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I arrived early.

Pulling the robes closer around me, my paws reached to feel the brick railing. Standing all alone on the bridge in the middle of the night felt strange. Dozens of Hannover’s citizens strolled across the overlapping stone steps every week, either to barter in the crowded market or marvel at a sunny day. Tonight, there was only me.

For a few minutes I looked both ways for the silhouette of another Furren until I eventually gave up. Having nothing better to do until he came, I leaned against the right side of the bridge. My eyes glazed between the narrow waterway and the sleeping town of Hannover’s empty streets.

Ah, Hannover: the town I lived in but rarely saw.

“Sir?”

I raised my muzzle away from the bridge, and towards the deep voice. To my surprise, it belonged to a young lynx. Dirt and soot caked over his worker’s clothing, his feeble paws holding onto a tall broom by his side. A chimney sweeper, probably not a day over ten.

Hesitantly, I turned to him.

“Uh…yes?” I asked, praying he’d leave without recognizing me. “Is there a problem, young cub?”

The lynx coughed, and tipped his cap. “No,” he replied. “I was just wondering if you have a coin or two? I’m low on currency to buy breakfast tomorrow, and the bakery is often cross when I don’t have the money to buy food.”

I paused for a moment, then yanked several Marks from my pocket before dropping them onto the lynx’s paw. His eyes became as bright as the full moon.

“Praise the Lord!” he giggled, shoving the bills into his pockets. “Thank you so much, sir!”

Watching the young cub disappear behind a street further across the bridge, I sighed and stared down into the river below. The bridge stretched above the town’s largest stream, its current gentle and dim. During a summertime day like yesterday, a gathering of loud cubs, much like the lynx, would sometimes fish or swim in the cool waters a few meters beneath.

Tonight, it lay silently.

Despite it being only midnight, I could already feel the morning dew on my bright red fur. As each second slowly counted away, I glanced above the sleeping town’s buildings. Ignoring the bright waxing moon and its twinkling friends, a taller structure could be seen from the bridge.

Home. My home.

My name is Eduard von Kauffmann, the eldest son of Nikolaus and Mathilda von Kauffmann.

Though by dawn tomorrow, I may no longer be.

***

As my whiskers and ears twitched at the nightly ambience, I thought back to the day I first met him three years ago. Mother rarely allowed me to leave the manor and into town without her or Father. The same had been ordered to my younger sister Margarethe. However, it changed on the one week of spring when one of the horses in our stable required a new shoe.

Father was on a business trip to Nuremburg not long after my fifteenth birthday, and the butler no longer worked for us, so I was told to travel for the horseshoe. She might have considered having the coachman do it, but I didn’t let Mother change her mind. Not if it meant I could see him.

It was a rather short walk from our home to the blacksmith’s entrance through the light February snow. Entering inside to the smell of coal, searing metal, and humid sweat, I wrinkled my nose as I ambled up to the counter. A wooden door led to the back room, where the loud clanking of metal rang in my pointed ears.

Right on cue, a Furren mouse emerged from the door panting and blackened with soot all over his overalls. A year younger than I, the boy held a solid build from years of labor. His eyes were a deep shade of greyish black, but they still shone in light like obsidian stones. They weren’t deep but comforting. The moment he spotted me, his toothy grin lit up under his facial fur, and my entire body stiffened.

“Hello,” he spoke. When I didn’t—or rather couldn’t—reply, he quickly added, “Is something wrong?”

Hansel Beltz may have stood almost a whole foot shorter than me, being a Furren mouse, but I still felt smaller despite being a taller fox.

“Uh…y-yeah. I mean no, no there isn’t,” I mumbled, glancing away as my ears flushed.

In truth, he could not have been even more handsome than he already was, despite the lack of an overshirt.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” he asked after a silent moment.

I meekly nodded, and a small smile spread across Hansel’s stout muzzle.

“Take your time to say something,” he said.

Raising my eyes back towards him, I began forming the words when Herr Beltz suddenly burst from the back of the shop.

“Well, hello!” he greeted. At about the same height as me, but carrying the same muscle as his kin, this larger mouse could break a tree trunk in his prime. Now, his age was showing. “Are you here for an order then, Sir?”

Taken aback by the sudden presence, I hastily nodded.

“Care to tell me your name then?” he asked, pulling out a book. “My son and I are busy nowadays.”

“Everyone has an order for something, Dad,” Hansel mildly chuckled.

Twitching my ears up, I gulped down my nervousness.

“Ed…Eduard,” I stuttered at first, then calmly continued while clutching the sides of my trousers, “Eduard…von Kauffmann. My family…my family needs the horseshoe.”

“Well why didn’t you say so?” Herr Beltz laughed before tossing the book back on the counter. “The item you requested is still drenching in water in the back room. It shouldn’t be long until the horseshoe is ready.”

As fast as a musket flash, the elder mouse shuffled back inside the back room. I was now alone with Hansel, making my tail twist and ears nervously fall.

“Are they uncomfortable?” Hansel asked abruptly, pointing to my attire. “Your clothes?”

My ears immediately perked. “Huh?”

“Your clothes,” he repeated. “Is it uncomfortable wearing those? I never understood why nobles do that.”

I looked down at myself, then to the dingy threads he wore. If any of my parent’s acquaintances ever saw him, they’d mock Hansel for his clothes behind a courteous smile.

“M-Mother tells me my clothes are made of fine cotton all the way from the highlands, while the buttons on my vest were manufactured by the finest haberdashery in Venice.”

I cleared my throat.

“In truth,” I murmured, slowly gaining my voice the more I managed to relax, “the trousers pinch too…hard on my tailbone. And…And they can be a bit…scratchy sometimes.”

“You don’t say?” Hansel asked, seemingly intrigued. “I think it’s silly.” Hansel suddenly widened his eyes and raised a paw. “I hope I’m not offending?”

“It is fine, Hansel,” I said, then immediately silenced myself.

“You know my name?” he asked, looking at me with a curious gaze. “Wait a minute…I’ve seen you before.” Hansel propped his elbows on the wooden countertop. “You’re the fox none of the other cubs can play with. I’ve seen you at some of the festivals.”

Before I was able to answer, Herr Beltz returned with the horseshoe in his paw.

