Foxfire
#1 of A Weekend at the Realm
Alrighty, so, I know I promised to have more of the odds against up soon, and I am currently in the middle of working on the last section of the next chapter. But, back in August, while I was on vacation, I hit upon the idea for this story and I started working on it off and on since then. Well, for a couple of weeks now I have had the urge to get more of it done and it wouldn't go away, like one of those deep itches you have to scratch. So, finally, after a long stretch of working on it, here are the first two chapters of the new series for everyone to enjoy, and I really hope you enjoy them. As always comments are always appreciated and requested.
And though I really don't think it needs to be said, I will say it anyway. If anybody sees a character with a similar name to any of their own, its purely a coincidence and I hope you will forgive it, and enjoy the story nonetheless.
Pushing open the door to the apartment, Tom stepped inside, still wishing that he had bothered to stop at the liquor store on his way home. He certainly felt like a drink after the night he had just had. Heaving a heavy sigh, the auburn haired man stepped into the entryway, carelessly tossing the leather jacket he had been wearing in the general direction of the closet before kicking his shoes off. He knew he should hang it properly, but right then, he really didn't care. Closing his eyes in frustration, he heaved another sigh, then he opened them once more, surprised to hear a tapping sound coming from across the living room,. Looking around, Tom realized he wasn't alone, despite the late night. His roommate Chris was sitting in an easy chair across the room, his laptop in his lap, typing away at something. Sensing Tom looking at him, his friend looked up and gave him a knowing smile, flipping the headphones he had been wearing off his ears as Tom walked in, heading for the couch.
Chris and Tom had been the best of friends since elementary school, when Chris' family had moved into Tom's neighborhood. Despite his usual tendency to keep to himself, Tom had immediately noticed the new boy on the street. Actually, with his short, spiky hair that was nearly white, a natural platinum blonde, and his brilliant, light blue eyes, he was kind of hard to miss. But the pair had hit it off the day the moving van had pulled into the neighborhood, and had been completing each other's sentences before the family had unpacked their last box. It had probably helped that their birthdays were only three days apart, and that they both had an older brother and younger sister, so they could relate to each other easily. Growing up, they had been in and out of each other's houses so often, their parents had started joking that they might as well have been brothers. In those early years, it had been easy maintaining such a close friendship, since the pair made friends with just about every other kid in the neighborhood, and nobody at school disliked them. But, right about their sixteenth birthdays, the first real challenge had hit. At their joint birthday party, by then a yearly tradition, Chris had suddenly announced that he was bisexual, and then openly kissed his boyfriend right there in front of everybody. That had pretty well brought the party to a crashing halt, and a bunch of their friends had stormed out immediately. Most of the rest had disappeared soon after, the atmosphere suddenly too uncomfortable. Even his boyfriend had left, seeming far more embarrassed about the whole thing than Chris was.
But unlike the others, while he had certainly been surprised by the suddenness of it all, Tom had found that he honestly couldn't care less that his best friend was bisexual, or gay, or anything for that matter. To him, Chris was still Chris, and after everyone else had cleared out, the pair had sat up late, talking things over. Tom had known for a while that his friend had been dealing with something serious, something that added a strange weight to all of their encounters and now that it was out in the open, that weight was gone, though they both agreed that Chris could probably have chosen a better time, and definitely a better way, to announce it to everybody. But, Chris and his boyfriend hadn't been able to stand the pressure of it being a secret anymore, so he had decided to try meeting it head on. And, after that discussion, the pair had become closer friends than ever, Tom's willingness to accept his friend as he was somehow lowering another barrier between them, like it had been a test that they had passed. It was as sudden a change as a light switch being flipped, and the pair spent hours talking about many, many things, most of them deeply personal. That level of trust and friendship had stuck with them ever since, making them inseparable, no matter what came their way.
And, when Chris had come under fire for his sexuality in the latter years of high school, Tom had been there to defend him, even against those who had, until recently, been their friends. And likewise, when a rumor, probably started by one of those same people, had made its way around the school that Tom's staunch defense of his friend was because they were secretly sleeping together, Chris had been his strongest defender, going out of his way to point out Tom's girlfriends. And that tendency to defend each other had never changed as they graduated and went off to college. Closer even than brothers, they had always been able to depend on one another, through all the relationships, both good and bad, through the hard classes and the easy semesters, and they had talked about everything with each other, even things that most would never talk about.
For example, Tom was the only one Chris had told when he had had a pregnancy scare with his first college girlfriend. Thankfully, that whole thing had turned out to be nothing more than an infection that had thrown her hormones out of whack. And, when the two of them had been introduced to the furry community in their junior year by a mutual friend, Chris had been the one and only person that Tom had told when he had discovered something strange about himself. When it came to humans, he was one hundred percent straight, and always had been. He had never in his life found any man attractive, or even idly considered 'switching teams', even to see what it was like. But soon after choosing the name Redtail, and deciding on a red furred fox with hints of yellow and orange as his fursona, he had found himself unexpectedly becoming aroused by some of the all-male artwork and stories in the fandom. Chris had been the only one he had trusted to tell about that, and after all, who would understand that problem better?
