Beth and Eliza had a fairly quiet Thanksgiving that the Doberman Animalian and House Cat Animalian were relatively pleased with. At the great communal Thanksgiving Dinner, Beth had even brought her family which included her family's former pet, Killer. Eliza had met him before during occasional visits to Beth's parents and learned on how her own bond-mate was converted. Killer, like many of the other Animalians that came out of the outbreak when it moved into Lyre got it from his water-dish and had been startled when he transformed. Beth came in to find the dog having what looked like a seizure as it went through the initial parts of the transformation, and tried to comfort the dog. Beth had hugged it, but as Killer transformed, he accidentally bit Beth as he tried to stand while still in her embrace and cope with the changes in his body that went along with the transformation. It was from there that Beth then transformed. Eliza found that it was not too unlike her own accidental conversion.
Her cat had never meant to transform her, but the outbreak had created things that were surprising to all parties involved. Animals had no full clue as to what was happening to them as they were uplifted and many of those initial reactions had lead to a few accidents before they could fully realize how infectious the Animalia Virus was. And the people in Lyre had only known about the spill in the river and Horizon's attempts to clean and contain it, thus when the Animalia Virus got into Lyre's water supply, no one was aware of what was coming. Thus as pets transformed, owners tried to comfort the animals they loved and in a few occasions ended up joining Animalia as a result.
At present, Killer worked with Beth's father at a local gas station in Lyre, but remained close to Beth, who he considered to be a sister. It was like many of the sorts of things that happened with Animalians that had been pets. If their owners became Animalians, there was the potential that they would become Bond-Mates, usually due to how well they knew each other when transformed, but if mating wasn't the result, it was still that the pair would form a sibling type bond, even if they weren't biologically related. Eliza had noted that with a good many Animalians. Sarah and Mary Alice "Malice" Wesley treated each other like sisters, even though Malice had been born a Siberian Husky and Sarah had been born human, and Killer's relationship with Beth was no different from the Wesley sisters.
And Beth's family wasn't the only one to bring guests. Eliza had also invited her former pet and her mate to join them for dinner. A part of Eliza still wished that her former pet could have become her mate, as not only were they both House Cats but they were the same breed, but her pet like every other uplifted animal was completely straight with her prime sexual focus being on having children, which would mean that she didn't love Eliza in THAT way. And that part of her ultimately felt okay with that, as Beth had proven to be not only a great lover but in many ways a kindred spirit, even with some of their differences.
"Thank you all for coming," Eliza said to Beth's family as they all came in setting down their plates of food, along with cups of water or juice.
"It's no problem," Beth's mother spoke to Eliza, "If you hadn't invited us here, we would have invited you to our home for Thanksgiving."
"You've made Beth happy and she's actually been doing much better in school since the two of you... well started dating," Beth's father commented.
There was some underlying tension at that, and Eliza did get some sense that her future father in law wasn't super keen on the fact that his daughter was a lesbian, which made some sense as the levels of tolerance for the homosexual community was actually rather limited, and Eliza had read far too many sad news articles of lesbians or transgendered people being beaten to death in some western states that tended to be politically conservative. However, while there may have been some uneasiness from Beth's father, he seemed to accept the relationship for many of the other things that came out of Beth seeing Eliza, namely the improvement in her grades and her overall attitude. Apparently, while she'd been putting on a brave face and hiding that she was a lesbian, Beth had not been the happiest of people, even while at home, and Beth's father liked seeing Beth happy, which to Eliza meant that he'd accept her sexuality.
Beth's mother, in contrast, was very open about the relationship and accepting of Beth's sexuality and Eliza without concern. That made Eliza happy, especially as the two of them were trying to figure out a way for the marriage proposal when Beth graduated high school. It was something that in her private life worked out very well.
"And you did well in the IAC, and if I didn't have to work, I would have come and cheered you on," Killer commented.
"I lost though..." Eliza commented.
"Winning or losing... that's unimportant in sports," Killer answered, "It's HOW you played the game and Beth told me you did quite well."
"You did," Beth added as she sat down to the left of Eliza.
"Thank you," Eliza managed.
"I saw your interview on CNN..." Beth's father commented, "WSA really doesn't have separate gender showers?"