“Here you are,” he placed it on the counter. “Sad to say, somebody has to be keeping an eye on the shop. Herr von Kauffmann, is it fine for my son to assist in fastening the shoe on to your horse back at your manor?”

“O-Of course!” the words escaped my lips, and I suddenly couldn’t believe myself.

Meanwhile, Hansel visibly swished his tail against the light snow as he walked out with me from the shop. In an instant the humidity turned to a cool, gentle breeze, but my heart did not slow down while we walked through town.

“How are you today?”

“Huh?” my ears swiveled to him. “W-What do you mean?”

The mouse beside me sniggered, and for a second, I thought I’d spoken the wrong thing.

“I mean how are you today? Done anything interesting?”

I blinked multiple times and slowly uncurled my nervous tail.

“None.” I started to say, but then added, “N-None that I can remember.”

In truth, I did not know much on how to converse with commoners my age. Speaking mostly to adults my whole life, they often only required the simplest replies when talking to you. Fortunately, as we strolled across the town bridge and past a quaint little bookshop’s decorated window, I found an answer for Hansel.

“I…” my throat became dry, “I started….r-reading…for my tutor.”

Hansel gave me an inquisitive look. “You like to read?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Me too!” his eyes unexpectedly lit up. “My present from the Christkind this year is a German translation of Romeo & Juliet. I still didn’t finish David Copperfield though. The copy I bought is only printed in English.”

“Who is…David Copperfield?” I asked the ecstatic Furren.

“Are you jesting?” Hansel gaped, still gripping his tool bag with the horseshoe. He stared at me in mild confusion. “David Copperfield by Dickens? You’ve never read him?”

“I have,” I piped up, looking away as my cheeked heated. “I-I just…never read fiction.”

Now it was his turn to be embarrassed. “Oh.”

We stayed silent for a long time, until I asked, “What…other books do you know?”

“Plenty!” he chirped like a robin. “There’s Faust, The Count of Monte Cristo, Frankenstein, and another recent British novel I’m interested in reading titled ‘Treasure Island’. I hear it has adventures and pirates!”

“Adventures?” I repeated the word like I’d never said it before.

“What books have you read?”

“Uh…” I paused, then found my tongue. “Only ones provided by my parents and tutors.”

“What kind?” Hansel asked again, still persistent.

“Um….” I spoke up, “E-European cultures, s-science, and history. M-My favorite includes Brehm's Thierleben, and a science book we’ve been reading titled, Arcana of Nature.”

Hansel whistled. “You are an interesting Furren to speak with, Herr von Kauffmann. I like you.”

We conversed back and forth until we came to the manor. Seeing it up close for the first time, Hansel made this expression of amazement I couldn’t look away from. After he had finished gazing at each feature of the exterior, I escorted him to the barn, where the family’s carriage Friesians resided peacefully in their stalls.

Petting the tamed creature’s dark mane, Hansel knelt to gently hold one of its legs. The horse neighed at the mouse’s touch and did not move in the small holding pen. It clearly trusted Hansel.

“He’s a majestic thing,” he commented while unfastening the black horse’s old shoe.

“He is.”

Hansel went to work as I quietly stood viewing his handiwork.

In the pawful of minutes he spent patiently applying the task, I couldn’t help but admire the mouse. He was friendly without any obligation regarding my family name. I began watching Hansel’s arms flex and tense with each movement made. For another odd reason, my eyes stayed glued to his paws as they nailed in the horseshoe. For a second, I wondered how they would feel holding mine.

“Phew!”

Hansel had finished sooner than expected. Tired and beat, he panted and breathed heavily as he patted the calm horse. An idea came to mind, so I turned and hurried back to the manor’s backside door. Carefully opening it, I sneaked inside and poured water into a cup. Mother disliked me being in the servant’s area, so I made haste while bringing back the cup to Hansel.

When he saw it in my paws, I offered it to him while feeling the blood rush under my facial fur.

“H-H-Here.”

I didn’t see his face, but he grabbed it and drank every last drop before giving it back to me. I raised my muzzle up to find him smiling while licking up a drop of water from his chin.

“Thank you, Herr von Kauffmann,” he told me. “Papa will be cross if I dawdle from our other projects, but it was nice speaking with you.”

“Eduard.” I piped down.

“Huh?”

“E-Eduard,” I repeated. “C-Call me Eduard.”

Without a beat, Hansel smiled and nodded with a flick of his coiled tail. In the low sunlight, his eyes shone brightly.

“Eduard,” he spoke the word like it was the most expressive of any. “Eduard, then. Shall we meet again sometime?”

I widened my eyes as my ears lowered down. “M-Mother…” I spoke, “…she does not…she does not let me v-venture out often…”

Hansel blinked. “Oh, if you say so…”

Silently, I guided him back to the front entrance that followed the pathway to town. I kept telling myself to say something, anything before he left, but the mouse beat me to it. As Hansel began walking back down the road, he turned to say, “Have a good evening, Eduard.”

Later isolating myself to my bedroom, my heart could not stop racing. After all of these years, I had spoken to Hansel Beltz! He talked to me and asked about me while my shyness disappeared like a breeze. I had never felt so happy.

However, the feeling later turned to guilt for not saying we could meet again somehow. Mother and my sister never noticed my silence during dinner, not even during Mother’s discussions on the appearance of another wealthy family’s house she visited last week. After all, a speck of dust never entered without her permission in our home.

“You should have seen the horrid state they were in,” Mother scoffed. “Dust covered every centimeter of their library, and the food served with dinner did not even include the proper silverware. Ack, I shall never visit them again, not without our chef to accompany me.”

The elder fox sipped from her soup, now glancing to my younger sister across the mahogany table. At only five years younger than me, Margarethe already knew how to act around our parents.

“Margarethe, Herr Lutz tells me you are lacking enthusiasm in your singing lessons.”

“Yes, Mother,” Margarethe nodded.

“I shall not have to pay your tutor to waste our time.”

“Yes, Mother,” she nodded once more, slowly sipping her soup again.

“Eduard,” Mother spoke between delicate bites of the pheasant, “Katharine Fromm is the daughter of Viktor Fromm. He told me that when she turns of age, marrying her will be beneficial for von Kauffmann Timber.” She went on to describe how, if I turned of proper age, she would be the perfect wife for me.

“Yes, Mother.” Over and over. That was all I knew.

