The Flight of Tobias
#1 of The Path
_Dear readers;
The meat of this story is actually lifted primarily out of my own life and those of a few trusted friends. Although it is neither autobiographical nor biographical of any single person's life, much of its contents are based on some truth. I am doubtful that many here would quite believe where that which is grounded in reality gives way to fantasy, so simply trust that this is an attempt to explore my own heart. This is actually the first time I've really had the courage to publish any of my work; therefore I lend my thanks to anyone who may find something in here that speaks to them, and I hope in later stories to provide sources of excitement for you all. I appreciate any input as long as the person giving it wishes at heart to help me become the best writer that I can be. I believe that this should be the premise of any input that is given on a story. My deepest thanks to you all for reading, and I would like to thank all of the writers on YS for their beautiful writing.
Some of the ideas expressed in here and especially in later entries to this series might not be agreeable to some of you. If so, that's okay. I don't require you to agree with me for me to get along with you, and that is a statement I do my very best to live by. I hope that you will do the same. Furthermore, if you are under legal age or otherwise still dependent on your parents or legal guardians, please be considerate of them: whether you know it or not, these are people who love you very deeply, and finding this sort of material on your machine may cause them to worry about you. I don't think that's right to do, no matter how many hardships you may have been through, so please do the right thing: be discreet. I also consider it advisable to know and follow the laws of your state and your country, but it's your own ass.
Enjoy;
Sigma Prime_
"TOBIAS! Tobias! I said get your tail in here, and Get Your Dinner!" Sasha shouted from the door. She had had a few drinks tonight. The six-year-old Vulpine knew it because his mother's voice only took on that sharp edge when she had been drinking. A lot. He really didn't want to go inside now. He knew what would be in store for him if he went in: he'd end up having to wash dishes again. Tobias always hated doing that, and he skipped dinner as often as he could to keep from having to do them. The schools in his district served big helpings, especially for breakfast, and they were usually plenty enough to fill him. When this wasn't the case, he'd run off to his best friend's house and eat there. Eric and his dads always loved to have him over.
It wouldn't have been so bad, though. It really wouldn't have, and it wasn't washing dishes IN PRINCIPLE he objected to. He always helped out with them when he was over at Eric's house for dinner or sleepovers, and it was fun when he did him there. Eric and his step-father (a nineteen-year-old mink) would sometimes flick water at him, and there'd be some amount of giggling amongst them. He wished dearly that he had a family of his own that was like that. What really turned him off from doing the chore at home came down to one thing: his mother. Particularly when she was drunk, she would often stand there in the kitchen, towering over him threateningly to make sure he did them the way she wanted them done, all the while cursing him for how horrible and worthless he was for always sneaking off to get out of it. If he so much as whispered a complaint, she'd haul him out to the back yard and beat him with a switch. "Don't ever talk that way to me!" she'd snarl angrily. "LIFE isn't fair! Remember, I'm the parent; you're the child! That's the difference!" She didn't get that way very often, but it's all the same in a child's eyes.
The only thing that kept him here was Fetch, who was a feral-line labrador retriever they'd inherited from his mother's last boyfriend. It turned out that the man was brutally abusive, including to the dog, and it finally got to the point that Sasha just couldn't tolerate it any longer. She moved herself and Tobias out of that madhouse, taking the dog with her on threats to press charges against him. She had still had some hope in her at that point, and she'd decided to let her three-year-old child have the puppy as a pet. Tobias had fallen in love with the animal, and, for a while, they were reared almost like brothers. At first, Fetch was even given a place with them at the table.
It wasn't until Sasha had gotten fired from her job that things had started to go downhill. Sasha's story was that one of her coworkers had been embezzling funds from the corporation she worked at, and she'd put in a report about it out of love for her company. Apparently, her coworker had found out about it, and he set up all the evidence to point directly at Sasha. Since Sasha had just recently gotten her graduate degree in business administration, though, she was the new girl in town. Furthermore, she was a single mother and, moreover, a Vulpine. The coworker, on the other hand, was an old and trusted employee, and he was also a member of the Lupine majority. Sasha had only escaped jail time because the judge had been sympathetic; after all, it had been the Mustelids from the frigid North that had had come to free the Vulpine race from enslavement two centuries ago. Although official control of the government had long since been ceded back to the inhabitants of its land, Mustelidaeans still held most positions of governmental authority and were well-respected in most regions.
After being blacklisted, though, Sasha's hard-earned degree was wasted unless she were to save up for a move North, where she was not on record. The white foxes who lived there readily accepted immigrants from the South, particularly if they were educated, and slavery had been abolished there for a lot longer thanks to the Mustelidaeo-Mephitidaean Enlightenment. They still held a very subordinate position to the ever-dominant Mustelids (who had bred them first for slavery, then as sex objects, and finally to be, for the most part, well-loved pets prior to the Vulpine Emancipation Act), but the Mephits (who always tended to be very intellectually vain) tended to hire them on for important jobs wherever possible, just to style themselves as hip and progressive. It wasn't a perfect world up there, but it was possible to make it. Failing that, there were still wealthy wolverines who liked to lend rooms in their homes to needy Vulpine families. Being a highly conservative bunch, they still preferred to teach their children early how to be commanding with a willful, young tod, and they still liked the fact that they ruled the roost.
