Shifti - User contributions [en]

Motherhood Woes

2011-02-22T09:15:58Z

Honeymane: adding another story.

{{Comment tag}}
{{Universe|Chakona Space}}
{{author's note|Very short story originally published in Goldfur's South Land Furs fanizine. Short but, in my opinion, fairly sweet}}

{{title|name=Motherhood Woes|author=Honeymane}}

{{dropcap|C}}hakats, in general, could be said to be rather fond of children, especially their own, whom they are more than happy to look after, educate, and provide anything else the young one may need.

That being said, that doesn’t stop parents from getting annoyed.

"Honeymane!" Browneyes looked down at hir wayward cub — shi had only looked away for a moment, to finish up a sentence in hir psychology essay, when hir child disappeared. It hadn’t really been an issue until Brown had heard a crash from the kitchen, which in and of itself wasn’t problematic. Being empathically linked to Honeymane, shi could sense the cub wasn’t in any sort of trouble, but nevertheless, it was, at least in Browneyes’ mind, a good idea to go check on what was going on, and see what sort of trouble hir little one had gotten into. Sure enough, the condo’s kitchen, and hir year-and-a-half-old cub was covered in a fine layer of flour, and several condiments.

Browneyes’ snow-white cub looked up at hir with a great big grin, and hir carefree attitude was quite infectious, no doubt in part due to the empathic connection they shared. Regardless, Browneyes did hir best to put on a stern face. "Look at this mess! Honeymane, I’ve told you a thousand times not to try climbing these shelves; you could get seriously hurt."

Honeymane shook hir head. "Wasn’t climbin’. Was movin’."

Browneyes sighed. Shi should have known. Ever since Honeymane had started to manifest hir Talent more completely, shi had caused all manner of trouble: objects going missing, flying around the room, and so on. It probably didn’t help that hir natural chakat curiosity was combined with such an impish personality, although, as hir mother would remind hir every time shi complained that, it was probably just a stage. "That may be, my little one, but you’ve made a very large mess." Browneyes bent down, picked hir cub up, and attempted to remove some of the flour by hand. "And you are positively filthy. I think it’s time for a bath."

The flour-covered cub struggled in hir mother’s grasp,. "No baff! No baff!"

Browneyes shook hir head, tucked the protesting child under hir arm, and left the kitchen for the bathroom. Once there, shi quickly turned the tap on and began filling the tub with water. After a few minutes of trying to get Honeymane to cooperate, and getting nowhere, shi tested the water to see how hot it was and, judging it suitable, shi dunked hir child into it. Almost straight away, the water turned a murky white, and Browneyes set to work trying to work the mess out of Honeymane’s fur. Shi wasn’t making it easy. Besides trying to leap out of the tub and make an escape every other time Browneyes was slightly distracted, shi also made a great number of splashes, and used hir Talent to hurl some of the bath water at hir mother several times. So, by the end of the affair, both mother and daughter were more then than completely soaked.

Finally, Browneyes gave hir child one last rinse, and lifted hir out of the tub, (much to Honeymane’s joy), and began drying hir. Halfway through, problem number two awoke.

Browneyes had moved back in with hir parents ever since shi had gotten pregnant that fateful day, and the crowded condo became even more crowded when Darktoes’ parents, now Browneyes’ mother’s mates, moved in with them as well, having emigrated from Earth to Chakona about six months after Darktoes had been shipped off. Naturally this was cause for celebration (although at the time shi hadn’t felt much like celebrating), and hir mother sired a child by Spadespot. And so, about six months after Browneyes’ daughter was born, the family found themselves celebrating the birth of another new family member, Sugarback.

Browneyes finished up drying Honeymane as quickly as shi could, before going to Sugarback who, by this time, had begun crying softly, no doubt wondering why no one hadn’t answered hir empathic and vocal pleads for food. While all four of the older chakats were out shopping at the local market, Browneyes, much to hir displeasure, had been left to baby-sit the children of the house. Once shi had entered the room, Sugarback stopped crying and reached upwards towards hir, and waited for Browneyes to pick hir up and feed hir. The brown-and-white cub eagerly latched on and began suckling. Shi wouldn’t be weaned for another half a year, and Honeymane was nearly completely so.

Normally, Browneyes would simply enjoy the moment; breastfeeding was one of the most relaxing and fulfilling things shi had ever done, and on occasion shi had even pondered switching gears and becoming educated in the art of wet nursing. Right now though, there simply wasn’t any time to spare. Normally shi didn’t mind looking after hir daughter, and hir half-sister, but with such an important paper due fairly soon, shi needed to dedicated as much time as possible to it.

Plopping down in front of hir computer, shi tried to gather hir thoughts as much as shi could and work on the next sentence, all the while making sure Sugarback didn’t slip out of hir embrace. Thankfully, Sugarback and hir own daughter were relatively quiet, and shi was able to finish up the paragraph. At nearly the same time, hir half-sister decided shi was full, and figured it was time for play. Brown sighed to hirself and saved hir work. Shi’d have to get back to work on it later in the day, when someone else was here to look after the two little terrors.

After releasing Sugarback, the kitten dashed off to find hir niece. Deciding not to leave anything to chance, Brown followed hir, and discovered Honeymane sitting in the den area, playing with some toy PTVs. Of course, the minute shi caught sight of Sugarback, the two of them were engaged in some rowdy horseplay, but much to Browneyes’ relief, they weren’t breaking anything.

Grabbing one of the pillows that taurs typically used to sit on, shi dragged it closer to where the two were playing, and turned on the TV to check the news. As shi’d expected, nothing much was going on, but shi left it on anyways, and watched the two children. The two were extremely close, and Browneyes expected when they got older, that they’d be nearly inseparable. It wasn’t all that unusual for chakat parents to have two children close together in order to foster such close relationships, and it was relatively common among most other taurs as well. That being said, it was hardly a requirement. Browneyes wasn’t an only child, but shi had been born in relatively isolation in terms of kinship, and when shi had been growing up, shi had wished for a sister or such.

Soon the horseplay turned into a game of tag, with Honeymane being chased by Sugarback around the various furniture and such. In reality, it wasn’t really an even match, as Honeymane had inherited a number of traits from hir sire, and because of it, shi could run reasonably quicker and longer then than most chakats hir age, but shi seemed to slow down enough to allow hirself to be caught — something that pleased Browneyes as a mother; hir daughter mayight be a pain in the ass at times, but at least shi had a sense of right and wrong, and fairness. Soon the chase was reversed, and Sugarback dashed off down the hallway, with Honeymane hot on hir tail.

Browneyes didn’t bother to get up,; shi was sure they were going to return quickly. Sure enough, the two of them trotted back into the den within a few minutes... both of them leaving white paw prints all over the floor.

Brown swore. Shi had completely forgotten to clean up the mess in the kitchen! Grabbing the vacuum cleaner from the hallway closet, shi tried as quickly as possible to clean the mess up. Luckily, it wasn’t nearly as bad as shi had originally thought it was, and shi was able to make short work of it. To finish, shi used the vacuum to remove the paw prints the two kittens had tracked throughout the condo. The trail lead hir to the den, where the two children were huddled on one of the pillows in fear of the loud noise being generated by the vacuum.

Switching off the machine, Browneyes went over and gave the two children a hug and couple of lick-kisses on their foreheads, while projecting an empathic feeling of comfort, before picking up the vacuum cleaner and stowing it back in the closet. Running hir hand through hir hair, shi realized how stiff it was, and remembered that shi hadn’t properly dried hirself when shi had been splashed by the flour-and-water mixture that was the bath water.

Browneyes groaned. Shi hoped it wasn’t too difficult to wash out, but shi’d have to wait until someone else was home, before trying. Plunking down on hir pillow again, shi was greeted by the two kittens, still seeking the comfort of hugs and cuddles, something Brown was more then than happy to supply. This momentary spot of calm didn’t last long, and soon the two kittens were back to their normal rambunctious selves.

Browneyes smiled to hirself; being a mother certainly wasn’t easy, but it did have its moments.

{{Honeymanestorys}}

[[category:Honeymane]] [[category:Chakona Space]] [[category:taur]] [[category:Story]]

User:Honeymane/Let Hearts Fly

2011-02-22T09:02:26Z

Honeymane: adding tag

{{XXX}}
{{Comment tag}}
{{Universe|Chakona Space}}
{{author's note|This is the first story I wrote and had posted on the Chakat's Den site. Obviously it's a few years old, and while I can't promise any changes, any critiques are helpful and desired.}}

{{title|name=Let Hearts Fly|author=Honeymane}}

{{dropcap|O}}f all the places in the Federation, Chakona was probably one of the most unique of them all. You could go to the market, and find anyone from a Voxxan to a Rakshani. Other than Earth, it was probably the most cosmopolitan planet in the Federation and, among other things, the only place you’d find skunktaurs in great abundance.

Browneyes, by comparison, was rather plain; a Chakat, one of millions on the planet, and had rather normal coloring, much like a calico cat on hir flanks, a plain white upper body, with two ‘goggles’ of chocolate brown around hir eyes. And today, Eighthday of the 25th week, shi was out to get some fresh fruit from the local vendors.

As usual, the crowds were thick and wild, but Browneyes, a native of Chakona, had no difficulty navigating hir way through them to the vendor shi wanted. The stand was set up by the side of the stone block walking street, much like the rest of the stands, and like them, it was made of local plant material not unlike wood, but a brilliant shade of red; to an untrained observer, it would appear to be painted. At the stand there was a white femme fox morph, and what was a relativity rare sight on Chakona, a black human, a female to be exact.

"Hi Molly," Browneyes said, strolling up to the stand. "Slow day?" The stand was mostly free of people in spite of the crowds.

"Er… sort of," said the woman, snapping out of her light doze. "We had a lot of customers earlier, but most of our regular customers seem to be having their normal meets and greets with their moms."

Browneyes moaned; next week was Mother’s Day, and shi was expected to visit hir in Amistad. Normally shi loved Mother’s Day, but this year hir professor of alien psychology had assigned a essay on Voxxan mental diseases due the day beforehand. This had been the first time shi had left the apartment in over a week, and shi hadn’t made arrangement to buy tickets for the Amistad-Berdoovia maglev train. One more thing to do, shi supposed. "I hope they didn’t eat your whole stock of crownfruit?"

"Nah," said the vixen, pulling out a bag from the storage area. "You know we always save a bag for our friends. Besides, no one but chakats eat this stuff anyways."

Crownfruit was a bit of misnomer of a name. The fruit was more or less a sort of parasitic plant, which wrapped itself around other plant’s fruits and used them as a source of energy for which to build a dark green film, about a centimeter thick, around the fruit, and grow its own spiny flowers and, if pollinated, its own little berries. Overall it resembled a long-forgotten king of Caitian origin. Other than its strange lifestyle, it also had a unique flavor. The amount of sunlight it received determined what its flavor was, as well as how sweet or sour it was. Even after being picked from the tree, it typically kept this up for several days. However, Chakats were generally the only ones who ate them because of the plant’s notorious reputation for growing on the fruit of the mildly poisonous Mikio tree, and incorporating the toxins into their juices.

"Speaking of friends," said the vixen, handing the bag to Browneyes, "Where the hell have you been, hon? We haven’t seen you at the café in over a week!"

"Oh you know, Zelda, hard at work studying." Browneyes mimicked typing on a keyboard in the air before accepting the bag of the fruit, "Mr Hardballs wants a 2000 word essay due on the sixth of next week."

"Well damn, girl, get your act together!" said Molly, giving the Chakat a quick hug. "I’m sure you’ll do fine."

"Sure, sure," shi said. "What are you two doing for Mother’s Day? Visiting your parents?"

"Nah, They’re coming…" the vixen said, embracing and kissing the black-skinned woman, "…here, for a change."

Molly and Zelda had been together for several years working on a family farm that Zelda had inherited when her parents retired and moved up to Chakona Gateway, although they had only been a officially mated for the last two.

"So, any buns in the oven yet?" Browneyes asked. The couple had been trying to get pregnant for a long time; the difference between species and need of in-vitro fertilization hadn’t made it easy.

"Er…" said Zelda, unconsciously rubbing her belly, "sort of."

Browneyes gave hir a look. "um…what?"

"Well, it’s not official, but yes," said Molly a little bit sadly.

Empathically, shi knew something was up. "What’s wrong?"

"Nothing," said Molly, looking down at the stand. She knew lying to a Chakat was pretty much impossible.

"Spill it!" Despite hir forceful tone, Browneyes was projecting a reassuring aura of good will empathically towards the two, just as shi had learned to do in Advanced Empathy 101.

The vixen bit her lower lip. "Well, like Molly said, nothing is wrong, it’s just that…"

"The doctors contacted us about two weeks ago about the process. Apparently they could solve the genetic complications between our eggs, but doing that much recomming would put it out of our price range." Molly stated tonelessly. "So we had to go with donor sperm instead."

Suddenly it clicked for the Chakat; in the modern day and age, medical miracles could, and were, performed on a fairly regular bases; the ability to create viable zygotes from two sperm or two ova was a pretty standard technology between homosexual couples, and even more advanced technology could be used to alter the genetic codes of the two ova or sperm to create a zygote that could be carried by ether parent. However, it wasn’t perfect, and extreme genetic differences couldn’t simply be edited easily, although it could be done. Often times even simple changes to a genome would result in large medical bills, partly because of the legal restrictions on the process under Federation law for Genetic Engineering.

"Hun," Browneyes said, leaning over the counter and giving Molly and Zelda a hug, "it doesn’t matter who the genetic parents of your child are, it’s the ones who raise hir that count. He or she is still your child, Molly, regardless of how you bring them into the world."

Separating, Molly sighed. "I’m sure you’re right, Brown, but still, I suppose there isn’t any point in moping over it."

"That’s the spirit!" said Browneyes, but it was more for Zelda’s benefit than anyone else. Despite her words, empathically, Brown could still sense she was torn up inside, and made a promise to hirself to give her a call later.

After Zelda changed the subject, they chatted for a few minutes until another customer, a triad of feline morphs, one carrying a small child, and another one who was pregnant, arrived. Brown stepped aside so they could have easy access to the counter. Brown knew how difficult looking after squirming children could be in a busy marketplace, shi had done it hirself while shi was babysitting back in the day. Brown bid hir friends goodbye and wandered through the crowd, browsing though the various items displayed before making a beeline to a local Public PTV pick-up location. A few minutes later, a PTV pulled up, and Brown hopped in.

After entering the location of the train port (shi had to pick up those tickets), shi relaxed as the PTV pulled away from the market and out into downtown Berdoovia. PTVs, especially public PTVs, were nearly, or completely automated. However, this often meant picking up more people if it wasn’t fully occupied.

<nowiki>*BEEP* BEEP*</nowiki>

The PTV alerted hir to the course change; they had to pick up another person.

Browneyes groaned; it wasn’t that shi didn’t mind the company, but the more detours the PTV had to take; the more time shi’d be wasting trying to get those damnable tickets.

The PTV slowed to a stop in front of another taur. Shi was rather tall, from what Brown could tell, and was clearly some sort of herm foxtaur. Hir fur was off-orange with dark brown socks and a small mop of hair, if you could call it that, sat upon hir head. Shi had bare breasts – public nudity wasn’t all that uncommon on Chakona. Browneyes hirself was nude, although shi, like hir soon-to-be PTV companion, wore belts filled with various items, such as IDs and comms.

"Hi there," said the taur in a faintly Terran accent as shi ducked into the PTV. Shi was tall, very much so for a taur; Brown estimated shi was maybe 180 centimeters or so. Shi settled down next to Brown and entered hir destination into the central console control pad. The heads-up display flashed the revised ETA to the train station up for a moment. To hir surprise, it hadn’t changed.

"Hello, we both seem to be heading the same way," shi said, glancing the other taur over. Despite living on Chakona, and seeing more then a few foxtaurs in hir day, shi couldn’t place the species.

"So it would appear," the foxtaur said with a laugh. "At least we’ll save time!"

"Indeed," Brown agreed. "I don’t mean to come off as rude, shir, but what species are you exactly?"

The taur looked at hir in the eyes and smiled. Shi has beautiful eyes, Browneyes thought, and such a wonderful smile. "Well, my fine Chakat, I am what you call a Stellar Foxtaur."

"A what?" Browneyes blurted, still mesmerized by the foxtaur’s warm eyes. Ugh, this isn’t good, the last thing I need is a relationship right now.

The Foxtaur grinned, "Surely you’ve heard of the Stellar Project?"

"Er..." Come to think of it, the term did sound familiar, but where did shi… Ah! Of course. They were mentioned in the Engineering New Brains course. "To be honest, Shir? Only in passing."

"Please, call me Darktoes," smiled the taur.

"How rude of me. I’m Browneyes," shi said, giving the stranger a small hug, as was a normal ‘handshake’ for chakats.

"Pleasure to meet you, Now, the Stellar Project is more or less the engineering of seven new foxtaur species, designed to be more specialized into different ecological niches, Veldt, Polar, Forest, Starwalker, Marine, Mountain, and Desert, on new worlds, with the aim of helping mold them into economical and social juggernauts, much like Chakona is now," shi explained. "I’m a Veldt breed, built for running on the plains."

"I see." Not really, shi supposed, but shi’d look it up later on the hypernet.

"So what brings you to Chakona?"

"Well, I’m training to be a colonist, so I and my fellow Veldts need some real-world practice in the wilderness," said Darktoes, looking out the PTV’s window at the passing scenery. "However, true untamed wilderness is hard to come by outside of dropping us on a real colony world, so we’ll be using the local holosuites for practice."

"That makes sense." Browneyes leaned back, stretched, and checked the ETA. Down to five minutes. "Why are you going to the train station, if you don’t mind me asking?"

"Going to buy a ticket so I can go to Amistad Spaceport next week to pick up my parents," the Veldt said. "You?"

Browneyes giggled. "Me too, except I’m going all the way to Amistad. My parents have a condo in the downtown area."

"Cool!" Darktoes exclaimed. "I’m probably not going to be taking my parents anywhere that fancy."

"Why not?"

"Meh! I don’t have much; I rent a room from Dewclaw. I don’t see the point in owning much when you’re going to have to live off the land for the next twenty years."

The PTV slowed as it entered the parking lot. It only waited a few moments for them to get out before speeding away towards some other person in need of transport. As the two of them walked towards the large building, Brown continued the conversation. "How about you and your family come and spend Mother’s Day with my family? My parents are always open to company and new faces, and I myself wouldn’t mind seeing you again."

Darktoes held the door open as shi considered hir suggestion. "I don’t see why not. I should run it by my parents though."

"Aye, and mine too," Browneyes said, strolling through the door.

"I’ll tell you what – how about you meet me after class at the HoloCenter at Dewclaw tomorrow. We can call our parents tonight and run the idea by them?"

"Sounds good."

A few minutes later, both had bought their tickets. However, for the ride back, Darktoes took a nearly full PTV, and they couldn’t share a ride. On the way home in hir PTV, Brown examined hir feelings towards this newcomer in hir life. Schooling had taken up a big part of hir life, and for the most part, hir love life had fallen to the sidelines. Shi wasn’t in desperate need of sex, hir roommates and close friends saw to that, so what was hir attraction to this person shi barely knew?

{{Separator|d}}

"I don’t know Brown, I just feel…disconnected with this child, I know I should be happy and supportive, but every time I think of raising this child, it just fills me with dread."

Brown nursed hir drink, hot chocolate, before replying to the distraught female on hir bedroom’s comm. It was quite late, but Brown did want to check in. "Have you discussed any of this with Zelda?"

The dark-skinned human sighed and wiped some tears from hir face with the back of hir hand. "I don’t see how I could. She’s so happy to finally be pregnant and…I don’t know Brown, we discounted adoption when we first became mated because we both wanted children of our own flesh and blood, but when the treatments kept failing…"

Brown interrupted, "It’s not unusual for first-time parents to feel some measure of anxiety when confronted with their first child and, in your case, you’re clearly feeling upset because the treatments failed. Perhaps you even feel a little bit jealous, but because of your feelings for Zelda, you feel even worse for feeling that way."

The human looked down at her hands. "Maybe."

"Hun, the only advice is that you should talk this over with Zelda. She’s your lifemate, and she deserves to know how you feel, and it’ll probably help you deal with these conflicting and difficult emotions," said Brown. "But, hun, you really should see a professional counselor."

The human was still looking down, so Browneyes decided to try a different tactic. "So, I suppose you’ll be the first to know, I met someone…"

The woman brightened up. She was one of those types who enjoyed a juicy bit of gossip, and this was pretty juicy. "Really? Do you think shi’s the ‘one’?"

Browneyes nodded lightly, "Could be; shi definitely made an impression on me, but I think I ought to give it some time."

Molly blew a raspberry. "Pifff, Zelda had me laid almost as soon as we met!"

The Chakat chuckled, "I seem to recall something of a drunken orgy…"

"Yes, yes," said Molly dismissively, "the point is the next morning we both woke up in one another’s arms and Zelda is too much of a Vixen to have sex with someone and not try to get to know them. The point is, don’t sit on this opportunity. You chakats, of all people, should know that life’s too short to waste haggling over the details."

Brown shook hir head in disbelief; "We’ll see, won’t we? Anyways dear, it’s getting rather late." Molly nodded in agreement and the two friends exchanged goodbyes and turned on their Comms. Brown yawned and busied hirself getting ready for bed, in anticipation of the next day.

{{Separator|d}}

The HoloCenter, or as it was officially named Windstorm Holographic Research and Imaging Center, was a fairly impressive, five story tall structure. The building’s walls were dressed in local stone and, from the ground, the roof-top garden could be seen – barely. In the dying daylight, Brown could see they were starting the nightly holographic show. It wasn’t much, but every night holo emitters would be used to point out various stars in the night sky, and give facts about the planets orbiting them; other times it was used to display news messages or displays of support for the families of students who had died, or disaster victims. Thankfully those were rare.

Browneyes was, however, fairly late, hir classes had gone on longer then shi had expected, and shi had only just gotten out. Shi dearly hoped Darktoes would be waiting for hir; this meeting was hir only lifeline to this person.

Hir mother had been, as shi expected, extremely pleased that shi had ‘met’ someone, even though Brown had tried to convince hir mother that they weren’t romantically involved. However attracted shi felt to Darktoes, it certainly wasn’t love. Even chakats, however idealistic they may be towards such things, certainly didn’t believe in love at first sight. Such things simply didn’t happen, did they?

Brown dashed up the steps of the build, and yanked out the door. The lobby, which was fairly spacious, was empty.

"Shit." Shi had missed hir! Now what?

"I must admit, I never took you as the sort to curse like a Mariner, Brown," said that earthy voice behind hir.

Browneyes spun around to face the orange-furred taur, who wore nothing but a cheeky grin. Brown could guess by now shi was probably a nudist; while everyone was free to wear as little or as much as they wanted, pure nudist, the type who wore nothing unless they had to, were reasonably uncommon. Brown wasn’t fazed by it, but it did mean shi’d have to scratch woolen sweaters off hir ‘Possible Gifts’ list. In Darktoes’ hands shi held two chocolate ice cream cones. "Here," shi said, handing Brown one. "When you didn’t show up, I figured your classes were running late, so I went off to get us a treat."

Accepting the cone, Brown held the door open for hir friend to exit, as shi started to lick the cold creamy treat. "Thanks Dark, I was sort of worried you had thought I had stood you up."

Dark blew a raspberry. "As if, you’re the only interesting person I’ve met since coming here. How was your day?"

"Meh, you know how it is – same old, same old; my professors bitching about assignments and piles of pages to read from various books."

"Heh, I know what you mean. Star Corps instructors can be asses too. Two weeks ago they told us we were just going to have just a nice, peaceful day of learning how to hunt. Then they dropped a level three thunderstorm on our asses. Not my idea of a fun day." Darktoes looked around; they we’re walking into some sort of heavily forested park inside the Dewclaw campus, and it was nearly completely dark now. "Where are we going by the way?"

Brown smiled at the taur and gave hir a small hug. "You’ll see. Were you able to get a hold of your parents?"

"Yeah, they thought it was a wonderful idea, seeing as all I’d have to offer is a small apartment. What about yours?"

"Well my dad wasn’t home when I called, but my mother just about jumped through the screen and hugged me. Shi’s been trying to get me to hook up with someone for years."

Darktoes laughed as they entered a small clearing with a stream running through it. Beside the stream was a large, mostly flat rock. Brown bounded forward and laid down on the rock and patted the spot beside hir. Dark laid down beside hir friend. "So what is this place?"

"This, my dear, is Swansong’s Park, and this…" Brown swept hir hand around to the clearing, "…is popularly known as Lover River, a popular make-out spot for students."

Dark gave hir a strange look, to which the Chakat answered with a giggle. "Don’t worry, Dark, that’s not why I brought you out here; I like to come out here and look at the night sky," shi explained.

"Ah!" Dark looked up at the sky, and pointed to one of the stars. "See that star? That’s where I’ll be headed."

"Wow. How long until you ship out?" Browneyes asked quietly. It wasn’t as if shi hadn’t had friends leave before, but this, for some reason, filled hir with dread.

"A month, maybe two after this we’ll be off to the planet, we’re also suppose to survey it you see. It’s supposed to be our, and the project’s, proving grounds," shi said.

"What happens if you fail?" Brown said worriedly. Most experimental projects, like the Corin Warp drive, tended to get terminated. Shi didn’t think they’d do that to these people…but you never knew.

Dark smiled at seeing hir clearly worried face, before giving hir a hug. "Nothing bad. We’ll just lose our jobs and any land given to us in our contracts however."

Brown sighed in relief and finished off the last of hir cone, before continuing the conversation on less worrisome topics. After about an hour, they got up and walked out of the park to the nearest Public PTV pick-up location. Darktoes begged off a ride, because hir apartment was well within running distance. This time however, Brown remembered to give hir new friend hir number and asked hir to call later.

As Brown rode home, shi contemplated hir friend. There was definitely a spark of something there, but what could shi do? Hir friend would be gone within no time at all, and any relationship would be doomed to fail.

Later that night, shi found hirself less interested in working on hir essay, and more interested in researching the project. The more shi read, the more shi became upset. The only way shi’d be allowed to go with Darktoes on this project would be as hir mate, all of whom had applied to be allowed to go months and months ago, not to mention hir own career wouldn’t be needed for several years.

Browneyes flopped into hir bed an hour later, and sighed. Somehow this nearly complete stranger had worked hirself into hir mind and heart. And shi’d never see hir again, or at least not for a very, very long time.

{{Separator|d|Darktoes}}

"How’d your date go, stud?" joked one of the Mariners that Darktoes shared hir apartment with. These apartments were designed with a single large common room with various pieces of furniture and, in one corner, kitchen equipment. The apartments had been designed for the Stellar project in mind, with one roommate of every breed, save for the Starwalkers, represented in every room. The idea was to promote intra-breed sisterhood; the last thing the Federation wanted was for members of different breeds to start hating one another for whatever reason.

"It wasn’t a date, Swimmer, I told you that already," Darktoes sighed. They weren’t chakats, but Stellars, especially Mariners, tended to enjoy their gossip.

