Work Text:
Avid’s Folly - An Anthrostate Christmas Story
Avidreader85
It was Christmas Eve, a day usually reserved for wonder, merriment, and above all else, time spent with those who matter most.
It should have been a magical day, multicolored lights adorned Avid and his new wife’s first christmas tree. A small fire crackled in the hearth, casting waves of light—soft and warm—around the dimly lit living room that ran parallel to the small kitchen of the one bedroom apartment where he paced.
Harriet had insisted on colored Christmas tree lights, and while he thought they were absolutely hideous, a small smile adorned his face. “Colored lights contrast better with my feathers dear, and besides, I let you pick the color of your collar, so it’s only fair,” she had teased a few days ago. Avid was still getting used to that voice, and the collar, but he knew it could have been worse.
The sky outside was threatening snow, but had decided to hold off for the moment. The ground was covered with a foot of fresh powder, which blanketed the small side yard he shared with the other tenants, and the reflection from the snow created an ethereal dreamscape reserved for the depths of winter. A silence filled the room as the fireplace crackled.
Avid, however, had spent the last three hours frantically searching the internet for something, anything that he thought he could possibly scrape together based on the few meager ingredients his new wife kept in their fridge. To even call these items ingredients was a bit of a stretch. He had three eggs, a bottle of whiskey, some stale bread, an expired carton of milk, and hopes and dreams. There was a frozen pizza mercifully hidden in the back of the freezer, but he wouldn’t dare cave, yet.
##
Just two weeks ago, Avid had finally gotten that fateful letter in the mail from his beloved state. The human had opened his mailbox, and with shaking hands, his eyes crossed the official state seal and his legal name on the paperwork that arrived at his childhood home. His assignment day had come. The envelope was a heavy, single-sided card stock paper with raised print and his name, Avidreader85. A wave of emotions hit, none of them good. You know that feeling when the air is sucked out of your chest—that one.
Being assigned was a simple matter of fact as a human living in the Anthrostate, but no matter how much he had thought about this day, or prepared himself, he must’ve stood at that mailbox for ten minutes frozen in place as he mulled over the last day of his normal life. He grabbed his keys, slid them into and along the edge of the envelope. The seal broke, and his new life was opened up to him.
Avid glanced back at his mother’s house, a six bedroom McMansion in the heart of the town’s bougie neighborhood. He laughed at the absurdity of what lay before him. His mother had hired professionals for their Christmas lights for their two story brick home, but she had also insisted on buying every single Pawmart Christmas blowup possible. It was nothing if not inconsistent. It looked somewhere between a hallmark Christmas movie and a trailer park that couldn’t decide which.
A loud voice rang out from the front door.
“Honey! Did my copy of Bridging Divides: Syrin Strikes Back come yet?”
He sighed, and without turning around, shouted, “No mom, and as I told you, I can’t believe that guy is still writing that series. Besides, you really need to branch out! There are so many other stories. You’re obsessed.”
With a chuckle he turned around, and his eyes met his mom’s. She was a wolf, eight feet of black fluff and muscle, but she was somehow always mainly concerned with trying to somehow feminize herself as much as possible. Bright pink bows, sashes, and worst of all, heavy caked on mascara and makeup adorned her canine features. She looked like a werewolf got in a fight with a Sephora employee and somehow, nobody won.
With a whine, she noted the concern in his eyes—the blank stare, the raised shoulders. She smiled, teeth slightly hidden and her wagging tail slowed to a small twitch as she eyed the envelope. Her green eyes met Avid’s, kindness filling them, “Honey, I swear it won’t be that bad. When I first met your father, he wouldn’t even look at me, and now… well he won’t stop huffing my neck fluff.”
Avid snorted, “Well, if I have half as good a relationship as you and dad do, I’ll be a lucky man.”
##
He shook his head with a smile as he remembered the stress, the anxiety, the outright fear that gripped him in that moment. Now, however, it was even worse. Growing up as privileged as he did, Avid, nor his father, nor his mother, had ever cooked a day in their lives outside of scrambled eggs and the occasional piece of bacon.
Takeout was the norm, and should the event call for it, his family was highly regarded among the local catering companies for not only tipping very well, but also just being nice people. Avid hoped to carry that mantle to his new home.
It wasn’t Harriet, his new horned owl wife, that he was worried about. Harriet was a bit quirky, but she was kind, thoughtful, and gentle with him so far. Well, other than her insistence on the collar and being a bit enthusiastic in the bedroom, not that he was complaining about the last part. She was a gorgeous blend of brown and gray plumage with green eyes that lit up like a beacon to another world the moment she laid eyes on him. Harriet was a professor, and in her free time, she enjoyed hiking, the occasional historical fiction novel, and piano. Avid smiled as he thought about the cute little shuffle Harriet did on her talons when she got excited.
At this very moment, Avid had a very big secret. One of those secrets you really can’t admit once you’ve started the charade. A secret that had turned from a white lie into a mountain of stress and anxiety the longer he carried on. The sweat on his brow dripped and his shaking hands stymied his ability to fix the situation.
