“No, they don’t.”
WingedFox announced the end of the first exercise. “Hopefully you all made new friends and learned a bit about each other. This next one is going to be tricky, and if you don’t want to participate, that’s fine. Now, introduce yourselves again, but as your fursona animal. For example…” Both WingedFox and Abby got down on all fours and sniffed at each other. WingedFox yipped, and Abby replied with a meow. They briefly exchanged animal sounds, communicating mostly through animated body language, then got back on two legs.
“Like we said, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Abby said. “However, if you want to get in touch with your wild side, feel free!”
Ron got down on all fours. Out of the corner of his eye, Dazi saw Mateo doing the same, so he followed suit. Tommo said, in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek tone, “Be right back, gotta find a good perch.” He added another eagle screech before he wandered off.
This day was easily the strangest in Dazi’s life. A short time ago he had been a real mountain lion interacting with another large cat. Now he had to act like a mountain lion in his human skin and talk to someone pretending to be a tiger. He imagined what he would do if he were in his mountain lion skin, and panicked when he felt himself starting to change. His heart jumped into his throat. Dazi lowered himself to his belly and focused on his human skin.
“Rrrowl?” Ron’s inquisitive noise was meant to sound like a tiger, but from a human throat it came off as too flat. Dazi tried to respond with a chirp, though to his ears it sounded like a deep squeak. Ron growled affably and gently knocked heads with Dazi, swinging his head the way a tiger would. If Dazi knew Ron any better, he would have rubbed against him, but the only Outsider he felt comfortable doing that with was Mateo. Mateo, on the other hand, was getting along fine with the rabbit and the reptile. Dazi’s jealously ached in his chest.
Dazi sat back on his heels. “Sorry,” he said. “This is just too weird.”
“I hear ya,” Ron said. He lay down and rolled onto his side. “I’m all for releasing your inner beast, but it’s no fun when the beast can’t break free from your human skin.”
The fur along Dazi’s spine would have stood on end, if he had any. He swallowed hard. “What if it was that easy?” he said. “What if you could take off your human skin and let out the animal underneath?”
Ron laughed quietly. “Aside from being messy, I think a lot of the people here would never put their human skin on again. I know I’d love to rip my skin off like in the cartoons and run off to be with other tigers. Sadly, this is reality. We can draw and write all the self-insertion fanfics we want, but that’s not going to change the fact that we’ll all be humans until we die. I hope reincarnation is a thing. I want a do-over.”
Dazi wanted to trust Ron, but doubt nagged the back of his mind regardless, whispering that he might be trying to draw out information using some sort of reverse psychology. He wished he could get rid of those thoughts. He wanted to go back to his tribe and tell them everything was okay with one hundred percent certainty. As it was, there were so many people here who would take the Mukua’poans’ power if they knew about it, Dazi didn’t know if he could write them off as a threat or not.
“Okay everyone,” Abby the Tabby said. “Back to talking like humans. Now we’re going to go over ways you can explain the furry lifestyle to someone who either doesn’t know anything about it or who believes all the trash-talk they read on the internet.”
“For example,” WingedFox said, “if you say to a friend or family member, ‘Hey, I’m a furry, which means I like anthropomorphic characters and sometimes I cosplay as an animal,’ and they say—”
“Does that mean you want to have sex with animals?” Abby put in.
“You can say to them, ‘No, that’s a common misconception. It’s not a fetish or a perversion, it’s how I want to live my life.’”
“Tell them you feel more comfortable as your fursona, but since you can’t be an otter or a penguin or a wolf/dragon hybrid, you wear a costume instead.”
“I think the writers of Donnie Darko put it best,” WingedFox said with a nod. “If someone asks you, ‘Why are you wearing that stupid animal suit?’ then you ask them, ‘Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?’ They feel comfortable in their skin, and we feel comfortable in ours, it just happens that our skins are made of faux fur and felt and…stuff. We would become our fursona if we could, but sadly science hasn’t caught up with magic, and we haven’t found any magicians.” He chuckled and added, “Not yet, anyway.”