And it had been Chris who had advised him to not worry about it. After all, if it was only anthro males that he found attractive, then who cared? It wasn't like it was something he could experience in real life, so it was only a fantasy. And even if he suddenly started to find human males attractive, it wasn't like that was the end of the world either. So of course, baring that in mind, when they had finished college, neither had had any inclination towards parting ways, heading for the same part of the country to start their careers.
"Hey. Didn't expect you to be up." Tom commented, sprawling onto the couch with a groan and kneading his eyes with his fingertips.
"Eh, I was inspired to write." Chris responded, examining his friend with a critical eye. Chris was actually quite a talented writer, having written short stories all throughout high school before transitioning to furry works when they joined the community. He was close to finishing a novel detailing the fictional adventures of their fursonas, Chris's current one being a white tiger. That was another oddity about Tom's friend, he couldn't seem to decide on a fursona. He had changed it at least five times already, six if you counted the dragon he had chosen for all of about a week a couple years ago. Of course, his writing time had been getting shorter all year, ever since he had taken a new job at The Realm in fact, which probably hadn't helped that process. The Realm was some sort of exclusive spa resort hotel up in one of the more remote mountain valleys outside of town. Chris seemed to really enjoy his job, though he said he wasn't able to talk about what it was he did there. Something about guest confidentiality or something. "I'd ask how your evening went, but I think I can guess."
"Ugh..." Tom replied, letting his hands drop to his chest. Ever since they had made the decision to move out here close to the mountains after college, they had both been single, though not for lack of trying on Tom's part. As for Chris, he had just shrugged and said he was in no hurry to find romance and that he was going to give living as a bachelor a try for a while. Tired of trying to find someone on the online dating sites or on random dates, Tom had taken a coworker's invitation to make the rounds of the new singles clubs the last few nights. They were supposed to be places where anyone could find someone to connect with, and there seemed to be one for every section of society.
The first night had been spent at a kind of mellow place, with cozy lighting and a smooth jazz band playing in one corner, and though there had been plenty of girls there that he had talked to, Tom had only really accomplished emptying his wallet of cash by buying drinks. The next place had obviously been meant for younger 'partiers', with hammering electronica blasting from the speakers and flashing strobe lights. Tom had left that one early into the night with a pounding headache that bordered on a migraine and still no prospects. Tonight had been a high-class sort of place, all classical music and white table cloths, and the result had been pretty much the same. Disappointment after disappointment, and strangely, a pounding headache, though this one seemed to be more from stress and persistent annoyance than from the music.
"Strike out again, huh?" Chris asked, his voice full of sympathy.
"Yeah..." Tom replied, staring blankly up at the ceiling. "Can't seem to find anyone worth pursuing anymore." Heaving a sigh, Tom pushed himself up and headed for the kitchen. "What happened to dating being easy? I don't remember having this much trouble in college."
"Maybe your standards are just higher now." Chris suggested as Tom took a ziploc bag out of a drawer and started filling it with ice from the freezer.
"Maybe." Tom agreed, zipping up the ice bag and holding it to his head. Going to the cabinet where they kept their glasses, he took one down and then remembered that he had forgotten to buy any alcohol. "Do we have any booze left somewhere?"
"Nope, sorry. You know I don't drink much anymore." Chris replied, and Tom silently cursed, returning the glass to the cabinet and returning to the couch. "Maybe your mind is trying to tell you that you need to broaden your horizons."
"To a guy, perhaps?" Tom asked in return, his tone sarcastic. "You know how I feel about that. Besides, if I were to decide to go that way, you would be the first to know." Chuckling a little, he continued, closing his eyes wearily, "Hell, I'd probably make a pass at you, you being such a great catch and all."
"I'm flattered." Chris replied dryly, chuckling and rolling his eyes at the absurdity of that notion. "No, I didn't mean a guy. But perhaps you are being too picky."
"Eh. I probably shouldn't drink anyway, not with the mood I'm in." Tom said, sitting back down on the couch and laying the cold plastic bag on his forehead with a shivering sigh. "Probably wouldn't be able to stop. Though I sure could use something strong right now."
"No, what you could use is a weekend relaxing and maybe being treated to some T.L.C." Chris corrected, closing the lid of his computer and setting it aside. "Why don't you come out to the spa for the weekend?"
"What are you talking about?" Tom asked, sitting up and looking over at his friend. "We talked about this before Chris. Even if I could afford it, how would you suggest I get in? I'm a nobody, and nobodies don't get into exclusive resorts. And no offense, but spa days have always struck me as being kind of a girly thing to do, especially the pampering bit."