Nightfall finally arrived, and I had fallen into near sleep in my room when a tapping sound happened on my bedside window. At first, I ignored the noise, but then came the sudden shattering of glass. I bolted from my bed and found the window cracked, and below in the eastern yard was a small figure.

It was Hansel. His muzzle was laced with panic as he hurriedly placed something into the bushes below before running into the neighboring forest. He carefully disappeared into the wood.

When the staff and Mother came to inspect the damage, I did not say anything. I kept silent about the identity of the ‘ruffian scoundrel’ who ‘attacked our lovely home’, and instead wondered about Hansel’s note.

Between my tutoring session at 11:00 and noon tea, I’d found the opportunity to sneak away to the estate’s western side. My bedroom could be seen from the cracked pane of glass being replaced by workers. Looking in the bushes two stories below, my eyes widened at the sight of a folded paper note hidden deep in the leafy bushes. Hesitantly, I ran down there and yanked it from the bush before running into my room.

It was a letter from Hansel, telling me he enjoyed our talk yesterday and wanted to be my friend. He signed it elegantly, while I could still smell a trace of his scent on the paper.

I sat motionless on my bed for several minutes, reading it over and over until I’d memorized it in my heart, because my brain could not digest what I was holding in my shaking paws. Hansel Beltz, the mouse boy I’d felt a special attention for since we were little cubs, wanted to be my friend. Me, the eldest von Kauffmann son and a stranger about two days ago.

Well, that is what we did. After hiding the letter under my pillow, I wrote another letter back to him later that night. I opened my window and dropped the folded paper into the bushes below, then waited. And waited. And waited until I woke up the next day to find the note still hidden in the bush. A few more days passed, and each night no one came. I began to worry this was all in vain.

Finally, around midnight on the fourth night, my body stiffened as I saw a small figure emerge from the forest. Without hesitation in his sprints, the mouse-shaped shadow grabbed the letter and ran off, but not before I saw the faint glints come from his eyes in the moonlight. The following evening, he sneaked into the east side and left me another letter, this time having a postscript apologizing for accidentally cracking the window.

“I was only trying to wake you, and threw the pebble too hard,” it read. “Also, I’m sorry for the wait. Some wolves were questioning all the mice Furren in town, claiming they found pawprints near the scene. I was afraid I’d be caught if I went the next night. Please forgive me.”

My heart tensed, but it immediately faded the more I read it.

Two months passed on while Hansel and I continued our secret correspondences. We learned many things about each other. Hansel told me all about his time working with his father, while I told him about the few elite cotillions Mother pulled me to. I told him about her attempts to arrange for my marriage, and Father’s refusal to force it upon me.

Hansel’s labored life as the blacksmith’s son revolved around manual work, having only a few acquaintances or regular customers in town. He had attended basics school with the other cubs but could never have many friends because of his father needing his presence at the shop. Behind those muscles, he adored the thought of traveling to other places, especially to the United States of America one day.

“I dream of seeing the Statue of Liberty when it’s finally built,” he wrote to me in one of the letters, “and see the landscapes out West. They call it a land of opportunity.”

We also traded small items in the bushes. When I mentioned I held an intrigued for culinary arts in one of my letters (despite never cooking before), Hansel surprised me with recipes to try. Knowing what to do, I thanked the mouse and snuck them to the estate’s chef to make. Everything suggested was delicious.

Winter transformed again into spring, Hansel’s birthday came and went, and one morning I grew tired of simply writing to him. Now I really yearned to meet with Hansel without the need for exchanging letters. However, a significant part of me trembled in fear of Mother or Father’s retribution.

At first, I grew skeptical of the idea, until I saw the letters overflowing in my desk drawer. Each one was delicately folded and faintly smelled of soot, the kind from a blacksmith’s forge. Without waiting, I wrote him back.

It was a week later and the last of the snow had finally melted away. As always, I waited for midnight and for the staff to fall asleep. Mother never stayed up past ten o’ clock in the evening, not even when it was the night of one of her events.

I waited and waited, my eyes never drawing away from the windowsill. I was about to give up and go to sleep when I suddenly saw a familiar shape in the moonlight.

Carefully climbing out the window, I felt my footpaws touch the grass as I shook paws with the other sixteen-year-old Furren. His bright teeth glinted in the darkness, as did those beautiful obsidian eyes.

“Hello…” I spoke softly.

Hansel beamed, and unexpectedly pulled me into a deep hug.

“Good evening,” he replied, then slowly asked, “How was your day?”

I folded an ear. This was Hansel, the very boy whom I’ve been friends with for nearly two months in letters. He only asked about my day, but why did I suddenly feel like a thousand eyes shifted themselves on me?

“F-F-Fine…” I murmured. “I attended a tutoring session about Eastern Europe, specifically the…recent pogroms occurring to the east in the Russian Empire. Apparently, Jews and humans are being attacked and driven from their homes.”

“You don’t say?” Hansel widened his eyes in disgust. “And their new tsar is ignoring this?”

“G-Given how Alexander II—the f-former Russian emperor—was assassinated by a Jewish human a few years ago, and the Empire’s still reeling from his death, nobody in St. Petersburg is raising a paw to stop this…” I felt my fur prickle in a twinge of low anger. “T-The humans…they did not do anything against anyone, living their lives without ill will, and yet they’re being driven away for only existing.”

It looked like he couldn’t say anything, and instead looked away from me in shock. However, he did not stray too far away.

After several, silent seconds, Hansel asked, “May I ask what the tutor’s thoughts are?”

“He… He did not see them as necessary. Even Mother found herself disgusted, especially since so many humans are being driven away from the continent.” After a moment of silence, the question left my throat before I stopped myself.

“How about you, Hansel?” I hoped to change the atmosphere.

“Nothing too special,” he shrugged. “My papa and I finished forging a sword for an admiral west of here, then we had dinner. I couldn’t stop thinking about tonight.”

My heart might have literally slipped two beats.

“How long do we have?” Hansel suddenly asked me.

I glanced back up to my bedroom window, long since repaired from our first night.

“An hour,” I answered, “and a half at most.”

Hansel’s grin spread. “More than enough for a tour of the garden, I suppose?”

I widened my eyes and felt my heart race. He meant the von Kauffmann Garden, where the family’s precious white and red roses blossomed this time of year. The same place where, when I was a cub, Mother threatened to skin me alive if I ever touched her lilies.

