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cinnamonest · 2 years

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Eventually I'll make another full hybrid post for multiple boys, but right now I specifically want to focus on the (actually kinda wholesome) idea I had for Tighnari... I rewatched one of the videos I watched for the profile and seeing them run around chasing each other is so adorable and I realized Tighnari deserves his soulmate Fennec Foxgirl

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It feels... perhaps ironic isn't the best word, he thinks. Surreal? No, that's too strong of a term. Likewise, 'humorous' is too weak to the describe the bizarre emotion this interaction brings him.

Just... Odd. A weird, uncanny feeling.

He stoops down further, crouching on his feet, tilting his head to get a better look at you. This is not what he expected to find when he set a cage trap. He would have figured it was just a normal animal eating his research plants and the communal trash away, but here you are. You're crouched in the back of the metallic crate, stiff and snarling. It feels so strange to look at you.

You are, all in all, the same creature. You just so happened to be a lineage that went down the path of separation from humanity and chose to be feral instead, it seems.

...is this what he would have been like, if his lineage had done the same? He can't help but wonder. You growl and snarl and snap your jaws at his fingers when he reaches out to try and pet you through the bars. So lowly and animalistic, lacking in human intellect. You feel worlds apart to him, as if there's no way you are the same, and yet he knows you are. Is it really possible that mere upbringing is truly the only thing that separates you from him? Could he just as easily have turned out to be this creature, naked and unspeaking, rummaging about through trash and gardens like a common pest?

Your ears, although a sandy golden color, mimic his own, comically large and twitching atop your head. Your tail swishes behind you. You snarl and show your pointed teeth. You really do share all the same traits.

...But you look so afraid. He now sees how badly you tremble, despite putting on a ferocious act to try and scare him away. After a moment, you seem to drop the facade of toughness as you start to curl in on yourself, eyes watering, whimpering and quivering.

Not only are you sickly-looking, you're far from home, too. You should be in the desert, but you ended up here... you must have gotten lost and ended up in an unfamiliar place, how unfortunate. And it seems you can't hunt anything here either, hence the need to steal food (primarily garbage from the bins, and from his own property mostly medicinal herbs at that, you wouldn't eat that unless you were really desperate).

Either way, he can't just release you into the forest, you'd most likely die out there, even if you didn't come back to disturb the research. Sigh... no choice but to take you in, at least until someone makes a trip to the deserts and can take you along then. Of course, it does strike him that this also makes an interesting source of observation, and he is admittedly curious to know more about you. But primarily, he can't just let you die.

It poses issues, though. First there's the matter of getting you to calm down and not attack. Once he first lets you out of the cage, you try to run away, and you have the audacity to bite him when he tries to grab you by the arm and hold you still. He still has a scar to this day where your teeth nicked his shoulder.

Eventually, the only way he could get you to calm yourself was throwing you back in the cage and forcing you to inhale some sedatives, keep you limp and loopy for a couple of days while feeding you and petting you to get you used to his presence. By the time you can be brought off of it, you're grumpy about the matter, but it seems that giving you food is a very quick fix to any bad moods you may have. More importantly, you don't try to bite him anymore, or even flinch at his touch. In fact, he learns you seem to appreciate some head pats, as well as ear rubs (of course, he knows how to give the best ear rubs and scratches, seeing as his are just like your own).

You're fairly compliant now, too, which is nice, it's not some huge struggle to tame you. You have now registered him in your mind as "the guy who feeds me and makes my wounds feel better," which means that you are very receptive to his touch and presence, and as soon as he goes back to his daily routine, you follow him around without him even needing to drag you along. You're always right there by his side... especially as you're still a bit afraid of others. Each day you follow him from place to place, entertaining yourself with... whatever it is you do, usually napping at his feet or chasing bugs around on the ground... well, you occupy yourself with that while he has important conversations and does his work.

Unfortunately, though, he can't risk taking you with him for patrols, even though he feels bad about leaving you there. He spends less and less time doing so, and tries to come back sooner, assigns other people to his usual roles unless it’s a genuine danger that needs to be dealt with. People are a bit surprised he would transfer that job to others, but it’s not as if he’s lazy, he just has something else to take care of... besides, they’re very grateful for it, because whenever he leaves he has to lock you in your crate, and you (how on earth it doesn’t bother your own ears, no one knows) decide to express your discomfort by screaming out that little high-pitched cry of yours over and over until he returns (to complaints of headaches, irritated glares, and being begged to never ever leave them alone with you again). He tries to make it better for you by making the crate softer, more padding, leaves in those dog toys he got someone to purchase from the city that you seem to like, but you have no interest in them when he’s gone, so the only way to pacify you is to be there.

