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Tigereans and Weres: Thanksgiving and the Hexataur...
From the work in progress.
November 27th
This year’s thanksgiving was a bit stranger than normal, primarily because when I was invited the week before by the usual suspects, I was explicitly told to bring my mates with. Apparently, they got the memo, and I reckoned I was going to have to figure out a genteel way of instructing my family about how tigerean family bonding occurred. It wasn't that Ch’Mrr was openly gay or anything, (He described it as ‘omnisexual’ when I asked him about several months back after we all started sharing a bed during the courtship) but the culture was a bit different in respect to what humanity’s customs normally ran to. About the closest human equivalent that I could think of would be a three-way (four-way if you knew what we knew) polyamorous relationship, but without the messy sexual overtones which typically accompanied such descriptions. From my research, most of the popular notions of poly were wrong anyhow, much like a certain internet subculture that I was also being publicly compared to by the LCA, before we managed to silence them.
In any case, we decided this time we would be subtle in our visit to my uncle’s place. One of the suburbans was procured, and as I had been told that ‘we didn’t have to bring anything but something would be nice’, Ch’Mrr and Sh’Meral brought a dish from homeworld. I had tasted it ahead of time and declared it not only delicious but definitely something worth sharing, although I did ask what it was and what it was made of after I tasted it, largely for allergy information. So we had a good portion of it, ourselves, and the usual assortment of concealed weapons. I had something else, in addition: Katholos had taught me how to let her ‘listen in’ as she did for me that first afternoon after she had fully awoken. So she was listening in as we dismounted our fearless metal stead for this trip, one of T’Grlf’s modified suburbans. I was thankful that the trip was over, at least. Ch’Mrr, like the other tigereans I had driven around with, tended to drive our vehicles like they had just stolen them. I did have to remind him at least once to keep it under 80- With T’Grlf’s re-worked drivetrain and other modifications, the big vehicle would easily outrun anything that the state police had.
As I got out of the passenger seat and walked around to assist Sh’Meral out with the food, I heard the chorus of dogs barking. As we got to the door, the barking abruptly stopped and I actually heard whimpers as the door was unlocked for us. This time after I entered and got my boots off, my cousin asked if he could talk to me privately for a minute or two. I felt Kat’s concern skyrocket as she perceived the hostility that he reeked of, but I knew that I could handle him. As he led me outside, I caught a whiff of... something that he thought would have surprised me. I had enough energy stored that I was able to ‘port the required parts out and into a pocket, and a little left over to drop a bubble over the house.
Sure enough, as soon as the back door closed, he whipped out the gun. “My friend, you are going to need something a lot bigger and meaner then that,” I said with a hint of boredom and annoyance on my voice. I reached into my pocket and pulled the firing pin, chambered round, and stunner out. “I think I’ll hand these back to you later, once you’ve explained to me just what the hell you are thinking.” Slapping the stunner’s butt against my waist, It charged up with the now familiar phrrrrmm! noise that indicated that the stunner was ready to rock n roll.
It took a couple minutes to diffuse him and get a valid explanation out of him, which boiled down to a case of xenophobia and a bit of hostility toward me and my apparent tastes. As he wound down, I ‘pathed a short message to Sh’Meral and Ch’Mrr. [dragging my xenophobic cousin back inside and ‘outing’ myself to the crew] As I opened the door, I said to him “My choice in mates will become apparent in about two minutes, if you’d like to go back inside?”
As he went inside, I drained the stunner and put it and the firearm parts back in my pocket. And here we go... I thought. Mom looked at me with a very worried expression on her face and asked if I was all right. I nodded, and launched right in. “I have something I need to explain to y’all. As you know, the press has been.. not as polite about the announcement we made a couple weeks ago. The reaction at the embassy has been interesting as well, with at least two confirmed bomb threats and one very poor misguided attempt at damaging the building that the embassy is housed in. The press has also taken to launching personal attacks on my character, which I have fended off as best as I’ve been able to. I have also spent a considerable amount of time and energy protecting y’all from the press as well. I want to show you why I am taking this as I am.”