Without waiting, Hansel grabbed my paw and pulled me in that direction.

“Well come on, Eduard,” he laughed. “Be my guide and show a commoner the reason the von Kauffmann Garden is said to be extraordinary.”

Suffice to say, I did.

In the warm night, hidden under the ambient noise of forest creatures neighboring the estate, Hansel and I walked. I guided him along the imposing hedges and watched him gaze in awe at the marble statues dotting each green passage. Some displayed vulpine lineage, others were carved of the Greek gods and goddesses, but my attention kept straying to the mouse.

Tonight, Hansel wore a simple belt-strapped pair of shorts, along with a black shirt unable to hide his muscled arms. I wore only my nightgown, which I carefully made sure did not get any specks of dirt. The last thing I needed were rumors spread by the staff.

“Wow,” Hansel stood staring at the red begonias by an adjacent pathway. “I must say, the von Kauffmann Garden lives up to its name. Every year the cubs spread rumors that the gardeners spend months tending them.”

His eyes still shone brightly in the moonlight, making my heart beat faster and fur straighten like porcupine needles. Why was I feeling like this?

“Mother doesn’t think so,” I said, my eyes glancing away to the other flowers. “Every year, she likes to have the gardeners change the positions of the flowers. I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t be surprised if by next Spring…the begonias became white roses and the lilies the begonias. Or if she adds five new statues and a fountain.”

Hansel chuckled, causing my heart to jump into my throat.

“Is it really necessary?” he asked. “Look at this place. It is amazing enough as it is.”

“Y-Yeah,” I chuckled quietly, looking away with a hint of blush.

“Well…” Hansel knelt down beside the begonia shrubs. “If she believes they’ll be worthless by tomorrow…”

My tail twitched up. “What are you…?”

The mouse yanked at something, and to my utter surprise it wasn’t the blue shade of a begonia. Instead, Hansel delicately held a single strand of a yellow flower. For a moment I stood confused, something which he began snickering for.

Then I realized. It was a dandelion, fresh and blossoming under the blue of the shrubbery.

“I hope Frau von Kauffmann does not mind if I take this?” Hansel smirked, then pulled another hidden dandelion from under the begonia shrub.

“She…She does not approve of them,” I confessed, willing myself to relax. “Mother thinks they’re unpleasant…compared to the other plants in the garden. She says they should be referred to more as weeds than flowers.”

“I think they’re beautiful, Eduard,” Hansel shook his muzzle as he stood. “Dandelions are not weeds. They can be used for medicine and are beautiful when they emerge.”

I raised an eyebrow. “They are?”

Hansel promptly nodded. In his paw were two of the yellow plants, and a spark of the same color shone in his eyes. “Dad told me once that he gave a bouquet of these to Mom when he confessed his love to her. He could have gotten a pawful of roses or something, but these were enough.”

“Really?” I asked, taking one of them into my paws when he offered it. “Did you…Did you know your mother?”

“No, she died when I was three,” Hansel sighed, looking away. “I don’t remember much about her. Never did, but Dad is more than enough for me.”

Hansel looked back to me and smiled sympathetically. In the two months we corresponded in secret, I had slowly told him about my life growing up. He knew of the cold distance between me and my parents, as well as my equal yearning to know more than what is told in the walls of the manor.

Wordlessly, our eyes trailed up to the sky. They were beautiful, and enough to forget about the conversation from before. Instead, we watched the twinkling stars dance along the open sky.

“I always forget how beautiful they are…” Hansel whispered.

“Me too…”

Everything happened so fast. My shaking paw tenderly held his, and our noses and muzzles connected.

It was the first time I ever kissed somebody, let alone another boy. Although quick, it felt righter than anything I ever felt. Absolutely right.

When I pulled away, Hansel didn’t say anything, and stared blankly at me with rapidly blinking eyes. Immediate panic swept from my fingertips down to my shuddering tail, and I ran back to the house without a word. If Hansel shouted for me to stop, I didn’t hear.

In my dreams and in the morning, I told myself over and over everything was ruined, crumbling and left to rot. I had kissed Hansel Beltz, committed a sin of God. He probably never wanted to see me again. He might have now despised me.

What was I thinking? Why did I have this sudden attraction for him, a male like me? I tried connecting the dots for an answer, but I couldn’t. I felt lost.

For hours in the morning all my thoughts were focused on what I considered a mistake. Or at least, I thought that until later in the afternoon, when one of the gardeners mentioned finding a bouquet of fresh dandelions placed on the bushes of the west wing. Directly below my bedroom window.

In a letter he hid in the same location the night after, he confessed to having a crush on me ever since we were cubs.

“I could never find the chance to see you as often as I wanted to,” he wrote. “When you kissed me the night before, I was shocked you held the same feelings. I know there is no place in the world for Furren like us, but do you think we can search for it? I’m sorry I did not say it the night before, but I love you too.”

The moment I finished reading three more times, I pulled out another paper and grabbed my fountain pen on the desk.

***

Months passed, and our romantic encounters did not cease. We left letters when circumstance required us to stay in our respective worlds, but the nights we could meet were the ones to never regret. We talked, journeyed into the neighboring forest, sometimes near the corners of town when there were no pedestrians to see my face, and he offered me dandelions on the warmer nights to ourselves.

On a few of our nights together, I even lessoned Hansel on the Vienna Waltz. I’d tenderly hold his paw, he’d misstep the directions I tried, and Lord knows we tumbled more often than not into each other’s arms. We did not have the music to properly dance to, but I managed to be the best teacher for him.

Then came the eve of my eighteenth birthday. Nearly three years passed since the day we began exchanging letters. Together we sat against a tree in a forest clearing by the estate.

“Your eyes,” Hansel commented as we watched the night sky.

I glanced back, and gently held his paw. “My eyes?”

He lowered his eyes to the grass below us, then to me.

“They’re yellow,” Hansel explained. “They’re the same color as these.” He lifted his paws to show one of the many bouquets of the golden flowers he’d made after all our months together. “I have a feeling God decided to make your eyes that way, because He meant for you to find me. I believe even He can see how beautiful they are, how beautiful you are.” Hansel then turned back to me, and squeaked a single chuckle. “My dandelion fox.”

