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Yo, new thing for y'all. If you're confused why this is here and not more RWB, check my profile. Now, without further ado, let's get to the talking dog-people, yeah?

When Tomorrow Comes

Act 1: Tragic Kingdom

Chapter 1: The Song Remains the Same

Come with me and let me take you back, back through the ages to an era long since forgotten by its descendants. Come with me and I'll bring you to a land that few have heard of, and no one alive has visited. Open your imagination and see this world in front of you, a world not unlike your own on the surface, but one that contains secrets unproduced by your universe. It is a time before machines, mass industry and gunpowder, perhaps similar to a world found in any work of fantasy. And it is in this world that we find-

Actually, no. Yeah, you know what? No, I am _not_talking like that through a whole goddamn novel. Hell, I'm surprised I made it the like, hundred words I did while keeping a straight face. I mean, figurative straight face of course. Because you can't see my face. Because this is a book. Wow, this whole thing is starting to look like more of an ambitious project now.

Anyway, yeah, this is a fantasy story. We'll put it somewhere between Lord of the Rings and _A Song of Ice and Fire_on the puppy-friendly scale. You know, not at all the "little people skipping merrily through a field, occasionally fighting a monster somewhere" bit, but not quite the "extravaganza of decapitation and bewbs" end of the spectrum either. Though there will be decapitation. Probably. And maybe depictions of the female anatomy as well. So, on second thought, maybe a bit closer to one side of that scale than the other. But I digress. Our story begins in a country called Timbria, an island kingdom with a fuckton of trees, hence the clever name. More specifically, we find ourselves near the capital city of Vulpinum, right in the middle of the sprawling forest that covered most of the island. Vulpinum housed the most noble of the families in Timbria, such as the Redfur, the Fox, and the royal family, the Vulpinex. The observant of you in the audience may already be sensing a pattern here. That's right, folks, the most privileged families in the kingdom were all foxes. The top tier of these families made their homes inside a castle in the center of the capital, and most other vulpine households were located in close proximity to the fortress.

This area was a delightful place to live in if you were a fox. Good food, clean water, security, literacy, servants, all the markings of a happy life in an equivalent of the Middle Ages. That's all well and good, but once again I'm sure some of you noticed a bit of a quandary in that last statement. If all the foxes were good and happy, how was it possible that they had servants? Well, that, kiddoes, was possible due to something we like to call blatant, state-sanctioned racism. Notice I said that the foxes in the area were living happy lives. I said nothing of the sort about the wolves, which happened to be the majority of the population in Timbria. The wealth of the vulpine elite was built upon the backs of the lupine poor, and believe it or not, the finances of the kingdom were starting to reflect that. Generations of the abuse of the wolf lower classes for the extravagance of the "nobler race" had put the kingdom's economy in a precarious position. Timbria was running out of money to pay the cost of luxury, and you could only take away so much from the plebeians before you lost your labor force.

Well, I think it's safe to say that the ruler, King Alfred II, didn't just decide to have a change of heart on this matter and start giving back to the poor to try to stabilize his country. That would make for a boring story. Luckily for us, and unfortunately for the Timbrians, the truth is much more exciting! From Alfred's point of view, he just needed another populace to exploit. Now technically there was another country on the island, but he would never make that a target. It was small and isolated, more of an autonomous territory than a country since even though it had no connection to the Timbrian government, it had no relations or communication with other countries either. To fully understand the separation on the island, we have to look back a little further into Timbria's history. So, come join me on this heart-pounding thrill ride I call... EXPOSITION!

Even though the racial segregation in Timbria was pretty much ingrained in the population by the time of this story, it wasn't always like that. There was once a time when wolves and foxes cohabited the land peacefully, but eventually some dickhead took over the country and decided that "God intended the separation of the races" or some shit and then everything just devolved from there. Not everyone was down with this, however, and they came to the collective, logical conclusion that some stupid law shouldn't keep them from choosing who to befriend, avoid, or bone, so they up and left, heading for the Whitecrest Mountains at the northern end of the island where the king would be least likely to follow them. Several generations of adaptation to the harsh environment and that interracial boning I mentioned earlier later, we have the nation of Kar'gath and its inhabitants, the Gathites, big ol' arctic foxes who have no patience for Timbrian bullshit. Initially, everything kind of worked out, since the vast majority of Timbria wanted nothing to do with the Whitecrest Mountains, but somewhere along the line a Timbrian ruler got the bright idea of attempting to reabsorb Kar'gath into the Kingdom of Timbria.