Dazi was losing confidence again. He didn’t know who to believe. He didn’t know who to talk to. Tommo was still crouched on a folding chair thirty feet away, so Dazi couldn’t express his concerns in Shoshoni to him. Mateo was right there, but neither one could turn into their feline forms and “converse” or give comfort to each other. Dazi had a sudden overwhelming sense of isolation, but the room felt too crowded. He looked to Mateo. Mateo would keep him safe. Mateo wouldn’t let them hurt him. Would he?
* * * *
Chapter 6
Dazi smelled anxious. Mateo had cringed as well when the speakers mentioned putting on animal skins, but only because he feared how Dazi and Tommo would react. Then the stupid fox had to go and mention finding magic. Mateo knew it was only rhetoric. To Dazi and Tommo, it was proof that their tribe was in danger. He had to get them out of there.
Mopsy, his new rabbit friend, shrugged at the speech. “I don’t want to be a bunny 24/7, but if I could snap my fingers and change back and forth, that’d be nice.”
“Not me,” said Dirk the monitor lizard. “I’d gladly give up this soft skin in exchange for scales and claws, even if the rest of me looked mostly human. What about you, Mateo?”
“I—” Mateo glanced over at Dazi, who stood stock still, eyes alight with panic. “I would be fine with either, so long as I kept the tail.” He picked up his tail, which hung limply in his hand. “I like it. Wish I could graft it to my spine so I could move it.”
Dirk waggled his butt to shake his own tail, which looked like it was made from an old stuffed stocking bolstered with internal wire and a decent paint job. “Yeah, man. I could knock people out if this were real. Slap ‘em right in the face. Pow!”
Mateo chuckled weakly. He pretended to have a sudden thought, then pulled out his phone. “Oh, dang,” he said. “That reminds me, my friend really wanted to be at the costume crafting panel. We’d better get going soon. The line for that one is probably half a mile long already. Nice meeting you two.”
Abby the Tabby was giving instructions for the next exercise, which was simply moving on to meeting another person and introducing yourself more confidently. Mateo walked over to Dazi. He gave the boy dressed as a tiger an acknowledging nod and took Dazi by the hand. “Hey, if you wanted to be at that thing, we should probably get going soon. What do you think?”
Dazi relaxed in Mateo’s presence. His fingers gripped Mateo subtly. “Maybe—I think we could stay for another five or ten minutes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Mhm.” Dazi nodded and smiled uneasily. “I n—want to see what happens next.” He gestured to the tiger boy beside him. “This is Ron, by the way. Ron, this is Mateo.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ron said. Addressing Dazi, he asked, “Is this your boyfriend?”
Mateo let go of Dazi and put both hands behind his back. “No. No, he’s not—I mean, I am…” For whatever reason, he couldn’t come up with the words “gay” or “homosexual”, so instead he made vague gestures until Ron nodded.
“Yeah, I get it,” Ron said. “I’m straight, personally. Got nothing against being gay, it’s just not my scene. Then again, neither is being human, so…there you go.” He laughed softly to himself. “Sorry if I made things awkward. At first I thought you were brothers, but your noses and jawlines are different, not to mention the eyes. I get that those are contacts, but your eyes are also a little rounder than his, now that I look at them.” He
added, “Great contacts by the way. Where did you get them?”
“Custom order,” Mateo replied. “Cost me a fortune, so I only wear them to conventions.”
“Gotcha.”
Mateo tapped Dazi on the arm. “You sure we should stay?”
“Yeah.” Dazi furrowed his brow. “Unless there’s a reason you want to get out of here?”
“No! No, it’s just—” Mateo looked around for Tommo and spotted him crouched on one of the chairs around the edge of the room, texting. “It looks like Tommo has had enough of the event and I thought maybe he wanted to leave, you…y’know…”
To Mateo’s surprise, Dazi shook his head. “We don’t really have anything else to do until the dance. If Tommo has found something to occupy himself in the meantime, great. I want to see how this ends.”
