Peewee

 June sits back in awe as a small, unidentified creature stares back at her. The small creature cocks its head to the side, and with legs like a big jack rabbit, it hops out of the den, curiously looking up at June.

The front two paws are much smaller and look more like kitten paws. The body has bristly fur, comparable to a fox with four beady black eyes. Its fur is a pale orange-yellow color. It has six whiskers roughly a foot long, three on each side of its face, that stick out.

It has two little fangs that pop out of its mouth, one on each side. And big, pointy ears with black spots all over its body. The creature is roughly the size of a small fox or a large cat. It seems to move by hopping around on its strong hind legs. The more June looks at it, the more it starts to look like a strange mix between a fox, a cat, and a kangaroo.

June, feeling a slight twinge of fear in the pit of her stomach, quickly feels a bit safer as it seems more curious about her than anything. “Well hello there lil’ guy, yuptae(What are you up to)?”

The creature hears her voice and seems startled a bit for a moment. Then after a couple of seconds, it starts to hop up to her. “Woah hey now, you ain't tryna get all close to me so ya can eat me, are ya?” the creature looks up almost seemingly confused at her. “Hey, don't look at me like that lil’ guy. I just as likely could eat you… I won't, but I could.”

After what feels like an awkward staring contest gone on for longer than necessary, June starts to get up onto her feet. She looks down at the small creature with curiosity reflecting clearly between the eyes of both June and the creature. “Well C’mon then, let's see what yer all about then”. She then motions for the creature to follow her, and after a couple of minutes of obvious skepticism, curiosity wins over the creature and it begins to hop after her, headed to the camp

As June approaches the outer edge of her dome she Looks over a the creature and realizes that the air it’s adapted to breath is different from what she breathes. “Oh wait, hold it lil’ guy. Stay out here for a sec so you’re safe.” As she says this, she tries to motion for the creature to stay where it's sitting.

“Woo, now this is weird. I know the scans can be off sometimes but the drones seem to have been way off telling me there was no signs detected of fauna on this planet. Wild stuff” June continues walking and stops for a brief moment because of thinking she heard something, but, when she stopped she couldn’t hear anything.

“Weird. Anyways, I guess this is something HQ would want to know about so for my own curiosity and for the company, I gotta grab my scanner and notepad and collect data on this lil’ guy” As she walks a little more, she feels positive she’s hearing something. Looking behind her this time she looks down and sees the creature looking up at her

In a brief panic, June bends down to check on the creature. “Oh bloody-, how are you-? Why didn’t you- wait..” She pauses as she realizes that it seems to be breathing just fine inside the dome. As she looks a little more she sees strange formations on the sides of its snout that weren’t there before. They looked like tiny slits in the snout.

“Now wait a second, did you adapt your body within only seconds and develop gills of some kind to breathe the air in here? You definitely didn’t have those before so it must have been some kind of genetic reaction of spontaneous adaptation that I’ve never read about before! Woah lil’ friend, you’re kinda amazin’, aren’t ya?” The creature looks up a little confused but seems to pick up on the positive vibes because it starts to rub up against June's leg

“Hey now, that's right, who's a marvelous little wonder? You are!” June's voice pitches up about two whole octaves as she starts to talk to the small creature like a puppy or a baby. “Ima call ya Peewee! Now. What do you eat? I guess I’ll trial and error and find out.”

As she goes up into the pod, the creature looks up, a little confused and skeptical. Its head looks up at June standing in the doorway of the pod, looking at the ramp and then back up at her again.

“C’mon Peewee, Mrs. Pod won’t bite ya.” She reassures Peewee, gesturing with her hands to follow her. The creature hops up onto the metal and then slips, smacking into the ramp and sliding down it slowly. “Oooo, Peewee, ya poor thing. Your lil’ paws are too slippery for the metal ramp,”. Peewee looks up at June with an almost upset look in its eyes. “Come here, buddy”

She walks down the ramp, and picks up Peewee, and brings em into the pod. His body slumped as she picks em up as if the lil’ guy has given up all effort and now wishes to only be carried

Once she gets Peewee into the pod she sits him on a bundle of unused blankets. “Alright buddy, now I gotta find you some food. What do you wanna eat, huh?” Peewee looks up at June, confused.

June starts to go through her fridge and pantry, looking for various kinds of foods to see if Peewee will eat anything and what kind of animal Peewee is. It has a prey facial structure but as it’s an alien, the laws of this place me be different than what she’s used to.

June grabs a Baked tattie, a bowl of spring water, a slab of synthetic baked chicken, a few pieces of lettuce, and some assorted berries, some from Earth and some from Bonnie.

“Alright Peewee, let's do the taste test. Master Chef June has prepared you several exquisite meals, all different enough to attempt to decipher what it is you like to eat.” June lays the food out on different small plates, all lined up on the floor in front of Peewee.

Peewee starts to hop over to all of the plates, sniffing each one and then moving onto the next. They then start to hop around in order from left to right munching down on the Earth berries, then the Bonnie berries, then the chicken, then the lettuce, and finishes with the baked earth tattie

“Woah lil’ guy you're not stopin’. Soo, Omnivore? I was hoping to see a preference pattern but this seems to be as it ate the unfamiliar foods that they will eat whatever they come across. I wonder what they wouldn’t eat. Hmmm.” Her focus shifts to Peewee. “I guess I’ma just have to watch ya naturally and record your behavioral patterns.

She notices, now as she's paying more attention to specifically Peewee and not the food, that they have a set of fangs in the front where its canines would be but the rest of the teeth don't resemble that of a carnivore. It seems like it’s genetically not evolved to tear and saw through meat with its teeth but still can.

“Hmm, so if you’re not evolved to really eat meat but still will, can you digest it properly?” A look of panic swells over her face “Oh no, I didn’t even think about that! What if you can’t digest these things? I don’t think ingesting any of this will be lethal per say but it may put ya through it like the big tatties here did when I was getting used to em,”.

Peewee hops over to June and starts to hop over and nuzzles its head on her hand. “Oh alright, you friendly bastard” She looks down and gives in as she starts petting its head. The hair all over its body is stiff and feels a little bit like petting a softer broom. The bristles aren’t as stiff as a broom head but close to it.

It hops up onto June's lap and starts to make itself comfortable. A bit of worry fades onto her face, “Oh bloody-, what are ya doing Peewee. I gotta keep moving, I can’t sit with ya for right now,”. She looks down at the now clearly sleeping alien creature, taking an after meal slumber in her lap.

With a bit of annoyance, her expression becomes that of someones whos been defeated. “Well, alright. Ill give ya a little bit,”. June grabs some blankets from the pile, covers both of them up with one and puts a couple under her head as she leans back and lies on the metal floor.

Both June and Peewee lay, covered up by a blanket while Peewee lays on her stomach, fast asleep. About 10 minutes go by, and June falls victim to the cozy company, falling asleep and joining in Peewees slumber.