At the word why, I triggered the shift to my armored hybrid form after dropping a transparent shield bubble around me- a shape shift was about the only time I was completely vulnerable, and I did not want to take the chance that someone else would try something stupid. The entire room was stunned, except for mom, who had already seen the show a month ago. My uncle broke the silence and stated flatly, “That explains why you took your boots off.”
I nodded, and continued. “Yep. Clothing isn’t affected by the shapeshift. Fortunately, I’m reasonably competent with working a sewing machine. This happened to me back in May, and I’ve spent the past six months learning how to deal with it and all the other curve balls and occasional grenade that have been flung at my head. It’s been rough at times, but I’ve managed to get by with help from my friends.”
While explaining what I had become was pretty easy and straightforward, explaining how I fell in love with a pair of furry aliens boiled down to ‘because we love each other, and if you don’t like it you can kiss our furry striped asses’. And frankly, I didn’t really care about what certain portions of my extended family thought- the people who’s opinions I trusted and valued had given me their blessing a month ago before we even proposed. Katholos’s only statement after I had said my piece was [Damn skippy.]
Once we had cleared the air on that matter, thanksgiving dinner was pretty straight forward. The turkey, for once, was absolutely perfect, the ham was excellent, I shocked the ever living hell out of my relatives by not eating all the deviled eggs (that honor went, sadly, to Sh’Meral!), and the roasted Rrr’th’ka’ss was an excellent accompaniment to the jellied cranberries. There was a small side discussion on how the container was room temperature on the outside, yet the food on the inside looked like it has just been prepared. Ch’Mrr chuffed and said that it was their world’s version of a picnic basket.
Two Days later
I was fortunate that Ch’Mrr and Sh’Meral choose not to participate in that other great American thanksgiving traditions: Black Friday. Instead, we put in a half day at the embassy, celebrated a traditional Tigerean festival with a giant conflagration and feast, and Saturday we slept in rather late with a massive hangover.
The condition that Katholos and I woke up in was pretty much a direct result of drinking a few too many Ka’stoo Sunrises and some practical experimentation with the polymorph spell I had learned a couple months ago from the Archmage. While it wasn’t a true ‘taur form, it was six-limbed and looked and the movement/skeletal structure acted more like a Nikitak. It also helped that the four of us were pretty well blitzed at the time.
In any case, I woke up, and found that I was snuggling with both Sh’Meral and Ch’Mrr- He was facing my front; his muzzle was tucked under mine, I had the upper set of arms wrapped around his shoulders, the middle set of limbs were holding on to his ass, and his legs were intertwined with mine. Sh’Meral was smuggling partially along my back, with her muzzle parked on my forehead between my ears and her arms hugging between my upper and middle limbs. It appeared that I was pretty much tangled up with my three lifemates, with me being the first one awake and not having full control of the body. So, I decided to review what memories I had of the previous night and waited for the others to wake up.
Katholos joined me a few minutes later, which pretty much doubled the headache value.[I take it that you are responsible for the hands on his ass, yes?] the response I got back was largely incoherent, and also largely unprintable; I ended up filing away some of the more original combinations for future use. It was also at that point that I discovered that we were stuck in this form.
It was almost half an hour later that the other two woke up and we all got un-tangled. Ch’Mrr was a peach and volunteered to make breakfast whilst Sh’Meral got stuck with trying to keep Katholos and I from crashing into things; This form required the two of us to work very closely for coordination, and as a result; we ended up wall surfing from the bedroom to the bathroom (Oy! what a chore!) and to the back room where we ended up eating.
After breakfast (which was made more bearable by a couple drops of pain medication to ease the hangovers) Sh’Meral reminded us that the Archmage was going to swing by and see what he could do to help us revert back to normal. Fortunately, that was the most embarrassing thing that the day brought us, at least until Ch’Mrr brought out the pictures from the night previous and showed them to the Archmage. His only response was that this is drinking and spell-casting don't generally mix.
