Furry Tale

Furry Tale

Prologue

“It has been a long time, I can still remember her face when I saw her last. She was wearing that silly bright green turtle neck my aunt gave her on Christmas.” I look down, my eyes become misty as I keep my composure together.

“And when I finally thought that it wasn't true, I wanted you to be the first to know,” I look up slightly, slowly losing my composure.

“Both of you need to know that I will love you forever, and nothing is going to change that, but-” I cut myself off, the pinch in my chest begins to feel heavy, so heavy that if I were to hold it in any more, I would drop to the floor in pain.

“She was the only hope I had as kid, it's funny you know? I wanted to say that she looked ridiculous in it, but when I think back, she looked beautiful, even if she was my over bearing mom, she was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.” My misty eyes began to sparkle from the golden brown light of the old lamp from across the velvet red leather chair.

“I just wish I could have told her that.” My chest and head shudder to my lap as I speak in a trembling voice, the pain wasn't the cause, it was my body; it couldn't handle that kind of emotional pain… no normal human could. I had to focus, focus on my sister, she was always there, always kind, loving, loyal... She made me laugh when I was crying in the dark of it all. She and I had so much in common, and when she couldn't make me laugh, she would just hold me tight and we would be like that until mom got home.

My mom, step mom would then call Bella over, Bella knew how to hold me if Rio was sick, or at summer school, she never could remember all those damned dates in history class.

“So then, Tommy,” Rio said with a concerned, but lovingly happy look on her deep brown emerald eyed face. “Tell us.”

I took a deep breath, though all I could do is breath in of what felt like metal dust filled with the burning taste of salted pain dripping down my burning face. But somehow, I spoke, opening up what had to have been the worst health hazard of my life. “As I said that day to myself, she looked stupid, why didn't I tell her.” My face didn't want to change expression, the pain only made everything numb and hard to move.

Then I felt the warm soft hand of Bella touch my trembling hand, and Rio quickly followed suite. I suddenly looked into their warm loving gaze as the both pushed the soft fluffy bodies of both sides to me and rested their gaze to mine listening closely.

“My mom told me my sister's concert was her last one and if her band won, they would go the championship. But they knew how much I hated that stupid band music, I feel so fucking guilty” I continued softly.
“Why did I have to hate it so much, why couldn't I just bear it and just be there for my sister?” They quickly held me tight with one of each of their soft warm arms and held me tight.

Bella in her warm feminine soft, but stern motherly voice, the one I grew so attached to, piped up in slight revolt to my guilt. “Thomas you know if you went with them you would have died too!” Bella looked straight into my eyes almost in disbelief of my guilt. “You were there for me,” she looked to Rio staring back to her then quickly to me. “To us, you are and always will be the most kind, loving, most genuine guy I know, I would hav-” Bella stopped to look down, she had only known me for all those years, all the memories that were rushing back as she spoke making her remember the good times as well as the bad.

Sadly it also came with its pain with each melted warmth of each happy memory.

“You saved my life; I was in a deep depression ever since I was five, I thought… I thought I was some monster that everyone hated, everyone was afraid of me.” Bella looked to her hand like paws, they were soft, warm… and if at all gentle, yet she remembered far more differently about them. “I was always afraid to hold someone’s hands, afraid I might hurt someone. But you, when you were brought to our school, you were the one that came up to me! You ignored all of the others that wanted to hang out with you, and you came up to me, and you weren't even afraid of me!

“You were so nice, and if you didn't show up, Rio never would have worked up the courage to leave the girls who treated me like crap. I would have never had known how nice and true Rio was!”

I was shocked, I had no idea that this was true, but sadly it wasn't shocking enough, the guilt of my own making of how my family died in that crash was still lingering in the dust of this new revelation. I didn't want to believe her, I thought this was her just trying to shake me out of my depression, a white lie, as white as her angelic white fur and crystal blue eyes.

That is when she turned her torso to me and wrapped both her arms around me, and tucked her muzzle into my shoulder, though it was a bit pushed as she was slightly taller than me, she still held me anyway.

“Please don't ever think that you were the cause of something, you are way too sweet, too honest, and too innocent to deserve this burden. I know you were meant to save us, I know how hard it is to lose someone close, so don't ever think that I don't feel your pain too.”

