Toledot by Madison Scott-Clary

Author:Madison Scott-Clary [Scott-Clary, Madison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HYBRID Ink, LLC

Codrin Bălan#Pollux—2325

As happened about once every six weeks or so, that boundless energy within Dear became too much for the fox to control, and it would go tearing through the house, working on several projects, forking here to clean, there to make a mess, now to request affection and then to holler about how badly it wanted to be alone.

The first time that this happened, Codrin had been quite startled, opting to lock emself in the office that ey still kept out around the back of the house. One of the many instances of Dear quickly fell into a sulk, and sent em carefully spaced out sensorium messages to make sure that ey hadn’t left.

Eventually, Dear’s partner had knocked on the door to eir glass-walled office, and Codrin let them in, where they leaned back against the edge of eir desk.

“Do you know of any wild restaurants?” they had asked.

“Wild?”

“Yeah. You know, crazy experiences, or maybe they’re really busy or raucous. Some sort of theme. Anything like that.”

Codrin had searched through eir memory, then shrugged. “Does a back-alley food court work?”

They laughed. “How in the world do ‘back-alley’ and ‘food court’ work together?”

“I have no idea. You walk down this street, and there’s just this awning sticking out over a narrow alley. Smells like hell, but when you get through it, there’s this courtyard, and all of the walls are various stalls of different food. Most of it’s dumplings and buns and stuff like that, but I found it because there’s a place there that serves, of all things, really good tacos.”

“Sounds about right. Come on.”

They had walked back around the patio and into the main house and Dear’s partner surveyed the scene of various foxes in various states of activity or various moods, then walked up to one scribbling on a notepad at its desk, grabbed a fistful of fur and loose skin at the nape of its neck in their hand, lifted the fox to its feet, and shook it gently. All of the forks that had been littering the house quit in an instant.

“Oh, is it dinner time?” It had looked bedraggled, limp, unsteady, and a glint of some intensity that Codrin had never seen before hid in its eyes.

“Yeah. Come on. Codrin knows a place.”

There had never been a full explanation of what it was that happened, but as they dined on plates of dumplings, steamed buns, noodles, and tacos, the fox’s hackles began to lay flat, and the erratic twitching of its tail slowed to a more familiar calm. It had spent most of the dinner peering around curiously and talking their ears off.

“Sometimes I overflow,” is all the fox had said when pressed.

Even after nearly twenty years, though, Codrin had yet to gain the knack of telling the original instance of Dear when that many were running around, and so when the fox began to ‘overflow’ once more, ey sought out its partner in their own workshop and waited until they reached a stopping point before saying, “I think it’s time for dinner.

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