"Well, 'The Realm' is different. Its unlike any other spa in the world. Why do you think I spend so much time there? As for getting in, I told you they give us guest time, didn't I?" Chris persisted, the necklace around his neck swinging around as he stood up, twinkling in the light. The necklace was a perfectly smooth chunk of grey stone shaped like a diamond with rounded edges, with hundreds of flecks of mica in its surface. Tom had found it while on a research trip and polished it to a high shine as part of his geology lab in freshman year. Chris had taken a liking to the stone and Tom had happily handed it over. Chris had then drilled a small hole in the top and turned it into a necklace, which he hardly ever seemed to take off. He called it his good luck charm. "I have about three whole days worth saved up."
"No way." Tom replied, shaking his head as Chris walked into his bedroom and came back out with his phone in hand and a small black cloth case that Tom had never seen before. "I can't use up your time. You worked hard building that up."
"Come on man, you need it more than I do." His roomie replied, flipping through the contacts on his phone. "Besides, it builds up quick enough. All I have to do is square it with my boss." Tom hesitated, teetering on the brink of a decision. He had to admit, the idea of spending a relaxing weekend in the mountains was appealing, and a massage or two would certainly do wonders for his stress. And, what was more, he certainly wasn't getting anywhere around here. It could be nice to have a change of pace.
"Well, if you are sure you are ok with me using up your time..." He said and Chris grinned in triumph at him. Then something occurred to Tom and he spoke up again. "Wait a minute, you aren't going to be my masseuse or anything are you? 'Cause that would be way too weird."
"The term is 'masseur', and no, of course not." Chris replied, laughing as he hit the call button on his phone. After a few moments, he spoke into it. "Hey Josh, its Chris... Yeah, I'm fine, how about you?" The blonde haired man paused, listening to the guy on the other end of the phone, putting a hand on his hip. "Yeah, sorry about the late night call. Listen, the reason why I am calling is I'd like to set my friend up with a weekend trip. I have enough guest time saved up... Yeah the whole thing... How about this weekend?" There was a longer than average pause and then Chris gave Tom a thumbs up. "Any special access packages left for then? Yeah, I know its short notice..." At that question, Tom frowned, his eyes narrowing. He had never heard of his friend mentioning anything about special access before, making him suddenly wonder what that entailed, and just how much power his friend had at the exclusive resort. After a minute or so Chris nodded unconsciously to a question Tom couldn't hear. "Of course. I wouldn't ask otherwise. Really? That is great! Thanks Josh, I owe you one." Chris ended the call and then returned to his seat, unzipping the case.
"Its all set." He said, flipping the case open in his grasp. "Since you have the day off tomorrow, you can head up in the morning. Check in is any time after eight, though I think you should be there as early as you can. You can bring whatever clothes you like, and the spa will provide everything you need." Finally, he took what looked like a membership card from inside the case, offering it to Tom. "And when you check in, show this to the receptionist. They'll take care of you."
After a moment of uncertainty, Tom reached out and took the offered card, looking at it curiously. It felt like it was plain plastic like any other member card, but it had no writing on it, and it didn't even have a magnetic strip on the back. All it had was a black tribal style paw print on one side, sort of canine shaped, though it was hard to be sure. The paw print was the symbol of The Realm Resort, and Tom had always thought it was an odd choice, but he had to admit, it did look cool.
"What exactly did you sign me up for?" Tom asked suspiciously, looking up from the card. "What is this 'special access' all about?"
"You'll see." Chris said, giving him a wink. "All I can tell you is that it'll change your whole perspective on spas. And that is a promise..."
***
Tom stood in the middle of the high ceilinged atrium, feeling quite out of his element, trying to see where he was supposed to go. It had taken him an hour of driving through some pretty breathtaking scenery to get there right when the spa opened. Of course, he had been up for much longer than that, trying to decide on what he was supposed to bring. Worse than that had been trying to figure out what he was supposed to wear when he went out there. Since it was an exclusive place, he figured that he should dress up a bit, deciding on a button down shirt and slacks, as well as the shoes he usually reserved for job interviews. As he had left the city and driven up into the mountains, he had felt pretty good despite the early hour, looking forward to the weekend, but when he had taken the exit off the highway onto the road that led up into the valley where the hotel was situated, he had started to feel chilly for no reason at all, goose bumps rising all over his body. It might just have been that the exit wasn't all that well marked, and soon turned into a dirt road that was rutted by rain and very bumpy, but he had driven on those roads plenty since he had moved here and none of them had made him feel like this.
That morning, a mist had covered the valley floor, probably the remnants of last night's rain, which hadn't quite gotten down into town, and it had started to feel awfully spooky on the lonely road. And then, the road had come up a rise and around a bend, finally bringing the hotel into sight and the image had only made the funny sort of chill worse. As Chris had explained it, the main hotel and spa had been built right across the valley, spanning the floor between the ridges, with a couple dozen smaller buildings built back behind it, sheltered from the rest of the world by the ridges and the main hotel. Supposedly, the smaller buildings had been built as miniature spas, each one meant for a single person or a couple at the most, VIPs he assumed, which meant that Tom would probably never even see them.