"Dark, you know this is going to end badly. Maybe you should cut this Chakat loose before you get in over your head," purred a Polari foxtaur lounging on one of the large pillows that served as seats in the apartment.

Dark sighed and laid down on one of the unoccupied seats and rolled onto hir back. "Too late, I think."

"What do you mean?" Swimmer hopped up next to the Veldter and snuggled with hir friend.

"I don’t know, you guys, I just…I don’t know how to describe it." The Veldter frowned. "It’s like I’m in love or something."

Swimmer and Snowflake exchanged looks. "Are you…sure hun? You know that contract you signed is pretty much airtight."

"I know." Dark felt tears well up in hir eyes. "I wish I had met hir sooner."

"Well," Snowflake said, "you could ask hir to come with you as your mate, if you really feel that way about this Chakat, Browneyes, I think it was?"

"I know that Snow, but…" the Veldter wiped the tears from hir eyes, "…shi’s studying to be a psychologist, and I can’t ask hir to give up hir career for me. I mean, what would shi do if shi came? Sit around all day and do nothing?"

Swimmer licked Dark’s cheek. "What will you do then? You’ll have to tell hir soon."

"Well I do have a month, maybe two," the Veldter said. At least shi had a few weeks to be with Brown.

A Forest breed emerged from one of the bedrooms with a Mountain breed in tow at the moment. The two taurs laid down together next to the Polari, both looked disheveled and smelled of sex. The two breeds, Leaf and Amethyst, were among the first crossbreed couples, who had apparently been enjoying an after-dinner romp in the sheets.

"Didn’t you hear, Dark? They’ve decided to move the launch date up! We’re going to be heading out in two weeks." Said Leaf.

Darktoes sat up violently, shaking off Swimmer. "What?!"

Amethyst nodded. "Isn’t it exciting?"

Dark moaned and ran off to hir room. This certainly was not good news. Shi bit back sobs before excusing hirself to hir room.

Swimmer shot the couple a dirty look before racing off behind the badly shaken Veldter.

Amethyst glanced at Snowflake; "What? Was it something I said?"

{{Separator|d|Browneyes}}

Public transport had always been an important part of Chakona; as a planned world with the stated goal of being extremely eco-friendly, it was of course important to insure that transport between cities was both easy and eco-friendly. To help this along, the first intra-continental high-speed rail had been completed on Finders Continent connecting all major cities.

The high-speed trains were a quite different from those on Earth; in addition to being eco-friendly, Chakats (and other morphs) preferred a higher level of comfort on their trains and other forms of public transports, so these high-speed trains were typically outfitted with rooms complete with a small sleeping area (for two to three taurs) as well as a washroom and small drink refrigerator. Even though trips were often relatively short, they still enjoyed such concessions.

Brown and Darktoes had both asked to share the same cabin on the train when they had bought their tickets, which was indulged by the sales person. Brown wasn’t really expecting anything to happen, but shi was glad they had made the arrangements beforehand. Brown had been irritated all day due to hir impending heat. Darktoes had called hir a few nights before, as shi had promised, but what Brown had hoped would be a pleasant and fun meeting was dampened quite a bit by Darktoes’ news. Browneyes knew the relationship, however unexpected and fast-paced (well not that fast-paced Brown was forced to remind hirself, hir own mother, after all, would have had already bedded hir sire by now in the relationship.) wouldn’t last long, but still, the shock of realizing they only had about a week left with one another was quite unsettling, and any time they got to share together was quite welcome.

The trip was quite quiet and calm, and the two spent most of the time cuddling and discussing their families.

"So your parents are chakats too?" asked Brown.

"Well, only emotionally and legally. The Chakona Council demanded that we were to be born into loving families rather than just being popped out of a tube," said the foxtaur.

"I can imagine." Browneyes leaned on hir friend. "I think it’s more heartwarming to think you had someone to love and hold you as you grew up."

"Yeah, they were pretty great. What about your parents?"

"Oh you know, classic Chakat family, they met, fell in love, had a bunch of cubs," laughed Brown. "The home’s been pretty empty for a few months now. I daresay I shouldn’t be surprised if they’ve gone and conceived another cub by the time we get there."

"Ah! So will I get to meet some of your sexy sisters?" Dark giggled.

"One or two, maybe, but most of them are off-world on deep space missions and such; we’re got a pretty strong wanderlust streak in my family. I’m the first person thus far to take up something that didn’t involve flying around up in the sky."

"Heh, sounds interesting; my parents are both farmers, thus how I developed my interest in agriculture."

"Why do you want to go be a colonist though? I did a bit of research on your species and apparently 98% of you accepted contracts with Star Corps but you’re not engineered to want to go, so…what gives?"

The Veldter gave the Chakat a nuzzle; "Well, I imagine it has to do with the chakat genes they combined with the foxtaur ones; you chakats are pretty curious, and foxtaurs are pretty adventurous at heart too; the problem is, you see, that around the end of puberty, normal foxtaurs tend to get inflicted with Territory Attachment Syndrome."

"What’s that?"

"Well TAS is sort of like homesickness, but a lot more extreme, to the point where they can’t leave their home territory without getting extremely sick. In the worst cases, just the thought of leaving is enough to set off a reaction. It’s almost like…" The veldt thought for a moment. "…like a human with a drug addition; they leave the territory and they go into withdrawal."

Browneyes frowned. "Sounds terrible."

"Yeah, so anyways, we’re just natural-born explorers because they’ve eliminated the problem on a genetic level. However, you could say we’re inflicted with the opposite of TAS – wanderlust!"

"At least you’ll enjoy your work," said Browneyes, giving Darktoes a hug. The rest of the trip passed uneventfully, and before they knew it, they were picking up Darktoes’ parents (an extremely pleasant people) and Browneyes was taking them to hir parents’ condo.

The condo was fairly large and roomy, more then enough room for the two families. As Brown predicted, none of hir sisters were present at the celebration. Of course, it was something of a party with just a general get-together. The four parents hit it off quite well, and Brown wasn’t at all surprised when they begged off the after-dessert chit-chat for a more intimate encounter.

After their parents had left, the two taurs went out onto the balcony that was attached to condo and overlooked the city for a cuddle of their own.

"Beautiful isn’t it?" sighed Browneyes. Shi straightened up and looked Darktoes in hir eyes. "Honey, I think we need to talk about this."

"Yeah," the Veldt started. "Browneyes, I don’t know how, or why, but I love you dearly, but…I don’t know what to do; I would love for you to become my mate, but at the same time I know that we walk two very different paths, and I can’t justify ripping you away from your hopes, dreams and life to go off tramping around on some frontier world with me."

Brown hugged hir beloved foxtaur and placed hir head between hir breasts before shi spoke, "I know, and I can’t ask you to leave the job you’re clearly meant to do. What are we going to do?"

"I…I don’t know, Browneyes." The Veldter bent down and kissed the Chakat. "But let’s make love, my love. Even if we cannot be together, I want to make every moment we are together the best they can be.

Perhaps it was a romantic atmosphere of the moment, or perhaps it was hir own hormones and pheromones at work, or perhaps (and Brown would admit it to hirself it was a contributing factor) the empathic backwash from the foursome in the other room. Whatever the reason, several hours later, the two taurs drifted off to sleep in each others arms.

{{Separator|d}}

The next day was pretty lazy; Dewclaw and other businesses and institutions generally had a three to four day waiting period before they expected their employees or students to return from vacation; a good number of students had to return from off-world, or other continents. For Browneyes and Darktoes, however, it just meant a couple of extra days they could spend together enjoying one another’s company and making love; the next day however, held some surprises.

{{Separator|d}}

The calico-flanked Chakat was the first to wake the next morning. It had been a wonderful night and that warm, joyful feeling shi had experienced last night was still with hir this morning.

Untangling hirself from hir companion, shi slid out of the bedroom and down the hall to the kitchen area. Shi wasn’t wearing anything, but shi imagined that neither hir parents nor Dark’s would care much. As shi expected, the small kitchen table was occupied by all four of the older chakats.

"Did you have a good sleep, dear?" grinned hir sire, Sky. Shi was a stormy-grey Chakat with a white fluffy patch of fur between hir breasts.

"Don’t tease hir, Sky. I’m sure shi had a very enjoyable night," said the dappled brown Chakat who was hir mother.

"I daresay our night wasn’t half bad ether, Dancer," joked one of Dark’s parents. Brown had been introduced but couldn’t for the life of hir remember what their names were.

"Half bad?" said Brown’s mother,sticking out hir tongue at the darkest green and grey Chakat, "I seem to recall that you. Pond, were the one who nearly passed out from pleasure after the second time we…"

"Okay, okay" said Brown shaking hir head in amusement, "I don’t need to know the details. I’m taking a quick shower, so if Dark comes out and asks where I am; give hir a heads-up, okay?"

The four chakats seated around the table nodded in agreement, before breaking into a fit of giggles. Shaking hir head, Brown went off to get the personal bag that shi had left it in the hallway when they had came over yesterday afternoon. Shi had meant to retrieve it and bring it to hir room, but things hadn’t gone as shi had planned.

Unzipping hir bag, shi proceeded to remove the top layer of clothing. The day before shi hadn’t put anything on, but today shi felt like shi needed a new top. The first thing shi noticed was that hir personal PADD, which shi had laid under the top layer of clothing, was flashing red. Picking it up, shi tapped the touch screen which made the PADD beep and reveal a calendar. In the center of the calendar was a flashing pink square with the date 8/26/91, and under that was the text: ‘HEAT Day 2’ in curly letters.

Brown blinked. ‘It must be a mistake, I’m not in heat I would have felt it by now unless…’ Shi gasped. "Oh shit."

Hopping up, shi ran back to the kitchen and waved hir mother out of the group into the hallway. Browneyes then pulled hir mother into the washroom and started the shower up.

"Brown, honey, you know I love you very much, but I think you ought to spend your shower times with Darktoes," said Dancer, somewhat bemused.

"Gah!" Brown said pressing hir ear to the door to see if anyone was out there. Satisfied, shi turned to hir mother. "Mom, when you were pregnant with me, what did it feel like?"

"Well I don’t know, I guess I felt a little slowed down I suppose, I mean you weren’t the lightest of kits but…"

"Not that! Right after Dad impregnated you and you knew you were pregnant? What did you feel like?"

"Sort of…I guess a warm, secure feeling…err joyful I suppose, like the afterglow of an orgasm, I suppose."

"Damnation." Brown swore, sinking to the floor before hir knees gave way.

"Why are you asking all these question in the bathro…" A look of realization dawned on the older Chakat, "You’re pregnant, aren’t you, sweetheart?"

"I think so, yes," Browneyes was close to tears now. This wasn’t how shi had wanted things to happen.

"Congratulations, honey!" hir mother sank to the floor next to hir clearly upset daughter and gave hir a hug. "Why are you upset? This is a joyful occasion!"

"You don’t understand!" Browneyes explained to hir mother the whole of what was going on with hir child’s sire.

"Surely the cub would be a deal breaker?" asked hir mother. "I mean they’re not going to allow a family to be separated?"

Brown sighed. After shi had heard the bad news about the moved-up launch date, shi had gotten one of hir friends who was a student of legal affairs to examine the contract, so shi knew the ins and outs pretty well. "I can break the contract forcing Dark to colonize the world, but not the one requiring hir to survey the planet, which could take up to five years regardless. And I’d have to prove that this cub would grow up without the basics."

"Isn’t two loving and caring parents part of the basics?" Dancer asked.

"No, mom, even the Chakat council agrees that children can be raised well by a single loving parent. Why do you think Star Fleet is allowed to take chakats on such long voyages?"

Hir mother sighed. "We should at least tell Darktoes then and…"

Browneyes cut the dappled Chakat off. "No, mother, we can’t!"

"Why not? It’s hir cub as well as yours."

"Because if we do, shi’ll want to stay!"

"I fear I must be missing the point then. Don’t you want hir to stay?" asked Dancer, rather confused by now.

"Of course I do, mom, I love hir, but I can’t take hir dreams away because of my foolishness in the bedroom. I should have remembered I was on heat and had hir wear a condom or something." Browneyes sobbed lightly. "I’ll miss hir terribly, but I want hir to be happy and satisfied with life, not bogged down by an accidental kit and hir idiot mother."

Dancer hugged hir daughter tightly. "If you this is what you really want, I promise I won’t tell hir, but hun, raising a cub isn’t easy. You’ll probably have to drop out of school."

Browneyes dried hir tears on the back of hir hand. "I know it’ll be difficult, but I was hoping you’d support me." Brown glanced at hir mother; it was unheard of that a chakat’s parents would reject hir, for whatever reason, but you did hear horror stories from non-chakats.

"Of course, sweetheart, of course." Dancer give hir kitten a lick-kiss on the cheek. "You needn’t worry about that."

"As for schooling, I know Dewclaw has a program set up for students living on other continents who can’t make it to school on regular basis, so I should be able to do that."

"Sounds like you have this all planned out."

Browneyes shot hir mother a dirty look. "I didn’t plan this at all, so don’t even think that…"

A knock on the bathroom door, "Brown? Honey? Are you in there? They said you’d be in here," said the voice of Darktoes.

Dancer hopped up with the grace that had earned hir part of hir name, and opened to door. "You two have fun, okay?" shi said, leaving behind hir daughter and hir lover.

{{Separator|d|Dancer by the Sea}}

Despite of the complications surrounding hir daughter’s unplanned pregnancy, shi was glad shi was going to finally get a grandkit; hir other children, while older then Browneyes, all had very busy careers in Star Fleet or Star Corps, and hadn’t even thought about settling down yet to have children. Shi was a bit disturbed by hir daughter’s insistence that the cub’s sire not to be told, but shi respected hir child’s wishes. It wasn’t hir cub after all. However, there were other complications.

"Hi hon," said a reddish-furred chakat whose only mark was a single black spade shaped spot on hir rump. The chakat’s name was Spadespot, Darktoes’ sire. The three chakats were still at the kitchen table, apparently still chatting. "Where were you?"

"Err…" lying was not something that came easy to Chakat, nor was it pleasant to deceive hir mates and friends. "I had to help Browneyes’ with something personal." It wasn’t a complete lie.

Sky gave hir a quizzical look. The stormy-gray Chakat had been hir mate for many years and, aside from knowing Dancer extremely well, their extremely strong empathic bond gave hir away. Luckily hir mate knew better then to say anything, trusting hir mate’s judgment.

The green and grey Chakat sitting at the table spoke up, "Did you tell hir about our denmating?"

The last two nights hadn’t just been lustful passion between friends who had just hit it off. Dancer hadn’t wanted to tell Browneyes, but shi had known Pond and Spadespot from a long, long time ago. The two of them had grown up together in a small rural town on Earth, before Dancer’s family had immigrated to Chakona. As the only chakats in the small town, they had closely bonded and were on-off again lovers. Of course, at the time, the two Chakats had different names, so when Browneyes had told hir of them, shi hadn’t a clue they were going to show up!

The three of them had decided to do more than just catch up on years of lost love making, and had decided last night to become full fledged denmates, even if they weren’t going to see one another as often as they would have liked.

Dancer sighed; this secret wasn’t going to be easy to keep, "No, It sort of slipped my mind when I was dealing with Browneyes’ problem."

"No problem, love, we’ll tell them both later." Spade got up off hir haunches and lick-kissed hir new mate. Dancer gave hir a cuddle and felt better already. "Sound’s like a plan love, but…"

"But what, my sweet?" asked Spade. "You’re not getting cold feet are you?"

Dancer shook hir head. "No, nothing like that. It’s just that Browneyes is going through a lot of heartbreak now, and I’d rather not upset hir further. Not that shi’d be upset at us becoming a triad," shi added hastily at the look the four chakats at the table gave hir. "I’m not sure you realize this, but your daughter has made quite the impression on Browneyes, and shi’s not taking the fact that shi’ll be gone soon very easily."

This of course sparked an intense discussion about what they could do to help the young lovers out, with Dancer by the Sea explaining hir daughter’s reasoning for letting hir lover leave to follow hir dreams, leaving out, of course, the fact that hir daughter was now carrying the Stellar’s child. After a while, they both came to the conclusion that it was best to just allow what would be, be. After moving to the den, their conversation turned more to local topics such as discussing a possible shopping trip and how they could help bring these two farmers to Chakona.

{{Separator|d|Browneyes}}

The last week the young couple had, had passed quickly, more quickly then Browneyes had wanted. The two of them had spent every moment they could together, but today was the day.

The Stellar Foxtaurs had gathered at the spaceport, where a large scale aero-transport was waiting to take them up to the starship that would be their new home until they got to the colony planet that had been picked out for them. Brown and Darktoes were spending the last moment they could together. Both promised one another to write, although both knew it would be several months before they’d be able to really talk. It took time to set up Faster than Light communication systems, and even when they did, it would be months before the orbiting space station would have the bandwidth to be used for anything more than emergency and official Federation business.

Finally, the boarding started to commence, and the foxtaurs slowly filed on, most of them carrying all their worldly goods on their backs. Browneyes and Darktoes shared a long passionate kiss, and then the two separated for the final time.

Later that evening Browneyes would look up at the stars in the direction of hir lover’s destination, and wonder if shi was thinking of hir.

{{Separator|d|Weeks later}}

It had been many months since hir beloved had left. It hadn’t been easy; several times shi found hirself crying hirself to sleep, and moping around hir parents’ condo for days on end. Shi had long since moved back into hir parents’ place, only going back to Dewclaw long enough to arrange the at-home distance education.

Luckily, hir mother’s new mates were able to break hir out of the flunk with their excitement of becoming grandparents. Brown had been a bit shocked that hir mother had already known these chakats and had taken them as mates. Of course they were more than a little shocked that their adopted child was about to become a father and shi didn’t even know; but they promised to keep that fact a secret.

And, lo and behold, it was the day of hir cub’s birth. As per normal, as many people from both families had shown up, and it was quite the crowd. However, the day wore on, and here it was, two hours from the next day, and shi still hadn’t given birth yet. For a Chakat whose births are normally very predictable, it was frustrating to miss the selected day of birth and force everyone to come back for another party the next day.

Brown was out on the same balcony that shi and Darktoes had been out on the night shi had gotten pregnant. In some ways it have become hir widow’s walk, even though shi knew full well hir beloved Veldter was still very much alive. Shi could still sense hir empathically, thought it was very, very faint. Shi’d gaze up at the star where shi knew Darktoes was orbiting.

The door behind hir slid open. Brown turned and saw hir family’s midwife walk out and take up position beside hir.

"Mind if I take some scans, dear?" asked the salt and pepper colored Chakat.

"No, go ahead," Brown said, trying to smile slightly. Shi had been talking all day, which was to be expected, seeing as shi was more or less the guest of honor in this whole performance. Still, it had tired hir out. "I’m sorry, Chess, I guess my kit just isn’t ready to come out yet."

Chess smiled, as shi took scans with hir medical tricorder. "I’ve seen my fair share of stubborn kits in my day, hun. I wouldn’t worry about it too much." The Chakat nodded to hirself as the scans completed. "Everything appears to be in order. It’s a bit chilly out here, hun, maybe you should get something heavier to wear."

"I’ll be all right," Brown said to the retreating Chakat as shi stepped back inside.

The calico Chakat looked back up towards the stars again; shi could almost imagine hir mate out there on some far-flung plains, looking up at those alien stars and thinking of hir. "Oh, Dark, why didn’t I go with… OUCH!" Shi yelped as shi felt a contraction.

Chess apparently had heard hir, and stuck hir head out of the door way. "Was that what I think it was?" shi asked with a cheeky grin.

"Yes, yes." said Browneyes, wincing as a second contraction washed over hir. "And from the looks of things, shi’s in a hurry."

The midwife helped the calico Chakat into the den, which had been set up into birthing room. The condo might be reasonably large, but it wasn’t large enough to have a separate nursery, so Browneyes would be using hir room as a nursery, which thankfully had just enough room for the whole of the two families.

Laying down in a birth position with hir mother supporting hir in place of the sire, shi began to push. Giving birth was always easy for chakats, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t painful; after dozens of contractions and pushing when the midwife told hir to, the pain was starting to get to hir then…

Shi felt the head slip free of the birth canal, and with it, the rest of the body of hir kitten.

The newborn let out a loud cry.

It was done.

After a few moments of inspecting the newborn, the midwife dried the cub and then handed hir to hir mother. Browneyes held hir child up hir breast to allow it to feed. Brown murred with pleasure as the little cub suckled for hir first time. As shi did, Brown inspected the cub hirself; shi had clearly inherited hir basic coloring and patterning from hir father; orange-red with a white underbelly and dark brown taur socks. Well, almost; shi had several black spots with azure blue centers on hir left shoulder blade and chest and the back of hir taur waist.

On top of hir head was a mop of slightly damp blonde hair; Chess had assured hir, however, that shi was 100% Chakat, so their was little chance that hir hair wouldn’t grow into a beautiful, long mane of hair, should shi choose it.

After hir fill, the kitten yawned and fell into a peaceful sleep. Brown completed the milk sharing ceremony with hir mother (shi had agreed months ago to help feed hir) and got up to place hir kitten in hir crib for the night. As shi was laying the kitten down, Brown noticed something unusual about one of the spots on the right side of hir daughter’s chest. It wasn’t a blue-centered black dot like the others, in fact it looked like a little pawprint.

Browneyes frowned; there was only one species who had that sort of markings, and that was a skunktaur, but hir mate wasn’t one…and shi certainly wasn’t one. The calico went off to find hir mother.

"Mom?" Hir mother was chatting with some relatives of hirs.

"Yes sweetie? Something wrong?" Dancer knew that, while Chakat cubs were born healthy almost always, it didn’t stop new mothers from worrying.

Brown grabbed hir mother and pulled hir mother away from the crowd before asking: "Mom, am I a chakat?"

Hir mother giggled, "Of course you are hun, what a silly question!"

"No, no," the new mother was starting to get frustrated; "Am I one hundred percent Chakat? My kitten has a blue pawprint on hir chest and want to know why, damnit!"

The dappled Chakat frowned, and asked hir daughter to show hir. Looking over the newborn, Dancer smiled, "Your kitten is very special sweetheart. It looks like shi inherited the telekinesis Talent."

"But…but how?"

"Well, you never met hym, but your great-great grandmother was a skunktaur; one of the first to be freed from the Three Firms."

"What happened to hir? Surely shi should still be alive?"

"Alas," hir mother frowned, "hy was killed a few years after hy gave birth to my great-grandmother in a space liner accident."

Brown and Dancer stood in silence for a few minutes until Browneyes broke the silence, "Why now though? None of you have that Talent."

"Quite true," hir mother said, "but these things tend to get diluted over time, and it’s a recessive trait in chakats. A doctor would probably be better able to explain it."

"I’ll get hir checked out as soon as possible," Brown said, yawning.

Hir mother chuckled. "I think your kitten isn’t the only one who needs some sleep, dear."

Browneyes agreed, and after bidding the guests good night, shi settled down to sleep. Despite hir great weariness, shi had difficulty sleeping. Perhaps I should tell Darktoes of hir child…

{{Separator|d|Epilogue}}

The Skunktaur doctor smiled at Brown as shi tried to hold the hyperactive cub. The foxtaur-colored cub was several months old at this point. "Little Honeymane is fine, Shir Browneyes."

"Were you able to test for the Talent?" Brown asked, as the kitten began to mew; shi was hungry. Browneyes quickly pulled down the straps of hir tank top and lifted the now calmer kitten up to hir breast to be fed. Shi started suckling almost immediately.

"Yes and no," said the doctor, "We can test for the genetic markers, but not directly test for it for at least another year. You’ll be pleased to know, however, that we did find the genetic markers."

"How do you know if it’ll give hir the Talent, or if it’ll just laying dormant?"

"We…can guess, but as I said, without a direct test, we’ll have no idea. The computer is estimating shi has about a 70% chance that shi will have TK."

Brown smiled down at hir drinking kitten between hir breasts. "I guess I’ll have to look into enrolling hir in special education."

"Indeed" said the doctor, leaning back in hys chair, "Talents are typically harmless, but Telekinesis can be somewhat dangerous in untrained hands. Of course, do you have any relatives who have training in these Talents? I know Chakats tend to prefer a closer family setting in such matters."

Brown shook hir head, "No, I’m afraid my family is pretty much 100% Chakat. I didn’t even know I had a Skunktaur relative until Honeymane was born, and hy died years ago in an accident."

"Well no matter, most of us Skunktaurs are friendly, even if the teachers can get a little be arrogant sometimes," hy said with a smile.

Brown nodded, sensing the appointment was over, and stood up. "I understand. Good day, doctor."

"Good day, Shir. Take care, and you too, Honeymane!"

{{Honeymanestorys}}

[[category:Honeymane]] [[category:Chakona Space]] [[category:taur]] [[category:Story]]

Starhands

2011-02-21T07:39:06Z

Honeymane:

{{title|name=Starhands|author=Honeymane}}

{{Comment tag}}
{{Universe|Chakona Space}}
{{author's note|Originally wrote after Michael Bard's death. Although I had been sitting on the idea and general plot for this story for some time, Bard's death was an unfortunate catalysis and bases for the story. As such this story is dedicated in his memory, because although Starhands is a fictional character, the emotions aren't.}}

{{dropcap|G}}ood, Honeymane, good!" Starhands said with a smile. "Now, try to make the water warm up."

"But, I’ll drop it!" Honeymane protested, as shi tried to continue concentrating on the small glass hovering a few centimetres above the table where it had sat.

"No you won’t," said the much older Skunktaur calmly. "If it starts to slip, I’ll catch it."

The small child frowned, glancing at hir teacher before swiftly returning hir gaze to the glass as it suddenly started to wobble. Squinting and sticking hir tongue out, shi concentrated; soon the water in the glass started to boil. Honeymane blinked in surprise, only for hir expression of surprise to change to panic as the glass began to fall towards the table.

With surprising reflexes for a being so old, Starhands deftly caught the vessel and placed it gently on the table’s surface before turning back to hys student, who was stammering an apology. "The glass is barely warm! You’ve come a long way, Honeymane. It’s not easy to focus one’s talent to do two different things at once." Starhands grinned. "Although, you may want to think about practicing your concentration some more, my child."

"Yes Shir," Honeymane forced out. Shi was still a bit in panic mode after seeing the glass nearly tip over onto hir. Shi had been trying to be more cautious ever since another student had lost hys concentration and accidentally dumped a glass of boiling water all over hymself. Luckily hy wasn’t too badly hurt, but it still looked and felt very painful, and not something shi’d want to experience firsthand. "Would you like some tea, shir Starhands?" Students in Starhand’s charge were instructed through various chores, like making tea using only hir talent. Perhaps if shi got hym tea, shi’d show hy just how good shi was.

The older taur patted the child on hir head and ruffled hir head fur before standing up and offering hir hys hand. "Don’t worry about it young one. Consistent concentration is one of the most difficult things to master. Even I have trouble with it. Besides, judging by the time, I’d say your mother is probably getting bored waiting for us. Shall we go?"

