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Walpurgisnacht

I wasn't fully aware of holding my breath until it came out in a rush of air, in a gasp, in sounds that had tried to be words and failed. Abram stood calmly before me, his soft amber eyes gazing at me half-lidded, breathing steadily, his three tails moving so very slowly behind him. Kitsune are not mythical, merely rare, and as such, myths have sprung up around them. The most widely-told tale was no longer mythical to me: Kitsune have more than one tail, although they can disguise themselves by appearing to have only one. Abram had taken away the most important of his masks, and although he was still largely covered by the robe, he could not have been more naked before me.

The fox put a forepaw gently to my head, touching me with so much tenderness that I nearly swooned. Catching my breath again, I looked into his eyes and whispered, "Have you cast magic upon me?"

"No." Abram shook his head a little. "I sensed you without any need for magic."

"But you could."

"Never, without your quite explicit consent."

"I felt..."

Now, he nodded. "Yes, you did. That was your magic."

A shiver ruffled my fur from tip to tail, and I felt my ears splay. "My...?"

"How long have you read Tarot?"

I swallowed. "Forty years now."

A slight smile accompanied the fox's nod. "In the penny dreadfuls of long ago, this would be the place where I ask why you have not claimed your rightful gifts and chosen your side in the great battle of good versus evil. Happily, such panting melodrama is largely fictitious."

The writer in me found a word to cling to. "Largely?"

"Little is what it seems." Abram caressed my head softly. "You have noticed how so many furs seem to be willing to accept only what they see, and that they see so little. You have written stories about it. No, I've not read them, not yet. I didn't lie to you, and I will not; I do love to read, but I've not read your tales. Phil told me a few things about them, and the rest is, as the saying has it, what you wear on your sleeve. You are perhaps your greatest example of what I'm talking about. You are taken only at face value, are you not? The wolfen book judged by its care-worn cover?"

I felt the tears start in my eyes before I could stop them, and his eyes never left mine as he touched my cheek with a tender finger.

"Tristan," he whispered, tasting my name as none had before. "I feel your need. And I feel your shame, which is not necessary. That, too, is a mask, but it is one that others have forced upon you, to the point that it has fused into your Self. Release it as best you can this night, and if you will let me, I will help you remove it entirely, in time. Tonight, now, let yourself feel your need."

I swallowed hard, fighting it still. I couldn't do otherwise. I was raised to be ashamed of everything I did, to keep me "humble" (submissive) to my parents, then to my teachers, then to my professors, then to everyone who controlled anything outside of myself until I grew to police myself, make myself small, shush and shame myself so no one else had to be bothered. Every action I took was a failure, or ineffective, or insignificant, and even triumphs were belittled from within or without. And then_he_ came, the agent who infiltrated the depths of my heart and destroyed me...

"Who was he?"

My eyes widened, tears spilling from them.

"No magic. It takes a great and intimate betrayal to hurt as much, as deeply, as you hurt. I know that you love males, so the 'he' took no leap of logic. It must have been terrible for you." The fox leaned over and hugged me, nuzzling my ear. "Stand up and hold me. It's all right. Hold me."

He helped me stand on my quivering legs, my weak knees, my sore back, my aching heart, and I threw my arms around him and held him tightly, breath hitching with sobs held back for months, years, decades. I felt him hold me, pet me, his chin over my shoulder, his muzzle close to my ear, making sounds that might have been words if I had known the language. I tried not to scream, afraid of waking others, afraid of being unable to stop, afraid of being punished for crying, afraid...

"Ask, Tristan. Ask. I will give. Ask."

"Help me," I whimpered. "Abram, I hurt so much, help me..."

The words, the sound, changed. I barked a cry once, feeling the most horrifying pain I'd ever experienced, until I realized that the pain was actually the absence of pain, the sensation of feeling my pain being set aside, of being given a moment of tenderness, of peace, of something that might, if I dared to give it a name, could be called "worth."

