Constable Victoria Nawson's teeth were chattering so hard, they almost hurt. She knew being so nervous was unbecoming of a Mountie, but... well this was a big opportunity on the line! It was why she'd joined the RCMP in the first place: to represent Canada, her pride and joy, and to wear that Red Serge tunic recognized around the world.

And here she was, with a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be ambassador of her country to a newly-discovered aboriginal community. One that had still had no contact with the modern world, and to think, hidden right here in the backwoods of her home province! Her heart swelled with pride.

When her division had put out the call for volunteers, Victoria had leapt at the opportunity. Sure, rumor had it that the tribe had some peculiar customs, but that had hardly dampened her spirits. After all, she embraced Canada's multi-cultural heritage.

But something did seem... off. The unusually strict wording of the confidentiality agreement they'd asked her to sign, she'd not given much thought. Nor was she surprised when the coach bus took her and the other excited volunteers to a staging camp out in the middle of Nowhere, Manitoba. It only made sense that this tribe would be remote, if it had eluded contact for all these years. The log buildings surrounded by dense forest even kind of reminded Victoria of her old summer camp.

But the fact that there wasn't a soul in sight, THAT struck her as a little strange. Stranger still, the sergeant accompanying the constables had taken them into a barracks - also empty - and steered each into a cramped stall of their own. There each Mountie, already decked out in their finest dress uniform, was told to 'get changed,' and had the door promptly slammed in their face.

Only a tiny beam of sunlight filtered through a small slot near the ceiling. The room was stuffy, and the smell of pine overwhelming. Well... with a shrug, Constable Nawson had done as she was told. It was only when she was halfway through removing her tunic when it hit her: there were no other clothes to change into! Nothing on the walls, in the corners, under the lone bench in the room... nothing. She'd knocked on the door, hoping to catch the sergeant's attention - maybe there'd been a mistake! - and when that didn't work, she tried the knob so she could poke her head out. Only there was no knob on the inside. No way out.

The walls suddenly seemed much closer.

A civilian might have shouted angrily to be let out, or even have outright panicked. But not Constable Nawson. She told herself to wait patiently for the sergeant to return, when she would calmly explain the situation. She wouldn't break discipline, not when this opportunity was on the line. Still... Victoria couldn't help but have the jitters in this small, dark space. Her skin began to crawl, itching all over. It was warm, and eerily silent, and that pine smell...

Her teeth had stopped chattering, at least, but now she dimly realized she was biting her lip. She absentmindedly tried to adjust her bite... only to find she couldn't. It didn't matter; she'd become completely focused on the odor of fresh pine that filled her nostrils.

Infatuated might have been a better word. The wooden construction of the barracks looked to be a few months old, at least, but it smelled as if the pine had just been cut. More accurately, as if a whole forest of it had just been cut. Victoria was detecting intricacies of the odor she had never known before, and she was fascinated by it! So fascinated that she hardly noticed when her ears, covered in fresh fuzz, pressed against the brim of her hat, or when a flat tail - HER flat tail - stretched out from just above her breeches.

To say the pine smelled good was an understatement.

A floorboard creaking in protest jerked Victoria out of the haze. Someone was just outside the door.

The sergeant!!!

And here she was, still standing half-naked and as disheveled as a plastered hockey fan. She hastily tugged at her Red Serge tunic to pull it up over her... brown, fur-covered shoulders? What the-

The door swung wide open and Constable Nawson automatically snapped to attention. Try as she might, somehow she suspected her big, nervous smile hardly made up for the image that now stood before her superior.

The sergeant's eyebrows rose up, but whatever Nawson had expected - a terrified shout? an angry tirade? - never came.

"Beaver, huh? Roscoe had you down as a moose, for sure." The sergeant shrugged.

"Alright Constable Nawson, when you're ready you can assemble with the others in the mess hall, where you'll be filled in on the aborigines'... unorthodox customs. Which I'm sure by now you must be dying to hear, eh?" The sergeant nodded in the direction of the building outside, but all Nawson saw was a red-eyed, black-and-white-feathered Mountie who looked like he was going to be sick, and a host of other bewildered, red-uniformed animals stumbling about in the hall.

"And Constable Nawson?" She turned back to the sergeant, dazed. "Straighten up, would you? In that uniform, you represent Canada. Try to look the part!"

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Can you believe it? I actually wrote a story out for once ^^

Fun to draw, fun to write, and funny to imagine! My apologies to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police ^^; Maintain the Right/Mantiens le Droit!