The blonde-haired cub nodded and took hys hand, and the two of them strolled out through the room’s door into the courtyard, which had been transformed from a rather drab collection of stones into a blooming garden by Starhand’s caretaker. None of this was of interest to Honeymane however. "Really, Shir? You?"

The older taur chuckled, "Oh my, yes! I’m just a fallible as any."

Honeymane’s eyes grew wide with youthful shock. "Wow."

With that Starhands burst out laughing. "At least my students hold me in high regard, eh? Come-on Honeymane, your mother is a patient chakat, but I’m sur- WHOA!" Starhands took a step forward and stumbled; throwing hys arms out to try to catch hymself to no avail, and landed face first on the paving stones. To hir credit, Honeymane tried to catch the older taur, but being very young and fairly small, the old skunktaur just crumpled on top of hir. After a moment, shi was able to squeeze hir way out from under hir teacher (who found the whole situation amusing and was laughing,) to see Starhand’s caretaker, a tabby chakat dressed in muted green, come out to see what all the commotion was about.

"What’s going on – oh damnit!" The chakat rushed over to help the older skunktaur in hir charge. "Are you alright, Shir?"

Starhands laughed. "Yes, of course my dear, it was only a small stumble. No-no!" Starhands waved away the helper’s hands. "I can get up myself. Please, Shir Nimbletoes, see Honeymane out."

Nimbletoes frowned. "Are you sure Shir?"

"Yes, yes!" Starhands said impatently, as hy pushed hymself up.

Shaking hir head, Nimbletoes took Honeymane’s hand and led hir to the lobby, where a calico chakat was waiting.

"Hi mommy!" Honeymane broke free of the caretaker’s loose grip and ran to hir mother for a hug."

"Finally!" Browneyes said, jumping to hir feet as they entered and leaning down to hoist hir child up into a hug and a small nuzzle. "What took so long?"

Nimbletoes shrugged. "Starhands just loses track of time every now and again. Hy is nearly one hundred and fifty years old, Brown."

Browneyes frowned. "Yes, you’re right. Sorry about being short with you, Nimble. It’s not yours or anyone else’s fault." Browneyes paused and turned to hir daughter. "Did you have a good lesson, sweetie?

"Yup!" the child nodded happily. "Starhands says I got to work on my concentration more though."

"Well, I’m sure you’ll get right on that, won’t you, ’Mane?" Browneyes said as shi trotted towards hir PTV.

Honeymane nodded. "What’s for supper, mommy? Can we eat at the restaurant again?"

Browneyes rolled hir eyes. "The one on the station? Not tonight, hun, maybe in a week."

"Aww, but mmmmmmmmmmmooommmm…."

{{Separator|d|Browneyes}}

"Eh? Takeout?" asked a black foxtaur as shi walked into the kitchen.

Browneyes sighed and dropped the takeout bag on the kitchen counter, as hir cub bounced around under foot, before gesturing to Honeymane. "I wasn’t going to, Star, but this little terror talked me into it."

"I’m not a terror, mommy!" the cub protested heartily, before making a show of clutching hir stomach. "Can we eat now?"

"Yeah yeah." Brown rolled hir eyes and dug into the bag, before producing two salads for hir and Fallingstar, and an emiron sandwich for the cub, and proceeded to put them onto plates for the three. Within short order, the three of them were sitting around the kitchen table eating away.

"How was your day?" the stellar foxtaur asked between bites of Rovtil leaf.

"Good, I suppose." Browneyes shrugged before taking a big bite of some tomato-like fruit. "It’s always a bit difficult to sit and listen to other people’s problems all day. I like the work of course, but it’s a bit…" the chakat frowned as shi hesitated trying to think of the word.

"Depressing? Frustrating? Worrisome?" hir companion supplied.

"All three, I think. I want to help people, but sometimes I just don’t—Honeymane! Don’t play with your food!" Brown finished sternly, giving the child a hard look.

"Sorry, mommy," the blonde cub said, taking the two pieces of emiron out of hir ears and quickly eating them.

The calico chakat shook hir head. "Anyway, sometimes I feel like I’m just not making a difference."

"I wouldn’t worry about it, hun," Fallingstar said, smiling and reaching across the table to grip hir friend’s hand. "Even if it doesn’t seem like it, I’m sure you are making a difference. I can’t say the feeling ever goes away, but…."

Browneyes squeezed the hand, "I suppose you’re right, but enough about me, how was your day."

"Oh you know, same as yours." Star shrugged and poked the entrails of hir salad with hir fork. "There’s some talk about promoting me up a grade and moving me into more of a managerial position."

"Oh? Well congratulations, I suppose."

Fallingstar shook hir head. "Not really. The extra pay might be nice, but I’ll have loads more paperwork to do, and longer hours." The Stellar let hir fork fall into the bowl as shi leaned back and stretched. "To be honest, I wish your sister would stop trying to be sweet on me."

"You think Mak’s got a preference towards you?" Brown asked, glancing at hir own half-eaten salad, before hastening to eat more of it.

"Mommy, can I go watch TV?" Honeymane asked, looking slightly bored.

"Sure, sweetie."

Fallingstar waited until the cub was out of the room. "I dunno, maybe. I don’t feel all that qualified for the job."

"Well," Browneyes said thickly between red-spiked leaves, "How long has it been since you’ve been put up for promotion? Hasn’t it been like six years?"

"Yeah, I guess." Star frowned as shi fiddled with hir earring absentmindedly. "Even so, I—" shi broke off as the vidphone in the hallway started to ring.

"Bah, I hate it when they call around supper time!" Browneyes said. "No no!" shi motioned to hir friend to stay where shi was. "I’ll get it."

Browneyes paused to fix hir hair before answering the device, which was warbling rather insistently. After a moment, shi hit the answer button, and waited for the connection to go through. It didn’t take long, and before shi knew it, shi was looking at the very distraught face of Nimbletoes. Judging by the matting of hir fur and hir slightly puffy eyes, shi had been crying recently. When shi didn’t speak, Brown tried to prompt hir. "Are you okay hun? You look upset."

The tabby chakat on the video phone smacked hir lips and tried to gather hir thoughts, "I, uh, sorry. I-I’m okay."

"Something’s up though, I can tell." Browneyes said, tilting hir head slightly to the side.

"Y-yes, um." Nimbletoes suddenly burst into tears. "It’s Starhands! After you and Honeymane left, hy-hy had a stroke… hy’s in a coma, they don’t know if hy’ll pull through."

"Oh no." Even to Brown’s ears it sounded stupid.

"I’m, I’m just trying to inform the parents of Starhand’s students," Nimbletoes choked out. "T-they have a right to know."

Browneyes shook hir head. "Isn’t there someone else who could do this for you, hun?"

"N-no." The chakat on the screen shook.

"Listen, I’ll send my mate Fallingstar over. Shi can pick you up and bring you over here so you don’t have to be alone, and we’ll get in touch with the rest of the parents for you, okay hun?"

Nimbletoes nodded and muttered something that sounded like thanks, before disconnecting. Browneyes stood for a moment, closing hir eyes and gathering hir thoughts. Shi hadn’t been all that close to Starhands, although shi’s sure shi would have liked, well, would like hym if shi took the time. Honeymane certainly liked the skunktaur. At that, Browneyes frowned. What was shi going to tell Honeymane? Shi had to know, of course, but….

"Everything alright out here Brown?" Fallingstar asked, appearing in the hallway.

"Well…" Browneyes quickly explained the situation.

"Damn." The black foxtaur shook hir head sadly. "What a way to go."

"Hy’s not dead yet." Browneyes pointed out, "There’s still hope."

"I suppose. I’ll go get Nimbletoes." Star frowned, "I guess that leaves you with Honeymane… good luck hun."

"Thanks."

Browneyes found hir daughter in the den watching some television show, as shi expected. Quietly, shi laid down beside the engrossed child, before reaching over and putting the television on mute.

"I was watching that!" Honeymane protested, before hopping up and trying to reach the remote, as Browneyes held it high over hir head. Thankfully, shi stopped when shi saw Browneyes’ face. "Is something wrong, mommy?"

Putting down the remote, Browneyes sighed and began stroking hir daughter’s cheek while shi gathered hir thoughts. This would be the first time anyone really close to Honeymane had died—or was in significant danger of doing so, and shi wasn’t sure how to break the news. Still, it had to be done.

"Hun, I have something to tell you…" Browneyes paused. "You know Starhands?"

"Pff! Of course I know hym mommy!" Honeymane laughed.

"Well, hy’s… Hy’s very sick." Browneyes steeled hirself. "Hy’s in the hospital."

"Don’t be silly mommy, Starhands isn’t sick, I just saw hym." The child frowned. "Maybe hy hurt hymself when hy fell?"

"I don’t think so, hun." Browneyes frowned, "Sweetheart, Starhands might… might die."

"Die?" The look on Honeymane’s face was a heartbreaking mix of confusion and sadness. "But… hy can’t die!"

Browneyes reached out and pulled the cub into a warm hug. "I know it’s hard, hun, and hy might still pull through… but we have to be prepared for the worst."

Honeymane let out something like a sob and hugged hir mother back as strongly as shi could. "Hy wasn’t sick, mommy!"

"I know, hun; this kind of illness comes on quickly," Browneyes said. "But we have some of the best doctors in the Federation here. Hy might pull through… in fact, I’m sure of it."

"Really?" Honeymane looked hir in the eyes.

"Yes." Unfortunately for Honeymane, Browneyes’ empathic talent was stronger and it wasn’t hard for hir to lie to the child.

Honeymane grinned. "Can we go see Starhands in the hosp’tal mommy? I could make hym a card."

"Sure, hun. Nimbletoes will be along shortly. Shi’s quite upset, so me and Star are going to try and comfort hir," Browneyes said, giving hir daughter a kiss on the forehead. "Perhaps Sugarback can help you with your card. Shi and your grandparents should be home by now."

It seemed impossible, but the blonde-haired cub’s smile grew even wider and brighter before dashing off to gather supplies and head down the hall to Browneyes’ parent’s place.

Browneyes sighed heavily as shi watched the cub go, wondering if shi had given hir too much false hope.

{{Separator|d}}

Walking down the corridor of the hospital, Browneyes had to wonder who could possibly like such a building, even though medical care had vastly improved since the 20th century, and many medical facilities were hardly whitewashed or smelt heavily of disinfectant. But to hir nose, shi could still smell the uniformity of the scents, and empathically, shi could feel such suffering. After a few moment’s concentration, Browneyes managed to suppress the sensations, thankful for the training that shi had received. Glancing sideways at Fallingstar, shi could tell shi sensed it too. Honeymane led the way, carefully counting off the room numbers on the doors to find the one they wanted. Of the three of them, shi seemed almost oblivious to the environment around hir, and not for the first time in hir life, Browneyes wished shi still had that youthful innocence. Shi hoped this trip wouldn’t take that away from the cub.

"You think Shir Starhands will like my card mommy?" Honeymane turned hir head back and glanced at the two adult taurs. "When I show’d it to Shir Nimbletoes this mornin’, shi started to cry."

Browneyes leaned forward and picked the cub up while trying not to wrinkle hir clothing. None of them were wearing what could be called their Sunday best, but Brown didn’t want to look like some tramp from the street either. At this age Honeymane was starting to get almost too big to carry, even for a taur, but shi managed, and gave hir daughter a kiss on hir forehead. "Shir Nimbletoes is a lot closer to Starhands, sweetheart, this whole thing has affected hir a lot more."

"Oh."

"I think we’re here," interjected Fallingstar. "5210, right?"

Browneyes nodded and awkwardly shifted the cub’s weight in hir arms to free one to give the door a sharp rap. After waiting a few moments for a reply, and getting none, Browneyes opened the door slightly and looked in. Sure enough, the prone figure of the familiar Skunktaur was laying on the room’s only medical bed. Judging from the other items around the room, hy had company, although they appeared to be out at the moment. Browneyes hesitated. Shi wasn’t sure if shi should enter the room uninvited if the other people weren’t there.

Browneyes was about to back away when Honeymane slipped from hir arms and dashed into the room, jumping up onto the bed (thankfully narrowly missing jumping onto Starhands) and giving the unconscious taur a hug. Glancing around and shrugging, Browneyes quickly entered the room with Fallingstar trailing.

"Hy doesn’t look sick at all mommy!" Honeymane exclaimed excitedly, before addressing hir teacher while starting to gently shake hym. "Wakie Wakie Shir! I made you a card. I used glitter and everything!"

"Honeymane…" Browneyes began, walking over to hir daughter and trying to pull the excited cub off before shi did any damage. "I don’t think…"

The cub proved too nimble for Browneyes and danced out of hir grasp, scooting up onto the Skunktaur’s chest, dropping the card and trying to wake hym. "Come on, wake up!" Honeymane said loudly, with an edge of panic in hir voice.

This time Brown managed to pick hir child off the sick Skunktaur, but almost immediately shi knew something was wrong.

"Mommy…" Honeymane said, turning to look wide-eyed at Browneyes, with panic in hir voice. "Why can’t I feel hym?"

For a moment Browneyes didn’t know what shi was talking about, and than it dawned on hir. Looking back at the skunktaur, shi could feel the emptiness, the lack of, for a better word, soul. The body might still be alive, but Starhands was clearly gone. Browneyes held hir child tight as Honeymane started to cry softly against hir shoulder. With a glance at Fallingstar, Browneyes knew it was time for the three of them to leave.

It wasn’t until they were halfway home and Honeymane had cried hirself to sleep before either of them spoke.

"That… wasn’t good." Browneyes said softly, glancing down at the child sleeping between hir forelegs.

"No it wasn’t," the Stellar Foxtaur agreed heartily. "I suppose we should have called this morning. I didn’t realize…"

"Nether did I. I knew hy was in a coma, but still…" Browneyes sighed and rubbed hir forehead. "This is going to screw Honeymane up."

"Maybe," Fallingstar admitted, before reaching over and stroking hir Companion’s cheek. "But kids are pretty resilient. I’m sure shi’ll bounce back."

"And if shi doesn’t?"

"Both of us are experienced counsellors, we’ll be there for hir." The black foxtaur smiled softly. "Don’t worry too much about it."

After a few minutes, the two of them fell into silence as the vehicle sped along the road.

{{Separator|d}}

The rest of the day was relatively calm. Honeymane spent most of the day looking and feeling quite depressed, and around supper time they received a call from Nimbletoes telling them that the family had decided to withdraw life-support from Starhands, and let hym pass away. The question then was whether or not to attend the funeral.

"Do you think that’s a good idea?" asked Dancer.

"What do you mean?" Browneyes said, turning towards hir mother while nibbling on hir piece of toast, as the adults of the family sat around Browneyes’ parent’s kitchen table, the morning after they had got the call from Nimbletoes.

"Taking Honeymane to the funeral," the dabbled chakat replied. "Shi’s already pretty torn up."

"Yeah, but…" Browneyes frowned, "I think without some sort of closure, being able to say goodbye… Well I just think that’d it’d be a good thing."

Hir mother frowned. "I suppose, but all those sad people… they’re just going to make hir feel worse."

"I agree with your mother," interjected Spadespot. "It’s tragic enough that shi’s lost someone so close to hir at such a young age. Going to the funeral will probably just compound that."

"I disagree," said Sky softly. "I won’t deny that it’ll be hard on hir, but closure is very important."

Browneyes held up hir hands to forestall any further debate. "I’ll ask Honeymane what shi wants to do."

As Browneyes had expected, Honeymane had agreed readily that shi wanted to go to the funeral, settling the matter. Within a few days the two of them had dressed in their best clothing, and attended the funeral. Like chakat funerals, it was much more like a wake than something they were to be sad at, but even so there was no denying that Starhands was going to be sorely missed. As the funeral was winding down, Browneyes decided it was time for them to return home.

"Mom?" Honeymane said, as the PTV drove itself onto the highway.

"Yes?"

"Why do people have to die?" Honeymane’s head was turned, looking out the window, but Browneyes could tell shi was crying a bit.

"I don’t know hun." Browneyes admitted, "It’s just part of life."

"Does it ever go away?"

"What?"

"The pain."

Browneyes leaned over and pulled hir child close into a hug, "Not really, sweetie. It’ll get a bit less every day, and one day, one day soon, you’ll feel better. You won’t forget about Starhands, but…"

"But?" Honeymane said between sniffles.

"But… one day you’ll feel okay, and you’ll go on with your life, just like Starhands would want."

Honeymane sniffled and hugged hir mother closely, losing hirself in the warm embrace.

{{Honeymanestorys}}

[[category:Honeymane]] [[category:Chakona Space]] [[category:taur]] [[category:Story]]

User:Honeymane/Let Hearts Fly

2011-02-21T07:38:58Z

Honeymane:

{{title|name=Let Hearts Fly|author=Honeymane}}

{{Comment tag}}
{{Universe|Chakona Space}}
{{author's note|This is the first story I wrote and had posted on the Chakat's Den site. Obviously it's a few years old, and while I can't promise any changes, any critiques are helpful and desired.}}

{{dropcap|O}}f all the places in the Federation, Chakona was probably one of the most unique of them all. You could go to the market, and find anyone from a Voxxan to a Rakshani. Other than Earth, it was probably the most cosmopolitan planet in the Federation and, among other things, the only place you’d find skunktaurs in great abundance.

Browneyes, by comparison, was rather plain; a Chakat, one of millions on the planet, and had rather normal coloring, much like a calico cat on hir flanks, a plain white upper body, with two ‘goggles’ of chocolate brown around hir eyes. And today, Eighthday of the 25th week, shi was out to get some fresh fruit from the local vendors.

As usual, the crowds were thick and wild, but Browneyes, a native of Chakona, had no difficulty navigating hir way through them to the vendor shi wanted. The stand was set up by the side of the stone block walking street, much like the rest of the stands, and like them, it was made of local plant material not unlike wood, but a brilliant shade of red; to an untrained observer, it would appear to be painted. At the stand there was a white femme fox morph, and what was a relativity rare sight on Chakona, a black human, a female to be exact.

"Hi Molly," Browneyes said, strolling up to the stand. "Slow day?" The stand was mostly free of people in spite of the crowds.

"Er… sort of," said the woman, snapping out of her light doze. "We had a lot of customers earlier, but most of our regular customers seem to be having their normal meets and greets with their moms."

Browneyes moaned; next week was Mother’s Day, and shi was expected to visit hir in Amistad. Normally shi loved Mother’s Day, but this year hir professor of alien psychology had assigned a essay on Voxxan mental diseases due the day beforehand. This had been the first time shi had left the apartment in over a week, and shi hadn’t made arrangement to buy tickets for the Amistad-Berdoovia maglev train. One more thing to do, shi supposed. "I hope they didn’t eat your whole stock of crownfruit?"

"Nah," said the vixen, pulling out a bag from the storage area. "You know we always save a bag for our friends. Besides, no one but chakats eat this stuff anyways."

Crownfruit was a bit of misnomer of a name. The fruit was more or less a sort of parasitic plant, which wrapped itself around other plant’s fruits and used them as a source of energy for which to build a dark green film, about a centimeter thick, around the fruit, and grow its own spiny flowers and, if pollinated, its own little berries. Overall it resembled a long-forgotten king of Caitian origin. Other than its strange lifestyle, it also had a unique flavor. The amount of sunlight it received determined what its flavor was, as well as how sweet or sour it was. Even after being picked from the tree, it typically kept this up for several days. However, Chakats were generally the only ones who ate them because of the plant’s notorious reputation for growing on the fruit of the mildly poisonous Mikio tree, and incorporating the toxins into their juices.

"Speaking of friends," said the vixen, handing the bag to Browneyes, "Where the hell have you been, hon? We haven’t seen you at the café in over a week!"

"Oh you know, Zelda, hard at work studying." Browneyes mimicked typing on a keyboard in the air before accepting the bag of the fruit, "Mr Hardballs wants a 2000 word essay due on the sixth of next week."

"Well damn, girl, get your act together!" said Molly, giving the Chakat a quick hug. "I’m sure you’ll do fine."

"Sure, sure," shi said. "What are you two doing for Mother’s Day? Visiting your parents?"

"Nah, They’re coming…" the vixen said, embracing and kissing the black-skinned woman, "…here, for a change."

Molly and Zelda had been together for several years working on a family farm that Zelda had inherited when her parents retired and moved up to Chakona Gateway, although they had only been a officially mated for the last two.

"So, any buns in the oven yet?" Browneyes asked. The couple had been trying to get pregnant for a long time; the difference between species and need of in-vitro fertilization hadn’t made it easy.

"Er…" said Zelda, unconsciously rubbing her belly, "sort of."

Browneyes gave hir a look. "um…what?"

"Well, it’s not official, but yes," said Molly a little bit sadly.

Empathically, shi knew something was up. "What’s wrong?"

"Nothing," said Molly, looking down at the stand. She knew lying to a Chakat was pretty much impossible.

"Spill it!" Despite hir forceful tone, Browneyes was projecting a reassuring aura of good will empathically towards the two, just as shi had learned to do in Advanced Empathy 101.

The vixen bit her lower lip. "Well, like Molly said, nothing is wrong, it’s just that…"

"The doctors contacted us about two weeks ago about the process. Apparently they could solve the genetic complications between our eggs, but doing that much recomming would put it out of our price range." Molly stated tonelessly. "So we had to go with donor sperm instead."

Suddenly it clicked for the Chakat; in the modern day and age, medical miracles could, and were, performed on a fairly regular bases; the ability to create viable zygotes from two sperm or two ova was a pretty standard technology between homosexual couples, and even more advanced technology could be used to alter the genetic codes of the two ova or sperm to create a zygote that could be carried by ether parent. However, it wasn’t perfect, and extreme genetic differences couldn’t simply be edited easily, although it could be done. Often times even simple changes to a genome would result in large medical bills, partly because of the legal restrictions on the process under Federation law for Genetic Engineering.

"Hun," Browneyes said, leaning over the counter and giving Molly and Zelda a hug, "it doesn’t matter who the genetic parents of your child are, it’s the ones who raise hir that count. He or she is still your child, Molly, regardless of how you bring them into the world."

Separating, Molly sighed. "I’m sure you’re right, Brown, but still, I suppose there isn’t any point in moping over it."

"That’s the spirit!" said Browneyes, but it was more for Zelda’s benefit than anyone else. Despite her words, empathically, Brown could still sense she was torn up inside, and made a promise to hirself to give her a call later.

After Zelda changed the subject, they chatted for a few minutes until another customer, a triad of feline morphs, one carrying a small child, and another one who was pregnant, arrived. Brown stepped aside so they could have easy access to the counter. Brown knew how difficult looking after squirming children could be in a busy marketplace, shi had done it hirself while shi was babysitting back in the day. Brown bid hir friends goodbye and wandered through the crowd, browsing though the various items displayed before making a beeline to a local Public PTV pick-up location. A few minutes later, a PTV pulled up, and Brown hopped in.

After entering the location of the train port (shi had to pick up those tickets), shi relaxed as the PTV pulled away from the market and out into downtown Berdoovia. PTVs, especially public PTVs, were nearly, or completely automated. However, this often meant picking up more people if it wasn’t fully occupied.

<nowiki>*BEEP* BEEP*</nowiki>

The PTV alerted hir to the course change; they had to pick up another person.

Browneyes groaned; it wasn’t that shi didn’t mind the company, but the more detours the PTV had to take; the more time shi’d be wasting trying to get those damnable tickets.

The PTV slowed to a stop in front of another taur. Shi was rather tall, from what Brown could tell, and was clearly some sort of herm foxtaur. Hir fur was off-orange with dark brown socks and a small mop of hair, if you could call it that, sat upon hir head. Shi had bare breasts – public nudity wasn’t all that uncommon on Chakona. Browneyes hirself was nude, although shi, like hir soon-to-be PTV companion, wore belts filled with various items, such as IDs and comms.

"Hi there," said the taur in a faintly Terran accent as shi ducked into the PTV. Shi was tall, very much so for a taur; Brown estimated shi was maybe 180 centimeters or so. Shi settled down next to Brown and entered hir destination into the central console control pad. The heads-up display flashed the revised ETA to the train station up for a moment. To hir surprise, it hadn’t changed.

"Hello, we both seem to be heading the same way," shi said, glancing the other taur over. Despite living on Chakona, and seeing more then a few foxtaurs in hir day, shi couldn’t place the species.

"So it would appear," the foxtaur said with a laugh. "At least we’ll save time!"

"Indeed," Brown agreed. "I don’t mean to come off as rude, shir, but what species are you exactly?"

The taur looked at hir in the eyes and smiled. Shi has beautiful eyes, Browneyes thought, and such a wonderful smile. "Well, my fine Chakat, I am what you call a Stellar Foxtaur."

"A what?" Browneyes blurted, still mesmerized by the foxtaur’s warm eyes. Ugh, this isn’t good, the last thing I need is a relationship right now.

The Foxtaur grinned, "Surely you’ve heard of the Stellar Project?"

"Er..." Come to think of it, the term did sound familiar, but where did shi… Ah! Of course. They were mentioned in the Engineering New Brains course. "To be honest, Shir? Only in passing."

"Please, call me Darktoes," smiled the taur.

"How rude of me. I’m Browneyes," shi said, giving the stranger a small hug, as was a normal ‘handshake’ for chakats.

"Pleasure to meet you, Now, the Stellar Project is more or less the engineering of seven new foxtaur species, designed to be more specialized into different ecological niches, Veldt, Polar, Forest, Starwalker, Marine, Mountain, and Desert, on new worlds, with the aim of helping mold them into economical and social juggernauts, much like Chakona is now," shi explained. "I’m a Veldt breed, built for running on the plains."

"I see." Not really, shi supposed, but shi’d look it up later on the hypernet.

"So what brings you to Chakona?"

"Well, I’m training to be a colonist, so I and my fellow Veldts need some real-world practice in the wilderness," said Darktoes, looking out the PTV’s window at the passing scenery. "However, true untamed wilderness is hard to come by outside of dropping us on a real colony world, so we’ll be using the local holosuites for practice."

"That makes sense." Browneyes leaned back, stretched, and checked the ETA. Down to five minutes. "Why are you going to the train station, if you don’t mind me asking?"

"Going to buy a ticket so I can go to Amistad Spaceport next week to pick up my parents," the Veldt said. "You?"

Browneyes giggled. "Me too, except I’m going all the way to Amistad. My parents have a condo in the downtown area."

"Cool!" Darktoes exclaimed. "I’m probably not going to be taking my parents anywhere that fancy."

"Why not?"

"Meh! I don’t have much; I rent a room from Dewclaw. I don’t see the point in owning much when you’re going to have to live off the land for the next twenty years."

The PTV slowed as it entered the parking lot. It only waited a few moments for them to get out before speeding away towards some other person in need of transport. As the two of them walked towards the large building, Brown continued the conversation. "How about you and your family come and spend Mother’s Day with my family? My parents are always open to company and new faces, and I myself wouldn’t mind seeing you again."

Darktoes held the door open as shi considered hir suggestion. "I don’t see why not. I should run it by my parents though."

"Aye, and mine too," Browneyes said, strolling through the door.