But Chris' description really hadn't done the place justice. Though the main hotel had been built years ago, it looked almost brand new, and it was truly an imposing sight, especially since the road had been angled up towards it. It was at least four stories high on either side of a large, circular section and yet it had the look of a hybrid between an old style log cabin, hardly out of place in the almost untouched setting of the valley, and an ultra modern building made mostly of glass. And again, though it looked newly built, trees and vines had grown up the sides of the building until it looked almost like it had been there forever, that it had always been a part of the valley. The parking lot had been about halfway filled when he arrived and he had snagged a spot in the shade of the pines near the northern edge of the lot, which seemed to be a prime choice, judging from how many cars were parked there. Then, he had headed for the entrance, his small weekend bag in hand, feeling sort of nervous, but eager to start. But the second he had pushed on the huge ten foot tall glass door leading inside, he had immediately felt uncomfortably out of place, the eagerness gone.
He had thought that the door would be hard to open, it was so thick, but it had slid inward smoothly, not even touching the ground. And oddly, he couldn't even see where, or even how, it had been hinged. But the odd door had instantly been put out of his mind when he got a better look at the room behind it. The entire circular center section of the hotel turned out to be a hollow atrium, with each floor like a balcony, recessed back from the levels below it, leaving a space ten feet wide open to the glass dome in the roof on each height. But the most amazing thing of all was that, though the building was clearly entirely enclosed, it didn't feel that way. Instead, it felt like Tom had just walked into a beautiful bowl in the tropics somewhere, the air humid around him, but not cloyingly hot, the whole thing open to the wide blue sky above it. Three separate waterfalls fell from openings high up near the ceiling, coming from recesses in the high wall, streaming over the tops of each level in channels of clear glass, falling down into pools on the ground floor, each surrounded by moss covered marble and even a few young trees, everything glittering with the mist coming off the falls. At first, he had almost thought that the walls were made of growing trees that had somehow been shaped into walls, but they couldn't be. When he had paused to look closer, he had found that they were stone or maybe ceramic that had been painted with such detail and skill that they gave the illusion of being living trees. What was more, the walls had vines growing up to the railings, but apparently regularly pruned back to keep them from overrunning the place. Completing the illusion of being out of doors was the song of birds coming from...somewhere, as well as a slight breeze that seemed to make leaves stir around the room.
"Hello sir." A pleasant voice said and Tom looked around, startled. A young woman dressed in a sort of Asian styled robe of light green was suddenly standing at his right elbow, her brown hair pinned up in a bun behind her head. She was smiling, her hands folded in front of her. "May I show you to reception?"
"Uh...Yes." Tom replied, picking up his bag from where he had set it.
"Follow me, please." The woman said, gesturing towards an alcove on the side of the atrium farthest from the waterfalls. With Tom following, the girl walked under the first railing, sweeping aside some sort of hanging drapery that blended in so perfectly, he hadn't even noticed it was there, and politely held it open so he could enter as well. Behind the drape, the stone floor was perfectly dry, the hanging cloth keeping the misty water out, and it was instantly apparent why. Three people, two women and a man, all clad similarly to the young woman who had guided him, stood behind a counter of polished, honey colored wood, computer monitors set up before them. And oddly, even as he walked up to them, Tom felt that the computers were even more out of place here than he was.
"Good morning sir." the man behind the counter said, offering him a smile. "May I see your i.d.?"
"Sure." Tom replied, handing over his driver's license. When the man behind the counter entered his name in the computer his smile widened almost imperceptibly, obviously having done this so many times it had become a practiced routine.
"Ah yes, here we are." He said, reaching into a drawer and taking a form out of a box. "A single room booked for today through Sunday. One moment while I fill out the required forms..." Putting the form on the counter, the man started filling in the boxes and Tom slid the card his friend had given him from his pocket.
"Um, I'm not sure if now is the time, but I was supposed to show you this..." Tom said, putting the card on the counter. At first, the man didn't even seem to notice, but when he looked up from the form, he and the three women all suddenly stopped, staring at it. Taken aback, Tom looked around at them all, startled by their reactions. All of their eyes were open wide, and from their expressions, he gathered the card indicated something of great importance. The man seemed to recover his composure first, his whole manner changing, becoming smooth as silk, and almost over-the-top accommodating. His usual smile instantly widened until he was grinning broadly, as if he had never seen anything that had made him so happy as seeing that card. "Uh...I'm sorry I..."
"Nothing to apologize for sir." The man said, smoothly cutting off his apology, bowing low as he tipped the form he had been writing into a wastebasket. "We had no idea you were an Onyx member." Taking a keycard from his pocket, the man came around the counter and handed Tom his license and the membership card back. "Please, allow me to show you the way to your room."