“O…kay…if that’s what you want…”
Dazi didn’t say much else. He stayed by Mateo’s side while others came up to talk to them for the exercises. Before a new exercise began, Abby called out to the people who weren’t participating, Tommo especially.
“Come on!” she exclaimed. “I know you didn’t come all this way to play on your phone! Make some new friends! Don’t be shy!”
Tommo seemed bemused and annoyed at the sudden attention, but he hopped down from his chair nonetheless. He walked over to Dazi, who shook his head.
“Nuh-uh, kiddo. I don’t count. You already know me. Talk to someone else.”
Tommo rolled his eyes and trudged over to a young woman in a full bear hood complete with paws. He lackadaisically offered her his hand to shake. “Hi,” he said, a typical teenage whine in his voice. “I’m Tommo.”
The bear-girl took Tommo by surprise with a hug. “Hi! My name is Ursa. I’m a Kodiak bear. What’s your fursona?”
Tommo blinked in bewilderment. He took a step back, his hand on his talisman. “Eagle.”
“Ohhh. Is that, like, your spirit animal or something?”
Tommo’s shoulders tensed and Mateo checked Dazi in time to see him narrow his eyes. Mateo stepped forward. “Whoa, come on, don’t be racist.”
“What? I thought that’s what you people believed in.”
Mateo pinched the bridge of his nose. “First of all, he’s Shoshoni, I’m Guatemalan. Get your nationalities straight. Second and more importantly, nearly everyone who uses the phrase you people is racist. Yes, the talisman is part of his culture, but that doesn’t mean the eagle is his spirit animal.”
“Yeah,” Tommo said. “My spirit animal is a badger, actually, but I like to fly. Next time you see a flying badger, tell me, I’ll switch.”
With Tommo’s passive aggressive sarcasm reaching critical levels and Dazi reeking of newfound anxiety, Mateo knew they couldn’t stay. “That does it. Tommo, you and I are leaving so we can have a word about your social skills, or lack thereof. Come on, Dazi. We’ll go get in line for that next panel.”
The three of them left the room, Dazi muttering something to Tommo in what Mateo assumed was stern Shoshoni. “I’ll text Kesi and ask where she wants to meet up.”
Mateo tapped him on the arm. “Can you tell her where to meet us instead? I want to talk to you quickly.”
“Uh…okay.”
Tommo folded his arms. “I assume you want to talk to him alone?”
“As a matter of fact I do,” Mateo said, mimicking Tommo’s stance. Mateo was broader and he knew from experience that his eyes tended to intimidate people. Sure enough, Tommo backed down. Speaking to Dazi, Mateo said, “There’s a door that leads to an outdoor balcony nearby. If it’s not too crowded, there’s a fountain out there that should drown out our voices. Tommo can wait inside for Kesi and Kuhma.”
“Sounds good.”
Once outside and a short distance away from everyone else, Mateo asked, “How are you doing?”
Dazi bit his lip and shrugged one shoulder. “I’ll be fine, it’s just…”
“What?”
Dazi sighed. “I’m becoming uncomfortably good at telling lies with the truth in them.”
Mateo laughed. “What? You’ve never told a white lie before?”
Dazi shook his head, his expression dead serious. “Not like this. Not to Outsiders.”
“Well, what do you tell Outsiders then?”
“I don’t. We generally don’t talk to Outsiders.”
Mateo’s jaw dropped slightly. “Ever?”
“Not if we can help it, no. Reduces the risk of someone finding out too much.”
“Then why did you talk to me in the first place?”
Dazi shrugged. “You’re not really an Outsider. You’re more like a forgotten branch of the family tree.”
Mateo stared at him in disbelief. “Wow. And I thought my life was isolated.”
“We’re not isolated. We go into other towns to shop and stuff, plus there are a couple thousand other Shoshoni and Paiutes on the reservation—”
“That’s not what I meant,” Mateo interrupted. “I mean how do you know what’s going on in the world if you don’t talk to people?”
“We’ve got TV,” Dazi said, his voice taking an edge. “And we’ve got the internet. Like I said, we’re not completely isolated.”