"Yes," Eliza answered with a low sigh, "for reasons stated in the interviews. We're never going to get teenagers who are growing up and discovering things about sexuality into being abstinent until their at least eighteen. I've seen too many teen pregnancies to know that even if you avoid that risk at school, they'll go somewhere else... and so long as Public Schools avoid sex education, particularly with regard to safe sex and what is fair treatment, those sorts of things are going to happen anyway..."
"And they have the means to make sure things like rape aren't an issue, dad," Beth came to Eliza's defense, "their cameras may not see into every shower stall, but they can observe whether or not any sort of... activity... in the shows is consensual."
"And while it may be controversial in some ways, the system is designed to automatically blur images and keep what monitoring that is done as unobtrusive as possible," Eliza added.
Beth's father raised a hand, "Oh, I can understand all the new aged understanding of things and so on... and I suppose I can accept that... it's just a BIG shift from what I remember."
"It's a big shift from what I remember too... but in many ways it's still something necessary," Eliza answered, "as I said in the interview, we have measures in place that will do more to combat teen pregnancy than separating the bathrooms and pretending they won't go elsewhere to have sex. We may not prevent teen sex... but we'll likely do a better job at preventing teen pregnancy... And it may be controversial, but in many ways... it may be necessary."
"And you did rather well explaining all that in the interview," Beth's mother assured her, "though I'm afraid I only caught the small bit about the deals with various condom companies..."
"The real thing in my mind was how were they able to catch you there?" Beth's father asked, "I think they were supposed to be covering something relating to the bachelorette auction..."
"I was just there for my weekly workout," Eliza answered, "I didn't actually expect to end up getting interviewed."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In another part of the Great Hall, another small group went through the buffet line. Among them was one male Rottweiler Animalian, a pair of Wolf Animalians, and a pair of French Poodle Animalians. Princess and Tiffany were able to come home for Thanksgiving and had already shared a lot of their fun college stories with her parents. While the name P.E.T. for a sorority had started as something of a bad joke, it was accepted as there was nothing else that anyone was able to come up with. Tiffany's parents were more proud that their daughters hadn't done anything to degrade the family name while at college. Tiffany took some pride in that, though after some of Jamie's help, many of the things that she found important before the outbreak didn't seem so important.
"You're not hungry?" Riley asked to her from the other side of the row of tables set up to hold all the food.
Tiffany blinked and looked down at her plate. She had a small handful of dark meat on the plate along with one slice of moose that was still available. It wasn't much, and Princess really didn't have that much on her plate either, but her parents had already had their dinner and had largely retired to her father's study to drink brandy debate over what to do. When Tiffany overheard her forty six year old mother say in a "sexy" voice, "we could go to bed, darling," she figured it'd be a good idea for her and Princess to head out from her parents estate on the east side of Lyre to Animalia's Thanksgiving dinner.
"Princess and I have already had our dinner, officially," Tiffany answered as she looked up to Riley, "Mom and dad have no problem with Animalia... and they'll probably commit part of their own fortune to defend it because of me and Princess being part of it... but that doesn't mean that they're going to change what they do for Thanksgiving for anyone."
"Not everyone fully changes what they do," Jamie agreed as she shuffled along next to Trevor, "my dad's practically addicted to football. They cook everything... but my family spends more time watching football games than anything else. Mom gave me permission to come to Animalia's dinner to be with Trevor."
"And he's still respectful? Right, sis?" Riley asked and eyed Trevor for a moment, though the look was more of a friendly rivalry rather than the near hostility that the two had had before. Riley and Trevor had actually formed something of a friendship, and while Riley might have regretted "losing" out on Jamie, that competition had lead an honest friendship with Trevor forming. The two remained rivals, and Jamie was fairly certain that the two of them would probably compete against each other in just about everything, but it was more a friendly rivalry than anything else.
"He's still been respectful," Jamie nodded with some chuckle, "like all canines... Trevor is devoted to his mate."
