Chapter 2
Reuinion
Before he could even say anything in response, the lights snapped on, blinding him for a brief moment. He shielded his eyes from the sudden rush of brightness, but when he lowered his paw, there, by the light switch were his parents, chuckling and winking at each other. But who was-
Standing behind a few of the fixings were the people he’d known. His group. His friends from high school.
There they were, ranging from over six feet to barely five feet tall, and from a slight gut to stick-thin. From bleach blond hair to night black, there they stood. Right in front of him, when they were supposed to be somewhere else… Nile just couldn’t wrap his mind around it.
Of course, as he expected, Ren and Yani had their arms around each other, but they weren’t getting lost in each other’s eyes, so that was a first for them. Ren was the everyday average fox, somewhere around five feet nine, but his hair was what set him apart from the rest. His hair was towhead white, and spilled down to his neck in wavy clumps that somehow managed to look well managed despite how his hairs crisscrossed every which way. Nobody questioned Ren’s hair, it was just Ren’s hair, and nothing more was asked. Poking up through his hair were his rounded ears that looked like they had been dipped in dark chocolate at the tip. Beneath that, his face was rather normal, save for the brilliant blue eyes that any cheerleader would swoon over. His clothes, too, were surprisingly normal: tattered and faded blue jeans that were a bit too large for him, and an unbuttoned navy blue shirt that just happened to show off how toned and slim he was. He never failed to point that out, and sometimes erred on the side of arrogance.
Yani, a bit taller than Ren, was definitely the one who wore the pants in the relationship, and judging by her posture, she knew that fact all too well. The albino dingo held herself upright at a surprising five foot eleven, her fur as white as Ren’s hair. She had no markings, no blemishes, nothing at all to show that she wasn’t a Goddess. Even her hair, which cascaded down to her lower back, was an unadulterated red that was thin and perfectly straight. Her ears were actually a little bit longer than usual, and shot straight up out of her hair, ending in fine tips with a little bit of fur dangling off of the ends. Her face was narrow, and no matter what angle she was seen from, it looked like that was the best angle to take a picture of. And with pink eyes like hers, just her stare was intoxicating. Of course, her stare was almost constantly fixed on Ren, but when it wandered, it gave Nile the shivers. Her clothing, like Ren’s, was a bit revealing, starting with a red shirt that started just above her plump breasts and barely went down to her waistline, hugging her curvy form tightly. Nile swore that the only thing that held the shirt up was its tightness. Other than that, the long skirt she wore, which ended around her knees, matched perfectly with her ‘shirt’. The only other thing she wore was a pair of pink fingerless gloves, which nobody had ever seen her without. Even Ren has never seen her without those on.
“Y-You’re all…” Nile stammered, still unable to believe what was happening. “B… But…” he was at a complete loss for words.
“Yeah, we’re here!” Rellian exclaimed, vaulting himself over the back of the sofa and charging over towards Nile, a playful look in his eyes. “Bet you didn’t expect to see us!”
Nile truly didn’t expect to see the electric yellow snake, or anybody else. Rellian most of all, since he was bound for a transfer program to New Zealand, so he could study at a new prestigious music school over there. But… Didn’t he have to be there next week?
“Rellian…” Niles gasped a little bit as the excited snake stopped right in front of him. “I’m… Surprised to say the least. Didn’t you need to head off for New Zealand in a few days?”
Nodding, Rellian shifted his weight to another hip, his tail flicking contently behind him. For a snake, his tail was rather active. “Well, I’ve got a few days, I’m already packed… So why the hell wouldn’t I come to your surprise going away party?”
Surprise going away party, huh? So that’s what this was. Even in the weeks or so that Nile remembered, everybody had changed so much. Except Rellian, he was still the excitable kid that would never miss a chance to get together with somebody. Surprisingly, Rellian had been single throughout his entire life; all the of the females he had been interested in had just wanted to be friends with him. Nile saw it exactly like that, Rellian was good friend material. A great friend.