"You're not 'cured,' dear one," the fox whispered. "I have helped you step outside of the pain, to show you what it would feel like to be rid of it. You will have to do the work, but now you know what you are working for." He kissed my muzzle chastely. "I want something of you, wolf. I want you to join me in my bed and tell me what happened. Tell me what he did to you. Share your deepest story with me, Tristan, and take off your last mask before me. Please, let me See you."

See...

Long moments passed as I continued to weep and tremble in his embrace. I was aware of my fear and uncertainty, but at least for the moment, it was set aside; what I felt most was relief, safety, and yes, need. I finally managed to nod, and he pulled gently away from me, nuzzling my muzzle with his own. He took my forepaw and led me slowly to his bedroom. There, he paused, looking into my eyes again. I saw the question there, the simple, genuinely innocent question. My head balked, my heart needed, my spirit trusted. In shy little movements, I doffed my clothing as the fox took off his robe and adornments, slipping silently onto the bed and inviting me to join him. Still shaky, I wasn't nearly so graceful at joining him, but his welcoming smile told me not to worry about it. He took me into his arms again, holding me close, and I rested my head against his cream-colored chest, my nose taking in his scent as discreetly as possible. Truth told, he probably wouldn't have said a word if I'd buried my muzzle in whatever part of his body my nose most wanted to visit, but I didn't think I had been invited for sex. After a long moment, I raised my head to look into his eyes again, to see and be seen, and he moved his muzzle close, touching his closed lips to mine. I felt his magic, my magic, and in that moment, I knew no fear.

I broke the kiss as gently as possible, sighing, moving my forehead to touch his. "You could step into my soul. You could know all."

"Words," he whispered. "You need words."

I nodded against him, not wanting to lose the touch. "Yes."

He pet me softly. "When you are ready."

Ready? How could I ever be ready? My muzzle dipped into the ruff of fur at his neck, and his scent calmed me. "Fourteen years..."

* * * * * * * * * *

How did you begin, Tristan? How did the two of you start?

We met fourteen years ago; he was 19, although he seemed older. Fiercely bright, curious, innocent in some ways and demon-touched in others. He had the magic in him also in those early years. I never learned what it was that had made his soul put up such barriers and protections, but I gave him a place to find sanctuary from them. We met on an April evening, by accident of a group playing Pente, one of the few strategy games I can compete in. He captivated me in a way that I didn't understand. When the games were done, I invited him to my home -- I had one, in those days -- and we talked for a few hours, and cuddled a little, and shared a few kisses. He had to leave, and we agreed to meet there the next day. I was so sure of what I felt that I gave him a key to my house, telling him to let himself in if I hadn't completed my errands in time to meet him properly. That was how deeply my own magic touched his. That was how it began.

Our first lovemaking was his first with a male; prior to that, he told me, he'd had a few fumbling attempts with a female. I gave him all that I could of myself, my experience, my affection. He learned quickly, that one, and we grew to love each other. I have to believe that, even now; it felt like love then, and I have to believe that it was. Hindsight has not poisoned me utterly.

Over the next weeks, our loving allowed him to show his psychic and magical abilities to me. I came to understand that he had received no training in his gift, and it had overwhelmed him. He had, without fully knowing, opened some doors that are dangerous for the uninitiated to knock upon. I had my Medicine Man to help me, and in fact, he had sensed this strange male at my periphery and wondered who he was. Tshwawik could smell him from hundreds of kilometers away, knew his magic, his species, his name, and we spoke of who he would be to me. My first duty was to help him wrest the demons from him, and this I did. Could it be that he loved me only for freeing him, from that prison and from the one that he perceived his home city to be? He wished to escape his dam and sire, for reasons that were never clear to me, even after all these years; he wished to escape his home city for similar or different reasons, temporal or spiritual. I was to be his meal and travel ticket away from that place.