"I’ll tell you what – how about you meet me after class at the HoloCenter at Dewclaw tomorrow. We can call our parents tonight and run the idea by them?"

"Sounds good."

A few minutes later, both had bought their tickets. However, for the ride back, Darktoes took a nearly full PTV, and they couldn’t share a ride. On the way home in hir PTV, Brown examined hir feelings towards this newcomer in hir life. Schooling had taken up a big part of hir life, and for the most part, hir love life had fallen to the sidelines. Shi wasn’t in desperate need of sex, hir roommates and close friends saw to that, so what was hir attraction to this person shi barely knew?

{{Separator|d}}

"I don’t know Brown, I just feel…disconnected with this child, I know I should be happy and supportive, but every time I think of raising this child, it just fills me with dread."

Brown nursed hir drink, hot chocolate, before replying to the distraught female on hir bedroom’s comm. It was quite late, but Brown did want to check in. "Have you discussed any of this with Zelda?"

The dark-skinned human sighed and wiped some tears from hir face with the back of hir hand. "I don’t see how I could. She’s so happy to finally be pregnant and…I don’t know Brown, we discounted adoption when we first became mated because we both wanted children of our own flesh and blood, but when the treatments kept failing…"

Brown interrupted, "It’s not unusual for first-time parents to feel some measure of anxiety when confronted with their first child and, in your case, you’re clearly feeling upset because the treatments failed. Perhaps you even feel a little bit jealous, but because of your feelings for Zelda, you feel even worse for feeling that way."

The human looked down at her hands. "Maybe."

"Hun, the only advice is that you should talk this over with Zelda. She’s your lifemate, and she deserves to know how you feel, and it’ll probably help you deal with these conflicting and difficult emotions," said Brown. "But, hun, you really should see a professional counselor."

The human was still looking down, so Browneyes decided to try a different tactic. "So, I suppose you’ll be the first to know, I met someone…"

The woman brightened up. She was one of those types who enjoyed a juicy bit of gossip, and this was pretty juicy. "Really? Do you think shi’s the ‘one’?"

Browneyes nodded lightly, "Could be; shi definitely made an impression on me, but I think I ought to give it some time."

Molly blew a raspberry. "Pifff, Zelda had me laid almost as soon as we met!"

The Chakat chuckled, "I seem to recall something of a drunken orgy…"

"Yes, yes," said Molly dismissively, "the point is the next morning we both woke up in one another’s arms and Zelda is too much of a Vixen to have sex with someone and not try to get to know them. The point is, don’t sit on this opportunity. You chakats, of all people, should know that life’s too short to waste haggling over the details."

Brown shook hir head in disbelief; "We’ll see, won’t we? Anyways dear, it’s getting rather late." Molly nodded in agreement and the two friends exchanged goodbyes and turned on their Comms. Brown yawned and busied hirself getting ready for bed, in anticipation of the next day.

{{Separator|d}}

The HoloCenter, or as it was officially named Windstorm Holographic Research and Imaging Center, was a fairly impressive, five story tall structure. The building’s walls were dressed in local stone and, from the ground, the roof-top garden could be seen – barely. In the dying daylight, Brown could see they were starting the nightly holographic show. It wasn’t much, but every night holo emitters would be used to point out various stars in the night sky, and give facts about the planets orbiting them; other times it was used to display news messages or displays of support for the families of students who had died, or disaster victims. Thankfully those were rare.

Browneyes was, however, fairly late, hir classes had gone on longer then shi had expected, and shi had only just gotten out. Shi dearly hoped Darktoes would be waiting for hir; this meeting was hir only lifeline to this person.

Hir mother had been, as shi expected, extremely pleased that shi had ‘met’ someone, even though Brown had tried to convince hir mother that they weren’t romantically involved. However attracted shi felt to Darktoes, it certainly wasn’t love. Even chakats, however idealistic they may be towards such things, certainly didn’t believe in love at first sight. Such things simply didn’t happen, did they?

Brown dashed up the steps of the build, and yanked out the door. The lobby, which was fairly spacious, was empty.

"Shit." Shi had missed hir! Now what?

"I must admit, I never took you as the sort to curse like a Mariner, Brown," said that earthy voice behind hir.

Browneyes spun around to face the orange-furred taur, who wore nothing but a cheeky grin. Brown could guess by now shi was probably a nudist; while everyone was free to wear as little or as much as they wanted, pure nudist, the type who wore nothing unless they had to, were reasonably uncommon. Brown wasn’t fazed by it, but it did mean shi’d have to scratch woolen sweaters off hir ‘Possible Gifts’ list. In Darktoes’ hands shi held two chocolate ice cream cones. "Here," shi said, handing Brown one. "When you didn’t show up, I figured your classes were running late, so I went off to get us a treat."

Accepting the cone, Brown held the door open for hir friend to exit, as shi started to lick the cold creamy treat. "Thanks Dark, I was sort of worried you had thought I had stood you up."

Dark blew a raspberry. "As if, you’re the only interesting person I’ve met since coming here. How was your day?"

"Meh, you know how it is – same old, same old; my professors bitching about assignments and piles of pages to read from various books."

"Heh, I know what you mean. Star Corps instructors can be asses too. Two weeks ago they told us we were just going to have just a nice, peaceful day of learning how to hunt. Then they dropped a level three thunderstorm on our asses. Not my idea of a fun day." Darktoes looked around; they we’re walking into some sort of heavily forested park inside the Dewclaw campus, and it was nearly completely dark now. "Where are we going by the way?"

Brown smiled at the taur and gave hir a small hug. "You’ll see. Were you able to get a hold of your parents?"

"Yeah, they thought it was a wonderful idea, seeing as all I’d have to offer is a small apartment. What about yours?"

"Well my dad wasn’t home when I called, but my mother just about jumped through the screen and hugged me. Shi’s been trying to get me to hook up with someone for years."

Darktoes laughed as they entered a small clearing with a stream running through it. Beside the stream was a large, mostly flat rock. Brown bounded forward and laid down on the rock and patted the spot beside hir. Dark laid down beside hir friend. "So what is this place?"

"This, my dear, is Swansong’s Park, and this…" Brown swept hir hand around to the clearing, "…is popularly known as Lover River, a popular make-out spot for students."

Dark gave hir a strange look, to which the Chakat answered with a giggle. "Don’t worry, Dark, that’s not why I brought you out here; I like to come out here and look at the night sky," shi explained.

"Ah!" Dark looked up at the sky, and pointed to one of the stars. "See that star? That’s where I’ll be headed."

"Wow. How long until you ship out?" Browneyes asked quietly. It wasn’t as if shi hadn’t had friends leave before, but this, for some reason, filled hir with dread.

"A month, maybe two after this we’ll be off to the planet, we’re also suppose to survey it you see. It’s supposed to be our, and the project’s, proving grounds," shi said.

"What happens if you fail?" Brown said worriedly. Most experimental projects, like the Corin Warp drive, tended to get terminated. Shi didn’t think they’d do that to these people…but you never knew.

Dark smiled at seeing hir clearly worried face, before giving hir a hug. "Nothing bad. We’ll just lose our jobs and any land given to us in our contracts however."

Brown sighed in relief and finished off the last of hir cone, before continuing the conversation on less worrisome topics. After about an hour, they got up and walked out of the park to the nearest Public PTV pick-up location. Darktoes begged off a ride, because hir apartment was well within running distance. This time however, Brown remembered to give hir new friend hir number and asked hir to call later.

As Brown rode home, shi contemplated hir friend. There was definitely a spark of something there, but what could shi do? Hir friend would be gone within no time at all, and any relationship would be doomed to fail.

Later that night, shi found hirself less interested in working on hir essay, and more interested in researching the project. The more shi read, the more shi became upset. The only way shi’d be allowed to go with Darktoes on this project would be as hir mate, all of whom had applied to be allowed to go months and months ago, not to mention hir own career wouldn’t be needed for several years.

Browneyes flopped into hir bed an hour later, and sighed. Somehow this nearly complete stranger had worked hirself into hir mind and heart. And shi’d never see hir again, or at least not for a very, very long time.

{{Separator|d|Darktoes}}

"How’d your date go, stud?" joked one of the Mariners that Darktoes shared hir apartment with. These apartments were designed with a single large common room with various pieces of furniture and, in one corner, kitchen equipment. The apartments had been designed for the Stellar project in mind, with one roommate of every breed, save for the Starwalkers, represented in every room. The idea was to promote intra-breed sisterhood; the last thing the Federation wanted was for members of different breeds to start hating one another for whatever reason.

"It wasn’t a date, Swimmer, I told you that already," Darktoes sighed. They weren’t chakats, but Stellars, especially Mariners, tended to enjoy their gossip.

"Dark, you know this is going to end badly. Maybe you should cut this Chakat loose before you get in over your head," purred a Polari foxtaur lounging on one of the large pillows that served as seats in the apartment.

Dark sighed and laid down on one of the unoccupied seats and rolled onto hir back. "Too late, I think."

"What do you mean?" Swimmer hopped up next to the Veldter and snuggled with hir friend.

"I don’t know, you guys, I just…I don’t know how to describe it." The Veldter frowned. "It’s like I’m in love or something."

Swimmer and Snowflake exchanged looks. "Are you…sure hun? You know that contract you signed is pretty much airtight."

"I know." Dark felt tears well up in hir eyes. "I wish I had met hir sooner."

"Well," Snowflake said, "you could ask hir to come with you as your mate, if you really feel that way about this Chakat, Browneyes, I think it was?"

"I know that Snow, but…" the Veldter wiped the tears from hir eyes, "…shi’s studying to be a psychologist, and I can’t ask hir to give up hir career for me. I mean, what would shi do if shi came? Sit around all day and do nothing?"

Swimmer licked Dark’s cheek. "What will you do then? You’ll have to tell hir soon."

"Well I do have a month, maybe two," the Veldter said. At least shi had a few weeks to be with Brown.

A Forest breed emerged from one of the bedrooms with a Mountain breed in tow at the moment. The two taurs laid down together next to the Polari, both looked disheveled and smelled of sex. The two breeds, Leaf and Amethyst, were among the first crossbreed couples, who had apparently been enjoying an after-dinner romp in the sheets.

"Didn’t you hear, Dark? They’ve decided to move the launch date up! We’re going to be heading out in two weeks." Said Leaf.

Darktoes sat up violently, shaking off Swimmer. "What?!"

Amethyst nodded. "Isn’t it exciting?"

Dark moaned and ran off to hir room. This certainly was not good news. Shi bit back sobs before excusing hirself to hir room.

Swimmer shot the couple a dirty look before racing off behind the badly shaken Veldter.

Amethyst glanced at Snowflake; "What? Was it something I said?"

{{Separator|d|Browneyes}}

Public transport had always been an important part of Chakona; as a planned world with the stated goal of being extremely eco-friendly, it was of course important to insure that transport between cities was both easy and eco-friendly. To help this along, the first intra-continental high-speed rail had been completed on Finders Continent connecting all major cities.

The high-speed trains were a quite different from those on Earth; in addition to being eco-friendly, Chakats (and other morphs) preferred a higher level of comfort on their trains and other forms of public transports, so these high-speed trains were typically outfitted with rooms complete with a small sleeping area (for two to three taurs) as well as a washroom and small drink refrigerator. Even though trips were often relatively short, they still enjoyed such concessions.

Brown and Darktoes had both asked to share the same cabin on the train when they had bought their tickets, which was indulged by the sales person. Brown wasn’t really expecting anything to happen, but shi was glad they had made the arrangements beforehand. Brown had been irritated all day due to hir impending heat. Darktoes had called hir a few nights before, as shi had promised, but what Brown had hoped would be a pleasant and fun meeting was dampened quite a bit by Darktoes’ news. Browneyes knew the relationship, however unexpected and fast-paced (well not that fast-paced Brown was forced to remind hirself, hir own mother, after all, would have had already bedded hir sire by now in the relationship.) wouldn’t last long, but still, the shock of realizing they only had about a week left with one another was quite unsettling, and any time they got to share together was quite welcome.

The trip was quite quiet and calm, and the two spent most of the time cuddling and discussing their families.

"So your parents are chakats too?" asked Brown.

"Well, only emotionally and legally. The Chakona Council demanded that we were to be born into loving families rather than just being popped out of a tube," said the foxtaur.

"I can imagine." Browneyes leaned on hir friend. "I think it’s more heartwarming to think you had someone to love and hold you as you grew up."

"Yeah, they were pretty great. What about your parents?"

"Oh you know, classic Chakat family, they met, fell in love, had a bunch of cubs," laughed Brown. "The home’s been pretty empty for a few months now. I daresay I shouldn’t be surprised if they’ve gone and conceived another cub by the time we get there."

"Ah! So will I get to meet some of your sexy sisters?" Dark giggled.

"One or two, maybe, but most of them are off-world on deep space missions and such; we’re got a pretty strong wanderlust streak in my family. I’m the first person thus far to take up something that didn’t involve flying around up in the sky."

"Heh, sounds interesting; my parents are both farmers, thus how I developed my interest in agriculture."

"Why do you want to go be a colonist though? I did a bit of research on your species and apparently 98% of you accepted contracts with Star Corps but you’re not engineered to want to go, so…what gives?"

The Veldter gave the Chakat a nuzzle; "Well, I imagine it has to do with the chakat genes they combined with the foxtaur ones; you chakats are pretty curious, and foxtaurs are pretty adventurous at heart too; the problem is, you see, that around the end of puberty, normal foxtaurs tend to get inflicted with Territory Attachment Syndrome."

"What’s that?"

"Well TAS is sort of like homesickness, but a lot more extreme, to the point where they can’t leave their home territory without getting extremely sick. In the worst cases, just the thought of leaving is enough to set off a reaction. It’s almost like…" The veldt thought for a moment. "…like a human with a drug addition; they leave the territory and they go into withdrawal."

Browneyes frowned. "Sounds terrible."

"Yeah, so anyways, we’re just natural-born explorers because they’ve eliminated the problem on a genetic level. However, you could say we’re inflicted with the opposite of TAS – wanderlust!"

"At least you’ll enjoy your work," said Browneyes, giving Darktoes a hug. The rest of the trip passed uneventfully, and before they knew it, they were picking up Darktoes’ parents (an extremely pleasant people) and Browneyes was taking them to hir parents’ condo.

The condo was fairly large and roomy, more then enough room for the two families. As Brown predicted, none of hir sisters were present at the celebration. Of course, it was something of a party with just a general get-together. The four parents hit it off quite well, and Brown wasn’t at all surprised when they begged off the after-dessert chit-chat for a more intimate encounter.

After their parents had left, the two taurs went out onto the balcony that was attached to condo and overlooked the city for a cuddle of their own.

"Beautiful isn’t it?" sighed Browneyes. Shi straightened up and looked Darktoes in hir eyes. "Honey, I think we need to talk about this."

"Yeah," the Veldt started. "Browneyes, I don’t know how, or why, but I love you dearly, but…I don’t know what to do; I would love for you to become my mate, but at the same time I know that we walk two very different paths, and I can’t justify ripping you away from your hopes, dreams and life to go off tramping around on some frontier world with me."

Brown hugged hir beloved foxtaur and placed hir head between hir breasts before shi spoke, "I know, and I can’t ask you to leave the job you’re clearly meant to do. What are we going to do?"

"I…I don’t know, Browneyes." The Veldter bent down and kissed the Chakat. "But let’s make love, my love. Even if we cannot be together, I want to make every moment we are together the best they can be.

Perhaps it was a romantic atmosphere of the moment, or perhaps it was hir own hormones and pheromones at work, or perhaps (and Brown would admit it to hirself it was a contributing factor) the empathic backwash from the foursome in the other room. Whatever the reason, several hours later, the two taurs drifted off to sleep in each others arms.

{{Separator|d}}

The next day was pretty lazy; Dewclaw and other businesses and institutions generally had a three to four day waiting period before they expected their employees or students to return from vacation; a good number of students had to return from off-world, or other continents. For Browneyes and Darktoes, however, it just meant a couple of extra days they could spend together enjoying one another’s company and making love; the next day however, held some surprises.

{{Separator|d}}

The calico-flanked Chakat was the first to wake the next morning. It had been a wonderful night and that warm, joyful feeling shi had experienced last night was still with hir this morning.

Untangling hirself from hir companion, shi slid out of the bedroom and down the hall to the kitchen area. Shi wasn’t wearing anything, but shi imagined that neither hir parents nor Dark’s would care much. As shi expected, the small kitchen table was occupied by all four of the older chakats.

"Did you have a good sleep, dear?" grinned hir sire, Sky. Shi was a stormy-grey Chakat with a white fluffy patch of fur between hir breasts.

"Don’t tease hir, Sky. I’m sure shi had a very enjoyable night," said the dappled brown Chakat who was hir mother.

"I daresay our night wasn’t half bad ether, Dancer," joked one of Dark’s parents. Brown had been introduced but couldn’t for the life of hir remember what their names were.

"Half bad?" said Brown’s mother,sticking out hir tongue at the darkest green and grey Chakat, "I seem to recall that you. Pond, were the one who nearly passed out from pleasure after the second time we…"

"Okay, okay" said Brown shaking hir head in amusement, "I don’t need to know the details. I’m taking a quick shower, so if Dark comes out and asks where I am; give hir a heads-up, okay?"

The four chakats seated around the table nodded in agreement, before breaking into a fit of giggles. Shaking hir head, Brown went off to get the personal bag that shi had left it in the hallway when they had came over yesterday afternoon. Shi had meant to retrieve it and bring it to hir room, but things hadn’t gone as shi had planned.

Unzipping hir bag, shi proceeded to remove the top layer of clothing. The day before shi hadn’t put anything on, but today shi felt like shi needed a new top. The first thing shi noticed was that hir personal PADD, which shi had laid under the top layer of clothing, was flashing red. Picking it up, shi tapped the touch screen which made the PADD beep and reveal a calendar. In the center of the calendar was a flashing pink square with the date 8/26/91, and under that was the text: ‘HEAT Day 2’ in curly letters.

Brown blinked. ‘It must be a mistake, I’m not in heat I would have felt it by now unless…’ Shi gasped. "Oh shit."

Hopping up, shi ran back to the kitchen and waved hir mother out of the group into the hallway. Browneyes then pulled hir mother into the washroom and started the shower up.

"Brown, honey, you know I love you very much, but I think you ought to spend your shower times with Darktoes," said Dancer, somewhat bemused.

"Gah!" Brown said pressing hir ear to the door to see if anyone was out there. Satisfied, shi turned to hir mother. "Mom, when you were pregnant with me, what did it feel like?"

"Well I don’t know, I guess I felt a little slowed down I suppose, I mean you weren’t the lightest of kits but…"

"Not that! Right after Dad impregnated you and you knew you were pregnant? What did you feel like?"

"Sort of…I guess a warm, secure feeling…err joyful I suppose, like the afterglow of an orgasm, I suppose."

"Damnation." Brown swore, sinking to the floor before hir knees gave way.

"Why are you asking all these question in the bathro…" A look of realization dawned on the older Chakat, "You’re pregnant, aren’t you, sweetheart?"

"I think so, yes," Browneyes was close to tears now. This wasn’t how shi had wanted things to happen.

"Congratulations, honey!" hir mother sank to the floor next to hir clearly upset daughter and gave hir a hug. "Why are you upset? This is a joyful occasion!"

"You don’t understand!" Browneyes explained to hir mother the whole of what was going on with hir child’s sire.

"Surely the cub would be a deal breaker?" asked hir mother. "I mean they’re not going to allow a family to be separated?"

Brown sighed. After shi had heard the bad news about the moved-up launch date, shi had gotten one of hir friends who was a student of legal affairs to examine the contract, so shi knew the ins and outs pretty well. "I can break the contract forcing Dark to colonize the world, but not the one requiring hir to survey the planet, which could take up to five years regardless. And I’d have to prove that this cub would grow up without the basics."

"Isn’t two loving and caring parents part of the basics?" Dancer asked.

"No, mom, even the Chakat council agrees that children can be raised well by a single loving parent. Why do you think Star Fleet is allowed to take chakats on such long voyages?"

Hir mother sighed. "We should at least tell Darktoes then and…"

Browneyes cut the dappled Chakat off. "No, mother, we can’t!"

"Why not? It’s hir cub as well as yours."

"Because if we do, shi’ll want to stay!"

"I fear I must be missing the point then. Don’t you want hir to stay?" asked Dancer, rather confused by now.

"Of course I do, mom, I love hir, but I can’t take hir dreams away because of my foolishness in the bedroom. I should have remembered I was on heat and had hir wear a condom or something." Browneyes sobbed lightly. "I’ll miss hir terribly, but I want hir to be happy and satisfied with life, not bogged down by an accidental kit and hir idiot mother."

Dancer hugged hir daughter tightly. "If you this is what you really want, I promise I won’t tell hir, but hun, raising a cub isn’t easy. You’ll probably have to drop out of school."

Browneyes dried hir tears on the back of hir hand. "I know it’ll be difficult, but I was hoping you’d support me." Brown glanced at hir mother; it was unheard of that a chakat’s parents would reject hir, for whatever reason, but you did hear horror stories from non-chakats.

"Of course, sweetheart, of course." Dancer give hir kitten a lick-kiss on the cheek. "You needn’t worry about that."

"As for schooling, I know Dewclaw has a program set up for students living on other continents who can’t make it to school on regular basis, so I should be able to do that."

"Sounds like you have this all planned out."

Browneyes shot hir mother a dirty look. "I didn’t plan this at all, so don’t even think that…"

A knock on the bathroom door, "Brown? Honey? Are you in there? They said you’d be in here," said the voice of Darktoes.

Dancer hopped up with the grace that had earned hir part of hir name, and opened to door. "You two have fun, okay?" shi said, leaving behind hir daughter and hir lover.

{{Separator|d|Dancer by the Sea}}

Despite of the complications surrounding hir daughter’s unplanned pregnancy, shi was glad shi was going to finally get a grandkit; hir other children, while older then Browneyes, all had very busy careers in Star Fleet or Star Corps, and hadn’t even thought about settling down yet to have children. Shi was a bit disturbed by hir daughter’s insistence that the cub’s sire not to be told, but shi respected hir child’s wishes. It wasn’t hir cub after all. However, there were other complications.

"Hi hon," said a reddish-furred chakat whose only mark was a single black spade shaped spot on hir rump. The chakat’s name was Spadespot, Darktoes’ sire. The three chakats were still at the kitchen table, apparently still chatting. "Where were you?"

"Err…" lying was not something that came easy to Chakat, nor was it pleasant to deceive hir mates and friends. "I had to help Browneyes’ with something personal." It wasn’t a complete lie.

Sky gave hir a quizzical look. The stormy-gray Chakat had been hir mate for many years and, aside from knowing Dancer extremely well, their extremely strong empathic bond gave hir away. Luckily hir mate knew better then to say anything, trusting hir mate’s judgment.

The green and grey Chakat sitting at the table spoke up, "Did you tell hir about our denmating?"

The last two nights hadn’t just been lustful passion between friends who had just hit it off. Dancer hadn’t wanted to tell Browneyes, but shi had known Pond and Spadespot from a long, long time ago. The two of them had grown up together in a small rural town on Earth, before Dancer’s family had immigrated to Chakona. As the only chakats in the small town, they had closely bonded and were on-off again lovers. Of course, at the time, the two Chakats had different names, so when Browneyes had told hir of them, shi hadn’t a clue they were going to show up!

The three of them had decided to do more than just catch up on years of lost love making, and had decided last night to become full fledged denmates, even if they weren’t going to see one another as often as they would have liked.

Dancer sighed; this secret wasn’t going to be easy to keep, "No, It sort of slipped my mind when I was dealing with Browneyes’ problem."

"No problem, love, we’ll tell them both later." Spade got up off hir haunches and lick-kissed hir new mate. Dancer gave hir a cuddle and felt better already. "Sound’s like a plan love, but…"

"But what, my sweet?" asked Spade. "You’re not getting cold feet are you?"

Dancer shook hir head. "No, nothing like that. It’s just that Browneyes is going through a lot of heartbreak now, and I’d rather not upset hir further. Not that shi’d be upset at us becoming a triad," shi added hastily at the look the four chakats at the table gave hir. "I’m not sure you realize this, but your daughter has made quite the impression on Browneyes, and shi’s not taking the fact that shi’ll be gone soon very easily."

This of course sparked an intense discussion about what they could do to help the young lovers out, with Dancer by the Sea explaining hir daughter’s reasoning for letting hir lover leave to follow hir dreams, leaving out, of course, the fact that hir daughter was now carrying the Stellar’s child. After a while, they both came to the conclusion that it was best to just allow what would be, be. After moving to the den, their conversation turned more to local topics such as discussing a possible shopping trip and how they could help bring these two farmers to Chakona.

{{Separator|d|Browneyes}}

The last week the young couple had, had passed quickly, more quickly then Browneyes had wanted. The two of them had spent every moment they could together, but today was the day.

The Stellar Foxtaurs had gathered at the spaceport, where a large scale aero-transport was waiting to take them up to the starship that would be their new home until they got to the colony planet that had been picked out for them. Brown and Darktoes were spending the last moment they could together. Both promised one another to write, although both knew it would be several months before they’d be able to really talk. It took time to set up Faster than Light communication systems, and even when they did, it would be months before the orbiting space station would have the bandwidth to be used for anything more than emergency and official Federation business.

Finally, the boarding started to commence, and the foxtaurs slowly filed on, most of them carrying all their worldly goods on their backs. Browneyes and Darktoes shared a long passionate kiss, and then the two separated for the final time.

Later that evening Browneyes would look up at the stars in the direction of hir lover’s destination, and wonder if shi was thinking of hir.

{{Separator|d|Weeks later}}

It had been many months since hir beloved had left. It hadn’t been easy; several times shi found hirself crying hirself to sleep, and moping around hir parents’ condo for days on end. Shi had long since moved back into hir parents’ place, only going back to Dewclaw long enough to arrange the at-home distance education.

Luckily, hir mother’s new mates were able to break hir out of the flunk with their excitement of becoming grandparents. Brown had been a bit shocked that hir mother had already known these chakats and had taken them as mates. Of course they were more than a little shocked that their adopted child was about to become a father and shi didn’t even know; but they promised to keep that fact a secret.

And, lo and behold, it was the day of hir cub’s birth. As per normal, as many people from both families had shown up, and it was quite the crowd. However, the day wore on, and here it was, two hours from the next day, and shi still hadn’t given birth yet. For a Chakat whose births are normally very predictable, it was frustrating to miss the selected day of birth and force everyone to come back for another party the next day.

Brown was out on the same balcony that shi and Darktoes had been out on the night shi had gotten pregnant. In some ways it have become hir widow’s walk, even though shi knew full well hir beloved Veldter was still very much alive. Shi could still sense hir empathically, thought it was very, very faint. Shi’d gaze up at the star where shi knew Darktoes was orbiting.

The door behind hir slid open. Brown turned and saw hir family’s midwife walk out and take up position beside hir.

"Mind if I take some scans, dear?" asked the salt and pepper colored Chakat.