Unfortunately, the only thing left to poor Sasha (that would bring in any money, in any case) was to market out her body to horny lupines who were looking for guilt-free sex. Tobias was never told about this, but it was one of the reasons that the poor woman had become so bitter. Her second reason was that, although the work paid very well, it was also a high-risk profession: she had contracted a sexually transmitted disease that could be passed between canids, and it had cost her dearly to get it into remission. This left her with either working horrible, entry-level jobs or putting potentially innocent, young men at risk of getting the disease from her. She hadn't done the latter...yet. She was drinking away the rest of her soul as quickly as she could, though.
Being too young to ever understand any of this, though, Tobias simply avoided being around her. He couldn't tolerate being around her at all anymore, and he wanted to go over to Eric's again to pretend for a while he was in a real family. In that spirit, then, he picked up one of Fetch's tennis balls and beckoned the dog to follow him along, quietly slipping out through the gate leading into the woods. The dog happily followed along behind him, jumping and bouncing the entire way, as Tobias made his flight through the path that led to where his friend lived. Escaping from home always gave him a thrill.
This was also where Tobias always went when he wanted to let Fetch hug and tickle him. There was a particularly secret place, heavily walled in by vines and undergrowth, where Tobias would take off his clothes like he used to and let the big dog grab him from behind and tickle his sides to make him giggle. It was something he had kept a secret after his mother had told him not to let the dog do that anymore. It seemed to make Fetch happy, though, and it made Tobias happy as well. What could be the harm in it? The only bad thing the dog did was sometimes spray something sticky from his pee-pee and get it all over the little tod's butt, and sometimes it could take a while to get the stains out.
It was late in the day, though, and the mosquitoes were coming out. Besides, Eric's family would be eating dinner in only thirty minutes. Tobias knew because they were never off schedule at all, and they would only know to make an extra portion if Tobias showed up by at least fifteen 'til seven. With his tummy rumbling from a missed lunch, then, Tobias pranced and skipped merrily through the little patch of woodland, soon spying the glow of his friend's house arriving upon him. With a smile coming to his lips and his dog following along at his heels, he arrived in the back yard of the big, secluded country house. And with his little, foxy tail wagging happily behind him through the hole in his shorts, he marched up to knock on the back door. To Tobias's surprise, though, the door wasn't answered by Bobby or Mr. Kieth or Eric. Instead, he found himself gazing directly at the sheath of a very very tall, white tod.
Sasha finished washing up her paws and began to lay dinner on the table. It would be the first decent meal that she had been able to afford in a long time, and tonight she really wanted to play make-up to her only son. She had cooked up his favorite: home-made chicken meatballs with all fresh herbs, all drizzled in a dipping sauce that one of her floormates had taught her to make during her freshman year. She'd even saved up enough money to work in baked brie and apricots for desert, so they could load it up on bakery-fresh french bread with some grapes. She knew the little tod would be excited. She really wanted it to work out for tonight.
She sighed wistfully as she thought about when she was able to do this sort of thing on a regular basis. It had been hard on her and Tobias alike for these past several years, and she was developing an ache in her heart for how her sweet, little tod used to run around the house. She remembered how sometimes, he would come streaking out of his room stark-naked, and, instead of forcing him to put some clothes on, she'd sweep him up in her arms and just take him to the couch to tickle him until he was about to burst. Then she'd read to him for a while, stroking his little body while doing her best to suppress his near-infinite supply of innocent questions. The hardships she and Tobias had endured over the past few years had just put such a strain on her...it was almost like she was slowly forgetting how to be happy. She feared she'd never get out of the situation she was presently in.
She looked up at the clock and realized that Tobias was not coming in. She'd told him to come in for dinner tonight. She'd made him promise. What does he think he's doing...? Maybe he just lost track of time? She sighed softly and went to the door to try to call him in.
"Tobias," she called out through the window. The boy didn't respond, though, and he just kept throwing that damned tennis ball while the dog rowdily chased along after it. She tried again, raising her voice a little, "Tobias!" At that, the tod seemed to cast a glance over the window. There! He had to have heard me! After a bare instant, though, the little tod went back to playing, either oblivious to his mother's shouts or ignoring her. Sasha frowned and went to the doorway, fuming a little at the feeling her son was about to stand her up for the first good night they might have for a long time. To think I planned to take him out to that stupid movie! Suppressing a growl, she breathed in a deep breath and shouted, "TOBIAS! Tobias! I said get your tail in here, and Get Your Dinner!"
This time, he definitely heard her. Looking up from his play with Fetch, Tobias cut her a look filled with accusation. Seeing that look through eyes that were truly sober for the first time in months, Sasha saw its true content. It told her in the most ancient of all languages what she had become. It told her what she had done to him. No...not tonight, Tobias.
She barely had the bathroom door closed before the tears started to fall. Perhaps he wouldn't notice. She could just wash up a little, and they could still have their night together. They could still be a family again. At least she could feel again for a while. For a little while, she did.