Beasts Like Us

by Feral Sephrian

  “I want to go to the introductions event,” Tommo said. “I’ve always wondered how these people admit what they do in their spare time to regular people.”

  A muscle in Mateo’s face twitched. He didn’t want to spend the afternoon scolding Dazi’s friends for their insensitive comments, but if the Mukua’poan expected to blend in for the weekend, they couldn’t go around saying stuff like that. Tommo did look younger than the rest, but only by a few years. He was definitely old enough that he should have more sense than that.

  “I’ll go with Kuhma,” Kesi said. “We have the best ears, so we can pick up the little conversations in the crowd. Tommo, you and Dazi can go with…uh…Mateo.”

  “That works for me!” Dazi said enthusiastically. “Think there will be any other mountain lions at this event?”

  Mateo shrugged. “There will definitely be other cats, maybe some lions, a few tigers. However…” He indicated Dazi’s headgear. “People are going to assume you’re a wolf or fox furry with that. Why don’t we switch again?” He offered Dazi his cat ears. Dazi gladly swapped him for his hood. Kuhma sighed and rolled his eyes. “You two go do your thing, then,” Mateo said, hoping to soon be rid of the bad-tempered elk. “I’ll take Dazi and Tommo to the introduction event. They’re in safe hands.”

  “I would assume so,” Kesi said. She patted Kuhma on the back. “Come on, big guy, let’s see what the rest of this place has to offer.” They walked off without another word.

  Dazi put his hand on Mateo’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about them. You know how elk are: overly cautious and usually meaner than they look.”

  Mateo chuckled. “Yeah…Well, let’s go!”

  Dazi was at Mateo’s shoulder as they walked, and Tommo was at Dazi’s heels, turning his head to look in every direction. Mateo also kept an eye out for anything he might have to explain. By now, all the mannerisms and customs of the convention were second nature to him. He had to put himself in the mindset of the Mukua’poan. He imagined what it would be like if he had never seen a furry in person before and thought anyone in a fursuit was on the verge of breaking down his door and carrying him and his family off to who knows where to do who knows what to them. Suddenly everything became much more daunting. He even had the urge to growl at the people around him.

  As they took the escalator downstairs, a small herd of people in My Little Pony kigurumi, male and female, were riding the up escalator next to them. Both Tommo and Dazi watched them, but Tommo had the audacity to loudly whisper, “Why?”

  “Because it’s who they are and they aren’t hurting anyone,” Mateo said curtly and quietly. “Now don’t stare.”

  As Mateo predicted, although they were more than half an hour early, about a dozen people had already lined up outside the door marked for the Introducing Your Fursona panel. He turned to Dazi and Tommo and gave them a final reminder. “Be nice,” he said, “and don’t stare.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 5

  The wait was long. More people joined the line every minute. Mateo greeted someone dressed in a raccoon fursuit and the two got into an animated conversation. Dazi constantly reminded himself he had come here for the truth, to see if the fake-skins were as much of a threat as everyone assumed. All his opinions and pre-conceived notions would render him blind. He had entered the convention with only what he knew from the tribe’s suspicions and what a few searches on Google had taught him. If he wanted to see the true nature of the fake-skins, he would need an open mind as well as open eyes.

  He wished Tommo could have the same sense. In the typical fashion of an eighteen-year old trying to seem cool and superior, he made disparaging remarks and stupid insults about each new member of the line in Shoshoni, chuckling to himself and looking to Dazi to join him. After shushing him half a dozen times, Dazi finally gave up and smacked Tommo upside the head.

  “Are you an eagle or a yammering blue jay?” he asked rebukingly in Shoshoni. “What if someone from the reservation is here and they hear you? These fake-skins are smarter than they look, one of them may know the language, too. Think before you speak, idiot.”

  Tommo scowled, but held his tongue until the doors opened. Then he sighed, “About time,” and milled into the room with the rest of them. It wasn’t set up like the other panel. There were only a few tables with chairs, otherwise there was a small stage at one side of the room and the rest of the floor was left open so people could walk around freely.

