Pairs of Pumpkins #01: Family Ties

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Warning and Disclaimer: The following story includes depiction of a physical and sexual relationship between an older, anthropomorphic fox woman and a younger, anthropomorphic fox man but all characters described are physically mature and 18 years or older. The story is told from the limited perspective of the older woman and reflects her exacerbated perception of their age difference.

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Snow crunched under hard-soled boots on the untended, forest back road, the only sound to interrupt the silence of the arctic night. The sharp-eared adventuress was up to her knees in it, making time slower than she was used to and every curse from her black-freckled muzzle birthed a new cloud of breath . Her cloak draped out around her on the surface of the snow, split by a thick, ivory fox tail that swished back and forth in a waltz-like rhythm, brushing away the traces of her deep footsteps.

With scarcely little information what lay ahead beyond her estranged family potentially in peril, she was on her most alert and her leather-gloved hand griped the handle of a mace, the weapon hanging from her belt, in the confines of her cloak. Glancing over her shoulders reassured her that the twin tomahawks strapped to her backpack would be ready if needed. She had prepared as best she could be for any danger at the end of this road.

Portia Pridemoon's legs were damp from snow that reached the top of her thigh-high boots, under a banded, leather skirt. It wasn't cold against the layers of her ivory, arctic fur: just annoying. The vixen hadn't run away from this place half a lifetime ago because of the weather, but she didn't miss it either. She returned to colder climates sometimes in her travels but never expected she would ever wind up back in this one: the icy, island fortress of The Pale Lands.

"Excuse me, miss. Do you have a daughter?"

The journey had started nearly a month ago with what she assumed was a pickup line at a small town tavern, from a mead-breathed, old rat, a full foot shorter than her. She had been on the central mainland's coast where rain was their biggest problem this time of year. "I swear I seen her while traveling in The Pale Lands!" He must have been a merchant or a trader as rats were not a native species to her homeland, and Palelanders were not welcoming to foreigners unless it was for commerce or trade. "She was young, but she looked almost exactly like you. Well, except for her chest."

"That tends to be the differentiating factor from me and other vixens," she said without looking in his direction, drinking her mead.

The rat had been quiet for a moment, leaning back and taking a long and obvious appraisal of her. "No, I mean bigger than you. Maybe twice as big!"

Her muzzle was thankfully half in her mug when she spit it out with a laugh. "I doubt that."

"It's not a sight I seen before and maybe never will again, but no red-blooded man is going to forget a pair of tits that make those look small."

She didn't expect to be so insulted, but she never expected to hear such a thing at all. For the typical scale of most folk, Portia didn't have the kind of breasts that people noticed: she was the kind that people remembered. Each of them easily dwarfed her head and together they dominated her torso, even covered and restrained in her hard leather armor as they were usually. They were substantial to a degree that they affected her mobility, training and even choice of weaponry. She would never fire a longbow or swing a two-handed sword with any efficiency and the fact that she made a successful career as an adventurer-for-hire despite them, ensured some amount of reputation would be inevitable. It made an impression when people saw her in action.

That endowment often speculated to be the result of magic, had a reasonable, scientific explanation but one that she could never share. It was the physical signature of the Vasiljev royal bloodline: the Ruling Family of The Pale Lands, the Puritanical leadership of the religiously repressive Queendom and her own abandoned lineage, who swaddled themselves in heavy blankets, to hide their endowments in shame. Pridemoon was a surname adopted as a teenager after running away and literally making a name for herself. To The Pale Lands, Portia Vasiljev, first heiress to the throne, was dead and it was better for everyone for that to never be challenged. On the continent, she was a foreigner with an exotic appearance and unlike her family, she was quite proud of the way she looked.

If anyone was spotted looking so similar to her, it was likely someone of her bloodline, either a sister or a cousin. If they were out in public and not escorted by a Royal security detail, they were probably in trouble.