Though he was a snake, Rellian almost resembled a dragon in some ways. His snout wasn’t as ridiculously long as a snake’s, but it was longer than a dragon’s. And he had a snake’s cream underbelly , so that kept everybody’s questions away as to what he was. Nobody really knew exactly what species he was, since dragons, according to his high school history book, were long since extinct. But his ears were definitely no those of a normal snake. They almost looked like fins on the side of his head, but they went straight back, poking out of ebony hair and going only to the back of his head. His hair, though, was definitely not normal for snakes, most of them could only grow short and spiky styles, but his was about down to his neck if it was straightened out. It had a slight wave to it, but it was hardly noticeable, seeing as it was about as controlled as a rhino on a small leash. That hair almost always kept his hazel eyes in view, but every once in a while, it would slide over and he’d have to brush it away with an annoying hand. That hand though, only had four fingers, including the thumb, and each finger ended in a scaly point, which always seemed to be sharp. Of course, because of that, he, like Yani, wore a pair of black gloves that fit to his hand perfectly, snug against his fingers.
Since it was summer, Rellian had his black hoodie tied around his waist, which kept his stark and bland lime green T-shirt tucked close to his figure. It also held up his faded black cargo pants, which had a few too many pockets for his own good. He probably could have sold his pocket space for FedEx shipping and made some good money. Other than that, his pants had a few random bits of material hanging off of the side, but the pants weren’t torn anywhere. Why he chose that, Nile had no idea, but it had become his trademark at the school, and anybody else who tried to wear something like him was instantly laughed at.
“Well” Rellian, continued, shrugging his shoulders and stepping away slowly, as if embarrassed of something. “I’m here for a few days before I have to head out across the world”
“Thanks for coming out all this way, man” Nile responded with a cheery grin, his mood suddenly uplifted. “It’s good to see ya” With that, he stepped forward and gave him a friendly hug, patting the snake on the back.
Seemingly shocked, Rellian hugged him back, but quickly hopped back to the couch without another word to Nile. But before Nile could say anything about it, he was swarmed by the oncoming flood of friends, and immediately drawn into the greatest group hug of his entire life. Everybody he had known since high school and a few before, all there together one last time before college separated them for all of four months. Ah hell, four months wasn’t too long, but this was their party. Not just Nile’s party, but everybody’s going away party crammed into one. He was d**ned if he was going to let any drama into this hotel.
But right as he thought that, he caught her out of the corner of his eye, standing off in a corner. Nella. Nella Kallen. His first love. His first ex as well. He closed his eyes and tried to shut her out of his mind, but he couldn’t help himself. He… As much as he hated to admit it, he still loved her for some reason, and since they’re breakup she had become more and more distant from him, from everybody. It was as if whenever he left her he took something from her, something that made her the person she had been. She had become more outgoing, more tolerating, more… More everything. And now she just sulked around in corners and avoided any contact with anybody at all. It hurt him to see her like that, but he couldn’t bring up the courage to tell her how he felt. She… She wanted to be apart like this… Right? And much to his own remorse, he still couldn’t recall exactly why she had left him. It was just one huge gaping hole in his memory.
He was quickly brought back to reality by the laughter, and chuckling, and the closeness of everybody. Even Milo was getting along with everybody, and that was something he’d never imagined possible. Milo, the outcast of the group, who always managed to be the butt of everybody’s jokes. Sure, he was a bit different than anybody else, but Nile had always felt guilty when Milo ended up averting his gaze from everybody else as a result of their laughter.
“Well, looks like everybody’s back together, huh Milo?” Nile chuckled softly, patting the small coyote on the head.
Of course, that made Milo’s ears flatten somewhat in embarrassment, but he managed to squeak out a “Yeah” or something like it, Nile couldn’t tell over all of the cheering and laughing.
Milo, being the obsequious little kid of the group, didn’t look like he belonged out of high school at all. Most thought him to be just out of middle school, and while standing at a gargantuan five feet flat, it was very understandable. Well, Nile only guessed that he was five feet tall, but Nile was sure he was shorter than that. He was also thin with only a little bit of muscle covering his sinewy frame, but it was a miracle he didn’t look like one of the starving African kids on TV. His hair didn’t help the fact, it lay completely flat against his head, no spikes, no ponytail, nothing. It was only barely to his ridiculously thin neck though, just kind of hanging down there without a care in the world. His ears, in contrast to his height, were almost laughably large. They shot out of the top of his head not straight up, but almost completely sideways, only having a slight tilt upwards to them with an adorable little patch of fur on the ends. Along with his ears, his muzzle was a bit long and was almost pointy at the end. Strangely, his ears hung at different heights, his left ear a bit higher than the right. The reason for this was his silver earrings, which hung off of the bottom of both of his ears – two on the left and three on the right. Nobody knew why he had them, and he had never said a word about them either. Perched in front of his eyes on that elongated muzzle was a small pair of glasses, that without, he probably wouldn’t have known that Nile had even walked in the door. His fur was about the same brown as Nile’s, but it was a little bit lighter in most spots, and he had a few random splotches of chocolate colorings on his fur in places.