Speaking of the cage, the first night after letting you out of it, he tried to put you back in so you could sleep... but you fought tooth and nail, yowling and whimpering and biting again dammit -- anyway, eventually he let you follow him to his own lodging, pulled out a cot for you to sleep on, lifted you up and sat you down on it. You spent about ten minutes there before he's pulled out of half-sleep by the sound of your feet on the floor as you shuffle your way over and promptly wriggle your way under his blankets and curl up beside of him. Of course, he stiffens at first, shifts backwards and stammers to say something, but... the way you open your eyes and look at him all hurt, let out a whimper, confused why he's trying to move away...

Well... he can't just hurt your feelings like that... so, although his face feels hot and he's fidgeting awkwardly, he still moves back towards you. Fine... just this one night. You'll be comfortable with sleeping on your own soon enough, and no one will have to know about this.

Much like him, you sort of pull your knees up, wrap your tail around yourself as is instinctive... your bodies sort of fit together, like how puzzle pieces align perfectly. Your tails overlap, your legs intertwine, your head presses against his chest. He just has to deal with the occasional ear twitching in his face.

One night turns into the next... and the next... on the third night, he tries to set you down on the cot again, but as soon as he sets you down, you swing your legs over the side, stand up, and sure enough, make your way over to what you seem to now consider your shared bed. He can't communicate to you to try and get you to understand, but... well, that's fine... it's not a big deal, he tells himself.

What's more important is that you aren't well-adjusted to human living, of course. For starters, getting you to wear clothing was a battle in and of itself, you hated it at first, tore the first shirt he gave you to shreds while trying to pull it off. He ended up having to go the route of conditioning -- giving you small morsels of treats for not tearing clothes off, and denying them when you did, until you got the message and now can consistently wear a single layer of oversized shirt that comes down to your knees. Anything more than that, though, and you start fighting it again. Additionally, you're okay with him and his presence, but you have to be slowly acclimated to other people, seeing as you growl at them... he had to grab you to stop you from biting yet another person several times. What is it with you and wanting to bite? Sigh...

Those ears end up presenting a challenge too. Over the years, he's reached a point where he's learned to handle it well and even knows how to mentally tune out some noises, just try to ignore it, but you're not used to the usual level of noise in the area at all, and even more sensitive than he is. Early on, whenever there's a lot of activity going on in the village, you start to whimper and whine and grab at your ears, pulling them down to block the sounds. At least he learns to tell when you're uncomfortable, and takes you over to a quiet room whenever you're distressed and waits it out with you.

Other people take notice of your interactions too, of course. They snicker and make offhanded comments about how funny it is to watch the two of you go around everywhere together, how you look alike in some ways but are so different in others. They tease him about how he takes you with him everywhere, make him all flustered and red in the face when they comment about how sweet it is for him to care for you, and how attached you are to him. He just says it’s his responsibility.

But internally, he wonders if you, too, realize the similarity between you two. Do you understand that he's different from the other humans? What about yourself? And more importantly, do you understand that you two are the same? Do you see yourself as different from both him and the others and merely associate him as the same as the other humans, or do you recognize that the two of you are different from everyone else in the same way? He has no way of asking you, so he has to gauge by your actions.

You do seem to take notice of his features, even if he doesn't know if you've realized they're the same features as yours. Once, as you sit next to him while he works, you tilt your head in curiosity, eyes widening when your attention is captivating by his twitching ears. You reach a hand up to paw and swat at them. And on multiple occasions, you've tried to pounce on and wrangle his tail. Much to his irritation, that is. He's still embarrassed about how the first time you did so, he was mid-conversation with someone else, and yelped rather loudly at the sudden surprise, turning in circles in an attempt to grab you and detach your grip while the onlookers tried to hold back laughter.

So you do seem to recognize specific features, but do you possess the cognitive capacity to realize you're the same sort of creature? That is the question... but there's no way to know for sure.

He finally seems to get somewhat of an answer on one day like any other, just the normal routine of walking from one small building to the next, carrying out some daily tasks. And all of a sudden, for no discernable reason, you bolt. You turn on your heel and take off in the opposite direction, feet pattering the ground as you go.

At first, it sparks immediate concern as he goes running after you, calling out for you to stop, even though he knows you don't understand the words themselves. But you keep running. Every few seconds you dart in a different direction, drawing him out and away from the cluster of dwellings among the trees and out into the wilderness itself, the otherwise quiet and empty forest. After a few more minutes, you disappear behind a tree. He stops, panting, goes to walk up to you, but you then take off and get behind another. It repeats again and again.

He's starting to feel frustrated, but he sees you poke your head out from behind the tree... and can now see that you're smiling at him. Your eyes are wide and you're breathing heavily with excitement. He turns towards you, but you take off again, and he chases you from tree to tree until you slip behind the cover of one of the larger ones again, poking your head out to look at him again, tail visibly swishing in delight behind you. You make a high-pitched little sound, like a squeal. He starts to feel warm.

...Oh.

You're trying to... initiate...