How easy to see the subtle abuses from hindsight! Fourteen years ago, a magical night, and for weeks after, a cleansing from the demons he had taken into himself... all but one. It was, as I was to discover, the one he had been born with, but it was not evil to begin with. You know, Abram, that all who are born with some touch of magic must choose the way it will manifest. He chose safety for himself first, but he erred in what he thought was safety; he didn't guard his heart, he blocked it, and he let the magic get out of his control. When, with my help, he had brought the magic back to work for him, he erred again, choosing to make it servile to his artificial mastery. Thus did it fester and become demon-like under a yoke of his own cruelty, a streak I did not detect in him for a long time.

How did you discover this?

Over the course of years. Little comments that I ignored, thinking them the impetuous words of youth and inexperience. Little changes in his attitude toward me. For so long, all before we left that city where we met, he was attentive, considerate, affectionate, helpful, curious. I became a happy senpai to his eager kohai. I would read to him before we slept, works of wonderful fiction that stimulated his mind. I took him on journeys into stories and realms that most his age had never even considered before. I gave him entre to whole worlds of great films and series that aired long before the year of his birth, disproving the youthful conceit that nothing "good" happened in the world before he graced it with is presence. I gave to him my home, my heart, my mind, my experience, my emotional and financial support, for those first many years.

What changed?

It started with the move. I was his escape. Then came my own financial hardships, due partly to having to abandon a house in a poor market. Suddenly, I didn't have the money that he was used to spending. We both worked as best we could, but it got worse, and we had to take refuge in someone else's house. That became tenuous after she failed to get him into bed with her.

What made her think he was available?

He had always claimed bisexuality, and I never stopped him from exploring whatever females he wanted. It didn't occur to me for a very long time that he had no interest in any other males. I thought it flattering; I was the only male who interested him. We were still together, occasionally being sexual together, less and less over time. Loving touch is a need in me, a hunger, and he said that he did not begrudge me my occasional dalliances with other males, when I could find them. He had more and more interest in females, and eventually, he ceased even pretending to have an interest in me. In hindsight, I realized just how he had carefully taken what he wanted from me and rid himself of the rest. I bought clothes for him, books, music, I bought his car... not some cheap junker, either; it was used, but only two years old, and it cost over ten thousand, but he fell in love with it, named it, drove it everywhere. On my insurance. On my gas cards and my maintenance, for a while.

About seven years ago, even though we'd been able to move out on our own, things started going south in more important ways. We both worked low-end jobs at the same company, and he shot his mouth off about something, a phrase that a co-worker took as a bomb threat, and got us both fired. Happily, the company management was stupid, and they failed to block our unemployment. I found more work for a time; he stayed home, playing video games. That's not a bad thing, in itself, but it was part of the pattern that was developing; he never worked, if he didn't have to, and he barely even pretended to look for work. He began to lose interest in things that we had found together or that I had shown to him. I tried to take an interest in the things that occupied his attention, but he seemed to work at not including me, and frankly, I'd not been able to be part of his gaming, nor his friends, from our first days together. I continued to be blinded to the realization that his magic had regressed, had become less a part of his daily self, started turning him inward and backward. He stopped caring, not just about me but about everything that wasn't in his immediate circle of interest. Plans to go to college, to get certifications, even to read to improve his mind... it all began fading. I was still smitten with him, did what I could to keep going, tried to keep him interested in something, anything. I failed.

Then I became ill, had surgery, recovered, tried to go back to work... That was when the changes slowly grew obvious to me. Such little things as a kiss before sleep, wanting to cuddle, asking about each other's days, all had begun to vanish. Such large things as his avoiding any sexual contact with me at all, a full five years prior to the end of the relationship, even before the surgery that he claimed had changed me so much, made me old. I came to realize that he spent more time in his small room, where he kept his computer and gaming systems, than he did with me. For more than a year, he preferred leaving for his work on Friday morning, staying with his friends all weekend, and not returning until sometime Monday evening, or Tuesday, if it were a long weekend. He avoided contact, conversation, everything.

Why did you not make him leave?