Today - he never wore the same thing - he had on an lavender vest that fit rather tight on his thin frame. The teal shirt he wore under that, completely logo-less, was much looser, and that vest caused a lot of wrinkles in the undershirt. The bottom of the shirt reached down quite a bit past the waistline of his jeans, which fit him rather comfortably, if not a little bit snug near the top. The bottoms of his jeans were tattered too, leading down into the pair of boots that were surprisingly light, yet thick enough to be considered heavy duty. And, every pair of pants he wore had the hole in the back for his overly fluffy tail (for a coyote) to poke out and swish about.
“Well” Nile announced, finally getting away from the massive group hug and dispelling the whole thing. “Can you spare me a serious moment?”
His entire group of friends seemed completely stunned, or, at least the five that were hugging him to death a moment ago.
“Nile, being serious?” Ren piped up, blinking a few times in completely disbelief.
“Hold on…” came a rather deep voice from the crowd. Instantly, Nile knew exactly who it was. Sure enough, standing there and towering above the crowd, was Tyler Kieran. “Nile being serious?” he mimicked Ren. He walked quickly over to one of the covered windows, tossing the cover away and looking up for a moment. “Nope, sky’s not falling”
The room erupted into laughter, and Nile couldn’t help but give out a nervous chuckle. Tyler had always been a bit sarcastic, but he seemed to lighten up as of late. Then again, Nile had barely seen any of them over the summer, so he had no idea what had gone on with their personal lives.
A few of his friends had gotten to calling Tyler ‘The Beast’ the last time he saw them, and there was plenty of reason for it. He, during his freshman year, had been the tiniest one among them, a short little tiger with an attitude. He wasn’t too strong, too tall, or anything else for that matter. But after getting picked on so much that year, he miraculously had grown to a monstrous six feet six by his senior year, and grew another full inch after that. Of course, he had also grown muscles beyond even the football team’s belief. Simply put, anybody who messed with TK The Beast would be in huge trouble. Thankfully, nobody had ever stood up to him, so the huge tiger never had to worry about fulfilling his promise to anybody. Though he was the beast, Nile always saw him as a gentle giant.
The gentle giant, was not just the average enormous tiger, bright orange fur mixed with gray, not black, stripes that ran along his entire body without fail. It wasn’t hard to tell that though, seeing as he had stopped wearing a shirt once school let out and dress code no longer applied to him. His chest fur, instead of the usual glaring white, was a nicely even-toned gray that actually accentuated his muscles more than the usual white would. Above the waistline his tail hung lazily out, almost pushing the waistband a bit down. His pants were not everyday jeans, they were a nice thin gray fabric, with two drawstrings at the front in case they began to sag a bit. But that was all the clothing was visible on him, for all everybody else knew, he could be wearing nothing else.
“Good to hear” Nile said, waiting for the silence so he could say something.
“Right then, go ahead” TK apologized, taking the hint that silence was wanted. He nodded his head slowly, sending his messy and spiky black hair bobbing slightly from it.
“Okay…” Nile breathed, like he was preparing for a graduation speech. “I just want to say that this isn’t exactly my party” Everybody in the room wore a confused look. “Everybody graduated, we’re all going away, and the only difference I have from you is that I wasn’t in on the surprise. So, this is everybody’s graduation party!”
A cheer rose throughout the entire room, even Nella and Rellian had to join in for this, and Ren and Yani, of course, hugged each other. Milo jumped up and punched the air with an excited yip, and TK just crossed his buff arms and nodded. What he didn’t expect was a “Hell yes!” from somebody in the crowd.
At that, everybody stopped cheering and turned curiously towards whoever had yelled that. It was… Well that was unexpected.
