The slender, professionally dressed wolf looked at the horse walking up to her carrying a squirrel and wondered what the rest of her day was going to be like. “Chester Crimson?”
“Yes,” the squirrel answered.
She looked at the rodent in surprise, keeping both paws on his folder, “Uh, I'm Lilly Devygn you can follow me.”
Chester turned to his mustang friend, “You can put me down, now.”
“Oh, sorry.”
When he felt his feet on the ground, he found the horse's hip and they walked down the hall after the wolf.
She indicated a couple chairs on one side of the desk as she sat on the other. “So, you're looking to reconnect with lost loved ones?”
“Lovers,” Chester interjected.
“Pardon?”
The squirrel grinned and patted the horse's leg, “This guy was a breeding stud back on the farm.”
Lilly set the folder on her desk, “In my experience, females of any species that were force bred during slavery don't often want contact from their rapists.”
“Hey! He didn't rape anybody!” The squirrel jumped to his feet on the chair, shaking his tail.
“Please sit down. It's a matter of perspective.”
Bridger put his hand on Chester's back and chest, easing him back into his seat, “I never forced myself on anyone. If they didn't want to, nothing happened. I just hated having to let them go back to some of the bad people that owned them.”
“Then you know very well that they were forced into it against their will by those owners, but you were the one that actually did the deed. It doesn't matter how gentle you were or even if they consented in the moment, they did not get to choose on their own and that can make simply seeing you again a harsh reminder of that.”
“I don't need to see them. I just want to know that they're okay now.”
Lilly sat back in her seat, thinking of how after being raped, you're never okay, but reminded herself that this horse was a victim, as well. If she didn't try to set his mind at ease, he might try to find them on his own and that could be disastrous for his victims. After a moment of contemplation, she turned to her computer and opened the search app, “Okay. We'll start with you. How many owners did you have?”
“Just the Campbells. I was born there.”
“So, you were lucky.” She typed it in.
“I suppose.”
“In Nearwater, Oklahoma?”
“That was the nearest town, yes.”
She loaded the records and was surprised, “Well, it looks like they kept very detailed records and shared everything willingly when the administration was started.”
“They are good people. They took good care of us and we worked hard for them.”
“Like I said, lucky.” She found the breeding logs. “What's your name?”
“Bridger Ulysses Mustang.”
“I can change that for you when we're done with this.” She opened his file.
“Why? I like my name.”
“Putting the species as the last name was common when registering slaves. It identified them as not human and still allows discrimination.”
“I think I'll keep it.”
“Well, last match first … Oh …” she stared at the screen in surprise as she checked each linked record. “Well, … Oh …”
“Is something wrong?” Chester grabbed his friend's arm. “Bridger, what's going on?”
The horse was unsure if he should disturb the wolf while she was intently . Fortunately, she figured out how to say what she was thinking before he had to.
“Maybe I was wrong. Of the … eighteen females listed here, eleven have indicated that they would welcome contact from you. Of the rest, one indicated no preference, two are deceased and the other four have no matching records. It seems that most of your” she stopped herself from saying victims, “partners don't resent you for” again, she forced herself to avoid the rape terminology, “having sex with them.”
“There! I told you he didn't rape anybody.” Chester sat up straight with his tail flicking above his head.
Bridger pushed the squirrel's tail down behind him. “The Campbells always insisted that we have at least one night of privacy, instead of being monitored, like livestock. I always took the time to get to know them and let them know me. It gave me a ninety-five percent success rate; better than my father's ninety-two percent, but he had lots more mares.”
Lilly tried to not show her offense at his bragging, “I can put your contact info in and have them notified, then they can either contact the administration and we will put you in touch or they can look you up directly.”
“Do it.”
“Why can't you just tell us where they are?” Chester was still agitated.
Lilly was just as irritated, "Because they may have changed their minds. Despite our goal of connecting morphs, we are most concerned with protecting them, even from each other. Imagine if they did resent him and, after getting his info from us, decided to hunt him down and kill him. At least this way, they are both aware of each other and if she is still angry, we can help meditate."
Chester sat back in the chair and quietly thought about never having met his horse. He would still be in Copperdale, doing the same things. As much as he was hating San Francisco, he was glad to be trying something new, especially when that new thing covered him in gooey goodness. He shifted in his seat as he thought about it and the wolf continued talking.
“Now, Mr ... Mustang.” The name irritated her, giving value to the self-proclaimed superiority of humans. “If you will fill out the rest of this information, I will send out the notices to your dozen ... partners.” She set the tablet on the other side of her desk and turned to her computer as she held her tongue. She had to do her job by procedures, no matter what her own opinion of the situation was. Her mother certainly wouldn't have been so passive about the sexual abuse of morphs under slavery, but then she lived it.
As she set up the preset notice, she thought about her mother's stories. How she had been bought for a little girl, then sold when the girl left for college. How her second owner trained her to serve him, not only for his house, but with his weird fetishes and eventually sexually. When she found out she was pregnant and he started talking about how he would use his new slave, she escaped, determined not to let her daughter have to face his abuse. It was nearly twenty years before morphs were finally legally free and Lilly was certain that her mother's fight had helped make it happen. She reminded herself that humans were the problem and these morphs were just trapped in the world they were born into.