He gave me money from his work each week. I became dependent upon it. I was foolish about it; despite the signs, I did little to save any of it, to prepare for his leaving me, because I thought it wouldn't end. We were part of each other, just short of being legally wed; we had called each other "husband," in earlier years, and I thought we'd work through it, or at least just manage to keep from separating. Again, hindsight either clarifies or poisons my thoughts. Perhaps we never were part of each other after all, or perhaps we just grew apart... except that he didn't grow. It wasn't that he was becoming something more, something that was complete without me, something that could have made our parting something that we could have worked through. He became less. What magic he still had in him became truly demonic; he let it devour his soul. He... devolved.

That sounds horrible.

Perhaps I'm being cruel. He was a few years more than half my age when he left me, although he behaved as if he were half his own age. Irresponsible, without empathy, wasteful, cruel... When he came to tell me that he was "finally done" with me, he said that he hated me, hated my presence, hated my conversation, hated my aging, and that he was "tired of waiting around for me to die." He tried to abscond with the car, which was still in my name; police had to be involved, despite how much I hated it. He found a way to manipulate the law to his favor, and it would have cost me thousands to take possession of a car that he had trashed into being worth far, far less. It was the last thing he took from me, apart from whatever was left of my self-worth.

I cleaned out his room, since he couldn't be bothered. You want to talk about filth? The things I found, including a great many of my own possessions that I thought had disappeared somewhere -- books, videos, collectable items. Perhaps it was lucky that I was able to go through it before he took back his own things. In a closet in which he had simply thrown whatever was in his way, I found a masturbation toy, as a substitute for my attentions, perhaps; that, plus a filthy cum rag, disproving his claim that he "just didn't have much sex drive anymore." The toy, I might add, showed a female orifice, which was not surprising. The uncollected garbage, the trash, the dust, the grime, and the bottles... soda bottles, yes, but also beer bottles, rum bottles... it explains so much.

Was he alcoholic?

Not before. He had always claimed to despise beer, and I never saw him drink, although in later years, he apparently got a taste for some forms of mixed drinks. It wasn't the only one of his vices. He smoked cigarettes for a while, quit, then went back to smoking. I couldn't live with the smell and smoke of it, and I tried to get him to stop doing it. He smoked at work, he said, in order to "be calm enough not to kill the boss." Even when the cost became prohibitive, he took to eating cheap food in order to sustain his habit, blaming me for his not having enough money to do other things with. The coughing, the frequent illness when he didn't used to get sick, all this told me that his health was getting worse from his smoking. The booze... I didn't know about that until I cleaned out the room. I'm neither prude nor teetotaler, and at the risk of sounding like a cliché, I've got friends who drink. They aren't alcoholic, though, and they rarely binge. They don't rely on it as pain-killer. I can only guess that he did, with secret and private drinking. You know, when I thought about it, It explained a lot. Those mornings when he would wake, go puke, ask me to call in sick for him, because he had "a stomach bug"; he'd go back to sleep until sometime past noon, then get up, drive to a Chinese take-out, and come back to gulp an entire quart of spicy food without blinking. If one is sick with gastric flu, one doesn't pound down huge amounts of any food, much less two-pepper dishes. It's said to help a hangover, however.

So many times, even before he left, I asked myself, what did you not do that you should have done? How could I have been a better mate, how could I have saved the relationship? I'm not sure if his demon drove him to this, or if it was the friends he found and, eventually, moved in with. I don't know if this was some inevitable fate, or his desire, or just his response to changing fortune. He would no doubt claim that I was responsible for all this, that I pushed him away, that I made him withdraw, that I drove him to drink. Perhaps he's right. This wasn't the first time that I've lost someone I loved or desired. I have had furs tell me that my love is toxic. That exact word. Maybe they're right. I sometimes think that I have driven away anyone and everyone, that I'm unlovable...

* * * * * * * * * *

I yelped suddenly as I felt a fist grip my muzzle tight and shake me. Abram held me fast and looked deeply into my eyes.