My ears turned crimson, and I couldn’t stop wagging my tail underneath me.

“Dandelion…” I murmured, turning to kiss the mouse’s shorter muzzle.

After we spent uncountable minutes nuzzling into each other’s necks, we turned our gazes back to the stars.

“Mmm…H-Hansel?”

“Yes, Eduard?”

“Do you…do you think,” I willed myself to say, my paw gently caressing his in mutual comfort, “God hates us? Are we…sinners?”

Hansel’s breathing hitched as his coiled tail curled next to mine.

“I don’t care if He does,” he growled, gripping my nightgown. “I don’t hate you.”

“Many will disagree…” I murmured. “There will always be others out there, who see us as…as…abominations. What they say is wrong…only feels right.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t still live how we want to live,” Hansel protested, pulling himself closer to me. “There must be a place for Furren like us.”

“Somewhere, sometime,” I asked between deep yawns, “where I don’t have to pretend to be who I’m not…and you don’t have to sneak in to see me…”

Hansel giggled.

“Yeah…” He nodded, leaning his nose against my neck. “I love you, either way.”

“I love you too.”

In this position, Hansel’s chest lay close to mine, and our hearts beat together while the crickets chirped. I could hear his breathing hitch and relax as we lay under a canopy of leaves and twinkling stars. My fur pringled as I held the shorter form of the mouse in my arms, our tails entwined together like a sewn stitch. We were in our own version of Heaven, and I never felt happier in that moment.

The next morning though, we awoke to Hell.

“Eduard Günther von Kauffmann!”

I jolted awake to Mother finding me, her son, nuzzling in the sleeping arms of another male in the middle of our forest. Hansel awoke startled and as terrified as me, especially when Mother began screaming at us like a rabid animal.

Not only had she found me embracing Hansel, and not only had I snuck from the house grounds to ‘commit these perversions’, but Father found our letters in my desk drawer as they searched for me in the morning. They knew what I had done, all these years.

Mother’s guard, a nameless brute wolf taller and stronger than any other, appeared behind her. In a flash he gripped Hansel’s arm and roughly threw him onto his knees.

I tried protesting. “Mother—”

“You will not speak a single word, Eduard!” She bared her fangs at me. The expression of absolute disgust in her voice could never be clearer. “Guard, dispose of him to the nearest constable. Tell him you found him in perversion with a nameless male Furren, but nothing else! The scandal of this revolting disgrace would destroy our family name, and we’ll be back where we started after all these years.”

“Let go of me!” he tried pulling away from the wolf, only to be dragged along the ground. “Let go! Eduard, help!”

“Quiet!” The wolf yanked Hansel onto his footpaws.

He then slapped him.

I gasped in terror. “Hansel! Mother, y-you don’t—”

“I must!” she growled at me like a mad woman. “This act is unholy, and I cannot let this go! My son, with another boy! If word gets out, we would be the mockery of all the German Empire!”

“Mother, you—”

“Silence!” she barked, pulling me to her level. “You will not speak unless—”

I had to, if it meant saving him.

“I will marry Katharine Fromm! I will marry Katharine Fromm!”

The forest grew silent as a graveyard. The wolf guard stopped escorting Hansel away, pausing to look back at Mother. Meanwhile, she glared at me with a mixture of confusion and interest.

“What?” she asked, her ears perked high and tail swishing with intrigue behind her morning dress. “Repeat what you said, Eduard.”

Gulping and gritting my teeth, I almost recanted. However, I had to keep it.

“L-Let Hansel go…” I begged her. “Forget this ever happened…a-and I will marry whomever you want me to. I do not care, just let him be…”

Mother’s glaring eyes studied me, until moments later she ordered, “You will never see that mouse again, under any circumstance, Eduard. Understood?”

“…yes.”

Frau von Kauffmann frowned.

“…yes, Mother.”

In a short matter of seconds, Hansel was released from the guard’s grasp, and slowly walked by me in silence. Despite knowing Hansel stood within ear’s distance, I dared not to see him. If I had even stolen a single glance at his beautiful eyes, wanting to know he understood why I did it, I knew I could not follow through with my promise. I would crumble under the pressure, like a stone statue amid a mighty earthquake. Weak, yielding, undone.

We would be back where it all began, except Hansel would be imprisoned. For what? For loving me, another male? How could something that feels so good be a sin against God?

***

Mother did not waste time arranging for me to marry Katharine Fromm, after discussing it with Father and Lord Fromm himself. When I met the noblefox for the first time for tea, he was an overly large, albeit jolly man smoking a cigar. He too was eager to have a son-in-law, especially one who happened to be the son of an emerging family such as mine.

Hansel kept his distance from the manor after that morning. Before I was able to feel more open. I talked more to the staff and my family, knowing each night I would have my hour or two of freedom. That day we were caught, and the days after, I was only numb. What was once a simple trek to endure, now became a mountain range. I cried myself to sleep every evening, woke up melancholy every morning, on and on like the sharp spindle of a spinning wheel.

As promised, I did not object. I let everything happen around me. Invitations were delivered to friends and relatives, while Mother ordered the finest porcelain plates for the wedding party.

When Father returned from one of his international trips, he was more than surprised to learn his eldest son had become engaged. After enduring another one of Mother’s arguments, Father reluctantly bought every best article of clothing for me to try on. He never said a word to me regarding the circumstances of his son getting married, and neither did Margarethe. My sister only smiled and congratulated me and my wife-to-be.

A week before my public wedding rehearsal, word spread of Herr Beltz passing away in his sleep. When I heard and tried to ask for her permission, Mother refused to even consider allowing me to attend the funeral the next day. I begged, I pleaded for leniency in letting me comfort one of the most important Furren in my life, but she did not falter.

When I asked why, Mother coldly spoke, “That boy is an unhealthy poison to your soul, Eduard. If I am correct, the best way to be cured of poison is to remove it.”

I received one more letter two days later. After I walked into my room to escape another hour of dressing in suits, I did not expect to see Hansel gripping the windowsill as he placed a slip of paper between the panes. Our eyes connected for a second, making my heart and breathing hitch at the mere sight of him, before he was climbing back down and slipping back into the forest once more.

As much as my conscious told me to toss the note away, knowing the consequences if Mother found me holding it, it was my heart that won the battle. Whimpering to at least smell a trace of Hansel’s scent, I carefully grabbed the letter and read it.