"But..." Tom started to say, but the man gently took his elbow and guided him back to the atrium.
"No need to explain sir." The man said, holding the curtain aside and bowing him through it. "Most Onyx members don't announce themselves immediately. As you are aware, such a high level of membership entitles you to complete anonymity and discretion."
"I'm not..." Tom started to insist, blushing and feeling more confused by the moment, but the young woman who had found him standing in the atrium cut him off before he could finish the thought.
"Please, allow me to carry your bag." She said, gently taking the bag from his hand and following precisely three steps behind him as the man led the way off towards a door hidden behind one of the waterfalls.
"As you are aware, a reservation at The Realm includes all services, including meals and clothing." The man continued, leading the way down a hall that was lined on either side with doors that seemed, at least to Tom, to be widely spaced for a hotel. Tom kept waiting for a moment to break in and tell them about the card belonging to Chris but the man didn't seem to ever take a breath. He was currently telling him all about the services available at the spa and at the same time avoiding mentioning where the various services would be provided, but Tom's attention was taken up by the doors they were passing. They had all started out much the same as any other hotel, simple wood stained in light colors, each one bearing the paw print symbol painted on it, along with a room number inside it.
But then, as they had walked along, the rooms seemed to get wider spaced and were made of a different wood, perhaps more expensive and instead of the room number and paw print being painted, they were carved into the wood, and lacquered in deep crimson, then they changed again to a darker color wood, and the lacquer was a deep, emerald green. But finally, when Tom figured that they had to have been right up near the hillside, they came to a blank stretch of wall that could have easily fit a whole suite in it before finally stopping outside a door that was truly impressive. Tom recognized the wood as being mahogany, unstained, but polished to a high shine. It bore no room number, but instead, the paw print stood out from the door, carved from what must have been pure black onyx. Sliding the keycard into the reader beside the door, the man waited for the light to blink green, then led the way inside, still talking continuously. "This is your suite sir. Clothes are in the dresser in the bedroom, sizes are marked on the drawers. Please take your time settling in and don't hesitate to ask if you require anything at all while you are here. Enjoy your stay."
"But..." Tom started to say as the man walked out briskly, taking the young woman with him, shutting the door behind them with an definitive thump. "I'm not a member..."
Heaving a sigh, Tom looked around and was very impressed by what he saw. The living room alone was probably twice the size as a usual hotel room, and comfortably furnished, though there was no TV as one might expect in a hotel. The far end of the room opened out onto a porch with a hammock, looking out into a cultivated garden that seemed to merge seamlessly with the forest in the distance, and surrounded by an ornate waist high wall. Another door seemed to lead to a bed room, and Tom shrugged, picking up his bag and heading in that direction. The bed was a queen size, but looked far more comfortable than any other hotel he had been to. Tossing his bag at the closet, Tom bent down and took off his shoes, figuring he might as well change into something more relaxed, since that was what seemed to be expected of him. Unbuttoning his shirt, he opened the drawer marked with an 'L', finding soft looking robes and sandals inside, all in varying shades of red and orange with a black paw print on the breast. Taking a red-orange robe from the drawer and holding it up, Tom shrugged one more time, taking off his formal clothes and cleanly hanging them in the closet before heading for the bathroom.
When he flicked on the lights, Tom almost gasped. The bathroom was big, opulent and yet, not quite what he would call gaudy, a marble counter and sink on the wall with a large mirror above it. But it was the bathtub that truly impressed him, for it was luxuriously large, large enough that he could actually float freely in it on his back with his arms out stretched without touching the sides. Looking at himself in the mirror, he sighed. From the way the staff had treated him, Tom had known that the membership card his friend possessed was very, very rare, and seemingly high level, which begged the question. Where had he gotten it? And now, he was in the most luxurious hotel suite he had ever seen, being treated like he was royalty. He was half temped to head back to reception and ask for a different room, or even just bag the whole thing and head for home. But Chris had set this up specially for him, using his own guest time to do it. Sighing, Tom shook his head. He might as well enjoy it, while he was here. Figuring a bath might do him some good, Tom slid off his underwear and went to turn on the taps that would start filling the tub, but then he stopped, his eyes catching something out of place.
On the wall beside the marble sink was a mahogany strip, running from floor to ceiling with a lamp near the top. But below the lamp was another paw print, this one maybe a quarter of the size of his palm, and it was raised out from the surrounding wood. The only other wooden strip in the room, the one over by the door, had a similar lamp, but the paw print was missing from that one. Coming over to the panel, he brushed a thumb over the design curiously, hurriedly pulling back his hand when it slid into the wooden panel at his touch, setting off a series of clicks behind the wall, as if the paw print had triggered some sort of mechanism. After a moment or two, the entire section of wall slid inward a few inches, then moved to the side as if it was on rails, sliding into the wall.