Rio piped up. “Thomas I...” she may have only been fifteen at the time but, she had never felt stranger in her life. But she saw her baby brother being held by someone so dear to him, but how could she tell him her feelings, that first day when she moved in next to him, when she dared him to kiss her on the cheek. It felt like magic, like he was the first boy to love her for her, and not because she just happened to be a beta.

“Thomas, you are the only boy to love me besides daddy.” Rio then giggled at the warm memory. “You said you thought my eyes were pretty and loved my fluffy tail. You saved my life too, if you didn't tell me after our first big argument about my terrible ex friends."

"I would have been pressured into dating this really big jerk of a wolf, he hated that I was friends with you. He laughed at me when I said that you were really sweet and nice. He kept saying you were just another human, you weren't strong enough to take care of me!”

Rio then looked at Bella, smiled at looked back at me, holding her breath, then leaped onto me, holding what was left not being held by Bella, and stared deeply into my eyes. With both fear of what I would think, excited that she can finally tell me how she felt, and guilty that it had to be of all times now. But she had to, how could she not? She loved me so badly, and she knew I needed her love, all of it.

“I thought it was just a simple crush, but it grew more and more each day we were together. When you would cry all those nights as I held you, waking up to see you that you were better, even happy to see me that next morning.” She stopped to collect her thoughts. “Thomas, I am in love with you, my heart was yours the moment you trusted me…”

Bella and I looked at her, I was crying my eyes out, and with each moment after that, the guilt slowly melted away, all those years of her snuggling me, telling me that she loved me. And all this time she meant it in such a way that I never saw. I held them both back, as I started to cry, I felt like a great pain was being melted away like a cold steel was dragging my heart to an endless sea of darkness was finally having the sun shine through the dark waters. But still, through all of this love, my regret, though lighter, was still there.

Chapter One
The Beginning

This all started when I was seven, I always felt alone… some would say it is because you were desperate for friends, or you were just unlucky. The funny thing was is that I just didn't fit in. Whenever I would play sports with the other kids, or just tried to hang out, I just felt this strong negative emotion in my chest, and the more time I spent with them, I just was so afraid to feel this I would avoid even trying to hang out with them. With this new first fear, even though I was too young to understand what it was at the time. I found out that I preferred hanging out by myself, yes it was lonely but it was more relief than trying to talk to other kinds my own age.

I grew to like it as I got older, it was my own world where I couldn't get hurt. I was for once happy, if that was even considered being happy, I never knew even to this day if I was or just in a childlike state of denial. Of course when I turned nine my family was fighting, and as usual my dad had to be the loudest, and the most colorful when it came to language. I hated when he talked that way.

One day during the summer we were passing by our neighborhood after my grandma called my mom saying she had a group of kittens that she found that lost their mom. So she invited her with me and my sister to pick one out. I was tired that day, more than usual, I just wanted to play by myself in my room, but my mom wouldn't have it. So after she dragged me along, we were coming back home, when she stopped the car. There were rumors about Alphas moving in but I only heard stories about them, most as my religious aunt put it, “abominations… freaks against God's plan.” But that only made me more curious as I peaked over the front passenger seat in our rust bucket golden green minivan. And there I saw her, she was taller than me by the looks, but she looked like a fox mixed with a dog of some kind.

She had red brown hair, and by the distance green sparkling eyes. Her fur was a light shade of golden brown, and a black button nose. Small puffy paws grown out like hands, and she had the happiest look on her face. Though by the look of it she was missing her fang on the left side of her face. Making her look almost my age.

My mom looked back to us, making sure we were ok from her sudden stop. After mom made sure we weren't broken she slowly parked the car, I starred at her face… I never saw that kind of face before, she looked sad, but it had a funny feeling as if she was angry.

The next day, I heard a knock at the door, it was eight in the morning and I was downstairs in the living room with is egg shell white walls and golden upward arched fixed with pinkish red shaded lights on top of them, it smelled like cinnamon, and I felt like home, even with our green white spotted carpet and old silver boxed tube TV, with my favorite show on at the time, Dragon Ball Z. My sister was sleeping over at her friend’s house, my dad was asleep upstairs, and my mom was at work. So I jumped at the sudden knock at my door.

And when I opened it, it was that girl I saw that day before. She was much taller than I thought, and by the looks of it she had a very cheerful but nervous look on her face. She stood there holding a thick comic book of Naruto in her right paw hand, while fiddling her hair with her left.