He put together a whole propaganda campaign and everything. He convinced the foxes the invasion would make them richer and appealed to the wolves' emotions with promises of "national unity". Eventually, he succeeded in gearing the kingdom up for pseudo-civil war and he launched his attack on Kar'gath. To this day it stands as the only thing to fail harder than my aunt's chicken casserole. It went really poorly. No one from Timbria had adequately mapped Kar'gath at the time, so there was an ever-present problem of entire units getting lost in the unfriendly mountains, most likely succumbing to the unpleasant weather and terrain, though some insist that several lost platoons can be attributed to attacks by the Shkyr'wreth, a species that may or may not exist and that I don't necessarily enjoy talking about. The remainder of the army that reached the first major Gathite stronghold, Loketzhi, didn't fare much better than those who got lost in the wilderness. It was a pitched battle which pitted a nigh-indestructible race of warrior mountain-furs defending their home against an army of bedraggled, mostly lupine soldiers who had been dragged away from their families to a country they never wanted to see for a cause they didn't wholeheartedly support. It would have been a massacre had it not so quickly turned into a rout. Following the battle of Loketzhi, the Timbrian offensive essentially disintegrated, and the loss was primarily blamed on the cowardice of the lupine troops, leading to a social stigma on even those that somehow made it home among the upper echelon of Timbrian society, though the lower classes understood more fully what really happened. Luckily for both sides, no proceeding king ever had the cojones to launch another campaign, and the two nations had peacefully avoided contact by the start of this story.

So, uh, yeah, tl;dr Kar'gath was not a feasible target for King Alfred. But that's okay, because the nation of Senkhar just across a channel from Timbria looked like a much juicier mark anyway. I'd tell you all about that place, but I'll spare you some additional exposition for the near future. You've all received your history lesson for the day. So let's return to the outskirts of Vulpinum where we meet our protagonist...

The wolf woke up on his bed, more like a big cot really, but still better than many of his ilk had, and stared up at the ceiling of his room (the separate room was another luxury), prepared to face his greatest enemy: the morning. Like some of you, Seth Black was in his late teens, around 17 at the time, and like probably most of you, the morning represented leaving the peace and ease of sleep for the prospect of working. Which sucked. So he decided to launch a personal rebellion against the sunrise by rolling over under his thin blanket and burying his muzzle in the neck of his betrothed, which is where a lot of similarities end for y'all, unless you live in a place where arranged marriages are still a thing. Light streamed into the room through tight openings near the roof as the female grabbed the stout, dusky gray-furred male by his nearly shoulder-length ebony mane and asked in her wolfish (something akin to Scottish in this world) accent what he was doing. "The sun wants to come in. You're stronger than I; tell it to fuck off," Seth replied, shamelessly looking over what he could see of his unclothed fiancée, a state of dress customary for sleeping in wolf culture.

She squinted and furrowed her brow at him, strands of long brown hair lingering over her silver-furred face, "Oh? The strong blacksmith's apprentice expects his wife to fight all of his battles for him? You wouldn't take advantage of our mateship would you? And you know how I feel about you staring at my body like that." "It's only the sun, my dear. It's not like it's a giant monster," Seth shrugged, "and please, Lydia, do remind me how you feel about my staring." Keeping one paw holding Seth by the hair, Lydia jammed her other into his upper chest and threw herself on top of him, then whispered in his ear, "I love it. Now close your eyes and let me see if I can take your mind off the goddamn sun." "Oh, yes ma'am," he obediently complied as she took his head in her paws and began kissing him.

Now, I imagine some of what just happened may be confusing, given the whole betrothal system. So instead of having fun and describing where Seth put his paws that morning, a brief explanation: in the fox culture, arranged marriages were more like what you think of them in a medieval sense. Feelings weren't really considered, everything was more for power or social advancement than anything else, and things like living together, sex, and even being seen together to a certain extent were all no-no's. Given their situation, however, wolves were, understandably, all out of fucks to give, so the "betrothal" bit was more of a formality to preserve tradition than a power-hungry pup-making contract. Once two wolves decided they liked each other enough to live together and play "hide the sausage" frequently enough to reproduce for a very extended period of time, they each approached their parent(s) and asked them to arrange the marriage, a phenomenon which often occurred at what you'd consider a young age, because low life expectancies. Betrothed lupine couples were also allowed, and often encouraged, to move in together before marriage so they could feel everything out (and up, naturally), which gave "their families" time to break it off if there was a fatal error in the system somewhere. Wolves also didn't much care about sexual regulations either; if the female got knocked up before the wedding, oh well. They were going to be married anyway.