At the end of the tree-lined road, a walled manor appeared, of a scale only inconspicuous for its location. While the footprint wasn't unusual or excessive for a residence, the house stood a full, four stories high with a tower rising at least one more floor. The fifteen-foot wall surrounding it would be enough to deter most undesirables. The heavy hand of the Queen kept the Queendom generally quite safe from rogues and bandits but any desolate forest land had its share of native beasts and monsters. The wall didn't appear able to be manned, and she saw no guards posted but there was the smoke of a hearth rising into the night sky and several windows flickered with firelight. Someone was home and if the rat's speculation had been correct, the defenses would likely be magical. With her left hand still gripping her mace tightly, her right moved to hold the warm, roughly chiseled, metal charm that hung from her necklace.

It was made from a material called Relagite, an ore so rare that most metallurgists didn't believe it existed, and she had never heard of it in all her travels, until a former adventuring party of hers claimed to know where to find some. The story was it had an extra-planar mass so dense that spells cast towards it could not escape and worn as a charm, the effect was to dispel all magic targeted at the wearer. Portia never trusted wizards but this recent acquisition meant she didn't have to be so afraid of them. As an added benefit, it could be used to scrape away Wards, which if this were a sorcerer's lair, the walls were likely covered in.

"It was the busty fox and I'd guess her younger brother, a teenager riding on the back of a carriage," the merchant explained after she purchased his drink and dinner. "In the front sat an absolute behemoth of a horse next to a creepy, old raccoon in robes. Once the raccoon noticed me, he stared back with the evilest glare ever seen! Those beady, black eyes looked right into my soul!" he said with a shiver. "I saw them take a fork in the road at Crackle Bend, heading towards the mountain and I heard rumors a dark sorcerer lives down that way. Perhaps it was him?"

She didn't know many of her cousins well, especially after all the time away but the pairing sounded too familiar. Her only sister, Augustina who would be in her early twenties by now and her youngest brother, Prince Mikke, had been born a few years after Portia's departure. Describing her sister as she'd last seen her would do no good: her fur was still a pup's back then. If the girl witnessed was really bustier than her and the cousins were weaker blooded versions of the royal family, then it had to be her and possibly Mikke.

With the rat's descriptions and her dated but thorough knowledge of her ancestral homeland, they drew a map together. The next morning she set out alone and with haste, venturing toward the coast but not just any ships would be welcomed in the handful of harbors of the island fortress. She made the straightest line she could to reach the Port of Balhovka, the only trading city to her homeland and from there, she booked discreet passage, hiding away under the deck of a merchant ship for the several days journey over icy seas.

Portia had never been to Samyi, the main commercial port of The Pale Lands where she disembarked but it fit the mold of every other drab city and village here: dull, modest and boring. Even colors were rejected in the conservative Queendom beyond what was natural for it's boreal forest landscape: whites and blacks, gray, browns and greens. Yellow, orange and red were forbidden to wear and visitors with such coats, while not in itself a crime, were strongly encouraged to keep themselves covered up indoors. Outside, with the temperature consistently below freezing, it was less of an issue. She kept her hood up and used a balled-up blanket to reshape her cloak into something more amorphous. It had been nearly two decades since she ran away but couldn't risk being recognized.

There was no nostalgia for her feet to be on native soil, and she had not missed this place. The only signs of life were the shambling of sullen townsfolk minding their own business, eyes down on the ground in front of them. The land was joyless, and she wouldn't stay any longer than necessary.

She ventured out of Samyi and through a well-groomed mountain pass to the central valley, an expanse of farmland and untouched forest. Spaced perfectly for every day's travel along the highway was a small village and often, a tavern or inn at the midday point. For all the boredom and gloom of The Pale Lands, their infrastructure was superb. Seven days and six stops later, she reached the village of Lepaja, the one closest to her destination. The landmark of Crackle Bend was another two hours beyond, and she had set off for it past an early afternoon sundown, timing her arrival to around midnight. She would approach it discreetly under the cover of darkness, something easily timed this far north. It was the last week of Felan's Moon, the first month of the year and the Sun's time in the sky was short, adding an extra level of misery to an already miserable place.