"No, go ahead," Brown said, trying to smile slightly. Shi had been talking all day, which was to be expected, seeing as shi was more or less the guest of honor in this whole performance. Still, it had tired hir out. "I’m sorry, Chess, I guess my kit just isn’t ready to come out yet."

Chess smiled, as shi took scans with hir medical tricorder. "I’ve seen my fair share of stubborn kits in my day, hun. I wouldn’t worry about it too much." The Chakat nodded to hirself as the scans completed. "Everything appears to be in order. It’s a bit chilly out here, hun, maybe you should get something heavier to wear."

"I’ll be all right," Brown said to the retreating Chakat as shi stepped back inside.

The calico Chakat looked back up towards the stars again; shi could almost imagine hir mate out there on some far-flung plains, looking up at those alien stars and thinking of hir. "Oh, Dark, why didn’t I go with… OUCH!" Shi yelped as shi felt a contraction.

Chess apparently had heard hir, and stuck hir head out of the door way. "Was that what I think it was?" shi asked with a cheeky grin.

"Yes, yes." said Browneyes, wincing as a second contraction washed over hir. "And from the looks of things, shi’s in a hurry."

The midwife helped the calico Chakat into the den, which had been set up into birthing room. The condo might be reasonably large, but it wasn’t large enough to have a separate nursery, so Browneyes would be using hir room as a nursery, which thankfully had just enough room for the whole of the two families.

Laying down in a birth position with hir mother supporting hir in place of the sire, shi began to push. Giving birth was always easy for chakats, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t painful; after dozens of contractions and pushing when the midwife told hir to, the pain was starting to get to hir then…

Shi felt the head slip free of the birth canal, and with it, the rest of the body of hir kitten.

The newborn let out a loud cry.

It was done.

After a few moments of inspecting the newborn, the midwife dried the cub and then handed hir to hir mother. Browneyes held hir child up hir breast to allow it to feed. Brown murred with pleasure as the little cub suckled for hir first time. As shi did, Brown inspected the cub hirself; shi had clearly inherited hir basic coloring and patterning from hir father; orange-red with a white underbelly and dark brown taur socks. Well, almost; shi had several black spots with azure blue centers on hir left shoulder blade and chest and the back of hir taur waist.

On top of hir head was a mop of slightly damp blonde hair; Chess had assured hir, however, that shi was 100% Chakat, so their was little chance that hir hair wouldn’t grow into a beautiful, long mane of hair, should shi choose it.

After hir fill, the kitten yawned and fell into a peaceful sleep. Brown completed the milk sharing ceremony with hir mother (shi had agreed months ago to help feed hir) and got up to place hir kitten in hir crib for the night. As shi was laying the kitten down, Brown noticed something unusual about one of the spots on the right side of hir daughter’s chest. It wasn’t a blue-centered black dot like the others, in fact it looked like a little pawprint.

Browneyes frowned; there was only one species who had that sort of markings, and that was a skunktaur, but hir mate wasn’t one…and shi certainly wasn’t one. The calico went off to find hir mother.

"Mom?" Hir mother was chatting with some relatives of hirs.

"Yes sweetie? Something wrong?" Dancer knew that, while Chakat cubs were born healthy almost always, it didn’t stop new mothers from worrying.

Brown grabbed hir mother and pulled hir mother away from the crowd before asking: "Mom, am I a chakat?"

Hir mother giggled, "Of course you are hun, what a silly question!"

"No, no," the new mother was starting to get frustrated; "Am I one hundred percent Chakat? My kitten has a blue pawprint on hir chest and want to know why, damnit!"

The dappled Chakat frowned, and asked hir daughter to show hir. Looking over the newborn, Dancer smiled, "Your kitten is very special sweetheart. It looks like shi inherited the telekinesis Talent."

"But…but how?"

"Well, you never met hym, but your great-great grandmother was a skunktaur; one of the first to be freed from the Three Firms."

"What happened to hir? Surely shi should still be alive?"

"Alas," hir mother frowned, "hy was killed a few years after hy gave birth to my great-grandmother in a space liner accident."

Brown and Dancer stood in silence for a few minutes until Browneyes broke the silence, "Why now though? None of you have that Talent."

"Quite true," hir mother said, "but these things tend to get diluted over time, and it’s a recessive trait in chakats. A doctor would probably be better able to explain it."

"I’ll get hir checked out as soon as possible," Brown said, yawning.

Hir mother chuckled. "I think your kitten isn’t the only one who needs some sleep, dear."

Browneyes agreed, and after bidding the guests good night, shi settled down to sleep. Despite hir great weariness, shi had difficulty sleeping. Perhaps I should tell Darktoes of hir child…

{{Separator|d|Epilogue}}

The Skunktaur doctor smiled at Brown as shi tried to hold the hyperactive cub. The foxtaur-colored cub was several months old at this point. "Little Honeymane is fine, Shir Browneyes."

"Were you able to test for the Talent?" Brown asked, as the kitten began to mew; shi was hungry. Browneyes quickly pulled down the straps of hir tank top and lifted the now calmer kitten up to hir breast to be fed. Shi started suckling almost immediately.

"Yes and no," said the doctor, "We can test for the genetic markers, but not directly test for it for at least another year. You’ll be pleased to know, however, that we did find the genetic markers."

"How do you know if it’ll give hir the Talent, or if it’ll just laying dormant?"

"We…can guess, but as I said, without a direct test, we’ll have no idea. The computer is estimating shi has about a 70% chance that shi will have TK."

Brown smiled down at hir drinking kitten between hir breasts. "I guess I’ll have to look into enrolling hir in special education."

"Indeed" said the doctor, leaning back in hys chair, "Talents are typically harmless, but Telekinesis can be somewhat dangerous in untrained hands. Of course, do you have any relatives who have training in these Talents? I know Chakats tend to prefer a closer family setting in such matters."

Brown shook hir head, "No, I’m afraid my family is pretty much 100% Chakat. I didn’t even know I had a Skunktaur relative until Honeymane was born, and hy died years ago in an accident."

"Well no matter, most of us Skunktaurs are friendly, even if the teachers can get a little be arrogant sometimes," hy said with a smile.

Brown nodded, sensing the appointment was over, and stood up. "I understand. Good day, doctor."

"Good day, Shir. Take care, and you too, Honeymane!"

{{Honeymanestorys}}

[[category:Honeymane]] [[category:Chakona Space]] [[category:taur]] [[category:Story]]

Template:Honeymanestorys

2011-02-21T07:38:10Z

Honeymane: think it's finished

{|
{| cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" align="center" backgroundcolor="blue" summary="" border="1"
|-
| bgcolor="#00CCFF" align="center" colspan="15" style="text-align: center;" | '''Story Navigation'''
|-
| [[User:Honeymane/Let Hearts Fly|Let Hearts Fly]]
| [[Motherhood Woes]]
| [[Letter]]
| [[Diplomatic Issues]]
| [[The Next Day]]
| [[The Park]]
| [[Identity Crisis]]
| [[Names]]
| [[Festival]]
| [[Nightmares]]
| [[Mates]]
| [[Quality of Life]]
| [[Starhands]]
| [[Seeking]]
| [[For Better or For Worse]]
|}

Template:Honeymanestorys

2011-02-21T07:10:02Z

Honeymane: Created page with '{| {||-|Let Heart's Fly|Starhands|-|} {| style= border="1" |- | colspan="15" style="text-align: center;" | Story Navigation |- | Let Hearts Fly …'

{|
{||-|Let Heart's Fly|Starhands|-|}
{| style= border="1"
|-
| colspan="15" style="text-align: center;" | Story Navigation
|-
| [[User:Honeymane/Let Hearts Fly|Let Hearts Fly]]
| [[Motherhood Woes]]
| [[Letter]]
| [[Diplomatic Issues]]
| [[The Next Day]]
| [[The Park]]
| [[Identity Crisis]]
| [[Names]]
| [[Festival]]
| [[Nightmares]]
| [[Mates]]
| [[Quality of Life]]
| [[Starhands]]
| [[Seeking]]
| [[For Better or For Worse]]
|}

User:Honeymane/Let Hearts Fly

2011-02-20T20:34:16Z

Honeymane: Created page with '{{title|name=Let Hearts Fly|author=Honeymane}} {{Comment tag}} {{Universe|Chakona Space}} {{author's note|This is the first story I wrote and had posted on the Chakat's Den site…'

{{title|name=Let Hearts Fly|author=Honeymane}}

{{Comment tag}}
{{Universe|Chakona Space}}
{{author's note|This is the first story I wrote and had posted on the Chakat's Den site. Obviously it's a few years old, and while I can't promise any changes, any critiques are helpful and desired.}}

{{dropcap|O}}f all the places in the Federation, Chakona was probably one of the most unique of them all. You could go to the market, and find anyone from a Voxxan to a Rakshani. Other than Earth, it was probably the most cosmopolitan planet in the Federation and, among other things, the only place you’d find skunktaurs in great abundance.

Browneyes, by comparison, was rather plain; a Chakat, one of millions on the planet, and had rather normal coloring, much like a calico cat on hir flanks, a plain white upper body, with two ‘goggles’ of chocolate brown around hir eyes. And today, Eighthday of the 25th week, shi was out to get some fresh fruit from the local vendors.

As usual, the crowds were thick and wild, but Browneyes, a native of Chakona, had no difficulty navigating hir way through them to the vendor shi wanted. The stand was set up by the side of the stone block walking street, much like the rest of the stands, and like them, it was made of local plant material not unlike wood, but a brilliant shade of red; to an untrained observer, it would appear to be painted. At the stand there was a white femme fox morph, and what was a relativity rare sight on Chakona, a black human, a female to be exact.

"Hi Molly," Browneyes said, strolling up to the stand. "Slow day?" The stand was mostly free of people in spite of the crowds.

"Er… sort of," said the woman, snapping out of her light doze. "We had a lot of customers earlier, but most of our regular customers seem to be having their normal meets and greets with their moms."

Browneyes moaned; next week was Mother’s Day, and shi was expected to visit hir in Amistad. Normally shi loved Mother’s Day, but this year hir professor of alien psychology had assigned a essay on Voxxan mental diseases due the day beforehand. This had been the first time shi had left the apartment in over a week, and shi hadn’t made arrangement to buy tickets for the Amistad-Berdoovia maglev train. One more thing to do, shi supposed. "I hope they didn’t eat your whole stock of crownfruit?"

"Nah," said the vixen, pulling out a bag from the storage area. "You know we always save a bag for our friends. Besides, no one but chakats eat this stuff anyways."

Crownfruit was a bit of misnomer of a name. The fruit was more or less a sort of parasitic plant, which wrapped itself around other plant’s fruits and used them as a source of energy for which to build a dark green film, about a centimeter thick, around the fruit, and grow its own spiny flowers and, if pollinated, its own little berries. Overall it resembled a long-forgotten king of Caitian origin. Other than its strange lifestyle, it also had a unique flavor. The amount of sunlight it received determined what its flavor was, as well as how sweet or sour it was. Even after being picked from the tree, it typically kept this up for several days. However, Chakats were generally the only ones who ate them because of the plant’s notorious reputation for growing on the fruit of the mildly poisonous Mikio tree, and incorporating the toxins into their juices.

"Speaking of friends," said the vixen, handing the bag to Browneyes, "Where the hell have you been, hon? We haven’t seen you at the café in over a week!"

"Oh you know, Zelda, hard at work studying." Browneyes mimicked typing on a keyboard in the air before accepting the bag of the fruit, "Mr Hardballs wants a 2000 word essay due on the sixth of next week."

"Well damn, girl, get your act together!" said Molly, giving the Chakat a quick hug. "I’m sure you’ll do fine."

"Sure, sure," shi said. "What are you two doing for Mother’s Day? Visiting your parents?"

"Nah, They’re coming…" the vixen said, embracing and kissing the black-skinned woman, "…here, for a change."

Molly and Zelda had been together for several years working on a family farm that Zelda had inherited when her parents retired and moved up to Chakona Gateway, although they had only been a officially mated for the last two.

"So, any buns in the oven yet?" Browneyes asked. The couple had been trying to get pregnant for a long time; the difference between species and need of in-vitro fertilization hadn’t made it easy.

"Er…" said Zelda, unconsciously rubbing her belly, "sort of."

Browneyes gave hir a look. "um…what?"

"Well, it’s not official, but yes," said Molly a little bit sadly.

Empathically, shi knew something was up. "What’s wrong?"

"Nothing," said Molly, looking down at the stand. She knew lying to a Chakat was pretty much impossible.

"Spill it!" Despite hir forceful tone, Browneyes was projecting a reassuring aura of good will empathically towards the two, just as shi had learned to do in Advanced Empathy 101.

The vixen bit her lower lip. "Well, like Molly said, nothing is wrong, it’s just that…"

"The doctors contacted us about two weeks ago about the process. Apparently they could solve the genetic complications between our eggs, but doing that much recomming would put it out of our price range." Molly stated tonelessly. "So we had to go with donor sperm instead."

Suddenly it clicked for the Chakat; in the modern day and age, medical miracles could, and were, performed on a fairly regular bases; the ability to create viable zygotes from two sperm or two ova was a pretty standard technology between homosexual couples, and even more advanced technology could be used to alter the genetic codes of the two ova or sperm to create a zygote that could be carried by ether parent. However, it wasn’t perfect, and extreme genetic differences couldn’t simply be edited easily, although it could be done. Often times even simple changes to a genome would result in large medical bills, partly because of the legal restrictions on the process under Federation law for Genetic Engineering.

"Hun," Browneyes said, leaning over the counter and giving Molly and Zelda a hug, "it doesn’t matter who the genetic parents of your child are, it’s the ones who raise hir that count. He or she is still your child, Molly, regardless of how you bring them into the world."

Separating, Molly sighed. "I’m sure you’re right, Brown, but still, I suppose there isn’t any point in moping over it."

"That’s the spirit!" said Browneyes, but it was more for Zelda’s benefit than anyone else. Despite her words, empathically, Brown could still sense she was torn up inside, and made a promise to hirself to give her a call later.

After Zelda changed the subject, they chatted for a few minutes until another customer, a triad of feline morphs, one carrying a small child, and another one who was pregnant, arrived. Brown stepped aside so they could have easy access to the counter. Brown knew how difficult looking after squirming children could be in a busy marketplace, shi had done it hirself while shi was babysitting back in the day. Brown bid hir friends goodbye and wandered through the crowd, browsing though the various items displayed before making a beeline to a local Public PTV pick-up location. A few minutes later, a PTV pulled up, and Brown hopped in.

After entering the location of the train port (shi had to pick up those tickets), shi relaxed as the PTV pulled away from the market and out into downtown Berdoovia. PTVs, especially public PTVs, were nearly, or completely automated. However, this often meant picking up more people if it wasn’t fully occupied.

<nowiki>*BEEP* BEEP*</nowiki>

The PTV alerted hir to the course change; they had to pick up another person.

Browneyes groaned; it wasn’t that shi didn’t mind the company, but the more detours the PTV had to take; the more time shi’d be wasting trying to get those damnable tickets.

The PTV slowed to a stop in front of another taur. Shi was rather tall, from what Brown could tell, and was clearly some sort of herm foxtaur. Hir fur was off-orange with dark brown socks and a small mop of hair, if you could call it that, sat upon hir head. Shi had bare breasts – public nudity wasn’t all that uncommon on Chakona. Browneyes hirself was nude, although shi, like hir soon-to-be PTV companion, wore belts filled with various items, such as IDs and comms.

"Hi there," said the taur in a faintly Terran accent as shi ducked into the PTV. Shi was tall, very much so for a taur; Brown estimated shi was maybe 180 centimeters or so. Shi settled down next to Brown and entered hir destination into the central console control pad. The heads-up display flashed the revised ETA to the train station up for a moment. To hir surprise, it hadn’t changed.

"Hello, we both seem to be heading the same way," shi said, glancing the other taur over. Despite living on Chakona, and seeing more then a few foxtaurs in hir day, shi couldn’t place the species.

"So it would appear," the foxtaur said with a laugh. "At least we’ll save time!"

"Indeed," Brown agreed. "I don’t mean to come off as rude, shir, but what species are you exactly?"

The taur looked at hir in the eyes and smiled. Shi has beautiful eyes, Browneyes thought, and such a wonderful smile. "Well, my fine Chakat, I am what you call a Stellar Foxtaur."

"A what?" Browneyes blurted, still mesmerized by the foxtaur’s warm eyes. Ugh, this isn’t good, the last thing I need is a relationship right now.

The Foxtaur grinned, "Surely you’ve heard of the Stellar Project?"

"Er..." Come to think of it, the term did sound familiar, but where did shi… Ah! Of course. They were mentioned in the Engineering New Brains course. "To be honest, Shir? Only in passing."

"Please, call me Darktoes," smiled the taur.

"How rude of me. I’m Browneyes," shi said, giving the stranger a small hug, as was a normal ‘handshake’ for chakats.

"Pleasure to meet you, Now, the Stellar Project is more or less the engineering of seven new foxtaur species, designed to be more specialized into different ecological niches, Veldt, Polar, Forest, Starwalker, Marine, Mountain, and Desert, on new worlds, with the aim of helping mold them into economical and social juggernauts, much like Chakona is now," shi explained. "I’m a Veldt breed, built for running on the plains."

"I see." Not really, shi supposed, but shi’d look it up later on the hypernet.

"So what brings you to Chakona?"

"Well, I’m training to be a colonist, so I and my fellow Veldts need some real-world practice in the wilderness," said Darktoes, looking out the PTV’s window at the passing scenery. "However, true untamed wilderness is hard to come by outside of dropping us on a real colony world, so we’ll be using the local holosuites for practice."

"That makes sense." Browneyes leaned back, stretched, and checked the ETA. Down to five minutes. "Why are you going to the train station, if you don’t mind me asking?"

"Going to buy a ticket so I can go to Amistad Spaceport next week to pick up my parents," the Veldt said. "You?"

Browneyes giggled. "Me too, except I’m going all the way to Amistad. My parents have a condo in the downtown area."

"Cool!" Darktoes exclaimed. "I’m probably not going to be taking my parents anywhere that fancy."

"Why not?"

"Meh! I don’t have much; I rent a room from Dewclaw. I don’t see the point in owning much when you’re going to have to live off the land for the next twenty years."

The PTV slowed as it entered the parking lot. It only waited a few moments for them to get out before speeding away towards some other person in need of transport. As the two of them walked towards the large building, Brown continued the conversation. "How about you and your family come and spend Mother’s Day with my family? My parents are always open to company and new faces, and I myself wouldn’t mind seeing you again."

Darktoes held the door open as shi considered hir suggestion. "I don’t see why not. I should run it by my parents though."

"Aye, and mine too," Browneyes said, strolling through the door.

"I’ll tell you what – how about you meet me after class at the HoloCenter at Dewclaw tomorrow. We can call our parents tonight and run the idea by them?"

"Sounds good."

A few minutes later, both had bought their tickets. However, for the ride back, Darktoes took a nearly full PTV, and they couldn’t share a ride. On the way home in hir PTV, Brown examined hir feelings towards this newcomer in hir life. Schooling had taken up a big part of hir life, and for the most part, hir love life had fallen to the sidelines. Shi wasn’t in desperate need of sex, hir roommates and close friends saw to that, so what was hir attraction to this person shi barely knew?

{{Separator|d}}

"I don’t know Brown, I just feel…disconnected with this child, I know I should be happy and supportive, but every time I think of raising this child, it just fills me with dread."

Brown nursed hir drink, hot chocolate, before replying to the distraught female on hir bedroom’s comm. It was quite late, but Brown did want to check in. "Have you discussed any of this with Zelda?"

The dark-skinned human sighed and wiped some tears from hir face with the back of hir hand. "I don’t see how I could. She’s so happy to finally be pregnant and…I don’t know Brown, we discounted adoption when we first became mated because we both wanted children of our own flesh and blood, but when the treatments kept failing…"

Brown interrupted, "It’s not unusual for first-time parents to feel some measure of anxiety when confronted with their first child and, in your case, you’re clearly feeling upset because the treatments failed. Perhaps you even feel a little bit jealous, but because of your feelings for Zelda, you feel even worse for feeling that way."

The human looked down at her hands. "Maybe."

"Hun, the only advice is that you should talk this over with Zelda. She’s your lifemate, and she deserves to know how you feel, and it’ll probably help you deal with these conflicting and difficult emotions," said Brown. "But, hun, you really should see a professional counselor."

The human was still looking down, so Browneyes decided to try a different tactic. "So, I suppose you’ll be the first to know, I met someone…"

The woman brightened up. She was one of those types who enjoyed a juicy bit of gossip, and this was pretty juicy. "Really? Do you think shi’s the ‘one’?"

Browneyes nodded lightly, "Could be; shi definitely made an impression on me, but I think I ought to give it some time."

Molly blew a raspberry. "Pifff, Zelda had me laid almost as soon as we met!"

The Chakat chuckled, "I seem to recall something of a drunken orgy…"

"Yes, yes," said Molly dismissively, "the point is the next morning we both woke up in one another’s arms and Zelda is too much of a Vixen to have sex with someone and not try to get to know them. The point is, don’t sit on this opportunity. You chakats, of all people, should know that life’s too short to waste haggling over the details."

Brown shook hir head in disbelief; "We’ll see, won’t we? Anyways dear, it’s getting rather late." Molly nodded in agreement and the two friends exchanged goodbyes and turned on their Comms. Brown yawned and busied hirself getting ready for bed, in anticipation of the next day.

{{Separator|d}}

The HoloCenter, or as it was officially named Windstorm Holographic Research and Imaging Center, was a fairly impressive, five story tall structure. The building’s walls were dressed in local stone and, from the ground, the roof-top garden could be seen – barely. In the dying daylight, Brown could see they were starting the nightly holographic show. It wasn’t much, but every night holo emitters would be used to point out various stars in the night sky, and give facts about the planets orbiting them; other times it was used to display news messages or displays of support for the families of students who had died, or disaster victims. Thankfully those were rare.

Browneyes was, however, fairly late, hir classes had gone on longer then shi had expected, and shi had only just gotten out. Shi dearly hoped Darktoes would be waiting for hir; this meeting was hir only lifeline to this person.

Hir mother had been, as shi expected, extremely pleased that shi had ‘met’ someone, even though Brown had tried to convince hir mother that they weren’t romantically involved. However attracted shi felt to Darktoes, it certainly wasn’t love. Even chakats, however idealistic they may be towards such things, certainly didn’t believe in love at first sight. Such things simply didn’t happen, did they?

Brown dashed up the steps of the build, and yanked out the door. The lobby, which was fairly spacious, was empty.

"Shit." Shi had missed hir! Now what?

"I must admit, I never took you as the sort to curse like a Mariner, Brown," said that earthy voice behind hir.

Browneyes spun around to face the orange-furred taur, who wore nothing but a cheeky grin. Brown could guess by now shi was probably a nudist; while everyone was free to wear as little or as much as they wanted, pure nudist, the type who wore nothing unless they had to, were reasonably uncommon. Brown wasn’t fazed by it, but it did mean shi’d have to scratch woolen sweaters off hir ‘Possible Gifts’ list. In Darktoes’ hands shi held two chocolate ice cream cones. "Here," shi said, handing Brown one. "When you didn’t show up, I figured your classes were running late, so I went off to get us a treat."

Accepting the cone, Brown held the door open for hir friend to exit, as shi started to lick the cold creamy treat. "Thanks Dark, I was sort of worried you had thought I had stood you up."

Dark blew a raspberry. "As if, you’re the only interesting person I’ve met since coming here. How was your day?"

"Meh, you know how it is – same old, same old; my professors bitching about assignments and piles of pages to read from various books."

"Heh, I know what you mean. Star Corps instructors can be asses too. Two weeks ago they told us we were just going to have just a nice, peaceful day of learning how to hunt. Then they dropped a level three thunderstorm on our asses. Not my idea of a fun day." Darktoes looked around; they we’re walking into some sort of heavily forested park inside the Dewclaw campus, and it was nearly completely dark now. "Where are we going by the way?"

Brown smiled at the taur and gave hir a small hug. "You’ll see. Were you able to get a hold of your parents?"

"Yeah, they thought it was a wonderful idea, seeing as all I’d have to offer is a small apartment. What about yours?"

"Well my dad wasn’t home when I called, but my mother just about jumped through the screen and hugged me. Shi’s been trying to get me to hook up with someone for years."

Darktoes laughed as they entered a small clearing with a stream running through it. Beside the stream was a large, mostly flat rock. Brown bounded forward and laid down on the rock and patted the spot beside hir. Dark laid down beside hir friend. "So what is this place?"

"This, my dear, is Swansong’s Park, and this…" Brown swept hir hand around to the clearing, "…is popularly known as Lover River, a popular make-out spot for students."

Dark gave hir a strange look, to which the Chakat answered with a giggle. "Don’t worry, Dark, that’s not why I brought you out here; I like to come out here and look at the night sky," shi explained.

"Ah!" Dark looked up at the sky, and pointed to one of the stars. "See that star? That’s where I’ll be headed."

"Wow. How long until you ship out?" Browneyes asked quietly. It wasn’t as if shi hadn’t had friends leave before, but this, for some reason, filled hir with dread.

"A month, maybe two after this we’ll be off to the planet, we’re also suppose to survey it you see. It’s supposed to be our, and the project’s, proving grounds," shi said.

"What happens if you fail?" Brown said worriedly. Most experimental projects, like the Corin Warp drive, tended to get terminated. Shi didn’t think they’d do that to these people…but you never knew.

Dark smiled at seeing hir clearly worried face, before giving hir a hug. "Nothing bad. We’ll just lose our jobs and any land given to us in our contracts however."

Brown sighed in relief and finished off the last of hir cone, before continuing the conversation on less worrisome topics. After about an hour, they got up and walked out of the park to the nearest Public PTV pick-up location. Darktoes begged off a ride, because hir apartment was well within running distance. This time however, Brown remembered to give hir new friend hir number and asked hir to call later.

As Brown rode home, shi contemplated hir friend. There was definitely a spark of something there, but what could shi do? Hir friend would be gone within no time at all, and any relationship would be doomed to fail.

Later that night, shi found hirself less interested in working on hir essay, and more interested in researching the project. The more shi read, the more shi became upset. The only way shi’d be allowed to go with Darktoes on this project would be as hir mate, all of whom had applied to be allowed to go months and months ago, not to mention hir own career wouldn’t be needed for several years.

Browneyes flopped into hir bed an hour later, and sighed. Somehow this nearly complete stranger had worked hirself into hir mind and heart. And shi’d never see hir again, or at least not for a very, very long time.

{{Separator|d|Darktoes}}

"How’d your date go, stud?" joked one of the Mariners that Darktoes shared hir apartment with. These apartments were designed with a single large common room with various pieces of furniture and, in one corner, kitchen equipment. The apartments had been designed for the Stellar project in mind, with one roommate of every breed, save for the Starwalkers, represented in every room. The idea was to promote intra-breed sisterhood; the last thing the Federation wanted was for members of different breeds to start hating one another for whatever reason.