"I know what you are," he growled low and hard. "I've known you before, and by many names, and I've taken you down each time."

My heart pounded. What did he... why was he... I regained myself enough to try pushing against the vulpine, to hit, to grab his forearms--

"Tristan." His voice was normal again, quick, clear. "I need you to trust me. Look into my eyes and trust me. Listen to my voice. Can you hear me? Blink once."

I blinked, despite my racing pulse and terrified wits. Why was he attacking me? Was he trying to kill me? Was he--

"You asked for my help. I'm going to trust that. Look in my eyes and listen closely."

Once more, I blinked, gripped by my fear as surely as he gripped my muzzle with a fist more powerful than one would expect from any fox, even a magical one.

He leaned closer, his eyes boring into mine, his pupils dilating like a predator, his ears back, his tails... I couldn't see them, but they seemed to me to be still, to be... what was he doing, what was he saying... the words, nothing I could know, but they terrified me, made me want to scream, to fight back, to try to hurt, to maim, to kill...

No. Not me. Something else. Something...

...inside.

I felt his other forepaw touching my chest, touching the stripe of white fur amid the blackness that otherwise covered me from tip to tail. It was the incision point for the surgery; fur never comes back in its original color, only in a death's head white, looming over my heart, to remind me of borrowed time. I felt something burning, as if the pads of his forepaw had grown hot, hotter, waiting only for the smell of burning fur.

It was here that I knew what words he spoke. It was a Name, and a command. I won't repeat them here, just in case anyone might think it somehow funny to repeat them. I jerked backward as Abram's forepaw released my muzzle, grabbing hold of something else that I could not see, clutching it tightly in a choke-hold. I heard something like retching, guttural attempts at words, but I said nothing, and the Kitsune's muzzle was closed tightly. The fox's lips curled up in a barely-controlled snarl of contempt and loathing.

"Name him."

I felt my brows cross, shook my head, don't understand, I don't understand...

A deep growl. "Name him."

Thinking no further, I barked out the name of the one who had plagued me so terribly, the one who had tried to destroy me, the one who could no longer wait around for me simply to die. The name, the few syllables that stood for nothing good in my world, the sounds that made up something that had used me until he had no further use for me.

The scream was deafening, agonized, the last cry of a spirit before it is forever damned to the eternal horror of being finally and truly lost to all it could have known and loved. My forepaws shot to my ears, but covering them brought no quiet, no comfort, for the sound was heard through my soul and could not be quieted. My breath quickened, I felt my sobs returning, and I knew that I too would be screaming, a great fireball shriek that would never stop...

A forepaw touched my shoulder. "Tristan." The fox's voice was soft in my ears, supplanting the scream, making it waver and fade, thinner and thinner, until only his voice remained. "It's okay. Take a look. It's safe."

Only very slowly did I open my eyes, to behold the fox's forepaw extended gently toward me, palm up, and upon his jet-black carpal pad lay an object perhaps seven or eight centimeters long, a dingy white, curved like a fang or a claw, ending in a point like either. I couldn't tell if the vulpine's paw was trembling or if the claw-thing were moving of its own accord. My eyes flicked upward to Abram's own, and he nodded. My own forepaw trembling, I took the thing carefully between two fingers, brought it to my eyes to examine it. "What--" I began and cut myself off. There in Abram's room, in his bed, I couldn't form words. Later, I knew, I understood more fully. In that moment, I could only ask with my eyes.

The Kitsune indicated the table next to his bed, and I set the thing down onto it and turned back to him. He didn't reach for me right away. "Are you all right?"

"A matter of opinion." My mind was returning to me, and I felt somewhere between six years older and fourteen years younger. I continued looking into his eyes, reaching up to touch his cheek tenderly. I couldn't quite form the words, but he nodded gently.