So, as you can see, arranged marriages weren't actually that much of an annoyance for wolfish couples such as Seth and Lydia, who legitimately loved each other regardless of how official their relationship was. In case you're keeping track at home, Wolves 1, Foxes 0. Actually, you know, the real score's probably a bit more lopsided by now, but we'll let that slide. Now, being young and in love and all that junk was great for Seth, but a problem still remained. He still lived in his parents' home, because he was apprenticed to his father so it made no sense for him to leave since he and Lydia could have their own room anyway. This also gave the older male the ability to bang on his only child's door to get him to come out and work right as he (and I) was about to get to the good part. Seth yelled back that he was on his way, and said more quietly to the wolfess on top of him, "With your permission, milady, I'd like to pick up where we left off tonight." Lydia accepted, "As you wish, my love," before kissing him once more and extricating herself from the bed.

Seth momentarily became lost in watching his female slip into her ragged, brown, pathetic excuse of a dress, the latest fashion craze amongst those who couldn't afford much better. Seth may have been joking when he said that she was stronger than him, but make no mistake, Lydia Greyclaw, soon to be Black, was no fragile girl. The daughter of a career soldier and his innkeeper wife, Lydia had been working all her life, especially since the age of about 12 when her father was killed in action in an exploratory mission to the untamed lands in the east of Senkhar, which resulted in a brief war between the two nations. The government officially blamed the generals of the army for the catastrophe that ensued, which ended in staggering Timbrian casualties and the cancellation of any friendly relations with Senkhar. Curiously, all generals involved kept their positions following the conflict, which means that either corruption ran very deep in Timbria or the king was just looking for a scapegoat, because taking responsibility for failure is just something that doesn't run in royal blood. Not that I think one scenario is more likely than the other. No, not at all.

Regardless of whose fault it was, Samuel Greyclaw returned to Timbria in a box, and young Lydia was tasked with carrying on a plethora of jobs at the inn, since fewer employees could initially be paid due to the sudden cut in the family's income. Yeah, I don't think anyone should have expected a great pension program for grunts from this government. Additionally, Lydia had to support her mother through an emotional crisis because, all financial issues aside, holy shit Sam was dead. Things were looking grim, and Lydia's mother, Mary, was about this close to resorting to prostitution (100% legal in Timbria) to bring in some extra coin, a profession that Lydia would have had to most likely eventually take up too. Fortunately, because there are indeed good people in the world, many of the families in the neighborhood that hadn't been as adversely affected by the war pitched in what they could to help the Greyclaws, with the Blacks at the forefront. In the five years that followed, Mary's inn became one of the most prominent in the villages around Vulpinum, and Seth personally assisted by giving Mary and Lydia a paw in the evenings after he was finished working in the forge. It was tough on the kid, but he had a sense of empathy rare for someone his age, and understood that Lydia, very nearly as old as he was, had it even harder.

The two pups learned that they had much in common and quickly became friends. Eventually, when they got older, they became lovers, and soon after that they were in the betrothed state you find them in now, where Lydia is throwing a tattered shoe at Seth to rouse him from his daydream, "Shite, Seth, I don't mind yer starin', but if you don't get to work your dad's gon' ta think I'm corruptin' ya." He tossed her shoe back at her before climbing out of the bed and giving her a peck on the cheek, "Well, he wouldn't be wrong." She rolled her eyes and forcefully handed him a pair of trousers, "Put your pants on, you useless idiot. No point in me going through all this mating business if every bitch in the damn village gets to look at your naughty bits." Seth dutifully donned the pants, as well as a sleeveless shirt, both in similar condition to Lydia's dress. Maybe the Blacks could buy slightly nicer clothes than most of the village, but then, why would they? No use in trying to look good when you spend all day in the forge. As they started to walk out of their room, Seth grabbed a pawful of Lydia's ass and told her, "Don't worry, dear, you're the only bitch in this village that gets to look at my naughty bits." "Oh, lucky me," she retorted sarcastically as she opened the door to the main room of the house.

