V is for Victim

Chapter 4
Chapter Four

Chapter 4

As he draped the towel around himself, Addison vaguely mused that the Theran government must be getting more generous. Normally, the towels they provided barely covered his lanky frame, but now the thing enveloped him like a blanket. It was warm, recently run through a dryer, it felt like, and it did nothing to dislodge the fuzziness that they young man felt in his head. A voice in front of him helped somewhat.

“Welcome back to Prelude, Mr. Wolf. Always a pleasure to see you here,” the voice said. It was a pleasant voice, soothing, and hinted strongly at the personality of it’s owner. It wasn’t far off the mark. Just hearing Theresiani (Theresa to her friends and family) Col’s voice brought a smile to Addison’s face. He pulled off his towel-hood and stepped forward through the mist of the transmission.

“Hiya, Theresa!” he called, waving as excitement bubbled in his chest as he prepared to greet his friend...then it hit him quite suddenly. What was wrong with his voice?

The mist parted to reveal a tall, delicate woman clothed in loose fitting green and white robes that gently fluttered around her, giving her an otherworldly appearance. Her russet red fur brightly contrasted with her choice of clothes, but they matched her eyes, which shown an emerald green. Dark blonde hair cascaded down between her sharply angled ears, and ended abruptly above her shoulder. Long, pale wings lifted from her back, giving her the appearance of an angel. Her drivers license listed her species as Alivulpes vulpes, a winged red fox.

It seemed like she didn’t notice him at first, as she peered around into the Transmission room. Addison was suddenly struck with how tall she seemed...easily dwarfing him as he looked up at her. What was going on?

Then he caught sight of his hand.

A mountain hyrax is a creature possessed of an ugly mottled gray coat, and Addison, wearing his Thera form was usually no different. His hands, with long, gnarled fingers, had ended in sharp black nails that always seemed a little too long. Not anymore. The hand Addison stared at as his own was covered in black fur and his fingers were now short and chubby, barely a trace of nail showing. Dark russet red fur ran from his ?glove’ up his arm. He snapped back to reality as Theresa finally noticed him.

“Oh, salutations, little one, welcome to Thera.” She looked around again, her narrow brow furrowing in concern. Before he could say a word, she bent low and ruffled the fur on his head. “Sorry, I was expecting someone else just now.” Smiling warmly, she kneeled down to eye level with him. “Wait right here, and I’m sure your family will be along soon.”

Addison lunged forward and caught her dress as she turned to walk back into the receiving station. “Wait, Theresa, it’s me!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Addison! Addison Wolf! What happened to me?”

To his surprise, Theresa frowned. “Now that I have assumed management of this slider station, I have become the target of several practical jokes by some of the people I replaced. I’ll warn you little one, I’m in no mood for falling into another.”

“Th...Theresa, it’s me! We have a da-we’re supposed to have lunch today!”

The stern expression did not leave her face. “I’m finding you hard to believe. Tell me something only Mr. Wolf would know.”

“Uh...” he searched his brain for something suitable. “Um....we’ve had lunch a total of seventeen times now, and you’ve only let me pay for about four of those. We used to joke about the difference between human and Thera dati...er...lunching habits.”

She put her hand to her mouth. “Addison, it is you!” She swung around and kneeled again, wide eyes searching all over him, as though checking for some unseen injury.

“Wuh...what happened?” Addison exclaimed, staring at his chubby paws. “Why am I so little?” he looked behind him, at his feet, pulled the towel away from his body to get a glimpse at that. The same russet fur covered him until his belly, where it pulled away to dark white. Near his feet, a bushy tail swung, but on his back...

“Oh my,” Theresa gasped, her pale blue wings slightly aflutter in surprise. “That’s a good question.” She leaned down, staring at him. “How do you feel? Nauseous? A headache?”

Still somewhat speechless, Addison shook his head. “No, I feel great. It’s just that this is a little shock.” He laughed nervously at his joke. “No pun intended.”

She hmmed, tapping the side of her long muzzle. “Well, it’s always been said that ?sliding’ is an unstable mode of transport, desperately in need of fine tuning.”

That was the first Addison had heard of that.

“”There must have been an error when we entered in your genome data. As I said earlier, there is a family with young children due to arrive in a few hours.”

He cast a look behind him, and the stubby little wings jumped in response. “And they are winged foxes too?”

“I don’t recall their ethnicity.”

“Oh...” he said, distracted by the sensation of his tail swishing behind him. He turned to try and catch sight of it, but it danced out of his vision. Unaware of what he was doing, he began slowly revolving in pursuit, until Theresa put her hand on his little shoulder. She smiled.