November 27th
This year’s thanksgiving was a bit stranger than normal, primarily because when I was invited the week before by the usual suspects, I was explicitly told to bring my mates with. Apparently, they got the memo, and I reckoned I was going to have to figure out a genteel way of instructing my family about how tigerean family bonding occurred. It wasn't that Ch’Mrr was openly gay or anything, (He described it as ‘omnisexual’ when I asked him about several months back after we all started sharing a bed during the courtship) but the culture was a bit different in respect to what humanity’s customs normally ran to. About the closest human equivalent that I could think of would be a three-way (four-way if you knew what we knew) polyamorous relationship, but without the messy sexual overtones which typically accompanied such descriptions. From my research, most of the popular notions of poly were wrong anyhow, much like a certain internet subculture that I was also being publicly compared to by the LCA, before we managed to silence them.
In any case, we decided this time we would be subtle in our visit to my uncle’s place. One of the suburbans was procured, and as I had been told that ‘we didn’t have to bring anything but something would be nice’, Ch’Mrr and Sh’Meral brought a dish from homeworld. I had tasted it ahead of time and declared it not only delicious but definitely something worth sharing, although I did ask what it was and what it was made of after I tasted it, largely for allergy information. So we had a good portion of it, ourselves, and the usual assortment of concealed weapons. I had something else, in addition: Katholos had taught me how to let her ‘listen in’ as she did for me that first afternoon after she had fully awoken. So she was listening in as we dismounted our fearless metal stead for this trip, one of T’Grlf’s modified suburbans. I was thankful that the trip was over, at least. Ch’Mrr, like the other tigereans I had driven around with, tended to drive our vehicles like they had just stolen them. I did have to remind him at least once to keep it under 80- With T’Grlf’s re-worked drivetrain and other modifications, the big vehicle would easily outrun anything that the state police had.
As I got out of the passenger seat and walked around to assist Sh’Meral out with the food, I heard the chorus of dogs barking. As we got to the door, the barking abruptly stopped and I actually heard whimpers as the door was unlocked for us. This time after I entered and got my boots off, my cousin asked if he could talk to me privately for a minute or two. I felt Kat’s concern skyrocket as she perceived the hostility that he reeked of, but I knew that I could handle him. As he led me outside, I caught a whiff of... something that he thought would have surprised me. I had enough energy stored that I was able to ‘port the required parts out and into a pocket, and a little left over to drop a bubble over the house.
Sure enough, as soon as the back door closed, he whipped out the gun. “My friend, you are going to need something a lot bigger and meaner then that,” I said with a hint of boredom and annoyance on my voice. I reached into my pocket and pulled the firing pin, chambered round, and stunner out. “I think I’ll hand these back to you later, once you’ve explained to me just what the hell you are thinking.” Slapping the stunner’s butt against my waist, It charged up with the now familiar phrrrrmm! noise that indicated that the stunner was ready to rock n roll.
It took a couple minutes to diffuse him and get a valid explanation out of him, which boiled down to a case of xenophobia and a bit of hostility toward me and my apparent tastes. As he wound down, I ‘pathed a short message to Sh’Meral and Ch’Mrr. [dragging my xenophobic cousin back inside and ‘outing’ myself to the crew] As I opened the door, I said to him “My choice in mates will become apparent in about two minutes, if you’d like to go back inside?”
As he went inside, I drained the stunner and put it and the firearm parts back in my pocket. And here we go... I thought. Mom looked at me with a very worried expression on her face and asked if I was all right. I nodded, and launched right in. “I have something I need to explain to y’all. As you know, the press has been.. not as polite about the announcement we made a couple weeks ago. The reaction at the embassy has been interesting as well, with at least two confirmed bomb threats and one very poor misguided attempt at damaging the building that the embassy is housed in. The press has also taken to launching personal attacks on my character, which I have fended off as best as I’ve been able to. I have also spent a considerable amount of time and energy protecting y’all from the press as well. I want to show you why I am taking this as I am.”