"It wasn’t a date, Swimmer, I told you that already," Darktoes sighed. They weren’t chakats, but Stellars, especially Mariners, tended to enjoy their gossip.

"Dark, you know this is going to end badly. Maybe you should cut this Chakat loose before you get in over your head," purred a Polari foxtaur lounging on one of the large pillows that served as seats in the apartment.

Dark sighed and laid down on one of the unoccupied seats and rolled onto hir back. "Too late, I think."

"What do you mean?" Swimmer hopped up next to the Veldter and snuggled with hir friend.

"I don’t know, you guys, I just…I don’t know how to describe it." The Veldter frowned. "It’s like I’m in love or something."

Swimmer and Snowflake exchanged looks. "Are you…sure hun? You know that contract you signed is pretty much airtight."

"I know." Dark felt tears well up in hir eyes. "I wish I had met hir sooner."

"Well," Snowflake said, "you could ask hir to come with you as your mate, if you really feel that way about this Chakat, Browneyes, I think it was?"

"I know that Snow, but…" the Veldter wiped the tears from hir eyes, "…shi’s studying to be a psychologist, and I can’t ask hir to give up hir career for me. I mean, what would shi do if shi came? Sit around all day and do nothing?"

Swimmer licked Dark’s cheek. "What will you do then? You’ll have to tell hir soon."

"Well I do have a month, maybe two," the Veldter said. At least shi had a few weeks to be with Brown.

A Forest breed emerged from one of the bedrooms with a Mountain breed in tow at the moment. The two taurs laid down together next to the Polari, both looked disheveled and smelled of sex. The two breeds, Leaf and Amethyst, were among the first crossbreed couples, who had apparently been enjoying an after-dinner romp in the sheets.

"Didn’t you hear, Dark? They’ve decided to move the launch date up! We’re going to be heading out in two weeks." Said Leaf.

Darktoes sat up violently, shaking off Swimmer. "What?!"

Amethyst nodded. "Isn’t it exciting?"

Dark moaned and ran off to hir room. This certainly was not good news. Shi bit back sobs before excusing hirself to hir room.

Swimmer shot the couple a dirty look before racing off behind the badly shaken Veldter.

Amethyst glanced at Snowflake; "What? Was it something I said?"

{{Separator|d|Browneyes}}

Public transport had always been an important part of Chakona; as a planned world with the stated goal of being extremely eco-friendly, it was of course important to insure that transport between cities was both easy and eco-friendly. To help this along, the first intra-continental high-speed rail had been completed on Finders Continent connecting all major cities.

The high-speed trains were a quite different from those on Earth; in addition to being eco-friendly, Chakats (and other morphs) preferred a higher level of comfort on their trains and other forms of public transports, so these high-speed trains were typically outfitted with rooms complete with a small sleeping area (for two to three taurs) as well as a washroom and small drink refrigerator. Even though trips were often relatively short, they still enjoyed such concessions.

Brown and Darktoes had both asked to share the same cabin on the train when they had bought their tickets, which was indulged by the sales person. Brown wasn’t really expecting anything to happen, but shi was glad they had made the arrangements beforehand. Brown had been irritated all day due to hir impending heat. Darktoes had called hir a few nights before, as shi had promised, but what Brown had hoped would be a pleasant and fun meeting was dampened quite a bit by Darktoes’ news. Browneyes knew the relationship, however unexpected and fast-paced (well not that fast-paced Brown was forced to remind hirself, hir own mother, after all, would have had already bedded hir sire by now in the relationship.) wouldn’t last long, but still, the shock of realizing they only had about a week left with one another was quite unsettling, and any time they got to share together was quite welcome.

The trip was quite quiet and calm, and the two spent most of the time cuddling and discussing their families.

"So your parents are chakats too?" asked Brown.

"Well, only emotionally and legally. The Chakona Council demanded that we were to be born into loving families rather than just being popped out of a tube," said the foxtaur.

"I can imagine." Browneyes leaned on hir friend. "I think it’s more heartwarming to think you had someone to love and hold you as you grew up."

"Yeah, they were pretty great. What about your parents?"

"Oh you know, classic Chakat family, they met, fell in love, had a bunch of cubs," laughed Brown. "The home’s been pretty empty for a few months now. I daresay I shouldn’t be surprised if they’ve gone and conceived another cub by the time we get there."

"Ah! So will I get to meet some of your sexy sisters?" Dark giggled.

"One or two, maybe, but most of them are off-world on deep space missions and such; we’re got a pretty strong wanderlust streak in my family. I’m the first person thus far to take up something that didn’t involve flying around up in the sky."

"Heh, sounds interesting; my parents are both farmers, thus how I developed my interest in agriculture."

"Why do you want to go be a colonist though? I did a bit of research on your species and apparently 98% of you accepted contracts with Star Corps but you’re not engineered to want to go, so…what gives?"

The Veldter gave the Chakat a nuzzle; "Well, I imagine it has to do with the chakat genes they combined with the foxtaur ones; you chakats are pretty curious, and foxtaurs are pretty adventurous at heart too; the problem is, you see, that around the end of puberty, normal foxtaurs tend to get inflicted with Territory Attachment Syndrome."

"What’s that?"

"Well TAS is sort of like homesickness, but a lot more extreme, to the point where they can’t leave their home territory without getting extremely sick. In the worst cases, just the thought of leaving is enough to set off a reaction. It’s almost like…" The veldt thought for a moment. "…like a human with a drug addition; they leave the territory and they go into withdrawal."

Browneyes frowned. "Sounds terrible."

"Yeah, so anyways, we’re just natural-born explorers because they’ve eliminated the problem on a genetic level. However, you could say we’re inflicted with the opposite of TAS – wanderlust!"

"At least you’ll enjoy your work," said Browneyes, giving Darktoes a hug. The rest of the trip passed uneventfully, and before they knew it, they were picking up Darktoes’ parents (an extremely pleasant people) and Browneyes was taking them to hir parents’ condo.

The condo was fairly large and roomy, more then enough room for the two families. As Brown predicted, none of hir sisters were present at the celebration. Of course, it was something of a party with just a general get-together. The four parents hit it off quite well, and Brown wasn’t at all surprised when they begged off the after-dessert chit-chat for a more intimate encounter.

After their parents had left, the two taurs went out onto the balcony that was attached to condo and overlooked the city for a cuddle of their own.

"Beautiful isn’t it?" sighed Browneyes. Shi straightened up and looked Darktoes in hir eyes. "Honey, I think we need to talk about this."

"Yeah," the Veldt started. "Browneyes, I don’t know how, or why, but I love you dearly, but…I don’t know what to do; I would love for you to become my mate, but at the same time I know that we walk two very different paths, and I can’t justify ripping you away from your hopes, dreams and life to go off tramping around on some frontier world with me."

Brown hugged hir beloved foxtaur and placed hir head between hir breasts before shi spoke, "I know, and I can’t ask you to leave the job you’re clearly meant to do. What are we going to do?"

"I…I don’t know, Browneyes." The Veldter bent down and kissed the Chakat. "But let’s make love, my love. Even if we cannot be together, I want to make every moment we are together the best they can be.

Perhaps it was a romantic atmosphere of the moment, or perhaps it was hir own hormones and pheromones at work, or perhaps (and Brown would admit it to hirself it was a contributing factor) the empathic backwash from the foursome in the other room. Whatever the reason, several hours later, the two taurs drifted off to sleep in each others arms.

{{Separator|d}}

The next day was pretty lazy; Dewclaw and other businesses and institutions generally had a three to four day waiting period before they expected their employees or students to return from vacation; a good number of students had to return from off-world, or other continents. For Browneyes and Darktoes, however, it just meant a couple of extra days they could spend together enjoying one another’s company and making love; the next day however, held some surprises.

{{Separator|d}}

The calico-flanked Chakat was the first to wake the next morning. It had been a wonderful night and that warm, joyful feeling shi had experienced last night was still with hir this morning.

Untangling hirself from hir companion, shi slid out of the bedroom and down the hall to the kitchen area. Shi wasn’t wearing anything, but shi imagined that neither hir parents nor Dark’s would care much. As shi expected, the small kitchen table was occupied by all four of the older chakats.

"Did you have a good sleep, dear?" grinned hir sire, Sky. Shi was a stormy-grey Chakat with a white fluffy patch of fur between hir breasts.

"Don’t tease hir, Sky. I’m sure shi had a very enjoyable night," said the dappled brown Chakat who was hir mother.

"I daresay our night wasn’t half bad ether, Dancer," joked one of Dark’s parents. Brown had been introduced but couldn’t for the life of hir remember what their names were.

"Half bad?" said Brown’s mother,sticking out hir tongue at the darkest green and grey Chakat, "I seem to recall that you. Pond, were the one who nearly passed out from pleasure after the second time we…"

"Okay, okay" said Brown shaking hir head in amusement, "I don’t need to know the details. I’m taking a quick shower, so if Dark comes out and asks where I am; give hir a heads-up, okay?"

The four chakats seated around the table nodded in agreement, before breaking into a fit of giggles. Shaking hir head, Brown went off to get the personal bag that shi had left it in the hallway when they had came over yesterday afternoon. Shi had meant to retrieve it and bring it to hir room, but things hadn’t gone as shi had planned.

Unzipping hir bag, shi proceeded to remove the top layer of clothing. The day before shi hadn’t put anything on, but today shi felt like shi needed a new top. The first thing shi noticed was that hir personal PADD, which shi had laid under the top layer of clothing, was flashing red. Picking it up, shi tapped the touch screen which made the PADD beep and reveal a calendar. In the center of the calendar was a flashing pink square with the date 8/26/91, and under that was the text: ‘HEAT Day 2’ in curly letters.

Brown blinked. ‘It must be a mistake, I’m not in heat I would have felt it by now unless…’ Shi gasped. "Oh shit."

Hopping up, shi ran back to the kitchen and waved hir mother out of the group into the hallway. Browneyes then pulled hir mother into the washroom and started the shower up.

"Brown, honey, you know I love you very much, but I think you ought to spend your shower times with Darktoes," said Dancer, somewhat bemused.

"Gah!" Brown said pressing hir ear to the door to see if anyone was out there. Satisfied, shi turned to hir mother. "Mom, when you were pregnant with me, what did it feel like?"

"Well I don’t know, I guess I felt a little slowed down I suppose, I mean you weren’t the lightest of kits but…"

"Not that! Right after Dad impregnated you and you knew you were pregnant? What did you feel like?"

"Sort of…I guess a warm, secure feeling…err joyful I suppose, like the afterglow of an orgasm, I suppose."

"Damnation." Brown swore, sinking to the floor before hir knees gave way.

"Why are you asking all these question in the bathro…" A look of realization dawned on the older Chakat, "You’re pregnant, aren’t you, sweetheart?"

"I think so, yes," Browneyes was close to tears now. This wasn’t how shi had wanted things to happen.

"Congratulations, honey!" hir mother sank to the floor next to hir clearly upset daughter and gave hir a hug. "Why are you upset? This is a joyful occasion!"

"You don’t understand!" Browneyes explained to hir mother the whole of what was going on with hir child’s sire.

"Surely the cub would be a deal breaker?" asked hir mother. "I mean they’re not going to allow a family to be separated?"

Brown sighed. After shi had heard the bad news about the moved-up launch date, shi had gotten one of hir friends who was a student of legal affairs to examine the contract, so shi knew the ins and outs pretty well. "I can break the contract forcing Dark to colonize the world, but not the one requiring hir to survey the planet, which could take up to five years regardless. And I’d have to prove that this cub would grow up without the basics."

"Isn’t two loving and caring parents part of the basics?" Dancer asked.

"No, mom, even the Chakat council agrees that children can be raised well by a single loving parent. Why do you think Star Fleet is allowed to take chakats on such long voyages?"

Hir mother sighed. "We should at least tell Darktoes then and…"

Browneyes cut the dappled Chakat off. "No, mother, we can’t!"

"Why not? It’s hir cub as well as yours."

"Because if we do, shi’ll want to stay!"

"I fear I must be missing the point then. Don’t you want hir to stay?" asked Dancer, rather confused by now.

"Of course I do, mom, I love hir, but I can’t take hir dreams away because of my foolishness in the bedroom. I should have remembered I was on heat and had hir wear a condom or something." Browneyes sobbed lightly. "I’ll miss hir terribly, but I want hir to be happy and satisfied with life, not bogged down by an accidental kit and hir idiot mother."

Dancer hugged hir daughter tightly. "If you this is what you really want, I promise I won’t tell hir, but hun, raising a cub isn’t easy. You’ll probably have to drop out of school."

Browneyes dried hir tears on the back of hir hand. "I know it’ll be difficult, but I was hoping you’d support me." Brown glanced at hir mother; it was unheard of that a chakat’s parents would reject hir, for whatever reason, but you did hear horror stories from non-chakats.

"Of course, sweetheart, of course." Dancer give hir kitten a lick-kiss on the cheek. "You needn’t worry about that."

"As for schooling, I know Dewclaw has a program set up for students living on other continents who can’t make it to school on regular basis, so I should be able to do that."

"Sounds like you have this all planned out."

Browneyes shot hir mother a dirty look. "I didn’t plan this at all, so don’t even think that…"

A knock on the bathroom door, "Brown? Honey? Are you in there? They said you’d be in here," said the voice of Darktoes.

Dancer hopped up with the grace that had earned hir part of hir name, and opened to door. "You two have fun, okay?" shi said, leaving behind hir daughter and hir lover.

{{Separator|d|Dancer by the Sea}}

Despite of the complications surrounding hir daughter’s unplanned pregnancy, shi was glad shi was going to finally get a grandkit; hir other children, while older then Browneyes, all had very busy careers in Star Fleet or Star Corps, and hadn’t even thought about settling down yet to have children. Shi was a bit disturbed by hir daughter’s insistence that the cub’s sire not to be told, but shi respected hir child’s wishes. It wasn’t hir cub after all. However, there were other complications.

"Hi hon," said a reddish-furred chakat whose only mark was a single black spade shaped spot on hir rump. The chakat’s name was Spadespot, Darktoes’ sire. The three chakats were still at the kitchen table, apparently still chatting. "Where were you?"

"Err…" lying was not something that came easy to Chakat, nor was it pleasant to deceive hir mates and friends. "I had to help Browneyes’ with something personal." It wasn’t a complete lie.

Sky gave hir a quizzical look. The stormy-gray Chakat had been hir mate for many years and, aside from knowing Dancer extremely well, their extremely strong empathic bond gave hir away. Luckily hir mate knew better then to say anything, trusting hir mate’s judgment.

The green and grey Chakat sitting at the table spoke up, "Did you tell hir about our denmating?"

The last two nights hadn’t just been lustful passion between friends who had just hit it off. Dancer hadn’t wanted to tell Browneyes, but shi had known Pond and Spadespot from a long, long time ago. The two of them had grown up together in a small rural town on Earth, before Dancer’s family had immigrated to Chakona. As the only chakats in the small town, they had closely bonded and were on-off again lovers. Of course, at the time, the two Chakats had different names, so when Browneyes had told hir of them, shi hadn’t a clue they were going to show up!

The three of them had decided to do more than just catch up on years of lost love making, and had decided last night to become full fledged denmates, even if they weren’t going to see one another as often as they would have liked.

Dancer sighed; this secret wasn’t going to be easy to keep, "No, It sort of slipped my mind when I was dealing with Browneyes’ problem."

"No problem, love, we’ll tell them both later." Spade got up off hir haunches and lick-kissed hir new mate. Dancer gave hir a cuddle and felt better already. "Sound’s like a plan love, but…"

"But what, my sweet?" asked Spade. "You’re not getting cold feet are you?"

Dancer shook hir head. "No, nothing like that. It’s just that Browneyes is going through a lot of heartbreak now, and I’d rather not upset hir further. Not that shi’d be upset at us becoming a triad," shi added hastily at the look the four chakats at the table gave hir. "I’m not sure you realize this, but your daughter has made quite the impression on Browneyes, and shi’s not taking the fact that shi’ll be gone soon very easily."

This of course sparked an intense discussion about what they could do to help the young lovers out, with Dancer by the Sea explaining hir daughter’s reasoning for letting hir lover leave to follow hir dreams, leaving out, of course, the fact that hir daughter was now carrying the Stellar’s child. After a while, they both came to the conclusion that it was best to just allow what would be, be. After moving to the den, their conversation turned more to local topics such as discussing a possible shopping trip and how they could help bring these two farmers to Chakona.

{{Separator|d|Browneyes}}

The last week the young couple had, had passed quickly, more quickly then Browneyes had wanted. The two of them had spent every moment they could together, but today was the day.

The Stellar Foxtaurs had gathered at the spaceport, where a large scale aero-transport was waiting to take them up to the starship that would be their new home until they got to the colony planet that had been picked out for them. Brown and Darktoes were spending the last moment they could together. Both promised one another to write, although both knew it would be several months before they’d be able to really talk. It took time to set up Faster than Light communication systems, and even when they did, it would be months before the orbiting space station would have the bandwidth to be used for anything more than emergency and official Federation business.

Finally, the boarding started to commence, and the foxtaurs slowly filed on, most of them carrying all their worldly goods on their backs. Browneyes and Darktoes shared a long passionate kiss, and then the two separated for the final time.

Later that evening Browneyes would look up at the stars in the direction of hir lover’s destination, and wonder if shi was thinking of hir.

{{Separator|d|Weeks later}}

It had been many months since hir beloved had left. It hadn’t been easy; several times shi found hirself crying hirself to sleep, and moping around hir parents’ condo for days on end. Shi had long since moved back into hir parents’ place, only going back to Dewclaw long enough to arrange the at-home distance education.

Luckily, hir mother’s new mates were able to break hir out of the flunk with their excitement of becoming grandparents. Brown had been a bit shocked that hir mother had already known these chakats and had taken them as mates. Of course they were more than a little shocked that their adopted child was about to become a father and shi didn’t even know; but they promised to keep that fact a secret.

And, lo and behold, it was the day of hir cub’s birth. As per normal, as many people from both families had shown up, and it was quite the crowd. However, the day wore on, and here it was, two hours from the next day, and shi still hadn’t given birth yet. For a Chakat whose births are normally very predictable, it was frustrating to miss the selected day of birth and force everyone to come back for another party the next day.

Brown was out on the same balcony that shi and Darktoes had been out on the night shi had gotten pregnant. In some ways it have become hir widow’s walk, even though shi knew full well hir beloved Veldter was still very much alive. Shi could still sense hir empathically, thought it was very, very faint. Shi’d gaze up at the star where shi knew Darktoes was orbiting.

The door behind hir slid open. Brown turned and saw hir family’s midwife walk out and take up position beside hir.

"Mind if I take some scans, dear?" asked the salt and pepper colored Chakat.

"No, go ahead," Brown said, trying to smile slightly. Shi had been talking all day, which was to be expected, seeing as shi was more or less the guest of honor in this whole performance. Still, it had tired hir out. "I’m sorry, Chess, I guess my kit just isn’t ready to come out yet."

Chess smiled, as shi took scans with hir medical tricorder. "I’ve seen my fair share of stubborn kits in my day, hun. I wouldn’t worry about it too much." The Chakat nodded to hirself as the scans completed. "Everything appears to be in order. It’s a bit chilly out here, hun, maybe you should get something heavier to wear."

"I’ll be all right," Brown said to the retreating Chakat as shi stepped back inside.

The calico Chakat looked back up towards the stars again; shi could almost imagine hir mate out there on some far-flung plains, looking up at those alien stars and thinking of hir. "Oh, Dark, why didn’t I go with… OUCH!" Shi yelped as shi felt a contraction.

Chess apparently had heard hir, and stuck hir head out of the door way. "Was that what I think it was?" shi asked with a cheeky grin.

"Yes, yes." said Browneyes, wincing as a second contraction washed over hir. "And from the looks of things, shi’s in a hurry."

The midwife helped the calico Chakat into the den, which had been set up into birthing room. The condo might be reasonably large, but it wasn’t large enough to have a separate nursery, so Browneyes would be using hir room as a nursery, which thankfully had just enough room for the whole of the two families.

Laying down in a birth position with hir mother supporting hir in place of the sire, shi began to push. Giving birth was always easy for chakats, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t painful; after dozens of contractions and pushing when the midwife told hir to, the pain was starting to get to hir then…

Shi felt the head slip free of the birth canal, and with it, the rest of the body of hir kitten.

The newborn let out a loud cry.

It was done.

After a few moments of inspecting the newborn, the midwife dried the cub and then handed hir to hir mother. Browneyes held hir child up hir breast to allow it to feed. Brown murred with pleasure as the little cub suckled for hir first time. As shi did, Brown inspected the cub hirself; shi had clearly inherited hir basic coloring and patterning from hir father; orange-red with a white underbelly and dark brown taur socks. Well, almost; shi had several black spots with azure blue centers on hir left shoulder blade and chest and the back of hir taur waist.

On top of hir head was a mop of slightly damp blonde hair; Chess had assured hir, however, that shi was 100% Chakat, so their was little chance that hir hair wouldn’t grow into a beautiful, long mane of hair, should shi choose it.

After hir fill, the kitten yawned and fell into a peaceful sleep. Brown completed the milk sharing ceremony with hir mother (shi had agreed months ago to help feed hir) and got up to place hir kitten in hir crib for the night. As shi was laying the kitten down, Brown noticed something unusual about one of the spots on the right side of hir daughter’s chest. It wasn’t a blue-centered black dot like the others, in fact it looked like a little pawprint.

Browneyes frowned; there was only one species who had that sort of markings, and that was a skunktaur, but hir mate wasn’t one…and shi certainly wasn’t one. The calico went off to find hir mother.

"Mom?" Hir mother was chatting with some relatives of hirs.

"Yes sweetie? Something wrong?" Dancer knew that, while Chakat cubs were born healthy almost always, it didn’t stop new mothers from worrying.

Brown grabbed hir mother and pulled hir mother away from the crowd before asking: "Mom, am I a chakat?"

Hir mother giggled, "Of course you are hun, what a silly question!"

"No, no," the new mother was starting to get frustrated; "Am I one hundred percent Chakat? My kitten has a blue pawprint on hir chest and want to know why, damnit!"

The dappled Chakat frowned, and asked hir daughter to show hir. Looking over the newborn, Dancer smiled, "Your kitten is very special sweetheart. It looks like shi inherited the telekinesis Talent."

"But…but how?"

"Well, you never met hym, but your great-great grandmother was a skunktaur; one of the first to be freed from the Three Firms."

"What happened to hir? Surely shi should still be alive?"

"Alas," hir mother frowned, "hy was killed a few years after hy gave birth to my great-grandmother in a space liner accident."

Brown and Dancer stood in silence for a few minutes until Browneyes broke the silence, "Why now though? None of you have that Talent."

"Quite true," hir mother said, "but these things tend to get diluted over time, and it’s a recessive trait in chakats. A doctor would probably be better able to explain it."

"I’ll get hir checked out as soon as possible," Brown said, yawning.

Hir mother chuckled. "I think your kitten isn’t the only one who needs some sleep, dear."

Browneyes agreed, and after bidding the guests good night, shi settled down to sleep. Despite hir great weariness, shi had difficulty sleeping. Perhaps I should tell Darktoes of hir child…

{{Separator|d|Epilogue}}

The Skunktaur doctor smiled at Brown as shi tried to hold the hyperactive cub. The foxtaur-colored cub was several months old at this point. "Little Honeymane is fine, Shir Browneyes."

"Were you able to test for the Talent?" Brown asked, as the kitten began to mew; shi was hungry. Browneyes quickly pulled down the straps of hir tank top and lifted the now calmer kitten up to hir breast to be fed. Shi started suckling almost immediately.

"Yes and no," said the doctor, "We can test for the genetic markers, but not directly test for it for at least another year. You’ll be pleased to know, however, that we did find the genetic markers."

"How do you know if it’ll give hir the Talent, or if it’ll just laying dormant?"

"We…can guess, but as I said, without a direct test, we’ll have no idea. The computer is estimating shi has about a 70% chance that shi will have TK."

Brown smiled down at hir drinking kitten between hir breasts. "I guess I’ll have to look into enrolling hir in special education."

"Indeed" said the doctor, leaning back in hys chair, "Talents are typically harmless, but Telekinesis can be somewhat dangerous in untrained hands. Of course, do you have any relatives who have training in these Talents? I know Chakats tend to prefer a closer family setting in such matters."

Brown shook hir head, "No, I’m afraid my family is pretty much 100% Chakat. I didn’t even know I had a Skunktaur relative until Honeymane was born, and hy died years ago in an accident."

"Well no matter, most of us Skunktaurs are friendly, even if the teachers can get a little be arrogant sometimes," hy said with a smile.

Brown nodded, sensing the appointment was over, and stood up. "I understand. Good day, doctor."

"Good day, Shir. Take care, and you too, Honeymane!"

[[category:Honeymane]] [[category:Chakona Space]] [[category:taur]] [[category:Story]]

Starhands

2011-02-20T04:57:50Z

Honeymane: altering separators

{{title|name=Starhands|author=Honeymane}}

{{Comment tag}}
{{Universe|Chakona Space}}
{{author's note|Originally wrote after Michael Bard's death. Although I had been sitting on the idea and general plot for this story for some time, Bard's death was an unfortunate catalysis and bases for the story. As such this story is dedicated in his memory, because although Starhands is a fictional character, the emotions aren't.}}

{{dropcap|G}}ood, Honeymane, good!" Starhands said with a smile. "Now, try to make the water warm up."

"But, I’ll drop it!" Honeymane protested, as shi tried to continue concentrating on the small glass hovering a few centimetres above the table where it had sat.

"No you won’t," said the much older Skunktaur calmly. "If it starts to slip, I’ll catch it."

The small child frowned, glancing at hir teacher before swiftly returning hir gaze to the glass as it suddenly started to wobble. Squinting and sticking hir tongue out, shi concentrated; soon the water in the glass started to boil. Honeymane blinked in surprise, only for hir expression of surprise to change to panic as the glass began to fall towards the table.

With surprising reflexes for a being so old, Starhands deftly caught the vessel and placed it gently on the table’s surface before turning back to hys student, who was stammering an apology. "The glass is barely warm! You’ve come a long way, Honeymane. It’s not easy to focus one’s talent to do two different things at once." Starhands grinned. "Although, you may want to think about practicing your concentration some more, my child."

"Yes Shir," Honeymane forced out. Shi was still a bit in panic mode after seeing the glass nearly tip over onto hir. Shi had been trying to be more cautious ever since another student had lost hys concentration and accidentally dumped a glass of boiling water all over hymself. Luckily hy wasn’t too badly hurt, but it still looked and felt very painful, and not something shi’d want to experience firsthand. "Would you like some tea, shir Starhands?" Students in Starhand’s charge were instructed through various chores, like making tea using only hir talent. Perhaps if shi got hym tea, shi’d show hy just how good shi was.

The older taur patted the child on hir head and ruffled hir head fur before standing up and offering hir hys hand. "Don’t worry about it young one. Consistent concentration is one of the most difficult things to master. Even I have trouble with it. Besides, judging by the time, I’d say your mother is probably getting bored waiting for us. Shall we go?"

