It was a beautiful early August morning, the birds were all singing their melodies, the sheep were talking to one another in their sheep language to complain about how cold they were in the mornings since they’d been sheared, the pigs were noisily enjoying the slop which had already been given to them..

All of these noises that were going on about the farm, Jordi Jockel Lanik-Rothbaur heard absolutely none of them whatsoever. He had his earbuds in his ears as he listened along to his favorite playlist to work along with while going through his daily morning chores on his farm. He was currently rocking out to “Where the Blacktop Ends” by Keith Urban as he milked one of his dairy cows, Millie (her name was short for Miltank), who was the first of his small herd of adorable dairy cows to be milked this morning.

Finishing up with milking her, he thanked her for her milk and for being such a good girl this morning (she was usually the most testy when it came to being milked) before moving on to start milking Clarabelle.

Jordi was barely halfway through milking Clarabelle when he felt something nudge him from behind, which startled him and caused him to rip his earbuds from out of his ears as he turned to figure out who or what it was that had nudged him.

To his surprise, it was one of his dogs; specifically his female collie named Faith. It was evident that his reaction had spooked her just as much as her nudge had spooked him. He patted her head to comfort and reassure her, apologizing to her as he did so.

“Sorry girl, but you kinda spooked me there, what’s up? Can’t find Tim?”

Tim was her “mate” in a sense, the two were never or at least hardly ever apart from one another. However, despite the fact that he wasn’t here, it was evident from her demeanor that that was not what was wrong and why she had been trying to get his attention. She whined, then turned and darted away several paces before pausing to look back at him. She wagged her tail, but kept it low, shifting her weight anxiously.

“Alright, alright. I’m coming.” Jordi said, getting up from the stool that he had been sitting in and standing up on his feet, which had fallen asleep while he was working. He rubbed them to try to help get the blood flowing again before he patted Clarabelle and told her he would be back shortly. She let out a moo, which he took as an acknowledgement of his statement, then moved to follow Faith to wherever it was that she wanted him to go. She led him across the field, circling back every few yards to make sure he was still coming. Faith easily crawled under the three-slat wooden fence at the edge of the field. Whining again, she looked between both Jordi and the treeline.

Jordi raised an eyebrow at her as he walked up to the fence.

"What in the world did you find out there,” he asked, climbing over with an ease that attested to how many times he had had to perform the maneuver. Leaves crunched underfoot as he landed, while he only just managed to catch the sight of Faith darting into the underbrush.

Jordi couldn’t help but wonder what in the world Faith was leading him to.

Two face-plants, a couple of stubbed toes, three head-on collisions with some low-hanging branches later and Jordi stumbled into a clearing.

"Ow..." He muttered, rubbing his head gingerly. Faith had trotted a few yards into the clearing and now sat beside a fallen log. From the looks of it, the tree had been down for a long time. Again Faith whined, wagging the tip of her tail as her ears were flicking back and forth nervously. Jordi could tell that whatever she had been so insistent on, it was here. In the clearing, either by or in that log.

"What is it, girl,” he asked Faith gently as he slowly began creeping over towards her so as not to spook whatever it was that she was trying to show him.

Peering into the log, he saw that what lay inside of it was his dog Tim comforting what seemed to be a fox kit that was clearly in dire straits, the interesting thing about it though was that it looked nothing like a standard red fox. It was mostly white-cream with patches of darker coloration around the eyes which complimented their dark boots. If Jordi wasn’t mistaken, this was a domestic fox kit and it seemed to have gotten itself a pretty badly broken leg. Jordi frowned slightly, not sure how to approach this situation, mostly because he couldn’t be one-hundred percent positive that this fox kit had been socialized and would allow him to touch it. Despite this concern, he knew that he would have to at least try, he couldn’t just let this poor little one suffer.

Taking off his shirt, he went to go wrap it around the fox kit, which allowed him to do so as well as scoop him up with only a few protests. Jordi then held the fox kit close to his chest and began walking back to his house, calling for Tim and Faith to come follow him, though he noticed after having done so that they already were following right behind him. In the back of his mind, there was a slight glimmer of pride in knowing that he had trained his dogs well.

As soon as he arrived at his house, Jordi put the fox in one of the dog crates, brought out his phone and called his fiancé, Zardu Wooffelfrau, who happened to also be the local vet in town and the only one who worked with both domestic animals as well as exotic animals. He just hoped that Zardu would have time available for Jordi to bring this fox kit in.

Jordi rushed into the Guardians’ Infurmary veterinary hospital with the fox kit in the carrier in hand as he headed up to the counter, wanting to make sure that he wasn’t late to the appointment that he had set up over the phone. The bean at the office counter asked him a series of questions, one of which being what the name of the animal is and since Jordi had no idea, he decided to declare that the fox’s name was Todd, after the fox from The Fox and the Hound. He wasn’t really expecting the fox to be stuck with that name forever, it wasn’t like he was going to be keeping the fox, he certainly didn’t have the facilities to do so…but if there wasn’t a local fox rescue with space for the fox, he suppose that he could potentially take the little one in.

