Okay, so I was playing around with the AI art generator on DeviantArt, and I'm not about to start posting AI stuff on here (or anywhere else), because i know people don't like it (and with good reason)... but it came up with one picture that really struck a chord with me and inspired me to write a story about it.

It shows a little fox girl (I didn't specify in the prompt, but it sort of looks like a girl to me, with a suggestion of old-style cartoon gender-identifier eyelashes) standing in a circle of light in front of a door labelled "Potty". In front of her feet there's a damp patch on the carpeted floor. She has her hands behind her back and is wearing a T-shirt with colourful splodges on it, and a pair of light blue shorts/trainers which are wet at the bottom.

Her facial expression is what really impressed me - she's got a little frown and her eyes look sad and at the same time gleaming with defiance. I just sense a rising feeling of burning anger starting to bubble up... and I just had to write a story about it.

It made me think of Cuddy Fox's sister Viola, so that's who this story is about! ^.^

“Viola?”

Viola had been staring at the door in front of her (it said ‘Potty’ in big friendly letters), but she spun around and took a step back, feeling like a spotlight was shining on her as she looked up at the grown-up who’d just said her name. She put her hands behind her back and kept her watery gaze (she’d almost been starting to cry, but only almost) on the grown-up’s face, trying not to flick her eyes back down to the darker wet patch on the carpet between her feet. Her thick cloth training pants felt damp, and Viola’s feeling of sadness started to turn into worry about what the grown-up was going to say next.

Viola was playing at a new place today, full of lots of other cubs who she mostly didn’t know, but it wasn’t like she didn’t know where the potty was or was scared to ask, like a little baby. Viola was a big fox girl now, practically a grown-up, and she’d found out where to go potty as soon as she got here. She’d just been having a lot of fun playing, and though she knew she had to go, she figured she’d wait a little longer and go when the game was finished. And the cloth trainers (which weren’t diapers or even pull-ups, they were practically grown-up underpants) could soak up a few little drops now and then if she let them out, which wasn’t the same as having a potty accident at all.

But then Viola had suddenly realised that she really couldn’t hold it in any more, and she’d hurried over to the Potty door, feeling a little ache with every bouncy step, and right at the door, as she was standing on tiptoes to stretch up and turn the stupid high-up door handle, she’d started to go, and everything came flooding out. Trickles ran down her legs, and between them there was a pitter-patter as drops splashed onto the carpet… and she was so close! It would only have taken another second to open the door and hop onto the little toilet inside!

Viola’s sense of worry was suddenly starting to turn into anger, and her eyes narrowed and her teeth clenched, and she suddenly thought she might SHOUT at the grown-up if she said Viola had been a bad girl! Or, even worse, if she said Viola had been a little baby! She’d held it in all through a game that went on forever, and she never ever had accidents like this any more, and she’d been so close to getting there in time, and there was the STUPID high-up-tiptoes door handle and the STUPID leaky cloth trainers and… tears came to her eyes again and she could feel a real tantrum starting to bubble up! Viola GLARED at the grown-up and took a deep hiccuppy breath before starting to SCREAM!

… But the scream was muffled as the grown-up squatted down in front of Viola and wrapped her up in a cuddle, just whispering “There there,” and not sounding like she was talking to a baby, or scolding a bad girl, or anything like that. And just like that, the tantrum blew away – Viola felt shaky just for a minute, but then she calmed down in the big hug and finally looked up into the kind grown-up’s face and said “Sorry.”

The grown-up let go, stood up and ruffled Viola’s headfur. “Good girl,” she said. “It’s just a little spot, nothing to worry about.” Viola looked at the wet spot on the carpet, and thought it really wasn’t anything. You could hardly see it. “Can I help clean?” she asked, suddenly remembering she’d helped her mommy shampooing a stain on a carpet once. “I know how.”

And then everything was okay again, and they changed Viola’s trainers, and got the cleaning things, and she’d forgotten all about the little accident by the time they were working together to scrub the little tiny damp spot. There were a lot of fun things to do here!