"Ok, this place is too weird." Tom said to himself, hurriedly putting the robe on to cover his nudity, cinching the belt tight around his waist. The sliding panel had revealed a passageway of fine workmanship leading off into what had to have been the hillside. That decided it, Tom thought, he was going to shut the door, and go explain that he wasn't an 'Onyx member', whatever that was, and ask for a normal room. But, contrary to his hopes and desires, when Tom pushed the black paw print again, nothing happened. "Crap. Now what am I supposed to do?"
Grumbling quietly, he stepped onto the tiles of the corridor, feeling for the edge of the door, trying to find a way to pull it back closed. The mechanism had been cleverly designed it seemed, because he could barely feel the seam where the wall panel was, but he couldn't get any leverage on its edge from inside the room. Taking another step into the corridor to try and shift it that way produced a result he really hadn't expected. It shifted alright, but without him so much as touching it. Before he could step back into his room, the panel had slid back into place, cutting him off from his room altogether. And now there was no seam in the wall, no sign that there was a door here, much less a way to open it once again. Cursing, Tom turned around and looked down the corridor. If he hadn't touched the paw print like an idiot, he wouldn't have been in this position and would probably have been enjoying a hot bath by now. Still, this corridor had to lead somewhere...
Heaving a sigh, Tom starting walking down the corridor, his hands in the pockets of his robe, highly conscious of his lack of clothing beneath it, and wondering once again just what he had gotten himself into. Then, as he rounded a corner in the corridor, he heard music coming from up ahead somewhere. But it wasn't the kind of music one would expect to hear at a spa. He had expected new age music, or maybe some sort of Asian Zen thing, but this was classic rock, music you would expect to hear in a normal lounge or even a bar. Now more curious than disturbed, Tom picked up the pace a little, wishing he had bothered to put on sandals as well as the robe, the stone floor a little hard on his feet. Reaching what seemed to be the end of the corridor, the music becoming louder, he turned another corner and found himself at the top of a staircase carved in old English fashion, the banisters highly ornate and perfectly smooth, sanded and varnished to a high shine. Giving another shrug, he walked down the stairs and then gasped, stopped short by what he saw.
The staircase led directly into a large circular common room, filled with comfortable couches and easy chairs. It was warmly lit by lamps hanging down from the ceiling and though it was obviously underground, the walls and ceiling were smooth, very un-cave like. Only a few of the chairs were occupied, four men and three women scattered around, most alone, most of them in their late twenties or thirties. However, though their robes were all different colors, everyone sitting in the room had the same black paw print on their robes as he did. However, along one edge of the room, there was what appeared to be a bar, and behind it, clothed in subdued clothing of dark green, was a bartender who, upon seeing him enter, beckoned to him. Feeling more than a little unsettled by this whole experience, Tom walked over to where the bartender was standing, wondering what all of this was about. It was like he had accidently become part of a secret club that he knew nothing about.
"Good morning sir, welcome to the Onyx Commons." The bartender said, taking a pint glass from behind the counter. "You must be new."
"Is it that obvious?" Tom replied, leaning heavily against the counter as the bartender began pouring measures of clear liquids into the pint glass from several different ceramic carafes that had no labels, yet he handled them with absolute confidence.
"Well not to most, but I know every Onyx member." The bartender explained, not even looking at the pint glass as he added measures of two more colorless liquids, these from smaller bottles. "And I make it my business to know the perfect drink for everyone that comes down that staircase." Adding one last measure of clear liquid to the pint glass, filling it almost to the rim, the bartender set the glass down in front of Tom, then flicked the rim of the glass with his middle fingernail. A clear tone sounded from it, as if it were made of crystal, not glass, and Tom gasped, leaning back in surprise as the drink suddenly blazed with swirls of color, many hues of red, orange and yellow like a fire, swirls that never seemed to mix. Seeing his reaction, the bartender grinned. "For example, I call this one a 'Foxfire'. And trust me, you'll enjoy it."
"Thanks." Tom replied, picking up the bright drink hesitantly. "I guess..."
"Well, I would suggest that you have a seat and relax while you enjoy it." The bartender said, putting the carafes away in the exact same places they had been when Tom had walked up. "Maybe get to know the other Onyx members. They are always a friendly bunch."
"I'll do that." Tom replied, taking a small experimental sip from the glass, his eyebrows shooting up. The Foxfire tasted like nothing he had ever had before. It seemed almost as if every swirl of color was a different flavor, hitting his tongue each in turn. At first, he tasted something light and citrusy, almost like fresh mandarin oranges. Then, as the refreshing taste woke his senses, clearing away the hesitation, the drink began to change. It seemed to be warming up, the taste becoming like to cinnamon, but it wasn't stopping there. Very quickly, it became almost hot, like he was drinking a fresh cup of coffee, the taste becoming spicy, the quality of pure ginger. Then, finally, it changed again into something he couldn't quite describe, sort of floral or herby, something that left a strange tingling sensation behind.