While Harriet was at work, Avid had quietly been using his family's PawDash account. His mom never checked, and his dad would never tell.
Chinese food? Mexican food? Burgers? Italian? You name it, and Avid had PawDashed it and then passed it off as his own cooking to his loving new wife. Now, normally this hadn’t been an issue. But today wasn’t a normal day. It was Christmas Eve, and there was only one restaurant open.
Avid had called, he had checked with customer service, he had called his neighbors, but nothing was working. His one saving grace, the Chinese restaurant that was always open, had shut down as the owner was traveling abroad for the holiday.
In a panic, Avid glanced up at the clock, “Oh shit.”
Harriet would be home in five minutes from her exam proctoring session, and he was as empty handed as he had been when he showed up at the assignment office just a few weeks ago.
Avid paced, grabbed the bottle of whiskey, and poured himself a double shot, he looked at himself in the mirror and tried to compose himself. With a slight gag, he downed the whiskey shot and raced into the kitchen, whipped up some scrambled eggs, and hurriedly toasted the bread. He plated the meal, and set down two cups of water as he finished his Christmas Eve dinner; the plates looked like a crime scene. The eggs were burned, and the toast was nearly black. He sat at the table, set for two.
Avid felt like a balloon that was three-quarters deflated, some secrets can’t be kept forever. “Harriet’s gonna kill me,” he sighed into his open and sweaty palms.
Avid heard keys in the door, a faint shuffling, and then Harriet emerged. “Hey sweetie! Sorry I took so long, the weather and snow made traffic terrible.”
Harriet shook the snow off of her talons, gave them a couple of quick passes with a towel by the door, and eased herself into the kitchen, the soft click of her talons echoing in the hall.
Avid felt like he was on death row and he was just waiting for the guillotine to fall. His sentence decided, he could only await his fate as Harriet entered the small combo kitchen area as sure as an owl hunts mice in the night.
He had reached a boiling point, not sure what to do with his hands and afraid to make eye contact. The tension had built to a crescendo in his mind and chest and he feared the absolute worst.
He hadn’t known Harriet long, how would she react?
Harriet crossed the threshold and froze, she stared at him, and eyed the meager holiday offering, but didn’t say a word. His eyes met hers, and for a moment he feared the worst. Rejection, anger, ridicule, the possible outcomes raced across his brain with breakneck speed like the world's fastest game of ping pong.
She immediately noticed his fear. She always did. Her green eyes studied his for a moment. Avid tried to look away. He shuddered as he took a breath, “I… I ran out of ingredients," he lied, and then his eyes met hers.
Owls are hard to read, but he had started to understand Harriet, just as she had started to understand him. Harriet wasn’t angry, Harriet was amused.
A snort, a quick smile, and then a full on belly laugh erupted from his newly assigned wife. Avid just looked on in horror, waiting for the other talon to drop. It never did.
Harriet approached, slowly, as she always did, still chuckling to herself. She reached out with one wing, and gently touched his shoulder. The other wing gently reached under his jaw as she tenderly raised Avid’s eyes to meet hers. She started, barely a whisper, “Avid, we have a Nestdoor camera.”
She belly laughed again and she tried to stop herself, but ended up flopping into his lap, the weight of her almost crushing him. Avid didn’t flinch, he was used to it.
He snorted, and then guffawed. She had known, she had always known. The tension started falling from him like the very snow that had started gently drifting down from the overcast sky.
Harriet, still in Avid’s lap, lifted her head and gently ran her beak across his cheek as Avid wrapped his arms around her warm feathers and leaned down to place a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Why don’t you grab that pizza from the back of the freezer, I bought it a couple of weeks ago when I realized you have the cooking skills of a potato,” she mused.
Avid smiled, and as his wife gently released him he padded to the kitchen, poured two strong whiskey drinks, preheated the oven, and led her to the couch where she relaxed until dinner was ready. They enjoyed the meal in comfortable silence, the kind that didn’t need filling.
With their meal finished, and everything cleaned up, Avid led Harriet by the wing back to the living room couch, where she plopped down with a loud but dampened thud. He eyed the small strip of space available next to his eight foot tall wife, and eased himself into the couch, leaning into the warmth of her feathers. Harriet slowly pushed into him, and placed her beak gently over his shoulder. Her voice was as smooth as butter as she murmured, “Avid, you never need to try so hard to impress me, I love you just the way you are.”
Avid grinned, harder than he had in weeks, “I love you too,” his voice cracked as his eyes began to water, “When I got that letter... I didn’t know what to expect—never dreamed I would be this happy...”
Harriet cooed, gently smiling back at him with her eyes as they glimmered with love and sincerity. She leaned closer once more, ruffled his hair gently with her beak, and gently whispered in his ear, syrupy with sleep, “the assignment process is flawless.”
As the evening drew to a close, Avid and Harriet settled on the couch underneath a blanket by the warm fire. Harriet wrapped him in her warm plumage, the fluff felt like home, and she smelled of pine and a hint of lavender, a small smile crossed Avid’s face as the two drifted off to a peaceful slumber.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Avid