“Um, hi, I am sorta new to the neighborhood and was wondering, um-” She looked to me as she was about to ask me what she should say next. My dad was sleeping upstairs, and my mom at work so I didn't know who to ask for permission to let her come in. So I just looked at her and with an awkward, and somewhat happy tone.

I looked down to see the book… “Is that a comic book?” I interjected.

That is when I saw her cute ears, they perked up in reaction to her happy but somewhat surprised face to my question.

"Oh yea, this is one of my favorites, Naruto issue one." She trailed off for a moment, as her tone almost shifted into something that of reminiscing. "I love this one where Naruto is feared by his village for what's inside of him, it..." She closed her eyes as if to push away any bad thoughts she was having. "He reminds me of me, it helps to know I wasn't the only one you know?" Her ears drooped for a moment the perked back up after she heard the dragon ball mid commercial theme in the background, suddenly her tail began to wag as she looked to me, her full smile finally back on her face.

“Wanna hang out and watch Dragon Ball with me?” I said, innocently, noticing her excitement.

Rio jumped up and squeaked with delight as I said the words, almost making me jump back.

“O my god I love Dragon Ball, is the new episode out already?!” She quickly ran in and plopped herself on the carpet in front of the TV, and then with some hesitation. “Um sorry, I didn-”

“It's ok, who is your favorite?” I awkwardly blurted out as I tried closing the door, so distracted by this strange girl, who to my eight year old self looked even stranger, but she was so nice, and I was used to hearing the rumors about them I just was somewhat used to finally seeing one. I finally managed to shut the door after missing it twice.

She then looked to me, and stood back up, she was about four inches taller than me.

“I am so sorry, my name is Rio, Rio Cheski,” Her medium long tail that was hiding behind her suddenly started to wag quickly back and forth.

Being the shy and awkward kid that I was I just stared at her for a moment, then before I said anything she piped up with slight tone of worry in her voice. “I-it's ok, my mom told me that I might look weird to the other kids in the neighborhood...” Her ears drooped down slightly.

That is when I felt it, she knew how I felt, but she hid it with her positive attitude, and I just ran away from it. “No! you are not weird, you seem awesome, you have really pretty eyes, and a pretty voice!” I retorted trying to cheer her up as best I could. My young mind could only think of so much to do that, but I just felt that I wanted to show her that I liked her.

Her tail slowly began to wag again as her ears perked up. “You- you mean it? I mean its ok not to, you just met me and stuff.” She looked longingly into my eyes.

“I mean everything I said, and my name is Thomas by the way. And I also like your tail, it's really fluffy, like my cats.” My cat, what was I thinking, I was just lucky my mom had him in her room using it as his little home until he was big enough to climb up and down the stairs.

“Oh! I love kitties!” She blurted out. “But I never saw one before...I think it's because my mom is allergic to them or something. Oh that reminds me, who is your favorite character on the show, because mine is Krillen because of his funny bald head, it makes me giggle every tim-” She blushed, or what I think was her blushing on account of her fur. “Sorry, you were about to tell me who your favorite was.” She giggled lightly as she sat there leaning back and forth until I spoke.

She amazed me, she was the first girl to ever just treat me like a normal kid, she didn't ignore me like all the other girls did, or make fun of me like most of the boys at my school did, or didn't even noticed that I was shorter than her. She just liked me. With all these new thoughts going through my head I didn't even noticed I was smiling brightly at her.

So there we were in my living room for what felt like hours of just us talking about everything that we liked about our favorite TV shows, and by the time I felt I was coming down from cloud nine, my dad’s alarm clock from his room started blaring, and made me and Rio jump. She jumped with a yelp, and as her ears flopped down tight to her head.

“Owie...” She looked to me almost sadly then quickly changed it back to being happy as she quickly stood up. “Yay mom should be home now, oh, wanna come have lunch at my house?!” She said loving the idea as she stood up freeing her tail to wag cutely back and forth.

“Um, o-ok let me tell my dad first” I said nervously. I had never been to a girl's house for lunch before let alone another person's house. As these thoughts ran through my head, I just then noticed my palms were warm and sweaty, and my heart rate was going so fast I thought my heart was about to jump out of my chest. That and when I was finally up on the last step to the upstairs my face felt like it was on fire. What was wrong with me, though I didn't know yet, but I would know soon enough, though it would not be something that I'd expect.