  As usual, Dazi was surprised by how few people were there in full fursuits, compared to what he had expected. Most of them wore outfits more akin to Halloween costumes, masks or fake heads and tails with normal human clothing, and a few merely carried stuffed animals or had T-shirts with their chosen animal on it. A young woman in a dog costume that looked like onesie pajamas with a harness and leash held by a man wearing a fake horse’s mane came over to them.

  “Hey, Mateo!” she said brightly. “Are you here to talk to the newbies, too?”

  “I already did.” Mateo jerked his thumb at Dazi and Tommo. “These two are fur-curious, so I’m showing them around. This is Dazi, and this is Tommo. Guys, this is Maggy and her boyfriend, Cliff.”

  Maggy smiled at Dazi briefly, but didn’t make eye contact. Not only was Dazi mildly offended, he worried she might know what he was somehow, that maybe she felt guilty for what they were planning. He took a deep breath and told himself once more that he couldn’t make assumptions like that. If Mateo was right, this was all a coincidence and there was nothing to fear.

  “Why are you wearing wolf ears?” she asked Mateo.

  “Meta-cosplaying,” he replied with a grin. “I’m a jaguar dressed as a wolf.”

  Maggy and her boyfriend laughed. “That is meta! I didn’t think animals could be furries.”

  Mateo shrugged. “It’s all a matter of the fandom. Besides, if humans can dress up as other humans, animals can dress up as other animals.”

  “You’ve got a point,” Maggy said with a nod. That was when she fully acknowledged Dazi, though she still avoided direct eye contact. “So are you a jaguar, too?”

  “Mountain lion,” Dazi corrected, his heart in his throat. “Couldn’t find anything other than stuff for regular lions, so Mateo let me borrow this.”

  Maggy nodded. “Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to find exactly what you want. I identify more as a bloodhound, but this kigurumi is the closest I could get. It has the right coloring though.”

  “You could be a black mountain lion,” Cliff suggested.

  “And you could be a pink unicorn,” Maggy retorted. “He can pick the color he wants to be, regardless of convenience or lack thereof. Besides, there are no black mountain lions.”

  “There aren’t any blue rabbits either, but I see one off in the corner talking to a guy wearing dragon wings. And there are too black mountain lions. My uncle saw one on a hunting trip.”

  “Was he drunk at the time?”

  “No. You know he doesn’t drink when he hunts.”

  “Was he drunk when he told you?”

  “Okay, maybe he had one beer, but he knows what he saw.”

  “Yeah, he probably saw a mountain lion’s shadow, or it was standing in front of the sun and only looked black.”

  Cliff sighed in exasperation. “No, Maggy, it was a black mountain lion.”

  “Pics or it didn’t happen.” When Cliff couldn’t come up with a response quick enough, Maggy addressed Tommo instead. “And you…are…uh…”

  Tommo held up his feather luck charm. “Eagle.”

  “Ah, yes, yes, I see.” Maggy’s nose twitched. She turned to Dazi again. “May I sniff you?” she asked.

  Completely taken aback, Dazi stammered before saying, “O…kay…”

  Maggy sniffed from his shoulder down his chest and up to his other shoulder, just like a dog. She stepped back and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “You own a cat.”

  “Uh…yeah,” he lied. “How did you know?”

  “Because I am a bloodhound
, and my nose knows.” Maggy grinned. Her eyes focused on something across the room. “Ooo! Someone is here in a corgi kigurumi! We have to go say hi!” She grabbed her leash and pulled Cliff along. “Bye Mateo! Nice to meet your friends!”

  When she was safely out of earshot, Tommo snorted. “Well, that was weird.”

  “Yeah,” Dazi agreed. “What’s with the leash? Is that a fetish or something?”

  Mateo narrowed his eyes. “Maggy is autistic and she gets distracted easily. The leash is for her own safety because otherwise she would get separated from Cliff and it might trigger an anxiety attack. Plus she likes it, adds to the costume. A lot of canid furries wear harnesses as an accessory. It’s like asking someone wearing stylish shoes if they have a foot fetish.”

  Dazi’s heart sank. There he was making rude assumptions again. She wasn’t crazy, she was quirky. He rubbed at his eyes and massaged his temples with the palms of his hands. This wasn’t his world. He had to think like the fake-skins. They wanted to be animals, but had to settle for dressing up and merely acting like them, creating their own culture in the process. He imagined what it would be like if he had his mountain lion urges, but couldn’t change out of his human skin. For some reason, his first thought was of Mateo.