“So, are you ready to go?”

Addison was speechless and gaped up at her. “Wait, you’re just going to leave me like this? Aren’t you worried about the slider or anything?”

She coughed. “Well, though I don’t like to shirk my responsibilities, my shift ended with your arrival. I’m not as well-versed in Slider technology as some of my co-workers, and frankly, I don’t have the first idea as to what could be wrong with it, despite my earlier hunch.” She looked thoughtful. “And if I recall, you are on a limited duration visa. You have what, three, four hours allowed to you?”

“Three,” the little boy sighed, but then looked up again. “But...but...”

She grinned. “Always the complainer. As a good friend of mine often said, form has nothing to do with the qualities of photos taken, right?”

Giving his diminutive form a final look, Addison grinned. “I s’pose so...but I do have one more complaint...you know us artists...we like to complain.”

“Yes?” Theresa asked patiently, looking down at him.

“How can I go out without any clothes? I don’t suppose stark naked is acceptable fashion here in Prelude.”

She frowned, but hid a grin with her hand. “Young though you are, you might be a bit old to be protected by the veil childhood innocence.” She tapped her chin and smiled thoughtfully. “Should I run you back and forth through the Slider a few times and see if I can’t make you smaller?”

He laughed and shook his head violently. “No, don’t think I’d care to make the journey back to the time of diapers and daisies just yet.” He held up his short arms in front of his wide eyes. “How old do you think I am anyway?”

Theresa opened her mouth to answer, but then caught herself. “Daisies?”

“Nevermind,” he said, but she made a note to herself to ask again later. Things left unsaid had always bothered her...it was one of the defining Vulpine traits.

“Well, let’s see,” she murmured, moving close to him again, and without warning, she reached out and thrust her hands beneath the towel he had draped around himself. He jumped and began to pull away, but fell into a trance-like state as she felt down around his sides, ruffling his fur. She pulled away, and he nearly swooned.

“Judging by the texture of your fur and your eyes, I’d said you were just about five or six years old, as you humans reckon age. It’s easier for me to tell because we share a species now.”

There was an awkward silence, and it’s into this silence that I will reveal a dramatic plot point. Addison Wolf, our young and utterly bamboozled art teacher, was completely and utterly in love with Ms. Kol. The problem was that the Thera have very differing outlooks on dating and love; that is, those things are practically non-existant. Not to say that this is a cruel and dark world bereft of those things, it’s just that at times, the animal side of their heritage is more apparent. When it is time, they gather, mate, and then go their different ways, keeping only casual acquaintances with the mother or father of their children once they were grown. Certainly, this hinted at the foundations of relationship, but well, it’s complicated. I’m sure you’ll get a better picture as the story progresses. Enough said that Mr. Wolf always stumbled around Theresa, but respected her culture and people enough to avoid any overt hints. For her part, she never seemed to give anything away. They were dear friends, in her opinion, and to the Thera, that is more important then anything else in their world. This was something that Addison had never really understood.

Now with that out of the way...

“I...er...well...clothes?” Addison finished weakly, still a little lightheaded from her touch. Never in all the times had they seen each other, had she ever touched him in any way, as casual contact was not part of Theran culture. Well, it was either that, or the annoying Theran habit to be completely incapacitated by belly rubs. Or so the rumors went.

“Before that, let’s get you out of the Reception Area,” she said, gesturing at the brightly colored exit. “We don’t want to be ?stepped on’ as the next party arrives.”

Addison nodded and followed her on unsure, stubby legs. It was quite a new sensation getting used to his center of balance being so low now, but he managed ok without stumbling...until the towel tripped him up and he fell to the hard linoleum with a dull crash. As he began to pick himself up, he was suddenly hoisted into the air with a startled cry. Finding himself eye to emerald eye with Theresa, he opened his mouth, but choked on it as she briskly walked from the room, carrying him effortlessly with one arm.

“As it turns out,” she was saying, as though holding him in her arms was perfectly natural to her, “we keep a rather large storeroom of clothes here at the Slider Stations, mostly because some of you humans don’t quite fit into the clothes you bring with you when you change.” She laughed to herself. “I’ve heard that’s a convenience that your people do not readily offer us.”

He hung his head. “Sorry about that.”

“No no no, little one, it’s not your place to apologize for that.”

He looked at her with a sour look. “Hey, ease off the ?little one’ title...I only look like I’m adolescent. The sharp and cunning mind of a twenty seven year old art scholar lurks behind this cute fa?ade.” He grinned as she chuckled with the laugh that meant she hadn’t gotten the joke.

“I’ll be more careful then, Mr. Wolf.”

“Alright then.”