At the word why, I triggered the shift to my armored hybrid form after dropping a transparent shield bubble around me- a shape shift was about the only time I was completely vulnerable, and I did not want to take the chance that someone else would try something stupid. The entire room was stunned, except for mom, who had already seen the show a month ago. My uncle broke the silence and stated flatly, “That explains why you took your boots off.”
I nodded, and continued. “Yep. Clothing isn’t affected by the shapeshift. Fortunately, I’m reasonably competent with working a sewing machine. This happened to me back in May, and I’ve spent the past six months learning how to deal with it and all the other curve balls and occasional grenade that have been flung at my head. It’s been rough at times, but I’ve managed to get by with help from my friends.”
While explaining what I had become was pretty easy and straightforward, explaining how I fell in love with a pair of furry aliens boiled down to ‘because we love each other, and if you don’t like it you can kiss our furry striped asses’. And frankly, I didn’t really care about what certain portions of my extended family thought- the people who’s opinions I trusted and valued had given me their blessing a month ago before we even proposed. Katholos’s only statement after I had said my piece was [Damn skippy.]
Once we had cleared the air on that matter, thanksgiving dinner was pretty straight forward. The turkey, for once, was absolutely perfect, the ham was excellent, I shocked the ever living hell out of my relatives by not eating all the deviled eggs (that honor went, sadly, to Sh’Meral!), and the roasted Rrr’th’ka’ss was an excellent accompaniment to the jellied cranberries. There was a small side discussion on how the container was room temperature on the outside, yet the food on the inside looked like it has just been prepared. Ch’Mrr chuffed and said that it was their world’s version of a picnic basket.
Two Days later
I was fortunate that Ch’Mrr and Sh’Meral choose not to participate in that other great American thanksgiving traditions: Black Friday. Instead, we put in a half day at the embassy, celebrated a traditional Tigerean festival with a giant conflagration and feast, and Saturday we slept in rather late with a massive hangover.
The condition that Katholos and I woke up in was pretty much a direct result of drinking a few too many Ka’stoo Sunrises and some practical experimentation with the polymorph spell I had learned a couple months ago from the Archmage. While it wasn’t a true ‘taur form, it was six-limbed and looked and the movement/skeletal structure acted more like a Nikitak. It also helped that the four of us were pretty well blitzed at the time.
In any case, I woke up, and found that I was snuggling with both Sh’Meral and Ch’Mrr- He was facing my front; his muzzle was tucked under mine, I had the upper set of arms wrapped around his shoulders, the middle set of limbs were holding on to his ass, and his legs were intertwined with mine. Sh’Meral was smuggling partially along my back, with her muzzle parked on my forehead between my ears and her arms hugging between my upper and middle limbs. It appeared that I was pretty much tangled up with my three lifemates, with me being the first one awake and not having full control of the body. So, I decided to review what memories I had of the previous night and waited for the others to wake up.
Katholos joined me a few minutes later, which pretty much doubled the headache value.[I take it that you are responsible for the hands on his ass, yes?] the response I got back was largely incoherent, and also largely unprintable; I ended up filing away some of the more original combinations for future use. It was also at that point that I discovered that we were stuck in this form.
It was almost half an hour later that the other two woke up and we all got un-tangled. Ch’Mrr was a peach and volunteered to make breakfast whilst Sh’Meral got stuck with trying to keep Katholos and I from crashing into things; This form required the two of us to work very closely for coordination, and as a result; we ended up wall surfing from the bedroom to the bathroom (Oy! what a chore!) and to the back room where we ended up eating.
After breakfast (which was made more bearable by a couple drops of pain medication to ease the hangovers) Sh’Meral reminded us that the Archmage was going to swing by and see what he could do to help us revert back to normal. Fortunately, that was the most embarrassing thing that the day brought us, at least until Ch’Mrr brought out the pictures from the night previous and showed them to the Archmage. His only response was that this is drinking and spell-casting don't generally mix.