It was Leena, the last person everybody expected to show any sort of excitement, since she was the definition of gothic. She was a deep violet housecat that, other than her choice of clothing, had nothing too special about her. She wasn’t busty like Yani, tall like TK, short like Milo… She was averagely tall, averagely endowed, and with average, if rather pointy, ears that jutted violently out of perfectly straight ebony hair that flowed down to her lower back. Her face though, drew most attention away from that. She had a face that either belonged in a movie or on billboards, but she always wore a bleak expression that ruined her beauty before anybody could get a good look. Her clothes distracted from her face though; it was like she wanted nobody to look her in the eyes. Her top was an eye jarring black that hugged her frame rather snugly, with long sleeves despite the weather that widened out a lot at the wrists. Not only the sleeves, but the bottom of it widened out into what was almost a short dress, ending halfway up her thighs. Beneath that, no pants were to be seen, but she wore the stereotypical loli black and lavender striped socks that went all the way up past her dress. Nobody would dare ask if she wore anything else though, anybody that did would either get a swift kick to the nuts or a firm punch in the nose. No, not a slap, that would only hurt for a little bit.
“Whaaat…” she groaned drearily, quirking a half-assed eyebrow over half opened eyes. She almost looked like she had a bit too much to drink before arriving. “Am I not allowed any kind of happiness at all?” She chuckled dryly, rolling her eyes.
After a few nervous chuckles from everybody, Nile turned his eyes towards the couch where Rellian and Nella had been talking privately, and found it to be completely empty. After a quick search of the room, he found them walking down a far hallway around the corner, still talking.
Nile’s cheeks flushed a bit from jealousy. Were those two hooking up with each other, or was he just getting paranoid? He shook his head and turned his attention back towards the rest of his friends, who were all talking together, laughing occasionally, and telling everybody about their summers. With a smile, he remembered what he had thought earlier. No drama, this was just going to be a nice, wild, and hilarious party before they went their separate ways. If those two had fallen for each other, then he would let them, it wasn’t any of his business. If Nella was happy…. So was he. Right?
“Hey Nile!” Milo shouted, hopping over and grabbing him the arm to pull him over to the middle of everybody. “What’d you do this summer?”
After Milo bounced back to the rest of the group, Nile gulped and began to talk about the few things he’d done, most of it being stories about work.
Quince Owens shut the door to his room and sighed. It was best to leave those kids alone for now, they’d been through quite a bit, and had a lot of catching up to do. But then again, what bad could happen with all of them together for a while? Let them enjoy their time together while they could…Things after today would be much different, he was sure of it. Of course, they had a few days, three to be exact, and they would have plenty of time to catch up. So why wouldn’t he wait until everything was over and everybody was leaving to tell them? He didn’t know, but he was hoping they would take it a bit better if they heard it earlier from his mouth, and his mouth alone. Okay, maybe his wife’s as well.
“Quince?” his wife asked, closing the door behind her and putting the lock on it securely in place. She looked rather worried, and despite her perfectly tied hair, she looked a bit disheveled.
“Yeah Mayle” he sighed, closing his eyes as he plopped himself down on the bed with a thump that would probably be heard by the two floors beneath him.
“I’m… Worried about them” she awkwardly stated, trying to sound supported and confident, but only succeeded in sounding meek and underspoken. “You… You are going to tell them tonight, right?”
“Yes hon” he said with a sigh, turning his head to the side and looking over at her. Even though they were into their early forties now, she still managed to look like she belonged on a movie set. He grinned.
“That’s… Good” she said softly, her tail flicking behind her as she sat on the bed before her, propping her chin up in her paws. She bounced a few times on the mattress.
“So we’re just going to let them roam around until then, right?”
“Yeah…”
He had to get everything perfect; he had to make sure everything was in place. But he couldn’t go around looking like a hectic and overwhelmed fast food worker, all of the kids would be asking what was wrong with him. If they got curious about him, things wouldn’t fall into place like they needed to. And they desperately needed to. Sure, he was a psychiatrist, but he couldn’t solve every problem by himself. Half of the time he depended on his wife’s advice, but she was a pharmacist.
If everything, absolutely everything, wasn't perfect, then he knew there would be mor trouble than he could ever dream of. If everythign wasn't perfect, then this innocent and restful vacation was going to turn into a nightmare that would make their earlier troubles pale in comparison.