The blonde-haired cub nodded and took hys hand, and the two of them strolled out through the room’s door into the courtyard, which had been transformed from a rather drab collection of stones into a blooming garden by Starhand’s caretaker. None of this was of interest to Honeymane however. "Really, Shir? You?"

The older taur chuckled, "Oh my, yes! I’m just a fallible as any."

Honeymane’s eyes grew wide with youthful shock. "Wow."

With that Starhands burst out laughing. "At least my students hold me in high regard, eh? Come-on Honeymane, your mother is a patient chakat, but I’m sur- WHOA!" Starhands took a step forward and stumbled; throwing hys arms out to try to catch hymself to no avail, and landed face first on the paving stones. To hir credit, Honeymane tried to catch the older taur, but being very young and fairly small, the old skunktaur just crumpled on top of hir. After a moment, shi was able to squeeze hir way out from under hir teacher (who found the whole situation amusing and was laughing,) to see Starhand’s caretaker, a tabby chakat dressed in muted green, come out to see what all the commotion was about.

"What’s going on – oh damnit!" The chakat rushed over to help the older skunktaur in hir charge. "Are you alright, Shir?"

Starhands laughed. "Yes, of course my dear, it was only a small stumble. No-no!" Starhands waved away the helper’s hands. "I can get up myself. Please, Shir Nimbletoes, see Honeymane out."

Nimbletoes frowned. "Are you sure Shir?"

"Yes, yes!" Starhands said impatently, as hy pushed hymself up.

Shaking hir head, Nimbletoes took Honeymane’s hand and led hir to the lobby, where a calico chakat was waiting.

"Hi mommy!" Honeymane broke free of the caretaker’s loose grip and ran to hir mother for a hug."

"Finally!" Browneyes said, jumping to hir feet as they entered and leaning down to hoist hir child up into a hug and a small nuzzle. "What took so long?"

Nimbletoes shrugged. "Starhands just loses track of time every now and again. Hy is nearly one hundred and fifty years old, Brown."

Browneyes frowned. "Yes, you’re right. Sorry about being short with you, Nimble. It’s not yours or anyone else’s fault." Browneyes paused and turned to hir daughter. "Did you have a good lesson, sweetie?

"Yup!" the child nodded happily. "Starhands says I got to work on my concentration more though."

"Well, I’m sure you’ll get right on that, won’t you, ’Mane?" Browneyes said as shi trotted towards hir PTV.

Honeymane nodded. "What’s for supper, mommy? Can we eat at the restaurant again?"

Browneyes rolled hir eyes. "The one on the station? Not tonight, hun, maybe in a week."

"Aww, but mmmmmmmmmmmooommmm…."

{{Separator|d|Browneyes}}

"Eh? Takeout?" asked a black foxtaur as shi walked into the kitchen.

Browneyes sighed and dropped the takeout bag on the kitchen counter, as hir cub bounced around under foot, before gesturing to Honeymane. "I wasn’t going to, Star, but this little terror talked me into it."

"I’m not a terror, mommy!" the cub protested heartily, before making a show of clutching hir stomach. "Can we eat now?"

"Yeah yeah." Brown rolled hir eyes and dug into the bag, before producing two salads for hir and Fallingstar, and an emiron sandwich for the cub, and proceeded to put them onto plates for the three. Within short order, the three of them were sitting around the kitchen table eating away.

"How was your day?" the stellar foxtaur asked between bites of Rovtil leaf.

"Good, I suppose." Browneyes shrugged before taking a big bite of some tomato-like fruit. "It’s always a bit difficult to sit and listen to other people’s problems all day. I like the work of course, but it’s a bit…" the chakat frowned as shi hesitated trying to think of the word.

"Depressing? Frustrating? Worrisome?" hir companion supplied.

"All three, I think. I want to help people, but sometimes I just don’t—Honeymane! Don’t play with your food!" Brown finished sternly, giving the child a hard look.

"Sorry, mommy," the blonde cub said, taking the two pieces of emiron out of hir ears and quickly eating them.

The calico chakat shook hir head. "Anyway, sometimes I feel like I’m just not making a difference."

"I wouldn’t worry about it, hun," Fallingstar said, smiling and reaching across the table to grip hir friend’s hand. "Even if it doesn’t seem like it, I’m sure you are making a difference. I can’t say the feeling ever goes away, but…."

Browneyes squeezed the hand, "I suppose you’re right, but enough about me, how was your day."

"Oh you know, same as yours." Star shrugged and poked the entrails of hir salad with hir fork. "There’s some talk about promoting me up a grade and moving me into more of a managerial position."

"Oh? Well congratulations, I suppose."

Fallingstar shook hir head. "Not really. The extra pay might be nice, but I’ll have loads more paperwork to do, and longer hours." The Stellar let hir fork fall into the bowl as shi leaned back and stretched. "To be honest, I wish your sister would stop trying to be sweet on me."

"You think Mak’s got a preference towards you?" Brown asked, glancing at hir own half-eaten salad, before hastening to eat more of it.

"Mommy, can I go watch TV?" Honeymane asked, looking slightly bored.

"Sure, sweetie."

Fallingstar waited until the cub was out of the room. "I dunno, maybe. I don’t feel all that qualified for the job."

"Well," Browneyes said thickly between red-spiked leaves, "How long has it been since you’ve been put up for promotion? Hasn’t it been like six years?"

"Yeah, I guess." Star frowned as shi fiddled with hir earring absentmindedly. "Even so, I—" shi broke off as the vidphone in the hallway started to ring.

"Bah, I hate it when they call around supper time!" Browneyes said. "No no!" shi motioned to hir friend to stay where shi was. "I’ll get it."

Browneyes paused to fix hir hair before answering the device, which was warbling rather insistently. After a moment, shi hit the answer button, and waited for the connection to go through. It didn’t take long, and before shi knew it, shi was looking at the very distraught face of Nimbletoes. Judging by the matting of hir fur and hir slightly puffy eyes, shi had been crying recently. When shi didn’t speak, Brown tried to prompt hir. "Are you okay hun? You look upset."

The tabby chakat on the video phone smacked hir lips and tried to gather hir thoughts, "I, uh, sorry. I-I’m okay."

"Something’s up though, I can tell." Browneyes said, tilting hir head slightly to the side.

"Y-yes, um." Nimbletoes suddenly burst into tears. "It’s Starhands! After you and Honeymane left, hy-hy had a stroke… hy’s in a coma, they don’t know if hy’ll pull through."

"Oh no." Even to Brown’s ears it sounded stupid.

"I’m, I’m just trying to inform the parents of Starhand’s students," Nimbletoes choked out. "T-they have a right to know."

Browneyes shook hir head. "Isn’t there someone else who could do this for you, hun?"

"N-no." The chakat on the screen shook.

"Listen, I’ll send my mate Fallingstar over. Shi can pick you up and bring you over here so you don’t have to be alone, and we’ll get in touch with the rest of the parents for you, okay hun?"

Nimbletoes nodded and muttered something that sounded like thanks, before disconnecting. Browneyes stood for a moment, closing hir eyes and gathering hir thoughts. Shi hadn’t been all that close to Starhands, although shi’s sure shi would have liked, well, would like hym if shi took the time. Honeymane certainly liked the skunktaur. At that, Browneyes frowned. What was shi going to tell Honeymane? Shi had to know, of course, but….

"Everything alright out here Brown?" Fallingstar asked, appearing in the hallway.

"Well…" Browneyes quickly explained the situation.

"Damn." The black foxtaur shook hir head sadly. "What a way to go."

"Hy’s not dead yet." Browneyes pointed out, "There’s still hope."

"I suppose. I’ll go get Nimbletoes." Star frowned, "I guess that leaves you with Honeymane… good luck hun."

"Thanks."

Browneyes found hir daughter in the den watching some television show, as shi expected. Quietly, shi laid down beside the engrossed child, before reaching over and putting the television on mute.

"I was watching that!" Honeymane protested, before hopping up and trying to reach the remote, as Browneyes held it high over hir head. Thankfully, shi stopped when shi saw Browneyes’ face. "Is something wrong, mommy?"

Putting down the remote, Browneyes sighed and began stroking hir daughter’s cheek while shi gathered hir thoughts. This would be the first time anyone really close to Honeymane had died—or was in significant danger of doing so, and shi wasn’t sure how to break the news. Still, it had to be done.

"Hun, I have something to tell you…" Browneyes paused. "You know Starhands?"

"Pff! Of course I know hym mommy!" Honeymane laughed.

"Well, hy’s… Hy’s very sick." Browneyes steeled hirself. "Hy’s in the hospital."

"Don’t be silly mommy, Starhands isn’t sick, I just saw hym." The child frowned. "Maybe hy hurt hymself when hy fell?"

"I don’t think so, hun." Browneyes frowned, "Sweetheart, Starhands might… might die."

"Die?" The look on Honeymane’s face was a heartbreaking mix of confusion and sadness. "But… hy can’t die!"

Browneyes reached out and pulled the cub into a warm hug. "I know it’s hard, hun, and hy might still pull through… but we have to be prepared for the worst."

Honeymane let out something like a sob and hugged hir mother back as strongly as shi could. "Hy wasn’t sick, mommy!"

"I know, hun; this kind of illness comes on quickly," Browneyes said. "But we have some of the best doctors in the Federation here. Hy might pull through… in fact, I’m sure of it."

"Really?" Honeymane looked hir in the eyes.

"Yes." Unfortunately for Honeymane, Browneyes’ empathic talent was stronger and it wasn’t hard for hir to lie to the child.

Honeymane grinned. "Can we go see Starhands in the hosp’tal mommy? I could make hym a card."

"Sure, hun. Nimbletoes will be along shortly. Shi’s quite upset, so me and Star are going to try and comfort hir," Browneyes said, giving hir daughter a kiss on the forehead. "Perhaps Sugarback can help you with your card. Shi and your grandparents should be home by now."

It seemed impossible, but the blonde-haired cub’s smile grew even wider and brighter before dashing off to gather supplies and head down the hall to Browneyes’ parent’s place.

Browneyes sighed heavily as shi watched the cub go, wondering if shi had given hir too much false hope.

{{Separator|d}}

Walking down the corridor of the hospital, Browneyes had to wonder who could possibly like such a building, even though medical care had vastly improved since the 20th century, and many medical facilities were hardly whitewashed or smelt heavily of disinfectant. But to hir nose, shi could still smell the uniformity of the scents, and empathically, shi could feel such suffering. After a few moment’s concentration, Browneyes managed to suppress the sensations, thankful for the training that shi had received. Glancing sideways at Fallingstar, shi could tell shi sensed it too. Honeymane led the way, carefully counting off the room numbers on the doors to find the one they wanted. Of the three of them, shi seemed almost oblivious to the environment around hir, and not for the first time in hir life, Browneyes wished shi still had that youthful innocence. Shi hoped this trip wouldn’t take that away from the cub.

"You think Shir Starhands will like my card mommy?" Honeymane turned hir head back and glanced at the two adult taurs. "When I show’d it to Shir Nimbletoes this mornin’, shi started to cry."

Browneyes leaned forward and picked the cub up while trying not to wrinkle hir clothing. None of them were wearing what could be called their Sunday best, but Brown didn’t want to look like some tramp from the street either. At this age Honeymane was starting to get almost too big to carry, even for a taur, but shi managed, and gave hir daughter a kiss on hir forehead. "Shir Nimbletoes is a lot closer to Starhands, sweetheart, this whole thing has affected hir a lot more."

"Oh."

"I think we’re here," interjected Fallingstar. "5210, right?"

Browneyes nodded and awkwardly shifted the cub’s weight in hir arms to free one to give the door a sharp rap. After waiting a few moments for a reply, and getting none, Browneyes opened the door slightly and looked in. Sure enough, the prone figure of the familiar Skunktaur was laying on the room’s only medical bed. Judging from the other items around the room, hy had company, although they appeared to be out at the moment. Browneyes hesitated. Shi wasn’t sure if shi should enter the room uninvited if the other people weren’t there.

Browneyes was about to back away when Honeymane slipped from hir arms and dashed into the room, jumping up onto the bed (thankfully narrowly missing jumping onto Starhands) and giving the unconscious taur a hug. Glancing around and shrugging, Browneyes quickly entered the room with Fallingstar trailing.

"Hy doesn’t look sick at all mommy!" Honeymane exclaimed excitedly, before addressing hir teacher while starting to gently shake hym. "Wakie Wakie Shir! I made you a card. I used glitter and everything!"

"Honeymane…" Browneyes began, walking over to hir daughter and trying to pull the excited cub off before shi did any damage. "I don’t think…"

The cub proved too nimble for Browneyes and danced out of hir grasp, scooting up onto the Skunktaur’s chest, dropping the card and trying to wake hym. "Come on, wake up!" Honeymane said loudly, with an edge of panic in hir voice.

This time Brown managed to pick hir child off the sick Skunktaur, but almost immediately shi knew something was wrong.

"Mommy…" Honeymane said, turning to look wide-eyed at Browneyes, with panic in hir voice. "Why can’t I feel hym?"

For a moment Browneyes didn’t know what shi was talking about, and than it dawned on hir. Looking back at the skunktaur, shi could feel the emptiness, the lack of, for a better word, soul. The body might still be alive, but Starhands was clearly gone. Browneyes held hir child tight as Honeymane started to cry softly against hir shoulder. With a glance at Fallingstar, Browneyes knew it was time for the three of them to leave.

It wasn’t until they were halfway home and Honeymane had cried hirself to sleep before either of them spoke.

"That… wasn’t good." Browneyes said softly, glancing down at the child sleeping between hir forelegs.

"No it wasn’t," the Stellar Foxtaur agreed heartily. "I suppose we should have called this morning. I didn’t realize…"

"Nether did I. I knew hy was in a coma, but still…" Browneyes sighed and rubbed hir forehead. "This is going to screw Honeymane up."

"Maybe," Fallingstar admitted, before reaching over and stroking hir Companion’s cheek. "But kids are pretty resilient. I’m sure shi’ll bounce back."

"And if shi doesn’t?"

"Both of us are experienced counsellors, we’ll be there for hir." The black foxtaur smiled softly. "Don’t worry too much about it."

After a few minutes, the two of them fell into silence as the vehicle sped along the road.

{{Separator|d}}

The rest of the day was relatively calm. Honeymane spent most of the day looking and feeling quite depressed, and around supper time they received a call from Nimbletoes telling them that the family had decided to withdraw life-support from Starhands, and let hym pass away. The question then was whether or not to attend the funeral.

"Do you think that’s a good idea?" asked Dancer.

"What do you mean?" Browneyes said, turning towards hir mother while nibbling on hir piece of toast, as the adults of the family sat around Browneyes’ parent’s kitchen table, the morning after they had got the call from Nimbletoes.

"Taking Honeymane to the funeral," the dabbled chakat replied. "Shi’s already pretty torn up."

"Yeah, but…" Browneyes frowned, "I think without some sort of closure, being able to say goodbye… Well I just think that’d it’d be a good thing."

Hir mother frowned. "I suppose, but all those sad people… they’re just going to make hir feel worse."

"I agree with your mother," interjected Spadespot. "It’s tragic enough that shi’s lost someone so close to hir at such a young age. Going to the funeral will probably just compound that."

"I disagree," said Sky softly. "I won’t deny that it’ll be hard on hir, but closure is very important."

Browneyes held up hir hands to forestall any further debate. "I’ll ask Honeymane what shi wants to do."

As Browneyes had expected, Honeymane had agreed readily that shi wanted to go to the funeral, settling the matter. Within a few days the two of them had dressed in their best clothing, and attended the funeral. Like chakat funerals, it was much more like a wake than something they were to be sad at, but even so there was no denying that Starhands was going to be sorely missed. As the funeral was winding down, Browneyes decided it was time for them to return home.

"Mom?" Honeymane said, as the PTV drove itself onto the highway.

"Yes?"

"Why do people have to die?" Honeymane’s head was turned, looking out the window, but Browneyes could tell shi was crying a bit.

"I don’t know hun." Browneyes admitted, "It’s just part of life."

"Does it ever go away?"

"What?"

"The pain."

Browneyes leaned over and pulled hir child close into a hug, "Not really, sweetie. It’ll get a bit less every day, and one day, one day soon, you’ll feel better. You won’t forget about Starhands, but…"

"But?" Honeymane said between sniffles.

"But… one day you’ll feel okay, and you’ll go on with your life, just like Starhands would want."

Honeymane sniffled and hugged hir mother closely, losing hirself in the warm embrace.

[[category:Honeymane]] [[category:Chakona Space]] [[category:taur]] [[category:Story]]

Starhands

2011-02-20T04:54:00Z

Honeymane:

{{title|name=Starhands|author=Honeymane}}

{{Comment tag}}
{{Universe|Chakona Space}}
{{author's note|Originally wrote after Michael Bard's death. Although I had been sitting on the idea and general plot for this story for some time, Bard's death was an unfortunate catalysis and bases for the story. As such this story is dedicated in his memory, because although Starhands is a fictional character, the emotions aren't.}}

{{dropcap|G}}ood, Honeymane, good!" Starhands said with a smile. "Now, try to make the water warm up."

"But, I’ll drop it!" Honeymane protested, as shi tried to continue concentrating on the small glass hovering a few centimetres above the table where it had sat.

"No you won’t," said the much older Skunktaur calmly. "If it starts to slip, I’ll catch it."

The small child frowned, glancing at hir teacher before swiftly returning hir gaze to the glass as it suddenly started to wobble. Squinting and sticking hir tongue out, shi concentrated; soon the water in the glass started to boil. Honeymane blinked in surprise, only for hir expression of surprise to change to panic as the glass began to fall towards the table.

With surprising reflexes for a being so old, Starhands deftly caught the vessel and placed it gently on the table’s surface before turning back to hys student, who was stammering an apology. "The glass is barely warm! You’ve come a long way, Honeymane. It’s not easy to focus one’s talent to do two different things at once." Starhands grinned. "Although, you may want to think about practicing your concentration some more, my child."

"Yes Shir," Honeymane forced out. Shi was still a bit in panic mode after seeing the glass nearly tip over onto hir. Shi had been trying to be more cautious ever since another student had lost hys concentration and accidentally dumped a glass of boiling water all over hymself. Luckily hy wasn’t too badly hurt, but it still looked and felt very painful, and not something shi’d want to experience firsthand. "Would you like some tea, shir Starhands?" Students in Starhand’s charge were instructed through various chores, like making tea using only hir talent. Perhaps if shi got hym tea, shi’d show hy just how good shi was.

The older taur patted the child on hir head and ruffled hir head fur before standing up and offering hir hys hand. "Don’t worry about it young one. Consistent concentration is one of the most difficult things to master. Even I have trouble with it. Besides, judging by the time, I’d say your mother is probably getting bored waiting for us. Shall we go?"

The blonde-haired cub nodded and took hys hand, and the two of them strolled out through the room’s door into the courtyard, which had been transformed from a rather drab collection of stones into a blooming garden by Starhand’s caretaker. None of this was of interest to Honeymane however. "Really, Shir? You?"

The older taur chuckled, "Oh my, yes! I’m just a fallible as any."

Honeymane’s eyes grew wide with youthful shock. "Wow."

With that Starhands burst out laughing. "At least my students hold me in high regard, eh? Come-on Honeymane, your mother is a patient chakat, but I’m sur- WHOA!" Starhands took a step forward and stumbled; throwing hys arms out to try to catch hymself to no avail, and landed face first on the paving stones. To hir credit, Honeymane tried to catch the older taur, but being very young and fairly small, the old skunktaur just crumpled on top of hir. After a moment, shi was able to squeeze hir way out from under hir teacher (who found the whole situation amusing and was laughing,) to see Starhand’s caretaker, a tabby chakat dressed in muted green, come out to see what all the commotion was about.

"What’s going on – oh damnit!" The chakat rushed over to help the older skunktaur in hir charge. "Are you alright, Shir?"

Starhands laughed. "Yes, of course my dear, it was only a small stumble. No-no!" Starhands waved away the helper’s hands. "I can get up myself. Please, Shir Nimbletoes, see Honeymane out."

Nimbletoes frowned. "Are you sure Shir?"

"Yes, yes!" Starhands said impatently, as hy pushed hymself up.

Shaking hir head, Nimbletoes took Honeymane’s hand and led hir to the lobby, where a calico chakat was waiting.

"Hi mommy!" Honeymane broke free of the caretaker’s loose grip and ran to hir mother for a hug."

"Finally!" Browneyes said, jumping to hir feet as they entered and leaning down to hoist hir child up into a hug and a small nuzzle. "What took so long?"

Nimbletoes shrugged. "Starhands just loses track of time every now and again. Hy is nearly one hundred and fifty years old, Brown."

Browneyes frowned. "Yes, you’re right. Sorry about being short with you, Nimble. It’s not yours or anyone else’s fault." Browneyes paused and turned to hir daughter. "Did you have a good lesson, sweetie?

"Yup!" the child nodded happily. "Starhands says I got to work on my concentration more though."

"Well, I’m sure you’ll get right on that, won’t you, ’Mane?" Browneyes said as shi trotted towards hir PTV.

Honeymane nodded. "What’s for supper, mommy? Can we eat at the restaurant again?"

Browneyes rolled hir eyes. "The one on the station? Not tonight, hun, maybe in a week."

"Aww, but mmmmmmmmmmmooommmm…."

{{Separator|k}}

'''Browneyes'''

"Eh? Takeout?" asked a black foxtaur as shi walked into the kitchen.

Browneyes sighed and dropped the takeout bag on the kitchen counter, as hir cub bounced around under foot, before gesturing to Honeymane. "I wasn’t going to, Star, but this little terror talked me into it."

"I’m not a terror, mommy!" the cub protested heartily, before making a show of clutching hir stomach. "Can we eat now?"

"Yeah yeah." Brown rolled hir eyes and dug into the bag, before producing two salads for hir and Fallingstar, and an emiron sandwich for the cub, and proceeded to put them onto plates for the three. Within short order, the three of them were sitting around the kitchen table eating away.

"How was your day?" the stellar foxtaur asked between bites of Rovtil leaf.

"Good, I suppose." Browneyes shrugged before taking a big bite of some tomato-like fruit. "It’s always a bit difficult to sit and listen to other people’s problems all day. I like the work of course, but it’s a bit…" the chakat frowned as shi hesitated trying to think of the word.

"Depressing? Frustrating? Worrisome?" hir companion supplied.

"All three, I think. I want to help people, but sometimes I just don’t—Honeymane! Don’t play with your food!" Brown finished sternly, giving the child a hard look.

"Sorry, mommy," the blonde cub said, taking the two pieces of emiron out of hir ears and quickly eating them.

The calico chakat shook hir head. "Anyway, sometimes I feel like I’m just not making a difference."

"I wouldn’t worry about it, hun," Fallingstar said, smiling and reaching across the table to grip hir friend’s hand. "Even if it doesn’t seem like it, I’m sure you are making a difference. I can’t say the feeling ever goes away, but…."

Browneyes squeezed the hand, "I suppose you’re right, but enough about me, how was your day."

"Oh you know, same as yours." Star shrugged and poked the entrails of hir salad with hir fork. "There’s some talk about promoting me up a grade and moving me into more of a managerial position."

"Oh? Well congratulations, I suppose."

Fallingstar shook hir head. "Not really. The extra pay might be nice, but I’ll have loads more paperwork to do, and longer hours." The Stellar let hir fork fall into the bowl as shi leaned back and stretched. "To be honest, I wish your sister would stop trying to be sweet on me."

"You think Mak’s got a preference towards you?" Brown asked, glancing at hir own half-eaten salad, before hastening to eat more of it.

"Mommy, can I go watch TV?" Honeymane asked, looking slightly bored.

"Sure, sweetie."

Fallingstar waited until the cub was out of the room. "I dunno, maybe. I don’t feel all that qualified for the job."

"Well," Browneyes said thickly between red-spiked leaves, "How long has it been since you’ve been put up for promotion? Hasn’t it been like six years?"

"Yeah, I guess." Star frowned as shi fiddled with hir earring absentmindedly. "Even so, I—" shi broke off as the vidphone in the hallway started to ring.

"Bah, I hate it when they call around supper time!" Browneyes said. "No no!" shi motioned to hir friend to stay where shi was. "I’ll get it."

Browneyes paused to fix hir hair before answering the device, which was warbling rather insistently. After a moment, shi hit the answer button, and waited for the connection to go through. It didn’t take long, and before shi knew it, shi was looking at the very distraught face of Nimbletoes. Judging by the matting of hir fur and hir slightly puffy eyes, shi had been crying recently. When shi didn’t speak, Brown tried to prompt hir. "Are you okay hun? You look upset."

The tabby chakat on the video phone smacked hir lips and tried to gather hir thoughts, "I, uh, sorry. I-I’m okay."

"Something’s up though, I can tell." Browneyes said, tilting hir head slightly to the side.

"Y-yes, um." Nimbletoes suddenly burst into tears. "It’s Starhands! After you and Honeymane left, hy-hy had a stroke… hy’s in a coma, they don’t know if hy’ll pull through."

"Oh no." Even to Brown’s ears it sounded stupid.

"I’m, I’m just trying to inform the parents of Starhand’s students," Nimbletoes choked out. "T-they have a right to know."

Browneyes shook hir head. "Isn’t there someone else who could do this for you, hun?"

"N-no." The chakat on the screen shook.

"Listen, I’ll send my mate Fallingstar over. Shi can pick you up and bring you over here so you don’t have to be alone, and we’ll get in touch with the rest of the parents for you, okay hun?"

Nimbletoes nodded and muttered something that sounded like thanks, before disconnecting. Browneyes stood for a moment, closing hir eyes and gathering hir thoughts. Shi hadn’t been all that close to Starhands, although shi’s sure shi would have liked, well, would like hym if shi took the time. Honeymane certainly liked the skunktaur. At that, Browneyes frowned. What was shi going to tell Honeymane? Shi had to know, of course, but….

"Everything alright out here Brown?" Fallingstar asked, appearing in the hallway.

"Well…" Browneyes quickly explained the situation.

"Damn." The black foxtaur shook hir head sadly. "What a way to go."

"Hy’s not dead yet." Browneyes pointed out, "There’s still hope."

"I suppose. I’ll go get Nimbletoes." Star frowned, "I guess that leaves you with Honeymane… good luck hun."

"Thanks."

Browneyes found hir daughter in the den watching some television show, as shi expected. Quietly, shi laid down beside the engrossed child, before reaching over and putting the television on mute.

"I was watching that!" Honeymane protested, before hopping up and trying to reach the remote, as Browneyes held it high over hir head. Thankfully, shi stopped when shi saw Browneyes’ face. "Is something wrong, mommy?"

Putting down the remote, Browneyes sighed and began stroking hir daughter’s cheek while shi gathered hir thoughts. This would be the first time anyone really close to Honeymane had died—or was in significant danger of doing so, and shi wasn’t sure how to break the news. Still, it had to be done.

"Hun, I have something to tell you…" Browneyes paused. "You know Starhands?"

"Pff! Of course I know hym mommy!" Honeymane laughed.