As they walked through the main room, Seth tore off two pieces of bread from a loaf on the wooden table near the center and passed one to Lydia, keeping the other for himself. They then walked out to the very noisy front of the house, the forge, which served as the family's source of employment, where Seth's father was already hard at work. Seth got his attention and asked where his mother was, and his father replied that she had gone to the market in the center of their village to get some household needs, and that Lydia was supposed to meet her there. Seth walked her out to the dusty dirt road in front of the forge, and she took his paws and said, somewhat dismayed, "Well, it looks like I have my marching orders for this morning." "So it would seem," Seth replied, "Don't be gone too long though. I work half as well when you're not around." They continued to banter and embrace each other and generally be impossibly cute for another minute or two, then Lydia set off down the road to meet her mother-in-law, and Seth went back into the forge.

Seth's father greeted his return, "Oh, are ye quite done yet?" "Yes, sir," he replied, grinning to himself. "Took ye long enough. Did you fuck her in the street or what?" "Ah, no, dad. You know we're classier than that. Fucked her behind the house," Seth joked back. "Ay, lad, I'll tell you what: when you're rich enough to live in Vulpinum Castle and spend the day watching grass grow and ducks play in a pond or whatever those soft-furs do, then you can fuck your wife in the morning. Till then, it can wait till night, and you should be in here working in the morning. Grab a hammer, we got more orders than I can count," he professed, trailing off at the end.

Seamus Black, Seth's father, was a hulking gray beast of a wolf who had spent just about his entire life turning random pieces of metal into pointy, stabby pieces of metal, which was ironic because he opposed war about as much as all combined popular American music acts of the 60's and 70's. Seamus, and the Black family in general, believed that if violence was the only answer to solving a problem, it was probably a problem you shouldn't be having in the first place. Now, that seems like solid logic, but there's a catch to everything, isn't there? Eh, I'm getting ahead of myself. So, I mentioned he trailed off at the end of his little oration, right? Yeah, I did. Rhetorical question, I know what I said. You see, Seamus had been around the block a few times, seen a few things, and he knew that when a bunch of weapon orders came in at the same time, especially if the buyers were foxes, something unpleasant was about to occur. About two-thirds of the orders he had that day came from foxes. Of course, Seamus had never had to fight, since he was easily the best weaponsmith near Vulpinum, and he was too valuable to the upper echelon of the fox hegemony to be chopped into meat strips on foreign soil. Still, he worried about the rest of the village. He felt that no family should have to anxiously wait for months to see if their loved ones were coming home.

Seth sensed the unease his father was projecting, and attempted to take his mind off of the implications of his work, "Right, so that all means nothing because I'm never setting foot in Vulpinum Castle." "Well, shit, lad, none of us will after that shite you pulled when you were just a lil' pup," Seamus responded, shaking his head. "That was almost ten years ago, they don't know what I look like now. Also, not my fault," Seth defended himself, finally getting started on his first project of the day, "Anyhow that's not important. Since I'm confined to a specific time to bed my girl, does it ever get better otherwise? I mean, I love Lydia, but staring at the same pair of tits for the rest of my life is a wee bit daunting prospect." "Lad, I don't believe you've seen any other tits to compare them to, so I don't quite see what the problem is here," Seamus returned the banter. "Aye, true," Seth conceded, "Fine, then. Touching. I've done a lot of that." Seamus continued to shake his head in exaggerated disbelief, "Fumbling around girls' dresses at dances ain't quite the same as what ye got now. Still don't compare. However, I see what you're gettin' at, and there is the issue there with mating as a horny pup. After a few years, it might dawn on ye that you've been using the same hole day in and day out, sure. But, lad, that's the moment it gets good, because then ye start gettin' creative. It gets better."

Seth continued banging a new sword into its proper shape as he asked, "Without sayin' too much, creative how?" Seamus sighed, "Oh, positions, locations... Tell you what, once yer old enough to run this place an' I'm old enough to sit on my big duff and not have to work in here no more, fuck her over an anvil. And that's all I'll say for now." Well now. That couldn't be sanitary. Had Seth been drinking something, he would've pulled a spit-take. As it was, he nearly smashed his finger into an improper shape due to his surprise, "Holy shite. I don't think I want to hear any more of that story. Ever. Though I would like to see mum's reaction to you talking like that." Seamus groaned, "Yeah, your mother does seem to be overly embarrassed whenever I, or you two hooligans for that matter, use the 'fuck' word. Don't understand it much, 's only natural. Maybe it's just 'cus she likes to pretend you two just hug all night. No reason why you should be embarrassed though, same reason. You had to come from somewhere, lad, and it sure as hell wasn't from gentle cuddling." "Oh, what the hell, dad? No more, ever," Seth complained. "You asked," Seamus shrugged.