Taking another, deeper sip, Tom walked over to a chair near to one of the other men, the one clad in a robe of deep blue, who was reclining with his hands behind his head, a happy smile on his face. Beside him on a small table was another pint glass, maybe a quarter filled, but inside was another swirling mixture, this one blue and purple, but, as with Tom's own drink, the colors seemed to be refusing to mix. Settling into the comfy chair, Tom drank another gulp of the pint, grinning at the way the odd tingle was spreading steadily down his throat.
"Hello." The man greeted him, sounding immensely relaxed.
"Hi." Tom replied, watching as the man sipped his strange drink. "What is that you are drinking?"
"Its called Ice Dragon's Breath." The man replied, giving it a swirl. "I have one every time I come. Enjoying your Foxfire?"
"Yeah, very much." Tom answered, drinking deep and chuckling to himself as the tingling sensation started spreading out through his chest from his throat, producing a pleasant tickling feeling in his extremities. "I wonder what's in it..."
"A little of this and a little of that I'd imagine. I think it's better to let it remain a mystery myself." The other man replied, seeming wholly unconcerned, taking another sip of his drink. "You will learn to savor it the more you come here."
"Maybe." Tom replied, shrugging and downing the rest of his drink in one long gulp. "But I have needed a good drink for days. And this 'Foxfire' is the best I have ever tasted. I already feel better..."
"One of those weeks eh?" The other man said, grinning over at him. The tingling was spreading quickly, now reaching the tips of his fingers and toes, and then rebounding back towards his heart, a warm feeling spreading through him as he nodded his agreement. "Well, you came to the right place to recover from it. Whenever I have a bad week, I come here and it all kind of just fades away."
"Its that good?" Tom asked, the warmth welling up in his chest, rising towards his head in the same way that a glass of hot buttered rum did in the winter.
"You bet." the other man said, grinning as Tom's eyes started to close, the heat spreading up to the tips of his hair, making him drowsy. "You'll see..."
***
Tom came back to himself slowly, the darkness that surrounded him giving way as his mind worked its way back to consciousness, almost reluctant to wake again. For a brief moment, he didn't remember much of anything, not where he was, or even why he was waking up, considering that he couldn't remember going to sleep. Actually, for the first few moments, he could only remember enough to know that something was different, somehow. Perhaps it was just a shift in his perceptions as his brain woke up, a sharpening of his senses as he came out of unconsciousness. Gradually, as he floated in pleasant dark, more details began to fill in the gaps. Now, he could remember his trip out to the spa, the weird reception he had gotten, and even discovering the secret passage down into the big common room, which meant it hadn't been a dream. But all of those memories were instantly put out of his mind when he tried to shift his head to the side, ever so slightly, trying to straighten out his neck.
The moment he moved even slightly, a lance of pain shot through his head and he groaned, the pleasant darkness gone. The only time he had felt that kind of reaction right after waking up had been the one and only time he had agreed to do tequila shots, back in college. He, Chris and one of their friends, the very friend that had introduced them to the furry community in fact, had gone through an entire fifth of the stuff that night and ever since, none of them had ever touched the fermented cactus juice again. That next morning had been the single worst hangover any of them had ever had, and had been the only occasion he had actually wished for death. This felt only marginally better than that morning had, since he didn't actually wish he had died, but his body felt nearly as sore. What he did wish though, was that he had taken his time enjoying the Foxfire, rather than gulping it. If he had known he would feel like this afterward, he would have at least taken the time to make the drink last.
Now that the pain had awakened him fully, he slowly took stock of his body, gentle movements confirming that the soreness did indeed extend everywhere, not just his head. He was lying on a soft and yielding surface, which was a blessing because he only hurt when he moved, rather than being in contact with something hard. But finding himself lying in such a place was even more unusual, considering that the last thing he remembered was talking with the other man in the common room, after drinking the weird, multicolored pint. From the way his head seemed to drift from one topic to another, he must have passed out, which meant the drink had to have been way stronger than he thought it was, stronger than anything he had ever encountered before.
Then, Tom let out another sound, this one almost a moan of pleasure, because a pair of hands had touched his head ever so gently, the fingers massaging his temples. The light massage felt wonderful, so soothing that the pain went away almost instantly where the fingers touched, like they held some sort of magic within them. Smiling broadly, Tom breathed out a sigh of relief as the hands gently swirled around his brow, expertly tracing the lines of the nerves in his head, soothing away the aches like they were visible to the massager. Opening his eyes slowly, bracing for the pain that bright lights always brought during a hangover, Tom found that his sight was blurry, like he was looking through smudged glass, but that the room was only just bright enough for him to see, not enough to be painful. But all the same, he could make out enough detail to tell he most certainly wasn't in the common room anymore. The ceiling was made up of dark wooden beams, crossing this way and that, like in some sort of medieval hall, the construction not even close to the last sight he had seen in the Onyx Commons.