"That one is very old. Cagey. Had his fangs and claws into you from an early age, far longer ago than your most recent tormentor, but they are related. That was what beguiled you, Tristan. It happens far more frequently than you might believe. His demon recognized your demon, and the two worked to destroy you both. It just happened in different ways. Do you remember telling me about giving him a key to your house that first night? You felt so certain of the magic that you felt so much trust. That was the beginning. That was when the two demons saw how they could collaborate, work to claim you both. They used his fear and your need. He succumbed; you didn't."

"Then he really never loved me?"

"I can't say that with any certainty, sweet wolf. I can only tell you that the demons were in on it from the beginning."

"Why didn't Tshwawik see it, warn me?"

"Why did he not speak to you of your own demon?"

The words struck like a fist to my gut, and Abram held me until I could get my breath back. My mind still reeled, processing fears and doubts I'd housed for years. I struggled to understand. "Did you know that one of my college majors was psychology?" The Kitsune shook his head. "In ordinary terms, it might be a mutual exploitation of weaknesses, perhaps a form of codependence, although that term masks a multitude of evils." I snorted softly. "We keep coming back to masks."

"They are what we use, whether they help describe us or help conceal us. In my learning, demons work to make us become our masks instead of becoming ourselves. Discernment is the magical talent of seeing past the masks, of knowing the dancer from the dance."

"Is it... gone?"

"Mostly." The fox smiled. "Words will help heal the parts that are still wounded. Knowing uses discernment; understanding uses words. That's one of the reasons that you have survived your demon for so long -- you have always understood the magic of words."

I jerked my head backward, indicating the artifact on the table behind me. "What should I do with that?"

"You could drill a hole in it, loop a chain through it, and wear it around your neck, if you wished. So far as you're concerned, or so far as its control over you, you've killed it. Wear the trophy to remember that, as our tribal ancestors did. Helluva conversation piece."

That made me laugh, in spite or because of my sense of hysteria. Abram smiled at me, and I leaned in to nuzzle his muzzle. "Saying 'thank you' doesn't seem like enough."

"What would seem like 'enough' for you, Tristan?"

"I'll not be a cad." My smile warmed to him. "Old defense mechanisms. You know them well, I would suspect."

"Yes." The fox considered. "I hope you won't think me forward if I said 'not tonight'."

"Not at all." I let the sensation of warmth wash over me as the implication of his phrasing struck home with me. "Abram... would you think me forward if I asked to stay with you tonight? Even on the sofa, if you prefer. I have the feeling that I don't want to wake up alone tomorrow. Well, today," I corrected with a chuckle.

"I think I'd have insisted. You've been through a lot tonight; I'd be worried about you."

"Sofa?"

"Spoon?"

I swallowed. "I'd prefer that."

For a moment, it felt as if neither of us knew which way to turn, literally. With soft laughter, the Kitsune helped me turn so that he pressed up against my back, and I nestled into his embrace as if born to it. The only down side, for me, was that I faced the bedside table upon which that still-frightening tooth lay too whitely in the darkness of the room. "Abram?" I called softly.

"Yes, pup?"

The word surprised me at first, until it occurred to me that was wrapped in the arms of a male who was no less than 200 years old. "Is it okay that I'm still scared?"

"Of course it is, Tristan. But you don't have to be scared, if you don't want to be."

"Why?"

"For one thing, you're very strong. You've kept that beast inside you at bay for decades, even when another beast tried to join it to destroy you. For another, you've faced even more frightening things, like a blank page waiting for a story, and you have triumphed."

"Doesn't feel like it."

"I know it doesn't. So I'm going to tell you an even better reason why you don't have to be afraid."

"What reason is that?"

I felt his arms squeeze me gently, his muzzle kiss my neck and the back of my head, and then his lips reaching up to my ear, and he whispered, "Because you have family."

The words flowed through me in a warm, golden haze, wrapping around my heart, soothing me even as I let forth one last whimper. As I dreamed awake, I danced with the fox, free to express whatever I wished, graceful, maskless, his three luxuriously beautiful tails waving hypnotically, coaxing me into the first truly blissful sleep that I had ever known.

I had family.