A few hours passed, which were mostly uneventful and don't deserve much more than this sentence's mention in our overall story here, so we resume with the return to the forge of Lydia and Seth's mother, Gwyneth. Seth had just finished a job and was facing a wall, wiping sweat off his brow, when we felt two arms slide around his torso and heart a familiar voice bluntly state, "You smell like fresh horse shit." Seth sighed, "You smell like horse shit..." "You smell like fresh horse shit, husband," the voice corrected itself, and Seth turned around to face its owner, "I thought you liked seeing me get all hot and sweaty." "During other activities, love," Lydia clarified before firmly kissing him. Gwyneth, a redheaded wolf of similar fur coloration to her husband and offspring, with an analogous musculature to Seamus from years of assisting in the forge before Seth could, momentarily got his attention away from his female, "Seth, laddie, Lydia and I picked up some lunch for you. Don't worry about putting the rest of the supplies away, your father and I will handle it and give you two some privacy."

Seth raised an eyebrow as Gwyneth pushed Seamus through the door of the house with one paw and dragged several baskets behind her with the other, leaving one on a table in the forge. "Privacy? It's lunch..." he said to no one in particular. "Oh, Seth. I love you so much," Lydia stated, laughing at his incomprehension while holding him more tightly. "Um, I love you too, but I'm still confused," he restated. Lydia grinned at him, "That_was wolfess for 'Seth, your father and I need some privacy. You kids go play outside.' Us working-wives are very goal-oriented, Seth. Sometimes you just got to do what you got to do." "But dad went on with this whole speech a few hours ago on how working males should only fuck their wives at night. That's not fair," Seth, whose head was clearly spinning, complained. "She's normally not like that, you know that, so maybe consider this an exception to the rule. We get into a mood every once in a while, and think about it, if _I pounced on you in the middle of the day, what would you do?" "Well, everything. Everything I could think of, honestly," Seth confessed. "Exactly," Lydia smiled up at him from their 4 or 5 inch height difference, "now that we have that covered, let's eat. I'm hungry as hell." Seth readily agreed. He had learned far too much about his parents that day, and his own future spouse was a welcome distraction.

A few minutes later, Seth sat against a wall in front of the forge, his left arm wrapped around Lydia's shoulders and his right paw delivering pieces of bread and dried meat to his waiting maw. They were peacefully enjoying each other's company when a pair of siblings that lived near them, Andrew and Vanessa Lightfoot, approached. Andrew was a very light gray wolf with closely cropped brown hair, about equal to Seth's total size, but where Seth was an above average sized male made completely of sinew, muscle, Bowflex ads, and general masculinity, Andrew was a little more... pudgy. Not like, a total fatso or anything, just... not exactly the understated Adonis bod that Seth was rockin'. Vanessa, on the other paw, was the village equivalent of a beauty queen, with a similar fur tone to her brother's, long black hair that tumbled perfectly down over her shoulders despite the nonexistence of hair care products, long, soft, well-groomed legs, and a top that wasn't overly bodacious, but more ample than most of the other young females in the village, at least enough to give Lydia a slight twinge of jealousy. Actually, she wouldn't say it, but most of the way Vanessa Lightfoot looked gave Lydia a slight twinge of jealousy. Personality wise, both siblings were very unpleasant to be around. Which is an understatement. You'll see.

"Well if it isn't the second-rate hammer-banger and his useless worker bitch," Andrew sneered, causing Seth to roll his eyes so hard he thought they would pop right out of his skull, "Andrew, get out of here before I rearrange your face to somehow make it uglier than it already is." "Oh, you think you can take me on, Seth? Well I-" "Shut up, Andrew," Vanessa cut him off, "You might be destined for greatness, but I don't think you can actually take on this fine lupine specimen in a paw to paw fight," drawing those three words out lasciviously and checking out the "specimen" in question, earning her a piercing gaze from Lydia that made the laser cutter from Goldfinger look like a cat toy. "This 'fine lupine specimen' is taken, Vanessa," Seth rejected her flatly. "Oh, come now, Seth. Don't you remember your first kiss? Our first kiss?" Vanessa asked, almost hissing the s's in "kiss". "Actually, yeah, I do," Seth said nonchalantly, "I recall being profoundly disappointed." Vanessa was clearly offended, and she crossed her arms over her chest in case Seth couldn't figure that out by himself, "Oh? Is that why you kissed me on three more separate occasions?" Seth shrugged, "I mean, sure, I kept expecting it to get better, but it never did. Lydia blew me away before our lips even touched; I don't think you can top that."