She looked over just as the horse finished and set the tablet back on her desk. The squirrel was staring blankly at nothing and she wondered what his story was. “All right Mr…”
“Just call me Bridger,” the horse smiled politely.
“Bridger. The notices have been sent. Give them some time and you should hear something in the next few days. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Well, you said that two were … deceased. Can you tell me who and how?”
She was starting to get the impression that maybe he did care about the mares he was forced to rape. She navigated the database and found the first. “Green Anne of Gables Equines died from 'Complications after birth.' Fairly common, though not always natural.” She stopped herself from mentioning that owners would sometimes kill the mother after they got the child, especially if she showed any sign of resisting giving it up.
Bridger sighed, “She was really sweet, but she was younger than I was when I started. She should have gotten a chance to grow up some more.”
Lilly hated hearing about the horrors of slavery, like the forced breeding of females before they had matured or murdering mothers for loving their children. She moved on to the other, but it was just as bad. “Sweet Chili Pepper of Keith Umbert was shot during recapture, after trying to escape.”
The horse sighed again, then looked up at her. “What happened to their children?”
She clicked through the linked records. “Her son… no name… was sold… two weeks before her death.”
Bridger groaned, “She was probably trying to find him. She was very excited about being allowed to have a kid. Is he okay?”
The wolf continued through the data, “He was in Nebraska, but is now in Ohio. Trevor Sharpe. He was adopted by the Equine Rescue Occupational Society. They raise orphaned horse morphs and train them to support themselves in various careers. They have a center outside of Oakland if you're interested."
“No thank you. I started this trip and we have a long way to go.” He looked down at the squirrel beside him.
Chester was hugging his knees in the chair, with his fluffy tail wrapped around his feet. He knew he had it better than many morphs, but he never knew how bad it really was.
"What about Anne?"
Lilly backtracked to the previous records. "Blue Barry… was sold to 'Private party' and there are no more records. The new owner may have changed her name and never registered it. If we had a DNA database, like the rest of the world, we wouldn't lose morphs like this, but this government insists it's an invasion of privacy. Though I'm surprised they didn't run one for morphs, since the courts treated us like property instead of people." She stopped herself from running on a rant and refocused on the morphs in front of her. "That's all I have. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Before Bridger could say anything more, Chester spoke up, "Can you tell me about my mom?"
Lilly smiled, glad to get away from the horse's slave history. "Sure. Tell me what you know, so I can find her. You're Chester Crimson, right?" She suspected that she could find her on his birth record, and started typing in his name, but any information could help and she wanted to hear a nicer story.
"I don't know much. They told me her name was Dawn and she died when I was young. I never thought much about her. My family was always changing. When there was a new mayor, their family moved into my house and my old family moved out. I didn't figure out that wasn't normal until Diz's dad got sick. She..."
Bridger put his hand on the squirrel's back to comfort him, but it didn't seem to help as his friend buried his face on his knees and covered his head with his tail.
Chester's birth record only showed the mother's name as Dawn. She needed more information to find her. “Was it Dawn Crimson?” She tried searching news articles around his birth date in the town listed for anything about a squirrel morph and found a large number of hits. She wondered if there were a lot of squirrels in that town, but soon realized that they were all talking about one incident.
Chester lifted his head to answer, “I guess. I don't remember her.”
“She died before you were born.” Lilly scanned through the articles, trying to piece together as accurate a story as she could.
“How is that possible?” Bridger asked first.
“From what I'm reading, she came to town looking for a place to stay, but was caught by a bounty hunter. He shot her in the head and stomach. You were officially born two hours later, but a couple articles mention an EMT delivering you on the sidewalk. You were called a miracle … and officially adopted by the town?”
Bridger looked at the squirrel twitching beside him, “He was their mascot.”
Lilly scowled and continued through the articles that followed his survival, formal adoption, … and blindness? She looked at the squirrel, realizing that she hadn't noticed.
Before she could ask, Chester gave a hissing growl, “Who killed my mother?”
The wolf was taken aback by the sudden aggression, though it was completely understandable. “I … none of the articles mention his name, just that he was arrested, then released.”
“He got away?!” The squirrel leaned forward, gripping the ends of the arms of the chair, with his tail frizzed large and tall behind him.
Lilly felt ashamed of the fear that was taking her, but even his horse friend was leaning away. “It … it happened a lot while slavery was still legal, especially if the owner was a company with access to powerful lawyers. Though, sometimes the creating company would send someone to … protect their genetic property.”
Chester jumped to his feet, shaking his tail over his head. “My mother was not property!”
Despite his small size and visual impairment, the wolf was still intimidated by his genuine rage and pushed back until her chair hit the shelves behind her. She was trapped, not only by the walls of her office, but the constraints of her career, and held back her urge to shout him down.
