It was a day like any other day in the town of Brickhedge. Half the town was prepping for the coming Harvest Festival, the other half stringing Christmas lights on the outside of their homes and businesses. Despite the light-hearted arguments over early Christmas decorations, there was a warmth and joy in the air that was unique to the little mountain town.
Eligh turned the ignition, stirring the behemoth of a vehicle to life as the engine roared and black fumes spewed from the exhaust. It was a rare Sunday away from the town for the grizzly as some pre-meditated errands had been penciled in that would take him out of the city limits and down to the world below.
Idling at the intersection for just a minute while another, smaller SUV drove past. It parked into an empty space outside the bank on the corner, the driver putting a coin not only in their parking meter but the one for the driver in front of him. Eligh smiled, the kindness and generosity of the townsfolk in Brickhedge was heartwarming.
The big bear pulled up in front of the Dawning Sunrise Boarding House, home of Desmond the Star-Nosed Mole, among many other rare species. The owner of the local coffee shop and Eligh and Brigid’s main hangout also ran the boarding house and would often employ his tenants a few days a month if it didn’t seem like they were going to be able to make ends meet
Running errands without Brigid at his side had been strange to the bear at first. They’d been inseparable ever since she made the big move to the States all those years ago, all in the name of friendship. There had been times when he’d gone out on his own, sure, but following the advent of Advrik, it had occurred more and more often with longer periods of time between their outings. The big bear had begun to miss their time together, something he’d tell no beast.
The front door of the Boarding Home opened and out popped a short, fat mole. Thick, wiry fur covered his body and head alike. Eligh pondered the beast’s choice in clothing this day, as the temperatures had steadily fallen, day after day, to the point that actual snow with accumulation didn’t feel too far off.
Desmond wore his usual overalls, a simple black sweater, and a matching beanie. The only thing truly out of the ordinary for the mole was the added mitten-like covers over each of his nose tentacles. The bulkier portion of the beast could withstand the cold, but his unique appendages could not, it seemed.
“So, do they shrink too if they get too cold?” He asked, half joking, half curious. The mole just shot him a look that practically oozed venom. “Never mind then. Hey, thanks for coming with me today.”
Desmond nestled himself into the passenger seat, hooking himself in. “Yeah, whatever. What are you even doing today that you couldn’t do alone, anyway?”
The giant SUV roared to life as Eligh signaled his intention to leave the parking space. Traffic was mostly limited to on-paw this day in Brickhedge.
“I just have to run a few crucial errands for Filbert while he’s out with Covid, is all, and since Brigid was planning on accompanying Advrik on a hunt today, I just thought it’d be nice to have somebeast to—“
“Fuck—” The mole barked.
“What?! No, I mean, if you—“
“I’m just here for the sake of company? Goddammit.” Desmond said in realization.
All around, the landscape was rapidly changing as the flora began its rapid transition into their wintry dormant states. Powerful gusts of chilled mountain air swept down the hillsides, pulling leaves from their cozy branches and scattering them about the land below; all the while, the needles upon the evergreens remained seated firmly, healthy.
The monster population dwindled this time each year, going into hibernation or flat-out dying off as most species of Slimes tended to do after depositing slivers of themselves in supposed safe locations. Essentially, spores would go dormant while the bigger mass died off, eventually coming back to life as the temperatures warmed up again.
“A fucking Christmas tree, really?” Desmond said, his tentacles shriveled and shivering against the freezing wind. The mole eyed the plastic flora the same way one might look upon a train wreck. The tree was ancient, with ornaments that were fused to the branches in all the worst ways as if the tree had been manufactured that way. Bristles were browning and crumbling away like the dust that sat heavily upon its aging branches.
Eligh scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. It had been the truth that Mayor Filbert had asked Eligh to run some errands for him, and one such errand was coming off the mountain to visit the horses’ storage lockup and retrieve his Christmas tree for him. The big bear just wanted another body to accompany him on the trip, and Desmond had been the only beast he knew that he didn’t see as a potential bedmate, given that he was essentially an employee and whatnot. Plus, the bear just wasn’t into moles, as specist as that sounded to some.
“Yeah… I wasn’t quite expecting it to look this—“
“Shitty. This thing is probably coated in lead. Let’s toss it and buy a new one and charge it to the town hall’s business account. You’ve got the card on you, right?” Desmond had been well versed in how things ran in the government office, having done as much research as he possibly could online, then asked the right questions to the right beasts once he got the IT job. There was a funds card, and Eligh had used it for the gas to come out here and retrieve the atrocity from the storage compartment.
“That’s not a good idea at all, and you know it. Let’s just get it loaded up into the back of the SUV and get home.”
As the mole and grizzly bear hefted the ancient plastic tree into the back of the vehicle, a beast rummaging through a nearby compartment looked in amazement, No doubt biting back a snarky comment about the gaudy monstrosity that was about to make the ride back up the mountain with the duo.
The sky was crystal clear and blue, with not a solitary cloud to be seen anywhere around. The late autumn sun shone down with its waning brilliance, illuminating what was left of the browning landscape. And in the distance, the Brickhedge city limits sign rapidly approached, and beyond that, K-Mart!
“Now, I never thought I’d say it, but there’s a sight for sore eyes,” Desmond said, squinting at the big read Super K-Mart sign as they drove past. Its parking lot was bustling with activity as Thanksgiving shoppers gathered the final ingredients for their meals.
There was a weird silence coming back up the mountain. Eligh had been unusually quiet since the last stop at the gas station, sparking a tinge of guilt at the back of the mole’s mind, and so going with his Primal instincts, he began to dig.
“So, hey, uh, Eligh… I have a question.” The bear’s round ears perked up at the sound of the mole’s voice. “I was just wondering, you know, about your… personal activity.”
The bear’s brow creased. What in the world did that mean, he wondered. “’ Personal activity’?” He asked.
“You know, your fuckbuddies—“ Desmond lunged forward and smacked against the dashboard as the bear slammed on the brakes for but a split second. The SUV quickly regained the lost momentum as it approached the first houses of Brickhedge’s outer reaches. “Oh shoot, sorry, Des. I just wasn’t expecting that sort of question…”
“The fuck you are!” The mole yelled, climbing up off the floor mat and back onto the seat, this time pulling the seatbelt across him and hooking it into place. He’d not make that mistake again.
“The hell was that reaction, anyway?!”
Eligh lifted his paw off of the gas slightly, bringing the massive vehicle five below the speed limit. “Sorry. It’s just a touchy subject for me… I’ve got really bad anxiety, and I don’t exactly have the best opinion of myself. I’m shy as all heck, too, and those… bedbuddies… of mine, they validate me.” The sight of the lioness doctor’s apartment came into view, the same one the horny troll attacked back before Halloween.
“Would you believe that I’ve never asked a single beast out for a date?” He asked, chancing a glance at the mole beside him that rapidly tapped away at his screen as Eligh spoke.
Desmond looked up from his phone and caught the bear’s big blue eyes fixed on him and not the road. “I fuckin’ believe it, now, please, the road?”
“Oh,” The bear said, his increasingly shaggy red beard swaying as the bear’s giant head repositioned its view back to the front of the vehicle. “Sorry. Every date I’ve ever had, every one-night stand, they’ve all come to me. Every single one said the same thing, too. It was my stature, my looks, and the fact that I was a bear that looked like he could really rock them. And that’s just the males. I’ve had to turn so many females down; it’s unreal.”
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