knows what would have happened? Thank god you were there. Don’t think about the cost of bail, I don’t give a damn. I’ll get the best lawyer I can for you if it comes down to that. I’ll complain to the consulate, you might have some kind of immunity. I’ll write to our senator… don’t worry about a damn thing. There’s no way the Terran Imperium government is going to make a fight over one creepy, perverted neckbeard with a wolf fetish!”

He was quiet for a moment and then stopped looking at me in the mirror, instead he stared down at the middle of the steering wheel, his hands never left the grips, “I’ll nail that bastard to the nearest wall… Rebecca and I aren’t rich, but please believe me, you don’t have to worry about anything.”

I raised my head, I won’t pretend I wasn’t relieved, but I did have my doubts. “Will they really go so far over that? He grabbed her arm, yes, and he tried to get her to leave with him. But do you really think it will be taken seriously?” I really couldn’t believe that humans would take my side over one of their own, though with the benefit of hindsight I should have seen that this was a distinct possibility.

Starting from the moment they welcomed me into their home and started the bonding process, but then there was the way the others at the park responded to everything. Human tribalism can be convoluted, even divisive. But if a human steps outside the bonds of tribalistic and familial ties, it was almost like they rejected a part of their common humanity, and so they were rejected in kind, and people will turn against their fellow humans.

I was the beneficiary of exactly this. By seemingly targeting a young girl and outing himself to the public, a thing backed up by at least one other witness who complained about him, Wolfbeard put himself outside the norms of human society and thus outside its protections. Perhaps his father would watch out for him. Perhaps he could pay for others to watch out for him.

But an outraged father and outraged community of humans that could not be simply bought off?

It was enough to make me feel better about the whole thing.

So I answered William honestly. “She’s my person. What else could I have done? And I’d do it again, too.”

William’s smile was bigger, more genuine then, I think he was just waiting for his daughter to leave just so he could let out how he felt without upsetting her.

Maybe talking to me privately was just his excuse to let all that out.

If that was the case, I didn’t mind.

What else is family for, after all?