Ferris, the Clever Fox in the City
#3 of Slices of Life
A Slice of Life written for Cody.
The Slice of Life is a commission experiment aimed at capturing a glimpse of someone's character in action. The idea is to see if a quality piece of writing can be made in a short length of time, and if someone would be amenable to paying for such a thing. They involve four prompts, ten minutes of writing, and five to ten additional minutes of finalization.
The prompts for this story were
Name: Ferris
Species: Fox
Descriptor: Clever
Setting: Gambling/The Underground (shorthanded to the city)
Ferris, the Clever Fox in the City By Finn Panther
''Raise.''
''You're a madman!''
''Get out while you can.''
''Shut up. I want to see what he does.''
Ferris was used to having the spotlight on him. He strove for it, actually. But this was an awful lot of spotlight.
It took everything he had not to twitch the corner of his mouth. A quick snarl of his muzzle, that's all he needed. Because starting at his hand full of garbage: Well, it was difficult not to snarl, to say the least. Or wilt his ears. Or thump his tail, even. He had to remain absolutely still. And standing still was NOT his strong suit.
Ferris had gotten through life specifically by not standing still. Granted, he had gotten into a lot of trouble this way; but he had gotten himself out of it by the same token. He was good at getting out of trouble. Except for when there was thousands of dollars on the line. Then, maybe not so much.
Then again, he figured that there was only one way to find out.
He pushed everything he had towards the center. The sum came to all of his earthly possessions. And then some. And then quite a lot, actually. Far more than he could ever hope to repay. But repaying wasn't his main focus. His main focus was to get out. Now. And a lifetime of conditioning had taught him that there was one way to do that. It was the most efficient, most sure-fire way to get out of anything and everything.
It was bullshit. And he needed it now more than ever.
''All. In.'' He probably shouldn't have punctuated the words like that. Maybe that gave too much away. But it happened, and he rolled with it. Roll with it, go with the blows. And don't twitch your ears. Not a single one.
The table around him hushed, and the husky that sat across it fell entirely blank. Ferris hoped that he had even half of the poker face that this honcho had. Ferris hadn't a clue what was behind that mask of I-Give-No-Fucks. And worse, Ferris was certain that the mask of IGNF was currently piercing through every single layer of the fox's own mask: I-Have-No-Clue-What-I'm-Doing-Get-Me-Out-Of-Here-Please-God. Not that he was nervous or anything.
The seconds seemed to stretch into hours. And then Ferris heard the single most glorious word in all his life.
''Fold.''
The table remained hushed, in almost a reverence for the tremendous play that had happened before them. There was a lot of respect to be had in a hand of poker such as that. And, on Ferris's hand, there was a LOT of relief.
But there was also the single most crucial mistake of his life.
It was a simple innocent yip. A single yip, nothing more. But it was all that the husky's thugs needed. Maybe it was against the Code of Conduct to respond negatively to a fox such as Ferris. But then again, the king of the illicit gambling circle didn't seem to care much for conduct. Or for bullshit.
Or for Ferris, apparently.
With that single yip the gambling warlord seemed to know more than that Ferris had just one bad hand full of garbage. But in that one moment the husky saw through it all: Ferris hadn't one single dollar to back his bullshit. And the only thing worse than a bullshitter was, well... Ferris.
The fox had never been in this particular situation before. It was difficult to get oneself into this particular brand of trouble, but no task was too tall for Ferris. Including the task before him. For next to bullshitting there was one other tactic to employ. It was the second, and usually final, line of defense. It was the last card that he had up his sleeve - the master card, the ace in the hole - the end all of every gambit that a con man will ever play.
And that card was to run.
Fast.