The spoiled wolfess stomped her foot in frustration, "I can assure you I've gotten better, Seth. And do you see me? Wouldn't you like to rub your paws all over this body? Think of all the things that we could do together," she said seductively. "Um, Vanessa," Seth said questioningly, "I _have_rubbed my paws all over your body, you know, during those four times you tried to stick your tongue down my throat outside the dance hall? I wasn't impressed. Plus, your looks aren't perfect. Lydia's arse is a fine sight better than yours. I mean, sometimes I'm struggling with a long day at work, and just one look at that arse can get me through the rest of the day. Just one look, really." "You'll regret choosing her over me one day, Seth. I promise you that," the now very irritated wolf threatened. Seth sighed, "What's your point, Vanessa?" "The point? I want you to break off the betrothal and come be with me so we can both benefit when Andrew becomes great and powerful," Vanessa explained, evidently seriously. Seth and Lydia looked at each other, then broke out in laughter, as Seth responded, "No, not a chance. Though I am quite curious to see how Andrew thinks he's going to become great and powerful. Andrew? Explain?"

"I'm joining the Timbrian Army," the chubby wolf stated with faux-nobility, "I start my training in the art of war tomorrow, and I shall become the greatest wolf soldier in Timbria's history and rise to the rank of general." Alright, you guys have read the story so far, so I think you can spot some flaws in this plan. If you're missing them somehow, here's Seth's counterpoint: "Really, Andrew? The army? That's your grand plan? I don't know if you haven't looked down lately, but you're a wolf. The highest rank you'll reach in the army is elite arrow fodder." "I'll be so good, they'll have to respect me. I will be a general," Andrew persisted. "Ha, right," Seth scoffed, "and I'll be the King of Timbria in five years." "You just wait, Seth," Andrew said grumpily, "War and change are coming, and I for one will be taking full advantage of them. Have fun growing old and poor with your plain wife, idiot."

Andrew and Vanessa stormed off, leaving Seth and Lydia falling over each other laughing as they went. After they recovered, Lydia snuggled back up to Seth and asked if he thought she was actually plain, to which he responded, "Are you daft, lady? You're every bit as beautiful as that hussy Vanessa." She kissed him, then more quietly asked, "And everything you said about my arse?" "Lydia, the world is really and truly a better place because your arse exists in it." She laughed loudly and told him she loved him, yet again, as Seamus appeared at the front of the forge, leaning on a post and looking completely worn out, and asked, "What's the commotion for?" "The Lightfoots stopped by," Lydia succinctly explained, to which Seamus responded, "The Lightfoots? What a bunch of dumbasses. Anyway, pups, I still feel a bit tired from, er, stocking the shelves inside the house with mum, so I'm giving us a bit longer of a break. I'll come back in a few minutes." The massive wolf headed back into the forge, and Seth covered his face with a paw, flustered that the awkwardness of the day was continuing. "You must really be loving today," his betrothed said sarcastically, stroking his chest. "Only because you're here, Lydia," Seth answered, holding her tighter, "only because you're here."

*****

A few hours later, Seth climbed a tree. Yup, that's it, moving on.

...Just kidding this is a little important. It was almost sunset, and Seth sat on the branch of a rather large tree overlooking a lake. His work day was done, and Lydia had gone to assist her mother at the inn for a while. "Oh," you say, "Well that's... nice. Why do I care?" You care, curious audience member, because this is an important part of Seth's backstory. You see, the tree was a special place for Seth, because from the branch where he sat you could see Vulpinum Castle seemingly climbing into the heavens, its colorfully adorned stone walls and towers making it look like the impenetrable treasure box of Timbria. The view reminded Seth of his childhood, when he was able to actually enter the castle's perimeter. When he was small, his father's renown was so absolute that he was allowed to personally enter the castle grounds and deliver his creations to his high-profile clients, and occasionally he would take his son with him. One day, while delivering a parcel when Seth was about 9-ish, he caught sight of King Alfred's two children, a son, Alfred III, who was a few years older than Seth, and a daughter, Sasha, who, coincidentally, was about Seth's age. That was the extent of the king's progeny, at least officially, since the queen had gotten tired of his bullshit and allegedly ran off with a wolf to the countryside. King Alfred proceeded to not care and got his rocks off by banging his servants, who were much more malleable than his wife anyway. As you can see even more so now than before, the ruler of Timbria was a true paragon of virtue.