  “Wait,” Tommo interjected. “I thought people with autism didn’t like interacting with other people? How can she be at a place like this?”

  “So she can interact with other animals,” Mateo said. “Quiet, I think the event is starting.”

  Indeed, their hosts were up on stage getting the microphones ready. One was a fox in a full fursuit, but with red feathery wings strapped to his back. The other was an older woman with her face made up like a cat’s, and she wore fake ears and a tail. Dazi was startled when he saw her cat ears move. He tapped Mateo and quietly asked about them.

  “Oh! Those are neat. It’s a new technology that, naturally, started in Japan. The ears pick up on your brain waves, so when your thoughts change, the ears twitch or swivel. I tried them once. They don’t work exactly like our—like real cats’ ears. I tried to be very interested in something on the other side of the room, and they didn’t face forward or change quickly, but they did twitch.”

  Tommo snorted. “What’s next? Mentally controlling a robot animal so they can pretend that’s their real body?”

  Mateo frowned. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were working on it. Sounds like something I would be interested in trying. Who wouldn’t be?”

  Dazi elbowed Tommo in the ribs. “Yeah, sounds great, doesn’t it, Tommo?” He was tempted to make Tommo wait outside if he remained this stubborn.

  Fortunately it didn’t come to that. Tommo didn’t say anything, he merely put his hands up in surrender, then crossed his arms with a huff. Dazi hoped that meant this time he was actually going to follow the rule of “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Tommo had been a good kid, but he had become the typical bratty teenager. Dazi was thankful Tommo would be twenty in a couple years. If he kept this attitude, however, Dazi didn’t know if he could trust Tommo outside their reservation ever again.

  The two furries onstage, WingedFox and Abby the Tabby, had finished introducing themselves by the time Dazi paid attention again. “Enough about us though,” said WingedFox, who was surprisingly audible through the head of his fursuit. “It’s time to practice introducing yourselves. Find someone you think is interesting, walk up to them, and tell them your name. It could be your human name, could be the name of your fursona, could be something you completely made up. Then, if you want, talk about what you’ve been doing at the Con-fur-ence so far, how you express yourself at home, stuff like that. We’ll give you five minutes before we move on to the next exercise. Aaand…go!”

  Dazi froze. He didn’t actually want to talk to anybody. He was here to listen, to understand. Furthermore, he couldn’t tell people about himself. It was bad enough he had opened up to Mateo. He was sure to get an earful from Kuhma later already. A slip of the tongue here and he could endanger the whole tribe.

  The best chance Dazi had was to pretend he had just met Mateo. Unfortunately, Mateo was already exchanging pleasantries with a young woman with bunny ears and a large blob of cotton stuck to her butt. Dazi didn’t like the way she was looking at Mateo. When she giggled at Mateo’s description of “meta-cosplaying”, Dazi wanted to bare his fangs and growl. He settled for wrinkling his nose in indignation.

  Someone close by cleared their throat. “Hi.”

  Dazi turned to find a boy, probably no older than sixteen, nervously clutching a tiger-striped tail that was clipped to the back of his jeans. He had matching black stripes on his cheeks and lines of dots for what Dazi assumed were whiskers on either side of his nose. “Hey,” Dazi replied.

  “You guys are both big cats, too, right?” the boy said, indicating Dazi’s ears and Mateo’s fake hind paws.

  “Uh…yeah.”

  Tommo scoffed. “Yeah, they’re cats, and I’m an eagle.” He screeched, and he sounded almost exactly like a real eagle. However, his voice was bordering passive aggressive sarcasm. Dazi took a step closer to Tommo so no one else would try to strike up a conversation with him.

  “So…tiger?” Dazi said. He pointed to the fake tail. “That looks pretty good, but my friend’s is better.”

  The tiger boy nodded. “It is. I like the added touch of sewing it onto his pants so it looks more accurate. Not to mention that subtle curve at the end. How did he get it to do that?”

  “Um…wires.”

  “Really? It looks so loose.”