Dear Eduard,

This will be my final letter to you. There is no reason for you to feel guilty about what we have done together, and I hope you will still read the rest of this letter. I miss you so much, it hurts. Every day away from you feels worse than placing my paw on hot metal from the forge.

I assume you heard about my dad’s passing? I miss him terribly. I know my father is in a peaceful, quiet place. He treasured me so and is probably now aware of my love for you.

_I am leaving Hannover and moving to America the night before your marriage to Fräulein Fromm. The reason I am telling you this is because I implore you to accompany me. You do not have to sacrifice your happiness for my safety. When we were little cubs, I knew society and God viewed my attractions for you as wrong, but I did not care. I hid my feelings away, but I did not care. You were the eldest male heir of the von Kauffmann family, but I did not care. You are simply Eduard, the man I love. _

I do not have money on me other than what Dad’s will has granted me, but I promise to make you happy. Whether we are in America or the ends of the Earth, you do not have to pretend to be someone you’re not when we are alone in the same room. There must be a place where that is possible for us. We can find it in America, and together we can be free. We can be happy together.

At around midnight, a flatboat will be floating under the town bridge overlooking the river. The boat belongs to four humans I met in the marketplace, who have agreed to accompany us to Bremen before they find another boat to England for themselves. If you feel as I feel, and yearn to be with me again, come with me that night. I will be the spouse you always wanted, and more. I promise to be with you for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part. Forever.

I love you, Eduard. Whatever your decision is, I always will.

~Hansel

After reading the letter over and over until once again I fully memorized it, imagining Hansel’s beautiful voice whispering into my twitching ears, I burned it in the nearby candle. A tear crawled down my cheek, but I ignored it. Keeping my promise to Mother meant his safety. The sacrifice of our happiness together would mean the preservation of his, and that was more than enough for me.

The words in his letter stuck in my mind, even during the wedding rehearsal. Katharine and I were quiet together, said our scripted vows, and endured the words said by our soon-to-be in-laws. When we were finished, Katharine retreated to her room without even giving me a single acknowledgment. Was she in my situation as well, with a female vixen? Or another female Furren of a different species?

That afternoon, I sat in my room contemplating when someone knocked on my door.

“Who…Who is it?”

“It’s Margarethe.”

I blinked. What did she want? “Come in,”

Margarethe entered. To my surprise though, her eyes were locked on the window by my bed.

“I know about that mouse, and your true feelings toward Fräulein Fromm,” she spoke in quick succession. “Can I ask you something?”

I was initially taken aback at first but nodded.

“What was it like to kiss her at the rehearsal, Eduard?” Margarethe inquired. “Did you enjoy being in her presence, and find her attractive?”

“Of course I find her attractive. She is attractive,” I answered. “But…But…”

Margarethe glanced to me. “But not to you,” she finished my sentence. “And the kiss during rehearsal? Was it as wonderful as they say it is?”

“It…It was not bad…” I mumbled, slowly raising my voice for her to hear correctly. “But it was …she…she is not…”

Margarethe sat beside me on the bed and placed a heartening paw on mine.

“She is not like your mouse though?”

Margarethe read my mind. In truth, the kiss with Katharine was chaste, unemotional. It never had that spark I had the first time Hansel and I kissed. It wasn’t warm, inviting, sensual or the very least sweet. It felt…hollow.

“Eduard,” she told me, “I have never seen you as happy as these past few years. You were always quiet like me, then you began to speak more. You talked more openly to the help, then to me and Father and Mother. Your nights with this boy…they made you more content than I’ve ever seen you be.”

Widening my eyes at Margarethe, I could not stop my tail from batting her leg affectionately. She had grown in three years, but as the eldest cub my paws still enveloped hers when I grasped them. I was not as used to speaking with my sister freely, but it felt liberating nonetheless.

“Thank you…” I spoke to her. “Thank you.”

“There is something I must tell you, Eduard,” Margarethe turned to me. “I heard Father speaking with Mother in his study earlier, after this morning’s breakfast. I did not want to say anything until I was certain after the rehearsal, but…”

The younger fox clenched her claws into the forearms of my suit, making me wince.

“W-What is it, Margarethe?” I questioned.

Margarethe growled. “After your marriage to Katharine tomorrow, Mother and Father will have Hansel arrested for gross indecency.”

My heart dropped.

“What…?” I growled, feeling sudden anger spike up my spine. “Mother promised he—”

“—she told Father they would ‘make sure Eduard would never see that boy again’,” Margarethe gripped my arm. “Those were her exact words, brother.”

This was it. Either way, Mother and Father were making sure I would not back away from my promise, even if it meant breaking their side of the bargain. The thought of Mother conniving behind my back made my tail bristle, and claws sharply extend onto my trousers.

“Eduard.”

The sudden anger slowly dissipated as I glimpsed back to my sister beside me on the bed. In her right paw rested a red pouch. Grabbing and inspecting it contents, I was shocked to find what looked to be twenty or thirty silver coins.

“Take these,” Margarethe implored with folded ears. “I was…saving them for my…eventual trip to get away, but you need it more. Take that mouse, go to England, Ireland, Amsterdam, wherever you need to go. I…I cannot pretend I understand why you prefer him over another woman, but if you feel happier with him…then be with him.”

I could not process the weight of everything she said, before I looked between her, the pouch in my paws and back to my little sister on the bed.

“What…” I struggled to build the words. I didn’t know if it was because of the emotions swelling in my chest, or because I could not find the right thing to say for this kind act, but I settled on, “What about you? The role of heir will fall to you, and you will be here forever.”

“Margarethe!” Mother suddenly called from down the hall. “Just because your brother is being married tomorrow, does not mean you can neglect your singing lessons!”

We looked down the hall and relaxed for a moment. Shuddering and hugging me close, Margarethe stifled a whimper in her throat before standing. She wiped her tears away as mine fell and made her appearance presentable as she walked to the door. Before she waltzed back down the hall, Margarethe looked back to me with the greatest smile I had ever seen her wear. Genuine, warm and content.

“Think about your happiness for now, please. Be with Hansel. Be happy.”

That is what I planned to do.

