Poor Animal

This week's prompts are interesting, easy to work with, and fun. The subject is "Animal" and the theme is "poor." And I am most certainly NOT thinking of the Muppets. Nope. Not even a little bit. :)
I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with for this prompt - or hear your suggestions for what I might have done differently with mine.
Added bonus inspiration: "Lets all give a big hand for our recently deceased! Go on, spin the wheel, lets see what Fate has in store for you!"
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She could remember a face. Or at least the impression of one. Blue eyes, the color of faded denim. Sometimes. Sometimes they were other colors. Like grey. Old face. Wrinkles? She didn't know. Old. Tired. And it wasn't her face, but it was very important to her. A face she had looked at often. She opened her eyes, and was immediately struck by a wave of unexpected sound.

Voices, laughter, cheering, stamping, the hum of fans, the buzz of electric lines, the whine of mechanical equipment. Lights shone in her face, screening the rest of the world from view while a loud, cheerfully clipped voice blared in her ear.


"Let's have a big hand for our Newly Deceased!" It sounded exactly like what's-his-face, the game show host she used to watch on TV with her parents. Bewildered, shading her eyes from the bright light, she tried to squint around at her surroundings. It was all very blurry, but she had the impression of garish colors. "Go on, spin the Wheel, let's see what Fate has in store for you!" 

A small hand pushed her forward, and as she walked further into the light, blinded and directionless, another hand, large and smooth and cool, caught her wrist. It pulled her hand away from her face and guided it to what felt like the spokes of a wheel. 

It couldn't possibly get any crazier. On a whim, she gave the wheel a powerful pull, and she felt it begin to spin as she let go. The motion of the wheel fanned a cool breeze across her face, and she started to see the colors through the glare again.

"Wow, look at it go!" The game show host sounded delighted. "What an arm! Now, Miss Daly, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself while we're waiting for the Wheel?" 

Daly? The name sounded familiar. A family name. Was it hers? "I... don't know. I can't remember anything." She paused. They were probably on camera. Was that the wrong thing to say? 

"Perfectly understandable!" boomed the host, and she saw a glitter of white teeth through the blur and glare. The blur where the face was supposed to be, though... it was red. Very red. "The newly deceased are often disoriented. Some never regain the memories of their previous lives. But that's what we're for, aren't we, friends?" There was a roar of approval, and some scattered applause and whistling. 

She blinked rapidly, and her vision started to clear. The host in his neat tan suit... was a fox. The crowd, too far away to be in focus yet, was a swarm of colors, and none of the pale face-blurs she was expecting. 

"You're a fox." She didn't know what else to say. The host grinned, and the flash of his teeth made her shiver a little. 

"And now, so are you." He pointed at the Wheel, which had stopped, and the big yellow pointer was sitting on a fox-shaped symbol. She looked down at herself and saw, as though they had always been there, black paws at the ends of her sleeves. She felt her ears twitch in response to the noise, and her tail brush against the backs of her legs. 

A small hand pressed against her lower back and she moved forward again like a stiff puppet.

"Welcome, Miss Daly, to your new life." A door opened (had there been a door there before?) and she was propelled gently into the middle of what could only have been a war.