It's an... appreciated gesture, but he can't allow himself to engage in such behavior. He would never do something so undignified as to indulge in animal desires, run all around in the woods and chase after you. What if someone sees? No, he can't.

No, no. He corrects himself in his head. It's not about the chasing part, not about appearing undignified, it's about what comes after that... it would be wrong to... do that, wouldn't it? You're not at the same coginitive level. You're just following your instincts, but he can't take advantage of that. It's his responsibility to abstain and control himself. Right?

Even if it sounds really really really nice. Even if he feels his heart start to beat faster.

But as you take off again, his resistance snaps. It becomes too tempting to resist.

He trails right behind you, matching your pace, frustration gone, replaced with an unmistakable excitement. There's no one out here. No one will see. So that makes it okay, the first part at least. No harm being done by playing like this. It feels exciting in a primal, innate sort of way, like his body moves on its own. Letting go of all inhibition.

When he finally catches up to you, leaping on you and tackling you to the ground, you make that same squealing sound. It makes a shudder run down his spine, but after a moment he shoves himself up off the ground and takes off as well, listening to you squeal and run after him as well. After a few minutes, you leap and land on his back, just enough to topple him over too, falling into the grass, wrestling around and rolling over a few times until you're looking down at him, propped up on your hands. You whine as you lay yourself down and nuzzle your head against his neck.

It's so warm. It's overwhelming. It's too much. You really smell nice. It's as if it intoxicates his brain to inhale. He finds himself laying staring up at the sky, heaving heavy breaths, every nerve in his body tingling, heart pumping hard and fast. You have his thigh locked between your legs, you whimper as you grind against it and he feels like his soul might leave his body just hearing and seeing you do it.

Is this really okay? It feels wrong, somehow. The last little bit of reason and sense prods the back of his mind. No, this has to be wrong. You can't realistically consent to it, can you?

And with the way your brains work, then if you do, then... for the rest of your lives... forever...?

But... But you're the same sort of thing, so it's okay, right? It's nature. You need one of your own kind. You're supposed to couple together like this. You're supposed to be together for your entire lives and never want anything else. Besides, isn't that better? After all, you're simply compatible. If it were a human, they might be bothered by him and his habits and nature, they might even leave him one day, and that would destroy him psychologically in a way humans could never understand.

This way he can have someone who will be okay with the things that would bother a person -- you'll want to stay inside all throughout mating season, you'll be just as needy as him, your body will be compatible for a knot and lots of kits, you both like the same quiet environments, he doesn't have to feel embarrassed about the ways of expressing affection that come naturally to him. You won't mind if he's overbearing, you'll want to be in his presence every waking moment just like he does yours. It would be perfect.

And you -- he can protect you. His mind flashes back to how he first found you, how you were emaciated and injured and afraid. He can make sure you're always happy and safe and never get hurt or go hungry ever again. Isn't that what's best for you, then? Is it really taking advantage of you when you're whining and grinding like this, when you're so desperate?

He says it to himself in his head, that if the others could see me right now, doing something so unseemly... well, he can't bring himself to care what they'd think for very long. His brain is too clouded.

Thus, he ends up giving in.

No one will see you two as he ruts into you, still laying sideways in the grass. He still has just enough awareness left to use his hand to cover your mouth, seeing as you have no concept of volume control and cry out so loudly they may just hear all the way on the other side of the forest. No one will know, at least not for now. Maybe they'll figure it out... but he can't bring himself to care in the moment. Even if they think badly of him, well, he can just deal with that when the time comes.

And surprisingly, even when it's over, even as the knot swells down and he slips out of you, turns you around and holds you close, he doesn't find himself feeling any regret. Maybe a bit of worry about the future and concerns about how things will work now, and perhaps maybe a bit of guilt, but... you're so warm, you fall asleep pressed up against him like that. It makes it all feel worth it.

A quick glance around confirms that, thankfully, there is no one around -- it briefly crossed his mind that he might look up and see someone standing there watching shocked and stunned, which would be horrific, but thankfully there isn't. He knows he needs to get you back home before people notice and come looking, though, seeing as this is an area not usually patrolled and he has no real reason to be here. It's better no one knows for now. Or so he decides as he sits straight up, shakes you awake and lets you sleepily crawl up onto his back, hooking your legs through and over his arms, wrapping your arms around his neck.

Yes... better not tell anyone or anything... try and keep it a secret. He's still not sure what people will think of him for this. But right now, he's still riding the chemical high too much to be too concerned, he feels lightheaded and warm in the best possible way. Those concerns fade away as he makes his way back. All he can think of right now is how he can't wait for winter to come around.

#my hybrid posts are always the softest/least dark ones I notice...#I needed something soft to cope with my shaggy sumpter beast induced grief #yes Im still in pain about it #also! I have one more thing thats the last thing i promised myself id finish before reopening so ill open my inbox soon after posting it #and my summer work project ended so that clears up a lot of time thankfully #.tnr #yan.txt #.hybrid

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