“If possible, could I please see Zardu? Uh...Dr. Wooffelfrau,” Jordi asked when the questions were over.

“He…does have an opening actually,” the receptionist replied, smiling at him, “I’ll go ahead and put you in his open slot for the day.”

“Thank you very much,” Jordi replied, smiling, happy that he’d be able to have his fiancé be the one to help the fox. Not that he had anything against the other vets in Zardu’s practice, he just wanted an excuse to see his fiancé.

“Alright, you can go ahead and sit down, Dr. Wooffelfrau will be with you soon hun,” the receptionist told him warmly.

“Thank you,” Jordi replied with an appreciative smile at the receptionist as he picked up the carrier and headed over to one of the empty chairs and sat down.

The wait wasn’t a very long one, though it did feel as if an eternity was passing while he waited. He had taken his phone out more times than he cared to count to check the time and try to distract himself with a game.

Jordi was surprised not to hear more sounds from the fox in the carrier, he figured the poor guy was hurtin’ real bad.

“Jordi and Todd?”

Jordi looked up at the vet tech at the door who was calling for him, hurriedly he grabbed the carrier and started towards the door before seeing his fiancé come out the door, thank the vet tech, then walked over to Jordi and kissed him.

The soft awwws around the waiting room and staff would have made Jordi feel flustered...if he wasn’t enjoying the kiss.

He felt Zardu reluctantly end the kiss as he drew away and smiled at him, “Mmm, missed doing that.”

Jordi laughed, “You kissed me this morning before you left for work silly.”

“Yeah, but I never get tired of it,” Zardu replied, “I love you Jordi. That being said you didn’t have to schedule an appointment just to see me,” he joked, winking at Jordi playfully, “anyway, I hear that you’ve got a fox for me to check out?”

Zardu led Jordi into the exam room as he talked.

“Yeah, Tim and Faith found the little guy while I was working on milking the cows,” Jordi began, “I think he might be from a nearby fur farm or something? Maybe a local rescue? I’m not really sure, I just know that those are definitely not normal fur colors for a wild fox.”

“Well, we’ll figure out where the little one belongs later, for now we need to get to work on fixing what ails them,” Zardu responded, smiling warmly at the fox as he opened up the carrier.

As Jordi watched Zardu handle the fox and assess it, he couldn’t help but smile. The way that Zardu worked with animals was one of the reasons that Jordi had fallen in love with him. Zardu had such a tender way of dealing with any animal that came into his building and the way he greeted them could melt even the hardest of hearts.

“Hello darling, how can I help you today,” there it was, Jordi found himself smiling broadly.

“What,” Zardu asked Jordi, chuckling even as he kept his eyes and attention on the fox as he examined them thoroughly and worked the leg that Jordi had suspected was broken.

“Nothing, I just love it when you say that,” Jordi answered as he watched.

Zardu laughed, “Stop or I’ll have to kiss you again.”

“Mmmm, that doesn’t sound like a bad punishment.”

“Pfft, well, Todd here has a pretty badly broken leg, I don’t think that he’ll need amputation so that’s good. He’ll need some pins and a cast though. You’ll need to keep him penned up in a large enough enclosure for him while his leg heals. I’m going to go ahead and take him into the back and work on him, everything should be fine,” Zardu informed Jordi, giving him a reassuring smile, “We’ll be back soon!”

So it was that Jordi was once again back to waiting, still anxiously, even though he knew that little Todd was in good hands.

As he waited, he contemplated what Todd’s living situation with him would be while the leg healed. He could probably re-purpose that old disused dog kennel/pen-thing that came with his property to house the fox in, but it would require a sizeable amount of work to be done so that it would be ready for the fox and would ensure that Todd couldn’t dig his way out of it or possibly hurt himself further.

Jordi was still considering all the alterations he’d need to make when Zardu came through the door with a very out-of-it Todd who was sporting a bright orange cast in his arms.

Jordi stood up and came over, cooing over the cute fox in his fiancé’s arms.

“Thank you so much love,” Jordi exclaimed before going up on his tiptoes just to give Zardu a kiss as payment since he knew that Zardu was doing this for free, “I’ll see you after work!”

With that, he left the clinic and went home to prep for the coming months that the fox would possibly be staying with them.

Over the course of the next two months, Jordi made sure that little Todd was comfortable and wasn’t trying to chew his cast off or anything. He also regularly made sure to bring Todd to his fiancé’s vet practice to change the cast if it got too dirty or worn. During this time frame, he was also checking in regularly with Zardu to ask if anyone had called in asking about a fox kit matching Todd’s description and so far no one had done so.

So, by the end of Todd’s time wearing the cast, it came to pass that they had been unable to find out who owned Todd or where he had come from. It was decided between the two of them that they would see about finding a fox rescue that had room to take him in and if they failed to do so...then they’d keep the little guy since they already had the permits for this sort of thing.