The Ravous

Groove-Billed Ani

Hoatzin

Wylder is a young kivuli born the son of a Keeper, and a protagonist of Witchlite!

Witchlite centers around a coven of creatures known as kivuul, created as guardians of the Earth. The Moonlight Sanction is a place of great paranormal dangers, so it is the duty of the coven to keep that danger contained.

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Anyway I got to the car and my dad was there and he was like “how ya feeling son” in the dadliest way possible and I was like “MAN I AM PUMPED LETS GET SOME JUICE I’M STARVED” so we drove about 3 blocks to a jamba juice, whereupon I say “I’m good I can do this” and run/drunkstumble 30 feet to the door. I burst in the door like a viking returning from some fucking battle and holler “WHATS UP FUCKS” to everyone in the store, which was thankfully just the 2 people behind the counter, who looked probably as scared/confused as a jamba juice employee could look.

So anyway, as my dad explained the situation I looked up at the jamba juice menu and was utterly fucking lost in it. Like I swear I was looking at this menu board for a year, deciphering this Rosetta stone of fruits. I distinctly remember that I was looking at each item in a smoothie, thinking of how it tasted, then moving on to the next thing and thinking of how that tasted, and how they would taste together. Since most smoothies had 3 or 4 items, this took some thinking. So my dad sees me in this extreme brain blast state of mind and says “hey are you going to order or what”. Keep in mind I’m on the first fucking smoothie on the list here. So I just say “shush man I’m trying to do fruit science”, and then when I realized that this process could take literal years, I just said “yeah give me a smooth regular” which for the uninitiated, isn’t actually a real thing on any menu. Oh, also I asked them if the “boosted” smoothies would give me super powers and then pointed my fingers at them and made “lightning noises”.

So my dad just orders me the first thing on the menu and I go to sit down and stare out the window or some shit and my thoroughly amused dad just looks at me and says “how ya feelin?”. Now at this time I was feeling a lot of things, but most noticeable to me was the gauze in my mouth, so I just look at him and say “there’s these fuckin… tiny sheep in my head” which at the time was the best way I had to convey this feeling. Anyway about that time, the jamba juice guy brings us our drinks and he gives me a small thing of mario kart stickers and I swear I almost cried from the tsunami of emotion that gift made me feel (I still have them).

Oh wow! what a beaut! Time to reel her in!

So a few years ago, I was going on a road trip with my parents and their dog, Loki. My parents were teachers at my middle/high school and are still on fairly good terms with some of their former students, so when we went through a major city in the PNW, we decided to stop and have dinner with one of them.

Let's call him X.

Now... X was not in my grade, but it was a very small school. So I'd say that I knew him a little, but not nearly as well as my parents did. I was just along for the ride, though, and it was fine. I'd get food.

We show up to his place and he lets us leave my parents' dog in his living room, and my parents set up the travel crate that we'd been hauling around with us for this purpose. X asks a lot of questions about the crate, but we just kind of assumed that he was considering getting a dog, so we don't think anything of it.

You might already be seeing where this is going, but I certainly didn't.

We end up going to a pretty fancy place for dinner. My parents are doing better now and they wanted to treat him. It's one of those really chic, loud restaurants, though, and no one in my family can hear very well. That said, I'm seated across from X, so I'm doing all right.

All's going well, conversation is going smoothly, until X takes a deep breath and starts talking about puppy play.

I stop eating.

He starts telling us about this really cool community that he's been into lately, and it's become really important to him. And it's -- no, its not a sex thing, it's totally not a sex thing, he just really likes to be leashed and treated like a dog.

I think it's probably actually less weird if it's a sex thing, but I don't say that. I just nod my head. I look at my parents.

Personally, I think that people should do whatever makes them happy, even if I feel that puppy play is a lot to drop on a person you barely know after a decade of not seeing them, all while in a very fancy restaurant. My parents, though, are... well, they're not nearly as conservative as they used to be, but they still get shocked relatively easily.

They are just placidly eating their food, though, nodding occasionally, and I realize with mounting horror that they cannot hear him. I am the only person at this entire table who is hearing X pour his heart out about buying ears and a tail.

He tells us that his "roommate" isn't actually his roommate. It's his master. "Oh," my mother says. "That's nice."

I am just. eating my food.

X gets a little teary at this point. Tells us how much it means to him that we're all so accepting, especially my parents. He tells them that they were his favorite teachers growing up, so their approval means a lot.

They nod vaguely in return and I am dying inside.

We finally finish and go back to his place. Pick up our dog, say good night to X. He's deliriously happy and I figure, y'know, all's well that ends well.

We get in the car and sit there in silence for a moment, and then I say, cautiously, "You guys took the puppy play thing pretty well."

"THAT'S WHAT HE WAS SAYING?" my poor partially deaf mother yelled.

"WHAT'S PUPPY PLAY?" my dad asks, just wanting to be included.

I begin the very painful process of telling my (at the time) 55yo father what puppy play is and he's quiet for a minute, digesting this. Then he asks, "Is that why he kept asking all those questions about the dog crate? I sent him a link so he could buy one right before we left."

I, of course, ask to see her work, which he is all too happy to show. He pulls up some of her pieces that he has saved on his phone. My friends. Her work was stellar. It was also clearly sanitized furry porn. Like headshots only where the rest of the body had been cropped out, sometimes full body of what looked like people’s fursona commissions. AMAZING detail on the paws. Like, the paws were very much an expertly done focus. 

Now I know you might be thinking, what were YOU doing at the devil’s sacrament. Honestly, I’m not cool enough to be invited to the devil’s sacrament. But I’ve been on this site long enough that, basically, I’m drinking my coffee and trying to take a fortifying walk at the same park that hosts the Devil’s sacrament, and, you know, it’s a really good park. So I’ve seen enough that I’m familiar. Those are my neighbors and it’s fine.

So that’s not the problem. It’s not that I’m shocked. It’s that I now have this knowledge of his daughter that he clearly has no clue about. Somehow, in seconds, I’ve come to understand something about his daughter that this man will never grasp. And sure, get it girl, pay that rent. But does she know? Does she know her father is showing off her (very talented) art to a bunch of millennial account supes and even some gen Z assistant account execs, a non-zero number of whom know?