Trevor gave something a grin and had his ears perked. It was a look that might have triggered a growl from Riley in the past, but so long as Jamie was safe and respected, Riley seemed willing to accept it. Some of that might have been part of Tiffany's overtures to court Riley after the IAC, as by that time, Tiffany had grown quite a bit since being the "queen bee" at Lyre High thanks to the help from Jamie, which was something that Riley did like, and there were a few things about Riley that Tiffany liked as well.
"We're here because mom wanted to get frisky," Princess commented, taking things back to the earlier topic on why Tiffany didn't have as much on her plate.
"Princess!" Tiffany hissed, glad she couldn't blush through her fur. She could accept Animalians being more easily aroused and more forward about it, but her parents were still human and she didn't want the image of her parents having sex in her head, even if they were at an age where that sort of thing wasn't an impossibility.
"It's okay," Jamie answered, "Just about everyone does it... and while there are a fair number of families where parents and children became double dosed Animalians and that the relations between parents and child comes off more like siblings than parents and child because of all the changes in age..."
"My parents are both human," Tiffany answered and glanced to Princess, "Our parents are both human."
"Everyone does it," Jamie chuckled.
"Doesn't mean I want to watch or listen to my parents be with each other," Tiffany answered and looked to Riley, "just as I wouldn't want them to watch or listen to us..."
"Makes sense," Riley answered.
They ultimately made their way to a empty spot at the tables that were set up for everyone to dine at and they soon sat down together. Riley and Trevor were soon digging in, almost as if there was a contest to see who could finish first. That earned a couple of chuckles, but neither male made any real mess, so Jamie, Princess, and Tiffany were free to turn to other things.
"So... how's college life like?" Jamie asked curiously.
"Pretty busy," Tiffany answered, "I don't get to see Princess as much as I'd like... but we do eat together and we get to be roommates, so I know I have a good friend to talk to in the evenings."
"Schedule differences?" Jamie wondered, thinking on her classes at WSA that at times had her separate from Riley and Trevor, which was a big difference from the year before at Lyre High.
"And class differences," Princess answered, "I'm majoring in physical education... with a minor in teaching... Maybe ultimately bring a little bit of Animalia to other school districts. I wish that the college would let me play on their volleyball team... but right now with most of the country's Animalians being here in Nevada, the NCAA doesn't want UNLV to get an unfair advantage of having an Animalian on the team."
"That'll probably change over time, as more Animalians start going to college, the odds will increase that their sporting programs will want to add Animalians to their roster..." Jamie commented, "Given the IAC and the athletes that were in high school."
Princess wagged her tail at that, "I hope so... I had fun during last year's spring break and the IAC over the summer... But in the end it isn't TOO bad. The college has some sand volleyball courts on the campus and they do allow for those who aren't on a formal team to play some games for fun. And Tiffany and I were able to have fun there."
"Well, that's good," Jamie smiled, "so... what have you been majoring in, Tiffany? We all heard about P.E.T. but not much else on Animalia Ambassadoria."
"Ultimately it's business..." Tiffany answered, "but for the moment it's a lot of economics classes."
"But it all works okay, right?" Jamie asked.
"Yeah," Tiffany nodded, "most of the people there have been rather accepting of Princess and me... possibly because no one finds Poodles intimidating... but I'd think we managed to show Animalia's good side."
There was a few moments of silence while Tiffany nibbled on the food she'd picked up. Eventually she did continue.
"The only real "trouble" was the entire campus going into lockdown during that shooting," Tiffany then spoke.
"You two were okay, right?" Riley looked up quickly.
"We were alright," Tiffany found herself smiling at Riley's concern. He was strong and he did put on a determined face to defend what he cared for, which had been a core part of his rivalry with Trevor when they were first uplifted and they squabbled over Jamie, even if Riley's reasoning was more like a protective brother than a potential lover, but Tiffany had found that the male Rottweiler had a very caring side as well, and that sort of combination was highly attractive. She liked the concern, "Princess and I were in our dorm room sleeping when it all went down. The trouble was campus security doing spot checks to make sure everyone on campus could be accounted for."
"It's good you two made it through everything okay," Trevor commented.
"Yes," Riley agreed.
The conversation soon turned to more light-hearted conversation from there.
"So... what do they have for food at college?" Trevor asked before returning to eating his dinner, earning a few chuckles and an explanation on UNLV's dining arrangements.