The vixen circled the entire perimeter, looking for wards of deterrent and defense and finding several. She didn't know one from another but imagined if she were defending such a remote place with magic, it would be a combination of traps to ensnare or destroy an attacker and alarms to mobilize a counter-attack. It didn't matter what they did exactly since if she could find it, she could break it. With a single, deep scrape of her relagite charm, the ward would fizzle and sometimes smoke before being rendered inert. Without the magic to preserve it, they all faded instantly and some even weathered before her eyes.

After a diligent search she found and severed six, clearly marked wards, the low, ambient heat of magic keeping the snow from covering them. She found another three, partially covered in snow and faded and aged so severely that they might not work at all, but she broke them anyway, just to be certain. There was a small, satisfying fizzle of smoke with each. "I guess these things don't expire," she mused to herself.

With the wards cleared, Portia tossed her grappling hook and scaled the wall easily then dropped down into the yard, landing with a controlled tumble in the snow. Frozen in a crouch at the bottom, she studied the scene and if it would react to her but all remained still and silent. There was a one-story shed that had been concealed by the wall but otherwise the grounds appeared bare under the blanket of snow, existing only to surround the house itself. With a breath of relief she stood and approached the house, Once near it, she circled around, looking for clues to its contents by peering into windows as well as noting any possible points of entry. From some angles, she could see a flickering, indirect light from a hearth fire but no one seemed to be moving about. The windows of the house managed to stay clear of any built up snow and were warm to the touch. Either the place had incredibly efficient heating or more magic was in use.

The manor stood nearly as tall as her rope was long. Trying to attach a grappling hook to a snow covered roof risked a conspicuous avalanche if it could find a suitable anchor at all. The upper windows didn't seem any more accessible than the lower ones, all of them too small for entry, even if they could be opened from the exterior. Strangely, there was no back or side door, only the front. One, single way in and out.

The scene outside didn't answer many questions at all and her impatience and curiosity were nagging at her to proceed forward, into the unknown. She had to trust that her experience as a fighter and her relagite charm would be enough to deal with the wizard, should it come to a battle.

The behemoth of a horse was the kind of opponent she could prepare for and so she had. Outside of her usual repertoire of tricks, she had purchased a potent, knockout poison and blow darts before leaving Balhovka. She sourced it from a merchant she knew and trusted when he assured her a single dose could fell the tallest and largest of folk in seconds. Two doses cost her what an acre of farmable land would and it would start to lose potency in six weeks.

All this assumed she even had the right house. The Pale Lands were sparse but the rat's story wasn't a gospel truth. Memories were fallible but there was only one way to find out. She touched the relagite medallion for reassurance then secured her cloak tighter around her form. After a deep breath and a nervous shiver, she knocked heavily on the front door before rushing back a few steps, mindful of windows that would give away her position. She spun around there and knelt with the blowgun at ready.

A long silence followed. It was a large house and she considered if she should knock again when the door stirred. It opened halfway, revealing an absolute brute of a stallion, chestnut-furred and thick in every proportion, wrapped in menacing, black, leather armor, nearly filling the whole, nine-foot doorway. His black mane was unkept and wild, even as somehow it didn't react to the light breeze at all. His eyes were fiery with annoyance and his right hand brandished a hatchet of a scale that would be a two-handed axe for most creatures to swing but barely more than a toy to him. She knew many stallions in her travels, and they were sometimes taller than seven feet but almost always shy of eight and only draft horses were anywhere near so thick with muscle. Indeed, a giant horse in a land where equines weren't common at all. This was the place.

The cracked door presented enough of him for Portia to blow a dart right into his exposed neck. He flinched at the sting, feeling around for it before his eyes caught the vixen, a cloaked lump against the snow and put together what was happening. She hurried to reload and ready the blowgun again. If the poison didn't work, she wanted to at least slow him down as much as possible before a real fight.