  “The wire is only in the tip.” Dazi hastily introduced himself and Tommo to change the subject.

  “I’m Ron,” the tiger boy said. “This is my first time here. What about you guys?”

  “Oh, it’s our first time, too.”

  “Anyone else know you’re…y’know?”

  “Our families do, yeah, but no one else.” Dazi trembled as the truth poured off his tongue. It was a safe truth, one that he could cover with lies. His heart pounded heavily as he tried to come up with a few.

  “Yeah, my parents know, but I haven’t told any kids at school.” Ron fiddled with his tail. “Some probably suspect, though. I’ve always been interested in tigers, ever since I was a kid. They were always my favorite characters in cartoons and stuff. I remember watching Aladdin when I was little, and I wanted a tiger friend like Rajah. My dad even got me a Hobbes plushie that I took with me everywhere, so kids used to call me Calvin. Or that weird tiger kid. Like I said, some of them may already know I’m a furry.”

  Tommo tilted his head. “Do your parents know you’re here?” He was genuinely curious. Dazi was impressed.

  Ron nodded. “My dad dropped me off this morning, and he’s coming to get me around nine. I want to go to the dance for a little while. I’ve already made a few friends.” He looked over his shoulder to a small cluster of other teenagers, some in fursuits, most in more basics gear. “None of them like big cats like I do though. Which one are you?”

  “I’m a mountain lion,” Dazi said. Once again, he was nervous about telling the truth, but at the same time he felt a giddy sense of liberation. He could say that in a room full of people and none of them thought he was crazy. Then again, he didn’t know who was listening, and what they were after. He quickly added, “Or, at least I wish I were.”

  “I hear that.” Ron sighed. “Whenever I watch documentaries about tigers, I get this feeling that I should be there, too. I should be a tiger, prowling through the jungles or napping on a tree branch. I tried napping on a tree branch once, but I dozed off and fell. Oh, don’t worry, I only broke my arm, but the whole thing had to be in a cast for a couple months.” His expression became glum. “One of the many stupid reminders that I’m not a tiger and I never will be.”

  Dazi felt sorry for the kid. Ron reminded him of a little boy in his tribe. He wanted to be a raven when he came of age because he wanted to fly and discover new things. One d
ay he decided to “practice” by jumping off the diving rock at the local swimming hole, except he took off wrong and wound up dislocating his ankle.

  “Don’t worry,” everyone told him. “Someday soon you will be a raven, and you will fly, but that day is not today.”

  Ron would never get that day. He would spend the rest of his life waiting for it, even though he knew it was impossible. It made Dazi aware of how many people were in the room with him, how many people were in the convention center. Even if only a tenth of them had thoughts like this, that was anywhere between fifty and a hundred lost souls in the wrong skin, and that was only this convention. Mateo said there were about a dozen like it in the Americas alone, and most attracted much larger crowds. What they would do if they found out about the Mukua’poan…

  “So what got you interested in mountain lions?” Ron asked.

  Dazi had told enough truths, another one couldn’t hurt. “I had a dream once,” he said. “I was hunting on all fours, and when I looked at the ground, I had a mountain lion’s shadow.” He glanced over at Mateo, who was now talking to someone reptilian in addition to the rabbit. Mateo’s tail hung limply against his thighs, but every now and then, almost like a blink, it would twitch, or maybe that was the movement of Mateo’s legs as he shifted his balance. “At least, I thought it was a mountain lion.”

  “Was it just the one dream?”

  The question took a moment to register among the swirl of thoughts in Dazi’s head. “Hm? Oh, yeah. I mean, at first. I…pretended I was a mountain lion a lot, too. I climbed trees and prowled around my backyard pouncing on anything that moved.”

  Ron smiled. “Ever catch anything?”

  Dazi remembered his first kill. It was a young buck his mentor helped him take down, but he let Dazi make the fatal bite. The buck’s pulse had vibrated through Dazi’s teeth, echoing his own rapid heartbeat. Blood had filled his mouth and trickled down his throat as the pulse grew weaker, until the buck went limp in Dazi’s jaws. He had been so nervous, yet so enthralled by the experience. That was the day he truly became one with his animal spirit. “No, never. Leaves, mostly, but they don’t count.”