The horse sprung forward and put his hand on the angry squirrel's chest, “Chester. She's just telling you what she knows. She didn't kill your mother. Calm down, so she can find out more.”
Chester turned to his friend, “She just told me my mother was murdered in the street and you want me to calm down?”
Bridger gripped the squirrel's shoulders, ready to hold him if he started lashing out, “She told me people I care about were killed, too, but it happened a long time ago, when things were different. Getting mad now only hurts ourselves.”
The squirrel's tail twitched behind him for a moment, then fell to the floor. “But … he killed my mother.”
“I know. I'm sorry.” The horse caught his friend as he collapsed, then scooped him up and sat back down with the squirrel curled in his lap.
Lilly pulled herself back to her desk and watched the twitching rodent for a moment. She glanced through what she had on her screen, then looked to the horse, “I don't have anything else, none of the articles mention where she came from or even her real name, but I can pass this on to our researchers and maybe they can dig something up. No guarantee, though.”
Bridger rubbed his upset friend's neck soothingly, “I think he would appreciate anything you could find.”
“I hope you can convince him that vengeance is not a healthy pursuit.”
The mustang looked down, hoping he knew his new friend well enough to honestly put the wolf at ease, “He knows. He's just upset.”
Lilly collected what she had on her computer and sent the proper request to research. She struggled in the uncomfortable silence for a moment, then refocused on her job. “Is there anything more I can do for you today?”
Bridger looked at the mass of fur curled in his lap and felt a little selfish turning focus back to himself, but asked anyway, “Uh, could you give me a list of all the mares I…” He had realized that breeding was a sore subject for the wolf, “I think I remember them all, but I'd hate to not remember one when they call. We would also need their location so we can plan our trip.”
She looked at him for a moment, remembering how he had resisted both the squirrel's bragging and her own accusations, “I shouldn't, but you seem to be a genuinely compassionate individual. I'll include the dates, so you can remember them, but I'm only going to include what state they're in. Please, respect their privacy and don't go looking for them until they contact you.”
“Definitely. I don't want to bother anyone, but if there is anything I can do to help any of them…” The ball of fur in his lap stirred and he watched as the squirrel crawled down from his lap.
Chester patted his friend's knee, then turned to the wolf, staring at the wall beside her. “I'm … sorry I yelled at you. You didn't do anything to deserve that. I just … They only told me she died when I was born.”
Lilly was quietly relieved that he wasn't shouting. “It's alright.”
The squirrel turned quickly to face the voice, embarrassed that he had missed his target.
“We've all been burned by human indifference in one way or another and it takes a toll on us. Your friend grew up as a slave, facing poor treatment, no freedom, and horrific punishments.”
“Actually,” Bridger tried to interject.
“Then he was dumped out with next to nothing when the slavers were forced to release them.”
“The Campbells were very good to us and we were good to them.”
“And it's hard to admit that your mother was probably created to be someone's perverted play toy until she managed to escape, only to be hunted down like a mindless animal and slain in the street. All for human egos. Thinking they're superior and claiming dominance over morphs. They may have created us, but they gave us the minds that make us equal to them and the animal hearts that make us better. The humans of that town even thought they could own you after their own courts said it was illegal.”
“That's not how it was,” Chester made his own attempt to derail the wolf.
Lily continued her rant, ignoring her clients and the growl that was rumbling in her throat, “And they passed you like a piece of furniture from one mayor to the next.
“Copperdale is full of goodhearted humans.”
“There are many ways that humans have abused morphs of all species, from subtle rules to outright murder, and you have a right to be angry about it. There's no shame in losing your temper in the face of generations of subjugation and persecution; you just need to point it where it belongs, at the humans that have perpetuated it.”
Chester turned to his friend, unable to find words to express his offense.
Bridger was just as taken aback, but had the words, “I have had mostly good experiences with humans.”
“Then you've been lucky. Sure there are some salvageable souls, but despite their skin, I wouldn't call them human. They're more furry inside, whether they want to admit it or not.”
“I may not have made it across the whole country yet, but between my family and the half of California that I've traveled so far, I know that humans are good people.”
Chester found his words to continue the rebuttal, “Yeah, and Copperdale is full of good humans. There are some bullies, but furries can be bullies, too.”
Lilly had her own words. “A little teasing is nothing when compared to the genocidal history of humans. Millions of furries have been murdered for no good reason. They were scared we were dangerous or just to keep their control. Well, after quietly taking these beatings for generations, maybe we should be dangerous to them.”
The horse stood up and put his hand on his friend's shoulder, “I think we should go now. Thank you for everything you've done for us and … good-bye.” He guided the squirrel to the door and they left.
Lilly put her paws over her nose as she heard her own words and realized how far she had gone. She wanted to jump up to catch them and explain and apologize, but she knew it would only make it worse. All she could do was pull herself together and keep going. She needed some time to clear her head or she might make the same mistake again. She sent a message [Not having a good day today.] then checked her schedule. Fortunately, there was only one more appointment before lunch. She could do this.