By the time night fell, and the only noise that could be heard were the manor’s sleeping occupants, I grabbed everything needed. I dressed myself in the most inexpensive clothes in my wardrobe, along with my brown raincoat. Each step I made tiptoeing through the quiet hallways reignited a few old memories. I remembered running down one hall with my sister one Christmas morning, and another led to the ballroom where I first learned how to perform the Vienna Waltz. No longer.

I had made it to the grand entrance when I suddenly knew I was being watched.

“If you leave now, Son, you will most likely meet the same fate as that boy your Mother told me about.”

Slowly I turned to see an older red fox standing in his nightgown. In the dim candlelight by the dresser, Father’s greying fur could be viewed from afar. His eyes shone piercing yellow through the darkness, staring directly at me.

“Eduard,” he sighed, walking towards me with folded ears and a saddened expression on his muzzle, “do you realize the moment you walk out those doors, there will be nothing to prevent you from being arrested. I’ve already told the constable, and if he sees you while arresting that boy, and you resist, you will be tried for the same crimes. Even I cannot save you.”

We stood quiet for a moment, and I saw something glinted in the elder canine’s eyes. It was more than the concern of a parent, or the desperation of honor more commonly seen in Mother. No, it was confusion. He wanted to really know why.

I desperately wanted to tell Father how much I knew the risks. Being labeled a deviant by the courts meant losing everything, your reputation, your home and all the friends you had treasured. However, at that single moment, nothing else held larger value in my eyes. To me, losing Hansel meant forever losing an ingrained part of my soul.

However, he could never understand. I tried though.

“Father,” I finally spoke, “do you love Mother?”

“Eduard,” Father replied to me firmly, “do not ask trivial concerns. Of course, I do. I loved her the moment I first laid my eyes upon her. She does too.”

“Then…” I exhaled and flicked my tail against the floor, “she knew too.”

“Please answer me the question, Eduard.” He lowly growled. “What do you mean ‘she knew’?”

I softly smiled. “There’s more to life than a name.”

I stood in front of the greying noblefox and hugged him one final time. He reciprocated, but it took me a few tugs to pull away before I walked to the doors. I tried not to glanced to him again, knowing I would break down if I did. Opening them a crack, I ignored the pitter-patter of more footpaws coming down the stairs behind me. It was Mother, indeed.

“Good-bye, Mother. Good-bye, Father. I…I love you both.”

Mother tried speaking, “Eduard—”

Without another word, I dashed out the door and did not look back.

“Eduard! Come back this instant! Eduard!” I tumbled past the gates, down the road and away from the shouts pleading for me to stop, but I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t. At long last, I had crossed the point of no return, and it felt liberating.

***

The midnight bell tolled from the distant church, its echo bringing me back to the present on the bridge. Raising a paw to cover my yawning muzzle, I suddenly froze.

Echoing down the street to my right, I could hear (and smell) three Furren coming towards the bridge. Their footsteps seemed erratic as I glanced to see one of them appear around the corner, a constable’s uniform visible under a streetlamp. Panic swept over me like a gust of wind, causing me to run to the other end of the bridge and hide behind the wall of an alleyway. They hadn’t noticed me run off.

Peering through the near-darkness, I could see they were two canines and the feline in the constable’s uniform. It was Dietrich Schneider, a low-ranking officer of the law who grew up with Father as cubs. I couldn’t recall the names of the two Furren wolves—one grey wolf several years older than I, and the other painted in darker fur—accompanying him, but I also knew they would sometimes visit the von Kauffmann estate.

However, my mind became blank when I saw a fourth Furren with them. He was a handsome mouse with bright grey fur and beautiful obsidian eyes shining under the moonlight, one of which looked swollen and bruised. Seeing him in that state made my fur bristle and a low growl catch in my throat.

“What were you going to do with this rope over here, boy?” Schneider lifted a roll of said rope to the Hansel’s muzzle. “Answer me. Your neighbors mentioned you saying something about this bridge, so tell us now.”

He silently hung his head in silence, but then suddenly raised it, like he started searching for something. Or someone.

During this, I partly noticed an object coming from further down the moonlit river, only for me to suddenly realize it was a wooden flatboat. Four figures could be seen on the wooden neck, none of whom looked or smelled Furren.

It was the human boat Hansel mentioned, coming down this way fast!

“Hmmm,” the tiger mused. He looked over to the bridge’s railing to the waters below, then to the rope in his paws as a nasty, visible grin formed across his muzzle. “Hey Markus, Henry! What do you say we drown this rat?”

My nostrils flared.

“What about Frau von Kauffmann’s instructions?”

I wanted to tear them apart with my claws.

“What of it?” the tiger constable scoffed. “She’s paying us to deal with the pervert, so we’ll deal with perverts the same way they deal with them in Berlin.”

My tail arched into attack mode while I dropped my robe and tossed the pouch into my pocket. As Constable Schneider began untying the rope, I knew it would only be a matter of time until the flatboat passed under the bridge.

“W-Wait, please don’t!” Hansel quavered. “I-I don’t want to die…!”

Constable Schneider backhanded him, and without warning my mind became burning white.

“Quiet, you deviant so—Oof!”

In several quick strides, my fist connected to the tiger’s cheek. The two wolves did not anticipate me and were taken by surprise. Snarling and blind by primal rage, I remember jumping onto the red-furred wolf. We fumbled on the ground as I tried biting at him. I wanted to tear his throat out for what they were going to do!

“What the hell?!” the other wolf gasped behind me. “Get off of him!”

A pair of paws tried yanking me away, giving the other wolf—Markus, I think—time to claw at my shoulder through the shirt. I yelped, as did Alois when Hansel pulled him away by his tail. Together, we bit, snarled, claws and snapped our teeth at them like feral animals.

At last, the boat could be seen gently floating towards us. One of the humans waved their hands in the air, which caught Hansel’s attention. Finally managing to knock Alois unconscious to the ground, he pointed to the flatboat.

“Hurry, Ed!” he cried. “Don’t think about it!”

In a flash, Hansel rushed at the other wolf and punched him unconscious to the ground as well. Without waiting further, the stocky Furren leapt onto the bridge’s ledge, then jumped. My fur shot up in fear.

“Hansel!” I gasped while rushing to the edge.

Hansel had leapt onto the roof of the flatboat’s cabin, while a human hurriedly climbed up to assist him.

