He should have been more careful.

Aimery, in his full-on badger form, was digging. Great throws of dirt scattered and jumped from under his chosen hedge of shrubberies as the werebadger thrust his claws deep into the cold soil. With powerful shrugs of his shoulders, he scooped the earth away from the manmade hill, shoving it to his sides or under his cream-furred belly. His black hind paws grasped it then, propelling the dirt behind him and the badger into his hole even as he widened and lengthened it. Always his sensitive nose was before him, whiskers bristling to be certain the status of the tunnel was sound.

Down the walking path came a man in white, with a large net in one hand and a collar attached to a solid rod in the other. He had received report of a badger in Central Park, and so, like the animal control officer that he was, here he was. He rattled the bushes with the rod as he moved from one side of the path to the other, on the look-out.

The werebadger’s tunnel was deep enough to hide his two-foot long body now, and so he set to widening it some to give him turn-around space. There were geraniums planted in this soil at one point, and as he backed out of the tunnel Aimery caught up the roots of one plant in his teeth. He cracked the dried substance easily, chewing on the white insides of the small root as he blinked at daylight. And listened. There was rustling over there, and the badger turned his head to squint toward the path.

A pile of freshly disturbed earth had tumbled down the small hill, and the animal control man (let’s call him Jim for typing’s sake) came upon this. He looked up the hillock, smirking. Badger-signs. Jim hunkered down, fixing his grip on net and rod before he set his boots to the grass and climbed.

Aimery stared in disbelief, his jaws unconsciously chewing the root now, as a white cap came bobbing up the hill. It was followed swiftly by a man (human, said his nose) dressed in pristine white. The man’s shoulders were followed by a torso, and arms that held a large net and a—bugger, you know what he looks like. Aimery saw Jim, and Jim saw Aimery.

Instantly, the badger began to slowly back toward his tunnel. His jaws opened, dropping the partially eaten root to the ground as Aimery uttered a warning hiss.

Jim paused; cautioned by the hiss, the way the badger’s spiky fur was bristling, and the wrinkles that snarled its striped muzzle. He edged a foot forward as the badger backed, clucking quietly to the beast while he tried to bring the collar into position. That foot passed over an ash walking cane that had been deposited next to the impromptu burrow.