Mateo slapped his palm to his forehead. “No wonder you’re so paranoid! TV is not a good representation of real life, and if there’s one thing you shouldn’t trust it’s the gods-damned internet!”
Dazi frowned reproachfully. “Sometimes our shamans have visions, too. They tell us when something important is about to happen.”
“Oh, yeah? What did they say about the Con-fur-ence?”
Silence. Dazi chewed his lip. “Well, they…didn’t…actually see anything related to…um…this…”
“Then why are you worried about it?”
“Because it’s weird!” Dazi exclaimed. “Okay? It’s weird. It’s weird that there are so many people trying to be like us. I’ve pitied half the people I’ve met today, and I keep looking over my shoulder for the rest of them.”
Mateo scowled. “Which one am I then?” Dazi chewed his lip some more. “Dazi, which one am I? Do you pity me or fear me?”
“Neither!” Dazi tore a piece of skin off his lip with his teeth. “I—I get a feeling I knew you before, somehow. I want to spend more time to get to know you, try to remember how I know you.”
“You don’t know me. Didn’t know me. Dazi, I’ve never seen you before in my life. I think I would have remembered your face, or at least your smell.” Mateo inhaled deeply. “Under the stench of your anxiety I can smell that you’re a good guy, and maybe we do have something in common other than our powers, but when you’re on your guard all the time I smell that, too. It makes me feel like I should be afraid, but I don’t know if I should be more afraid of the furries, whom I’ve known for years, or you.”
That gave Dazi pained pause. “Me? Why me?”
“I know what cornered animals are like. When it was just the two of us, you were relaxed and cool and…now…” Mateo gritted his teeth and wrinkled his nose. “Now we’re back here, and you’re jumpy, you’re defensive, you’re seeing enemies wherever you go but they’re not. The main thing that scares me is what would happen if someone triggers you accidentally and you retaliated. Again, I don’t know what should concern me more: other people setting you off or what you would do if they did.”
Dazi stared at Mateo, frowning as he nibbled his lip. “I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said quietly.
Mateo shook his head. “Not me, no, but someone who doesn’t deserve your wrath. No one here is out to get you. No one here knows about you. Yeah, if they could, plenty of the people here would love to have your powers, but in their minds that’s merely a fantasy, and deep down they know it. They won’t come looking for you because they don’t think you’re real.”
The fire faded from Dazi’s eyes, replaced by something like shame. Mateo was about to assure him that everything would be okay so long as he and his friends kept their low profile when Kesi walked up, th
e sound of her footsteps covered by the splashing of the fountain.
“Are you two done? Tommo is getting fidgety and Kuhma is turning into a cranky old man. If we don’t get moving, his hair is going to turn white and his face will melt into a permanent scowl.”
“Yeah, I think we’re done,” Dazi said. That was definitely shame. Mateo’s heart went out to Dazi because he was scared of what he didn’t know. The only problem was he seemed content sticking with the misinformation that kept him anxious. Fear was all well and fine as an animal, since you were more likely to survive if you assumed every shadow was a predator instead of prey, but it wasn’t needed here. If anything, it was going to put them in more danger.
* * * *
Chapter 7
They rejoined with the others where they were waiting outside the doors. Dazi’s chest still ached. Despite all his best efforts, he couldn’t shake his anxiety, and that was pushing Mateo farther away. He had to maintain Mateo’s trust. Mateo was swiftly becoming the sort of person Dazi wanted to impress, and furthermore, he would never convince Mateo to come back to his tribe if Mateo thought they were all paranoid and dangerous.
Mateo asked, “Where are you guys staying tonight?”
“We were going to camp out,” said Kuhma. “We’re used to sleeping outside, y’know?”
“Wouldn’t that be risky?”
Kuhma lowered his voice and said, “I doubt people will be hunting in this area.”
Mateo lowered his own voice to reply, “Yeah, but they could call animal control on you.”
Tommo snorted. “If they did, we wouldn’t be animals by the time they got there. We know how to hide. It’s one of the first things we learn when we—” His older sister interrupted him with a hiss. “What?” Tommo said. “Dazi probably told him everything already anyway.”
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