“Eduard!” he shouted back while reaching up for me “Hurry, Eduard! Come down!”

Fully relieved, I moved only a centimeter when two strong paws pulled me back onto the bridge.

“Oh no you don’t!” the constable snapped angrily. “Forget the money, I’m going to burn you heathens myself!”

We were so close to freedom; I could see it drift underneath me.

“Eduard!” Hansel yelled at us. “Let him go! Eduard!”

“Hansel!” I shouted, only for the tiger to clamp a paw on my muzzle.

“Silence!” he growled into my ear. “Do you know what the penalty is for attacking a constable, fox? Stop struggling or I’ll be sure to make your execution painful! The same goes for the mouse and those humans!”

I helplessly whimpered and barked as the flatboat drifted under the bridge to the other side. The tiger turned us to watch the boat reappear under the bridge but began pulling me away towards one of the streets, away from my beloved. I flailed more, struggled and tried breaking free. I needed to be free! Before I felt okay with being chained, but no longer!

As God as my witness, I was going to live my life with Hansel!

Using as much force as I could, I bit into the tiger’s paw, until I was able to taste blood. The tiger bellowed in pain, and I elbowed him in the ribs before shoving myself away from his iron hold.

“Ow! You little—”

“Hansel!” I cried. “Hansel, I’m coming!”

It was entirely instinct. Lifting my knees onto the bridge’s railing, I desperately swung my footpaws over the side and plummeted over. A pair of strong paws caught me mid-air, but then we fell on our sides against the timber roof.

Stars danced across my vision as nearby shouts echoed around, followed by an aching bruise along my hip. However, all of it didn’t matter. Blinking away the stars and the water in my eyes, my arms desperately clung to Hansel.

“You damned humans, getting in the way!” the constable roared. “Give us the deviants and go back to where you came from! They must burn for their sins.

A human male beside us shouted something in Russian, and my eyes adjusted to see it was a man twice our age, holding a rifle in his hands. So did the three or four other humans on the wooden deck.

“Constable,” he shakily spoke up in our language, glaring up to the tiger on the elevated riverfront. “My comrades and family are refugees. We no longer have a place to call our home, and neither do they. I ask that as a human born in God’s grace, I pray you allow them mercy. From what he told me, they did not do anything against anyone. They are being driven away for only existing.”

Schneider cackled. “That is rich: a human asking me for mercy!”

“Constable,” he commanded without faltering. “Give them mercy if you wish to not die today. Otherwise, I will not hesitate to defend us.”

Without any care, the tiger sprinted off the bridge to our right, and began following us toward the boat as it floated along the river.

“I repeat myself, constable:” the human shouted once more, raising his rifle up. “We have already seen enough bloodshed at the hands of the Cossacks and our Tsar’s ignorance. Leave us be or die.”

The tiger shot a deathly glare towards us, causing me to instinctively growl back at him.

When he still didn’t stop following, another human our age with darker hair helped guide me and Hansel into the boat’s interior cabin.

“Go on,” he told us in German. “For now, ignore the fat cat. If he tries anything, we will protect you.”

“T-Thank you,” I told the human. “Y-Your kindness means…everything.”

He simply nodded, then joined the other humans with the rifles.

Inside the cabin sat probably a dozen other humans, all of them ranging between old, young, white-skinned, dark-skinned, clothed or barely at all. However, all of them were clearly malnourished and recently awakened, but did not pay us any mind. In fact, one mother of two human cubs—or was it kids—scooted aside to give us room along the wooden wall.

“You humans and Jews and deviants will burn in Hell! You will burn!”

“I am warning you, constable—”

“You hear me, boys?! Me and the townsfolk will know what you two are! If you ever return back, we’ll parade your severed tails through the streets!” Suddenly, he began roaring. “Furren of Hannover! Wake from your beds!”

Seconds later, we heard gunshots, but no one flinched.

Moments later, the mouse sitting by my side broke down first.

“I knew you would come…” Hansel sniffled into my shoulder. “I only knew.”

I choked away sobs and sat up to properly hold onto him. For three weeks of not being able to hold him, now we had all the time in the world. Together.

“Me too…” I whispered, nuzzling into Hansel’s tear-stained cheeks. “I love you.”

To my surprise, the humans on the boat did not sneer or give us any disgust. Instead, the others inside remained patiently sitting while humans on deck continued steering the boat by their long oars. One of them, speaking half-Ukrainian and half-German, even offered us a salvaged blanket. Either we were a common occurrence in their species, or these particular humans had seen enough prejudice and pain to know of its fickle obscurity.

Either way, it did not prevent Hansel from gently kissing my lips in return.

“I love you too,” he beamed, reaching into his pocket to present a familiar flower to me.

Licking my lips, I leaned forward to sniff its sweet aroma.

“My dandelion fox.”

We hugged each other and slowly drifted to sleep in each other’s arms. As Hannover’s looming vision slowly disappeared behind us, and all that lay before us was an endless river twisting and turning through trees, I could not have felt happier in those moment.

***

After the news of two deviants killing a constable slowly faded like ocean waves, Hansel and I bought ourselves a ticket to New York. We parted ways with the traveling band of humans, but not without thanking them for their hospitality. As we walked up the ship’s wooden plank and waved to them from the deck, it’d be the last time either of us would see them.

Months later, after enduring claustrophobia and agony of not being able to kiss or hold or hug my mouse for fear of reprisal, we came to Ellis Island. Instead of Eduard von Kauffmann, the eldest son of a (probably) shamed family of German noblefoxes, I was given a new name by America: Edward Kaufman. I liked it, as did Hansel, who managed to retain his name.

Weeks later, we moved into a small town along the New Jersey coast, where the tress grew tall and the hills lay more open than any field I ever saw. Working odd jobs whenever we could, Hansel and I lived in a single apartment we shared together with a Swedish family. They were nice to us, but neither I nor my mouse planned to permanently live there. Hansel hoped to save enough money and find us a better home in Manhattan, but it didn’t matter to me.

As I woke up one winter morning and began walking past the local orphanage, I breathed warm optimism in my lungs. Wherever Hansel went, I would follow beside him. Sure, he and I couldn’t express ourselves in the open, but I never felt freer. Between small snowfall in the air and walking to my next odd job another town away, I prayed we would discover happiness in the lives we had chosen.

No, not chosen. Found.