Anyway, Seth saw the children, and being surprisingly observant for a pup, deduced that Sasha didn't seem so bad, and young Alfred was an asshole. It seemed that genes passed down by gender in the Vulpinex family. Of course, Seth didn't exactly get to really meet them. He was still lower-class filth, there was no way he was gonna get set up for a play date with royalty. So after they left the castle, Seth made his own plan. He knew there was a garden area of the castle where the kids sometimes played thanks to some nannies with a poor sense of volume control, and that said garden wasn't as walled up as the rest of the fortress, with only iron bars separating it from the rest of the world. Being the precocious little bastard he was, Seth decided that he was going to sneak up to the castle garden and talk to the princess, because little Seth was a ballsy motherfucker.

So a few days later, he attempted his mission, and by some stroke of luck, it worked out perfectly. The way up to the top of the reverse side of the hill that the castle garden was built on was somewhat treacherous, but Seth was determined to make the trek, because it was the princess, and all the other kids would think he was a total badass. Of course he fed his parents a fake story before he left. I mean, wouldn't you? Once he reached the garden, fate continued to give Seth a big ol' thumbs up, since he got there right after Princess Sasha had told the nanny on duty to whatever-the-eight-year-old-equivalent-of-"fuck off" is, so the caretaker got flustered and just kind of left the kit out there to hang out by herself. Apparently Vulpinum also had some shitty nannies. Oh well. Worked out for Seth. So Seth tried to get the princess's attention by rattling the bars, which was successful, and she curiously approached him, "You're a wolf," she said matter-of-factly in her vulpine, analogous to English, accent. "Yes I am," Seth said nervously, losing much of his bravado now that he was actually standing face to face with royalty, "and you're Princess Sasha." "I am," she acknowledged, "who are you, and how did you get here?" "Well I'm Seth. Seth Black. And I, um, well, climbed," he reported shyly. She looked at him incredulously, "How?" Seth looked at the ground and kicked some dirt around with his foot, "I don't know. I just did. I wanted to meet the princess."

The rest of the conversation went pretty smoothly, with Sasha electing to not call the guard on Seth's sorry ass, and also telling him that he should come around again at the same time and place, which he gladly agreed to. They carried on their liaisons for months, with Sasha telling Seth about royal life and Seth telling her about village life and it was all very adorable. That is, until the day fate decided that the story was getting too boring and needed some drama, stat. One day, they were in their usual spot, which Sasha reached by evading her caretakers on a regular basis, and Sasha was acting more reserved than usual. The wolf asked the small, velvet-furred, scarlet-haired kit what was wrong, and she posed a question that Seth shouldn't have had to deal with until he was at least, like, 16 or something, "You always come up to see me, and you're so nice... Do you love me?" 10 year old Seth did not know what the shit was going on there, but he did know that he enjoyed his visits more than hanging out with the other boys in the village, and it was also the fucking princess, what was he going to do, say no? "Yes, I think I do," he responded, "I, uh, do you?" "I think I do too," she confessed, after which they kind of shuffled around for a few seconds, not knowing what to do after that had been established, until Sasha spoke up again, "The older foxes around here, um, when they love each other, they, um, they..." And then, in another experience that Seth was not mentally prepared for, she kissed him, full-on, or about as much as a kid could do anyway.

