Can’t take you anywhere

Daphne drew a deep breath and puffed out her chest. She didn’t like the thought of ever deliberately hurting someone else, especially not when it could happen so easily, accidentally, with her size. But even at this young age she knew that sometimes you couldn’t always talk your way out of something. The bigs had all been very sad about Rue, and if her own connections to that name were fuzzy and distant, the new association was being watched much closer (the very large and very round cinnamon raccoon that tailed her even now was an ever constant reminder), and adults constantly on edge. It made her heart hurt. They were sad and angry.

Her brothers had been practicing much more than she had, and Art was the closest to her in size - less likely to be accidentally steam rolled if she happened to get a little lost in her own enthusiasm. She was getting better at using her sniffer, and telling her siblings apart, so when she finally caught sight of his blue tinged coat ahead she yipped out a greeting, tail flagging at her back. She didn’t bother calling out to him, instead only giving a playful warning growl before speeding up to tackle him from behind. Ambushes were all part of learning, right?

"speech".