White teeth bared and nostrils doubled in size at the end of the horse's long face before the door swung open forcefully, slamming out against the stone entryway. The horse took one stomp forward out into the snow before he wobbled, the strength draining from his face. The vixen was still as she waited, coiled up, ready to fire the second dart then run to buy the poison some time but it became apparent she wouldn't need to. His alert eyes relaxed and rolled back in his head then he fell forward onto his face, oddly quiet as the thick snow cushioned the fall.\

The horseman lay still for a long moment, but she kept the blowgun aimed anyway, slowly closing the distance, then giving him a shake with her foot, out of reach of his arms. The poison had worked as promised and the high purchase price, justified.

She gave a sigh of relief before stepping over him at the threshold of the house, the unconscious body blocking the door from being able to shut. She looked down at the limp, thousand pound horse and the heavy door, held open by his body, seeming to expose the house to the full brunt of winter. Anyone inside was going to notice before long.

"Shit."

She hurried over him and into the house, dimly but evenly lit with flickering oil lamps but there was no time to study the room. She grabbed him by the feet, his legs alone nearly too heavy to lift, but she managed to get them in her armpits and attempt to drag him inside with her every bit of strength. The effort was no more effective than trying to move the entire house. He didn't budge. The vixen cursed herself again. She had grown up in these winter conditions and had since dealt with many bodies she couldn't lift herself. She could have lured him out into the snow and at least closed the door but then the horse would freeze to death before she knew if he was guilty of any crime. So far, all he'd done had been being spotted with a suspiciously familiar vixen.

Squat at his feet, she became aware of the surrounding warmth. Despite the front door being wide open around a giant horse, there was no wind or snow crossing the threshold into the house. A glance down at the doorway confirmed that, as a hard line of snowflakes accumulated at the door sill. More magic. The wizard that lived here must be quite potent to be using spells for such comforts. "What are you doing?!"

Someone else was here! She twirled around and drew the mace, holding it at the ready, only to find a teenage fox in an evening robe at the base of a large, spiral staircase in the center of the house. He was a safe distance from her but still backpedaling at the quickness of her action. A dagger gripped in one hand left the other mercifully free to catch himself on the banister when he tripped over the first step. The quick hand kept him from falling back entirely and he froze, hanging on to it while still brandishing the blade. He was no threat.

The full sight of him disarmed her. He was young but strikingly attractive, with white fur and tall, pointed ears capped in dark tips, his visible hands of a matching color. His headfur was cut short and messy, a golden chestnut similar to her own but his eyes nearly matched it. She seldom crossed paths with another arctic fox at all and had forgotten what a handsome species they all were but something more than familiarity bridged the distance between them, a connection instant and shocking. Her pulse was already racing from the scare of being discovered but with the young man revealed and clearly no real threat, it wasn't stopping.

Her posture softened from a martial stance and her jaw fell with a puff of a disbelieving laugh but stayed open to feed her elevated breath. She had not been in the same room with any from her immediate family in nearly two decades and her childhood with them had been every bit as cold as the land they ruled. Was this how families were supposed to feel together, now that she had shaken off the emotional oppression of her youth? How dare they had stolen such magnetism. Such euphoria!

Portia stepped closer, tossing aside her weapon, but he was not so quickly disarmed by her. From the railing, he pulled himself upright to stand, barely tall enough to reach her shoulder. He threatened with the dagger like a child might, but she stopped as a courtesy.

"Mikke?"

The young fox flattened his ears back in confusion.

"You're not Mikke Vasiljev?"

His head gave a small shake and her brow furrowed. That didn't make sense. Something was unusual about him and there was an immediate connection more sophisticated than she might a typical, attractive male . If it wasn't Mikke, then it was okay for the feeling to resemble attraction but it was more than that. Attraction was something she recognized.

"Princess Augustina: is she here?" she snapped a rapid follow up, and he was every bit as confused. This wasn't them. "Augustina Vasiljev? Both of the royal family of this land?" His expression was blank. "Is Beatrice still the Queen?"

"I don't know any of those names. I'm Joseph." His tension had softened in her inquiries but his posture remained guarded.