"Well, hy’s… Hy’s very sick." Browneyes steeled hirself. "Hy’s in the hospital."

"Don’t be silly mommy, Starhands isn’t sick, I just saw hym." The child frowned. "Maybe hy hurt hymself when hy fell?"

"I don’t think so, hun." Browneyes frowned, "Sweetheart, Starhands might… might die."

"Die?" The look on Honeymane’s face was a heartbreaking mix of confusion and sadness. "But… hy can’t die!"

Browneyes reached out and pulled the cub into a warm hug. "I know it’s hard, hun, and hy might still pull through… but we have to be prepared for the worst."

Honeymane let out something like a sob and hugged hir mother back as strongly as shi could. "Hy wasn’t sick, mommy!"

"I know, hun; this kind of illness comes on quickly," Browneyes said. "But we have some of the best doctors in the Federation here. Hy might pull through… in fact, I’m sure of it."

"Really?" Honeymane looked hir in the eyes.

"Yes." Unfortunately for Honeymane, Browneyes’ empathic talent was stronger and it wasn’t hard for hir to lie to the child.

Honeymane grinned. "Can we go see Starhands in the hosp’tal mommy? I could make hym a card."

"Sure, hun. Nimbletoes will be along shortly. Shi’s quite upset, so me and Star are going to try and comfort hir," Browneyes said, giving hir daughter a kiss on the forehead. "Perhaps Sugarback can help you with your card. Shi and your grandparents should be home by now."

It seemed impossible, but the blonde-haired cub’s smile grew even wider and brighter before dashing off to gather supplies and head down the hall to Browneyes’ parent’s place.

Browneyes sighed heavily as shi watched the cub go, wondering if shi had given hir too much false hope.

{{Separator|k}}

Walking down the corridor of the hospital, Browneyes had to wonder who could possibly like such a building, even though medical care had vastly improved since the 20th century, and many medical facilities were hardly whitewashed or smelt heavily of disinfectant. But to hir nose, shi could still smell the uniformity of the scents, and empathically, shi could feel such suffering. After a few moment’s concentration, Browneyes managed to suppress the sensations, thankful for the training that shi had received. Glancing sideways at Fallingstar, shi could tell shi sensed it too. Honeymane led the way, carefully counting off the room numbers on the doors to find the one they wanted. Of the three of them, shi seemed almost oblivious to the environment around hir, and not for the first time in hir life, Browneyes wished shi still had that youthful innocence. Shi hoped this trip wouldn’t take that away from the cub.

"You think Shir Starhands will like my card mommy?" Honeymane turned hir head back and glanced at the two adult taurs. "When I show’d it to Shir Nimbletoes this mornin’, shi started to cry."

Browneyes leaned forward and picked the cub up while trying not to wrinkle hir clothing. None of them were wearing what could be called their Sunday best, but Brown didn’t want to look like some tramp from the street either. At this age Honeymane was starting to get almost too big to carry, even for a taur, but shi managed, and gave hir daughter a kiss on hir forehead. "Shir Nimbletoes is a lot closer to Starhands, sweetheart, this whole thing has affected hir a lot more."

"Oh."

"I think we’re here," interjected Fallingstar. "5210, right?"

Browneyes nodded and awkwardly shifted the cub’s weight in hir arms to free one to give the door a sharp rap. After waiting a few moments for a reply, and getting none, Browneyes opened the door slightly and looked in. Sure enough, the prone figure of the familiar Skunktaur was laying on the room’s only medical bed. Judging from the other items around the room, hy had company, although they appeared to be out at the moment. Browneyes hesitated. Shi wasn’t sure if shi should enter the room uninvited if the other people weren’t there.

Browneyes was about to back away when Honeymane slipped from hir arms and dashed into the room, jumping up onto the bed (thankfully narrowly missing jumping onto Starhands) and giving the unconscious taur a hug. Glancing around and shrugging, Browneyes quickly entered the room with Fallingstar trailing.

"Hy doesn’t look sick at all mommy!" Honeymane exclaimed excitedly, before addressing hir teacher while starting to gently shake hym. "Wakie Wakie Shir! I made you a card. I used glitter and everything!"

"Honeymane…" Browneyes began, walking over to hir daughter and trying to pull the excited cub off before shi did any damage. "I don’t think…"

The cub proved too nimble for Browneyes and danced out of hir grasp, scooting up onto the Skunktaur’s chest, dropping the card and trying to wake hym. "Come on, wake up!" Honeymane said loudly, with an edge of panic in hir voice.

This time Brown managed to pick hir child off the sick Skunktaur, but almost immediately shi knew something was wrong.

"Mommy…" Honeymane said, turning to look wide-eyed at Browneyes, with panic in hir voice. "Why can’t I feel hym?"

For a moment Browneyes didn’t know what shi was talking about, and than it dawned on hir. Looking back at the skunktaur, shi could feel the emptiness, the lack of, for a better word, soul. The body might still be alive, but Starhands was clearly gone. Browneyes held hir child tight as Honeymane started to cry softly against hir shoulder. With a glance at Fallingstar, Browneyes knew it was time for the three of them to leave.

It wasn’t until they were halfway home and Honeymane had cried hirself to sleep before either of them spoke.

"That… wasn’t good." Browneyes said softly, glancing down at the child sleeping between hir forelegs.

"No it wasn’t," the Stellar Foxtaur agreed heartily. "I suppose we should have called this morning. I didn’t realize…"

"Nether did I. I knew hy was in a coma, but still…" Browneyes sighed and rubbed hir forehead. "This is going to screw Honeymane up."

"Maybe," Fallingstar admitted, before reaching over and stroking hir Companion’s cheek. "But kids are pretty resilient. I’m sure shi’ll bounce back."

"And if shi doesn’t?"

"Both of us are experienced counsellors, we’ll be there for hir." The black foxtaur smiled softly. "Don’t worry too much about it."

After a few minutes, the two of them fell into silence as the vehicle sped along the road.

{{Separator|k}}

The rest of the day was relatively calm. Honeymane spent most of the day looking and feeling quite depressed, and around supper time they received a call from Nimbletoes telling them that the family had decided to withdraw life-support from Starhands, and let hym pass away. The question then was whether or not to attend the funeral.

"Do you think that’s a good idea?" asked Dancer.

"What do you mean?" Browneyes said, turning towards hir mother while nibbling on hir piece of toast, as the adults of the family sat around Browneyes’ parent’s kitchen table, the morning after they had got the call from Nimbletoes.

"Taking Honeymane to the funeral," the dabbled chakat replied. "Shi’s already pretty torn up."

"Yeah, but…" Browneyes frowned, "I think without some sort of closure, being able to say goodbye… Well I just think that’d it’d be a good thing."

Hir mother frowned. "I suppose, but all those sad people… they’re just going to make hir feel worse."

"I agree with your mother," interjected Spadespot. "It’s tragic enough that shi’s lost someone so close to hir at such a young age. Going to the funeral will probably just compound that."

"I disagree," said Sky softly. "I won’t deny that it’ll be hard on hir, but closure is very important."

Browneyes held up hir hands to forestall any further debate. "I’ll ask Honeymane what shi wants to do."

As Browneyes had expected, Honeymane had agreed readily that shi wanted to go to the funeral, settling the matter. Within a few days the two of them had dressed in their best clothing, and attended the funeral. Like chakat funerals, it was much more like a wake than something they were to be sad at, but even so there was no denying that Starhands was going to be sorely missed. As the funeral was winding down, Browneyes decided it was time for them to return home.

"Mom?" Honeymane said, as the PTV drove itself onto the highway.

"Yes?"

"Why do people have to die?" Honeymane’s head was turned, looking out the window, but Browneyes could tell shi was crying a bit.

"I don’t know hun." Browneyes admitted, "It’s just part of life."

"Does it ever go away?"

"What?"

"The pain."

Browneyes leaned over and pulled hir child close into a hug, "Not really, sweetie. It’ll get a bit less every day, and one day, one day soon, you’ll feel better. You won’t forget about Starhands, but…"

"But?" Honeymane said between sniffles.

"But… one day you’ll feel okay, and you’ll go on with your life, just like Starhands would want."

Honeymane sniffled and hugged hir mother closely, losing hirself in the warm embrace.

[[category:Honeymane]] [[category:Chakona Space]] [[category:taur]] [[category:Story]]

Starhands

2011-02-20T04:50:58Z

Honeymane: Reupload

{{title|name=Starhands|author=Honeymane}}

{{Comment tag}}
{{Universe|Chakona Space}}
{{author's note|Originally wrote after Michael Bard's death. Although I had been sitting on the idea and general plot for this story for some time, Bard's death was an unfortunate catalysis and bases for the story. As such this story is dedicated in his memory, because although Starhands is a fictional character, the emotions aren't.}}

"Good, Honeymane, good!" Starhands said with a smile. "Now, try to make the water warm up."

"But, I’ll drop it!" Honeymane protested, as shi tried to continue concentrating on the small glass hovering a few centimetres above the table where it had sat.

"No you won’t," said the much older Skunktaur calmly. "If it starts to slip, I’ll catch it."

The small child frowned, glancing at hir teacher before swiftly returning hir gaze to the glass as it suddenly started to wobble. Squinting and sticking hir tongue out, shi concentrated; soon the water in the glass started to boil. Honeymane blinked in surprise, only for hir expression of surprise to change to panic as the glass began to fall towards the table.

With surprising reflexes for a being so old, Starhands deftly caught the vessel and placed it gently on the table’s surface before turning back to hys student, who was stammering an apology. "The glass is barely warm! You’ve come a long way, Honeymane. It’s not easy to focus one’s talent to do two different things at once." Starhands grinned. "Although, you may want to think about practicing your concentration some more, my child."

"Yes Shir," Honeymane forced out. Shi was still a bit in panic mode after seeing the glass nearly tip over onto hir. Shi had been trying to be more cautious ever since another student had lost hys concentration and accidentally dumped a glass of boiling water all over hymself. Luckily hy wasn’t too badly hurt, but it still looked and felt very painful, and not something shi’d want to experience firsthand. "Would you like some tea, shir Starhands?" Students in Starhand’s charge were instructed through various chores, like making tea using only hir talent. Perhaps if shi got hym tea, shi’d show hy just how good shi was.

The older taur patted the child on hir head and ruffled hir head fur before standing up and offering hir hys hand. "Don’t worry about it young one. Consistent concentration is one of the most difficult things to master. Even I have trouble with it. Besides, judging by the time, I’d say your mother is probably getting bored waiting for us. Shall we go?"

The blonde-haired cub nodded and took hys hand, and the two of them strolled out through the room’s door into the courtyard, which had been transformed from a rather drab collection of stones into a blooming garden by Starhand’s caretaker. None of this was of interest to Honeymane however. "Really, Shir? You?"

The older taur chuckled, "Oh my, yes! I’m just a fallible as any."

Honeymane’s eyes grew wide with youthful shock. "Wow."

With that Starhands burst out laughing. "At least my students hold me in high regard, eh? Come-on Honeymane, your mother is a patient chakat, but I’m sur- WHOA!" Starhands took a step forward and stumbled; throwing hys arms out to try to catch hymself to no avail, and landed face first on the paving stones. To hir credit, Honeymane tried to catch the older taur, but being very young and fairly small, the old skunktaur just crumpled on top of hir. After a moment, shi was able to squeeze hir way out from under hir teacher (who found the whole situation amusing and was laughing,) to see Starhand’s caretaker, a tabby chakat dressed in muted green, come out to see what all the commotion was about.

"What’s going on – oh damnit!" The chakat rushed over to help the older skunktaur in hir charge. "Are you alright, Shir?"

Starhands laughed. "Yes, of course my dear, it was only a small stumble. No-no!" Starhands waved away the helper’s hands. "I can get up myself. Please, Shir Nimbletoes, see Honeymane out."

Nimbletoes frowned. "Are you sure Shir?"

"Yes, yes!" Starhands said impatently, as hy pushed hymself up.

Shaking hir head, Nimbletoes took Honeymane’s hand and led hir to the lobby, where a calico chakat was waiting.

"Hi mommy!" Honeymane broke free of the caretaker’s loose grip and ran to hir mother for a hug."

"Finally!" Browneyes said, jumping to hir feet as they entered and leaning down to hoist hir child up into a hug and a small nuzzle. "What took so long?"

Nimbletoes shrugged. "Starhands just loses track of time every now and again. Hy is nearly one hundred and fifty years old, Brown."

Browneyes frowned. "Yes, you’re right. Sorry about being short with you, Nimble. It’s not yours or anyone else’s fault." Browneyes paused and turned to hir daughter. "Did you have a good lesson, sweetie?

"Yup!" the child nodded happily. "Starhands says I got to work on my concentration more though."

"Well, I’m sure you’ll get right on that, won’t you, ’Mane?" Browneyes said as shi trotted towards hir PTV.

Honeymane nodded. "What’s for supper, mommy? Can we eat at the restaurant again?"

Browneyes rolled hir eyes. "The one on the station? Not tonight, hun, maybe in a week."

"Aww, but mmmmmmmmmmmooommmm…."

[[File:Separator_k.png]]

'''Browneyes'''

"Eh? Takeout?" asked a black foxtaur as shi walked into the kitchen.

Browneyes sighed and dropped the takeout bag on the kitchen counter, as hir cub bounced around under foot, before gesturing to Honeymane. "I wasn’t going to, Star, but this little terror talked me into it."

"I’m not a terror, mommy!" the cub protested heartily, before making a show of clutching hir stomach. "Can we eat now?"

"Yeah yeah." Brown rolled hir eyes and dug into the bag, before producing two salads for hir and Fallingstar, and an emiron sandwich for the cub, and proceeded to put them onto plates for the three. Within short order, the three of them were sitting around the kitchen table eating away.

"How was your day?" the stellar foxtaur asked between bites of Rovtil leaf.

"Good, I suppose." Browneyes shrugged before taking a big bite of some tomato-like fruit. "It’s always a bit difficult to sit and listen to other people’s problems all day. I like the work of course, but it’s a bit…" the chakat frowned as shi hesitated trying to think of the word.

"Depressing? Frustrating? Worrisome?" hir companion supplied.

"All three, I think. I want to help people, but sometimes I just don’t—Honeymane! Don’t play with your food!" Brown finished sternly, giving the child a hard look.

"Sorry, mommy," the blonde cub said, taking the two pieces of emiron out of hir ears and quickly eating them.

The calico chakat shook hir head. "Anyway, sometimes I feel like I’m just not making a difference."

"I wouldn’t worry about it, hun," Fallingstar said, smiling and reaching across the table to grip hir friend’s hand. "Even if it doesn’t seem like it, I’m sure you are making a difference. I can’t say the feeling ever goes away, but…."

Browneyes squeezed the hand, "I suppose you’re right, but enough about me, how was your day."

"Oh you know, same as yours." Star shrugged and poked the entrails of hir salad with hir fork. "There’s some talk about promoting me up a grade and moving me into more of a managerial position."

"Oh? Well congratulations, I suppose."

Fallingstar shook hir head. "Not really. The extra pay might be nice, but I’ll have loads more paperwork to do, and longer hours." The Stellar let hir fork fall into the bowl as shi leaned back and stretched. "To be honest, I wish your sister would stop trying to be sweet on me."

"You think Mak’s got a preference towards you?" Brown asked, glancing at hir own half-eaten salad, before hastening to eat more of it.

"Mommy, can I go watch TV?" Honeymane asked, looking slightly bored.

"Sure, sweetie."

Fallingstar waited until the cub was out of the room. "I dunno, maybe. I don’t feel all that qualified for the job."

"Well," Browneyes said thickly between red-spiked leaves, "How long has it been since you’ve been put up for promotion? Hasn’t it been like six years?"

"Yeah, I guess." Star frowned as shi fiddled with hir earring absentmindedly. "Even so, I—" shi broke off as the vidphone in the hallway started to ring.

"Bah, I hate it when they call around supper time!" Browneyes said. "No no!" shi motioned to hir friend to stay where shi was. "I’ll get it."

Browneyes paused to fix hir hair before answering the device, which was warbling rather insistently. After a moment, shi hit the answer button, and waited for the connection to go through. It didn’t take long, and before shi knew it, shi was looking at the very distraught face of Nimbletoes. Judging by the matting of hir fur and hir slightly puffy eyes, shi had been crying recently. When shi didn’t speak, Brown tried to prompt hir. "Are you okay hun? You look upset."

The tabby chakat on the video phone smacked hir lips and tried to gather hir thoughts, "I, uh, sorry. I-I’m okay."

"Something’s up though, I can tell." Browneyes said, tilting hir head slightly to the side.

"Y-yes, um." Nimbletoes suddenly burst into tears. "It’s Starhands! After you and Honeymane left, hy-hy had a stroke… hy’s in a coma, they don’t know if hy’ll pull through."

"Oh no." Even to Brown’s ears it sounded stupid.

"I’m, I’m just trying to inform the parents of Starhand’s students," Nimbletoes choked out. "T-they have a right to know."

Browneyes shook hir head. "Isn’t there someone else who could do this for you, hun?"

"N-no." The chakat on the screen shook.

"Listen, I’ll send my mate Fallingstar over. Shi can pick you up and bring you over here so you don’t have to be alone, and we’ll get in touch with the rest of the parents for you, okay hun?"

Nimbletoes nodded and muttered something that sounded like thanks, before disconnecting. Browneyes stood for a moment, closing hir eyes and gathering hir thoughts. Shi hadn’t been all that close to Starhands, although shi’s sure shi would have liked, well, would like hym if shi took the time. Honeymane certainly liked the skunktaur. At that, Browneyes frowned. What was shi going to tell Honeymane? Shi had to know, of course, but….

"Everything alright out here Brown?" Fallingstar asked, appearing in the hallway.

"Well…" Browneyes quickly explained the situation.

"Damn." The black foxtaur shook hir head sadly. "What a way to go."

"Hy’s not dead yet." Browneyes pointed out, "There’s still hope."

"I suppose. I’ll go get Nimbletoes." Star frowned, "I guess that leaves you with Honeymane… good luck hun."

"Thanks."

Browneyes found hir daughter in the den watching some television show, as shi expected. Quietly, shi laid down beside the engrossed child, before reaching over and putting the television on mute.

"I was watching that!" Honeymane protested, before hopping up and trying to reach the remote, as Browneyes held it high over hir head. Thankfully, shi stopped when shi saw Browneyes’ face. "Is something wrong, mommy?"

Putting down the remote, Browneyes sighed and began stroking hir daughter’s cheek while shi gathered hir thoughts. This would be the first time anyone really close to Honeymane had died—or was in significant danger of doing so, and shi wasn’t sure how to break the news. Still, it had to be done.

"Hun, I have something to tell you…" Browneyes paused. "You know Starhands?"

"Pff! Of course I know hym mommy!" Honeymane laughed.

"Well, hy’s… Hy’s very sick." Browneyes steeled hirself. "Hy’s in the hospital."

"Don’t be silly mommy, Starhands isn’t sick, I just saw hym." The child frowned. "Maybe hy hurt hymself when hy fell?"

"I don’t think so, hun." Browneyes frowned, "Sweetheart, Starhands might… might die."

"Die?" The look on Honeymane’s face was a heartbreaking mix of confusion and sadness. "But… hy can’t die!"

Browneyes reached out and pulled the cub into a warm hug. "I know it’s hard, hun, and hy might still pull through… but we have to be prepared for the worst."

Honeymane let out something like a sob and hugged hir mother back as strongly as shi could. "Hy wasn’t sick, mommy!"

"I know, hun; this kind of illness comes on quickly," Browneyes said. "But we have some of the best doctors in the Federation here. Hy might pull through… in fact, I’m sure of it."

"Really?" Honeymane looked hir in the eyes.

"Yes." Unfortunately for Honeymane, Browneyes’ empathic talent was stronger and it wasn’t hard for hir to lie to the child.

Honeymane grinned. "Can we go see Starhands in the hosp’tal mommy? I could make hym a card."

"Sure, hun. Nimbletoes will be along shortly. Shi’s quite upset, so me and Star are going to try and comfort hir," Browneyes said, giving hir daughter a kiss on the forehead. "Perhaps Sugarback can help you with your card. Shi and your grandparents should be home by now."

It seemed impossible, but the blonde-haired cub’s smile grew even wider and brighter before dashing off to gather supplies and head down the hall to Browneyes’ parent’s place.

Browneyes sighed heavily as shi watched the cub go, wondering if shi had given hir too much false hope.

[[File:Separator_k.png]]

Walking down the corridor of the hospital, Browneyes had to wonder who could possibly like such a building, even though medical care had vastly improved since the 20th century, and many medical facilities were hardly whitewashed or smelt heavily of disinfectant. But to hir nose, shi could still smell the uniformity of the scents, and empathically, shi could feel such suffering. After a few moment’s concentration, Browneyes managed to suppress the sensations, thankful for the training that shi had received. Glancing sideways at Fallingstar, shi could tell shi sensed it too. Honeymane led the way, carefully counting off the room numbers on the doors to find the one they wanted. Of the three of them, shi seemed almost oblivious to the environment around hir, and not for the first time in hir life, Browneyes wished shi still had that youthful innocence. Shi hoped this trip wouldn’t take that away from the cub.

"You think Shir Starhands will like my card mommy?" Honeymane turned hir head back and glanced at the two adult taurs. "When I show’d it to Shir Nimbletoes this mornin’, shi started to cry."

Browneyes leaned forward and picked the cub up while trying not to wrinkle hir clothing. None of them were wearing what could be called their Sunday best, but Brown didn’t want to look like some tramp from the street either. At this age Honeymane was starting to get almost too big to carry, even for a taur, but shi managed, and gave hir daughter a kiss on hir forehead. "Shir Nimbletoes is a lot closer to Starhands, sweetheart, this whole thing has affected hir a lot more."

"Oh."

"I think we’re here," interjected Fallingstar. "5210, right?"

Browneyes nodded and awkwardly shifted the cub’s weight in hir arms to free one to give the door a sharp rap. After waiting a few moments for a reply, and getting none, Browneyes opened the door slightly and looked in. Sure enough, the prone figure of the familiar Skunktaur was laying on the room’s only medical bed. Judging from the other items around the room, hy had company, although they appeared to be out at the moment. Browneyes hesitated. Shi wasn’t sure if shi should enter the room uninvited if the other people weren’t there.

Browneyes was about to back away when Honeymane slipped from hir arms and dashed into the room, jumping up onto the bed (thankfully narrowly missing jumping onto Starhands) and giving the unconscious taur a hug. Glancing around and shrugging, Browneyes quickly entered the room with Fallingstar trailing.

"Hy doesn’t look sick at all mommy!" Honeymane exclaimed excitedly, before addressing hir teacher while starting to gently shake hym. "Wakie Wakie Shir! I made you a card. I used glitter and everything!"

"Honeymane…" Browneyes began, walking over to hir daughter and trying to pull the excited cub off before shi did any damage. "I don’t think…"

The cub proved too nimble for Browneyes and danced out of hir grasp, scooting up onto the Skunktaur’s chest, dropping the card and trying to wake hym. "Come on, wake up!" Honeymane said loudly, with an edge of panic in hir voice.

This time Brown managed to pick hir child off the sick Skunktaur, but almost immediately shi knew something was wrong.

"Mommy…" Honeymane said, turning to look wide-eyed at Browneyes, with panic in hir voice. "Why can’t I feel hym?"

For a moment Browneyes didn’t know what shi was talking about, and than it dawned on hir. Looking back at the skunktaur, shi could feel the emptiness, the lack of, for a better word, soul. The body might still be alive, but Starhands was clearly gone. Browneyes held hir child tight as Honeymane started to cry softly against hir shoulder. With a glance at Fallingstar, Browneyes knew it was time for the three of them to leave.

It wasn’t until they were halfway home and Honeymane had cried hirself to sleep before either of them spoke.

"That… wasn’t good." Browneyes said softly, glancing down at the child sleeping between hir forelegs.

"No it wasn’t," the Stellar Foxtaur agreed heartily. "I suppose we should have called this morning. I didn’t realize…"

"Nether did I. I knew hy was in a coma, but still…" Browneyes sighed and rubbed hir forehead. "This is going to screw Honeymane up."

"Maybe," Fallingstar admitted, before reaching over and stroking hir Companion’s cheek. "But kids are pretty resilient. I’m sure shi’ll bounce back."

"And if shi doesn’t?"

"Both of us are experienced counsellors, we’ll be there for hir." The black foxtaur smiled softly. "Don’t worry too much about it."

After a few minutes, the two of them fell into silence as the vehicle sped along the road.

[[File:Separator_k.png]]

The rest of the day was relatively calm. Honeymane spent most of the day looking and feeling quite depressed, and around supper time they received a call from Nimbletoes telling them that the family had decided to withdraw life-support from Starhands, and let hym pass away. The question then was whether or not to attend the funeral.

"Do you think that’s a good idea?" asked Dancer.

"What do you mean?" Browneyes said, turning towards hir mother while nibbling on hir piece of toast, as the adults of the family sat around Browneyes’ parent’s kitchen table, the morning after they had got the call from Nimbletoes.

"Taking Honeymane to the funeral," the dabbled chakat replied. "Shi’s already pretty torn up."

"Yeah, but…" Browneyes frowned, "I think without some sort of closure, being able to say goodbye… Well I just think that’d it’d be a good thing."

Hir mother frowned. "I suppose, but all those sad people… they’re just going to make hir feel worse."

"I agree with your mother," interjected Spadespot. "It’s tragic enough that shi’s lost someone so close to hir at such a young age. Going to the funeral will probably just compound that."

"I disagree," said Sky softly. "I won’t deny that it’ll be hard on hir, but closure is very important."

Browneyes held up hir hands to forestall any further debate. "I’ll ask Honeymane what shi wants to do."

As Browneyes had expected, Honeymane had agreed readily that shi wanted to go to the funeral, settling the matter. Within a few days the two of them had dressed in their best clothing, and attended the funeral. Like chakat funerals, it was much more like a wake than something they were to be sad at, but even so there was no denying that Starhands was going to be sorely missed. As the funeral was winding down, Browneyes decided it was time for them to return home.

"Mom?" Honeymane said, as the PTV drove itself onto the highway.

"Yes?"

"Why do people have to die?" Honeymane’s head was turned, looking out the window, but Browneyes could tell shi was crying a bit.

"I don’t know hun." Browneyes admitted, "It’s just part of life."

"Does it ever go away?"

"What?"

"The pain."

Browneyes leaned over and pulled hir child close into a hug, "Not really, sweetie. It’ll get a bit less every day, and one day, one day soon, you’ll feel better. You won’t forget about Starhands, but…"

"But?" Honeymane said between sniffles.

"But… one day you’ll feel okay, and you’ll go on with your life, just like Starhands would want."

Honeymane sniffled and hugged hir mother closely, losing hirself in the warm embrace.

[[category:Honeymane]] [[category:Chakona Space]] [[category:taur]] [[category:Story]]

User:Honeymane

2011-02-20T04:37:16Z

Honeymane: Created page with 'Starhands'

[[Starhands]]