Seth stared, dumbfounded, until he stammered out, "P-p-princess?" "Oh, uh, um, did you, uh, not like it?" "No, I mean yes, or, er, I liked it... It's just, you, you're the princess, and I'm not even supposed to be here, and..." "So what? You said you loved me, why does that matter?" "I guess it doesn't," Seth said, blushing straight through his gray fur, "so, um, do you want to... um, again?" She didn't bother giving a verbal answer and just got right to it, which was the exact moment that a guard happened to walk by the garden, at which point he thought he was hallucinating. The fox soldier hustled over to the fence and asked in disbelief, "Oh, what the hell is this?!" Seth looked up at the male, and thought for a second that he might have needed a change of pants, while Sasha looked up at the same figure defiantly. "This is Seth. I love him. And I'm the princess so I can do what I want," the stubborn little vixen stated. The guard was still baffled, "Love him? I don't think you can really grasp that concept yet. And just because you're the princess doesn't mean you can snog whoever you want. There are rules. And you, wolf, just how in the hell did you even get here?" "I climbed," Seth answered nervously, and the guard's jaw dropped in response, "Climbed? I'm not even mad, I'm just impressed." He sighed, "Look, trespassing on castle grounds is a crime punishable by death, but you're just kids and I'm not a monster, so get out of here and don't let me see you up here again. And what is your family name, Seth, so I can have a word with them?" "Black, sir. Son of Seamus and Gwyneth, sir," Seth reported. "Alright, Seth Black, go on, get out. And Mistress Sasha, come with me," the guard ordered. As Seth started back down the hill he could hear one last "I love you, Seth" being called from the garden.

Back to the future, Seth leaned back against the trunk of the tree, reminiscing about those times. His parents gave him the scolding of his life, and Seamus was disallowed from entering the castle grounds, but it was all worth it. A few days after everything happened, Seamus even congratulated the boy for stealing a kiss from royalty, telling him that he wished he had the guts to do that, though Seth should never try that again. He also never told anyone about his exploits near the castle, not even Lydia. As far as they were concerned, his first real contact with a female was with Vanessa Lightfoot when they were 15, and he felt that was the way it should stay. Besides, they were just kids, they didn't know what was happening. In Seth's mind it didn't even really count.

Sometimes when he sat up in the tree he thought about where Sasha was then, if she had moved on, found someone else. Not that it mattered all too much; he'd never see her again, plus even if he did she wouldn't recognize him after years of separation, and there wasn't much he could do about it if she was still interested since he at least had definitely found someone else. So he was content to just keep the memories, as he reassured himself when he heard a rustling in the bushes beneath the tree.

"Seth, get down from there! It's late, we need to get home," the voice of Lydia came up through the air. "Really? Already?" He called back down to her, to which she chided, "Let me put it this way: the longer you stay up there, the smaller my odds of being 'nice' to you tonight are." Seth dropped down from his branch and rolled out to cushion his fall, "Now wait, you promised me. You can't go back on that." She chuckled, "Whatever. I got you out of the tree. Oh no, I know that look." "You know," Seth said, moving closer to her and running his paws over her hips, up her sides, then over to her breasts "we could just keep that promise out here. The lake's quite romantic innit?" "Not as romantic as our bed," Lydia shut him down, thoroughly unfazed by his advances, "Be patient. Now let's go before your parents blame me for keeping you out late."

Seth reluctantly agreed and put his paws away momentarily, before using one to hold one of Lydia's as they returned home, chatting about how Lydia's mother was doing and just what the hell Seth's fascination with that tree was about. Of course Seth still refused to disclose the full truth about that, but they carried on the conversation nevertheless. When they got home Seth opened the door and saw his parents looking very distressed while seated around their table, looking at a piece of parchment. Seth asked what was wrong, and Seamus put the paper on the table before proceeding to console Gwyneth. Lydia snatched it up before Seth could get to it, then started reading it over (the family was literate. They had to read a lot of written orders), and as she progressed she became more and more unstable, until she eventually dropped the paper, leaned against a post, and repeated, "No... no... no no nonononono... Not Seth, God, please, not Seth." Confused as to what the fuss was about, Seth picked up the parchment and silently read:

The Kingdom of Timbria and Province of Vulpinum hereby declare Seth Black to be conscripted into the Third Timbrian Infantry Regiment for the forthcoming Timbrian invasion of Senkhar. This is a mandatory order of service, and this recruit shall report to the Army staging area at Fort Wolfwind in one week's time. Weapons and other equipment will be provided by the Army, and all draftees will receive meager monetary compensation for serving their tour of duty. With honor and integrity, we shall vanquish this foe and fate willing return to Timbria with haste. For the Beauteous Kingdom and All within It.

Somberly,

General Galahad Noblefur, Timbrian Army

Seth stared blankly at the paper, not quite believing what he was reading. But it was true. Seth was going to be pressed into the army to go to a land he didn't wish to see, to fight a war he had no interest in fighting. This was how life was in Timbria, and whether he wanted to accept it or not, Seth Black's life became much more bleak that night.