Blinking away the blur, Tom found that there was definitely something weird about the way things looked, setting aside the fact that he was waking up somewhere strange. Everything looked...sharper perhaps, than they had before. He felt warm and...almost soft somehow, softer at any rate then just lying on the soft surface could explain. It wasn't until the soothing hands on his head trailed gently down to his cheeks before massaging slowly up the sides of his muzzle that Tom realized why the view seemed so strange to him. Then, his eyes went wider than he thought possible as that thought sunk into his head; he didn't have a muzzle, or at least, he shouldn't. His heart hammering, Tom surged upright, forgetting all about being sore, and being in a strange place with someone he didn't know. Reaching up with both hands and feeling his face, Tom gasped, his fingers outlining a visage that was distinctly vulpine in shape and then, he gasped again, staring down at his hands. They were covered in soft fur, the palms and fingertips like paw pads, edged in fur that was a very specific shade of red, not quite as bright as scarlet, with hints of orange and yellow depending on the angle at which one looked at it. Looking up past his hands, no, his paws, Tom found himself staring at a tall, body length oval mirror on the wall before him and at once, he couldn't look away, as if his brain couldn't accept what it was seeing. He was still wearing the red-orange robe, and no sandals on his feet, but he didn't look like himself. Or rather, he didn't look like Tom, the human he had been the last time he looked. Now, he looked like...
"Redtail." A voice said from behind him and the new fox whirled around, responding to that name as easily as his human one, his eyes going wide at who he beheld. The owner of the voice was a handsome anthro wolf, his fur a rich grey like gneiss, many shaded, almost mottled in appearance. He had long, shoulder length white hair that was tied back into a pony tail, and he had the most arresting blue eyes, deep, sapphire blue. He had folded his hands in his lap and was smiling a knowing smile that seemed familiar in some way, though Tom couldn't figure out why. "How do you feel?"
"Uh...sort of sore..." The fox replied, bewildered. "And..."
"Confused?" The wolf filled in, getting up and walking over to him, the light green robe he was wearing rustling as he moved. "That is to be expected. I bet you have questions."
"Yeah..." Redtail answered, feeling a smile start to spread across his lips despite the oddness of all of this. His companion's attitude was disarming, as if it were perfectly normal to wake up in a strange place as a fur, with a strange person you had never met before. "Lets start with who you are and how you knew that name...my name."
"My name, is Greystone." The lupine replied, putting a paw to his chest and giving a slight bow, "And I knew you are Redtail, because that is who you are, though to say how I know that would really be telling. And as for how you are, well... what you are... I believe you remember what you drank in the Onyx Commons?"
"I think so." Redtail said, thinking back, trying to figure out if this was all some sort of trick, or just a really bizarre dream he was having. "It was a..."
"_Fox_fire." Greystone said, putting extra emphasis on the first syllable, nodding and grinning broadly as the fox's eyes went wide. "Now you are beginning to understand exactly what the Oynx level of membership entails." As Redtail tried to work out how that explanation was supposed to have made sense, the wolf gently took the fox's paws in his own and tugged him towards the entryway, the softness of the wolf's hands leaving no doubt that he was the one who had been massaging him when he woke up, a notion that didn't bother the fox at all, strangely. "Anyway, you aren't going to spend the whole time standing there gawking, are you?"
"Well I think I'm..." Redtail started to reply, then suddenly stopped talking when his companion led him out of the bedroom. He found himself in what looked like a small house, though it was unlike any house he had ever been in. There was a rather spacious kitchen next to the entrance to the bedroom, with a counter that had a pair of comfortable looking chairs pushed up against it. The living room that was next to the kitchen looked normal-ish, except for the large, sunken hot tub bubbling away in the middle of it instead of a coffee table. Opposite the bedroom, there was another room which he could not imagine the function of, and beside it was what looked like a sauna. The last wall of the room seemed to lead out onto a deck that looked out into a valley, the large main building of the hotel visible in the distance. "...in a VIP spa?!"
"VIP spa?" Greystone asked, sounding surprised. "No. Such a thing doesn't exist here. This is one of the houses reserved for the Onyx members. As you might imagine, being like this," the wolf gestured to his furry physique, "requires a bit of privacy."
"What exactly is going on here?" Redtail demanded, looking around in surprise. He was feeling totally out of place again, though his lips seemed frozen in a permanent grin. "What is all this?"
"This, is your home for the next three days." The wolf replied, grinning playfully at him. "And I, am your personal masseur, cook, guide and caretaker for the duration of your stay." When the fox looked at him in surprise, the wolf's grin broadened even more, opening his arms in a welcoming gesture. "Welcome, to the real, Realm Spa."