For the next week, Rudy worked the sleigh teams to the bone, not caring one whit that it was still Eric’s first year. “The best way to learn is by doing, and we’ll be doing a lot to get you into shape,” Rudy had said so many times Eric was starting to get a little sick of hearing it.
5AM to 10AM was hauling exercises, where Eric and Clyde would be pulling increasingly heavy loads over land across the tundra. 10AM to noon was spend in the gym, where Rudy handed Eric off to Tag to work any other muscles that hadn’t been completely worn out by the hauling.
Noon to 1:30 was lunch and a quick sauna. That wasn’t so bad.
Things did get bad after that, though. Nearly the rest of the afternoon until dinnertime was spend in full harness hooked up to the sleight, flying in formation for hundreds of miles back and forth from the village.
“Tag, Heikki, tighten up closer, you’re going to snap the harness! Eric, what was with that left turn? You nearly tossed everything in the sleigh out with that! Keep the turns smooth! That goes for you too, Onni!” Rudy barked back at them almost nonstop, peppering a few words of advice between his assessments. Once they got back to the training yard, they each got a pile of notes on where they were improving and what they needed to focus more on before they all headed off to get some dinner.
Many days, Eric and a few of the other younger bucks were too tired to even switch back to their anthro forms after training was done for the day, and it was considered a rite of passage for anyone on the sleigh team to clop up to the table and start eating dinner in full four-legged form.
“Rudy’s just being a hard-ass, söpö,” Clyde teased as he walked back home with Eric after a particularly tough day of training. “He takes Christmas Eve more seriously than anyone up here, except maybe Santa. And that’s still a big ‘maybe’.”
He pushed the door to their home open, and Eric tiredly clopped inside and kicked the snow off his four hooves, still unable to muster up the strength to switch back to two-legged form.
“I’m not complaining, Clyde. I’m just tired,” Eric said. “I knew this was going to be a lot of work, and I’m not going to back down just because it’s not all fun and games. Besides, I’m getting a lot stronger already after just a few days. By Christmas, I bet I’ll be even bigger than you!”
“Ooh, I think Tag is rubbing off on your in all the worst ways,” Clyde sighed dramatically. “Well, we’ll see about that. As long as you stay this cute, I don’t mind how big you get.”
He laughed and planted a big kiss on Eric’s muzzle, then they headed upstairs to settle in for the evening. Eric was a bit clumsy going up the stairs in his four-legged form, but the bed was large and strong enough that he could get in and relax alongside his mate. He carefully folded his legs underneath his larger body and began to doze off, only to be roused by Clyde’s voice after a couple of minutes.
“You know… Since you can’t change back right now…” Clyde teased, running a hoofed finger along the tips of Eric’s antler. “I wonder if you’d like to really put that form to the test…?”
Despite his exhaustion, Eric’s eyes widened at the implications of what Clyde was saying, and his cock began to stiffen immediately underneath him.
“Mmm, I think that’s a yes, ei?” Clyde continued to say right into Eric ears, slipping a hand under Eric and slowly teasing his dripping cock. “Now, shall I ride you, or does the big, tough hirvas wish to have his way with me?”
Eric knew where things were headed that night, and he dearly hoped he’d have the strength to make it to the training yard the next morning after Clyde was done with him. He was quickly learning that Clyde was a lot more like Rudy than Eric had ever realized.
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While the reindeer were hard at work preparing for the big night, Tom had been working on a few projects of his own. He carefully tinkered with his laptop, which was currently hooked into a jury-rigged collection of technology, while Lars watched with amusement from the couch.
“I’m telling you, it’s not going to work…” Lars sighed as he sipped at a glass of wine. “Between the aurora, the snow, the latitude, and the magic in the air, you just cannot get a satellite signal around here. Trust me, we’ve tried.”
“You’ve tried. But I’m not you, am I?” Tom replied playfully as he carefully tweaked a few settings on his laptop. “It’ll take until next autumn to run high-speed internet lines up this far north, so let’s give this a chance in the meantime, okay?”
Lars just chuckled and lay back, letting Tom do whatever he wanted as long as he was having fun. A short time later, Tom let out a quiet “Yes!” and leapt to his feet.
“Told you, fuzzball! Five bars, 4G, barely any signal lag! You’re marrying a real genius, Lars!”
“I’m marrying a real nerd…” Lars sighed, rising up from his seat and examining what Tom had accomplished. “…Shit, you really did it. How did you-… Actually, forget it. I’m sure you’d have me here for hours explaining it, ei?”
Lars plopped down next to Tom and cuddled up against him, curious to get a chance to go online for the first time in a while.
“Mmm, is it time for the human ceremony of ‘Netflix and Chill’?” Lars teased.
“I was actually thinking about a video call with my mom,” Tom replied, double-checking to make sure he’d configured everything correctly and adjusting the laptop’s webcam. “Eric said she wanted to hear from me, and this seems like a pretty good chance…”
“You think you can hold on for the whole call?” Lars asked, his eyes narrowing in concern. “You haven’t been able to go longer than an hour, yet…”
“Only one way to find out.”
Tom closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing just like he’d been practicing with Lars for the past few days. He felt an itch spreading across his body as his fur sucked back up into his skin, and there was an uncomfortable sensation as his muzzle and paws reshaped themselves into human-like shapes. His ears were still quite fox-like, and his tail still wagged happily behind him, but to a casual viewer Tom would probably look human.
As a werefox, transformation to and from a human form came a lot more easily to Tom than it did to Eric or even Clyde, though it could be made more difficult depending on the phases of the moon. Tom’s human form looked nearly identical to how he had looked before becoming a werefox, though his hair was now a bright, platinum blond to match Lars and Fiia’s human forms, and a close look at his eyes would reveal that they were a few shades closer to copper and very subtly slitted.
Oh, and whenever he was feeling excited, irritated, horny, or hungry the air around him sometimes began to shimmer and glow. Again, not anything that would draw too much attention at first glance, but still an undeniable sign that he had been forever changed by his experiences at the North Pole.
“Keep that tail out of sight, or she’ll be asking lots of questions,” Lars advised, then he glanced up at Tom’s nervously twitching ears. “And, maybe a hat.”
“Don’t need to tell me twice. Do you really need to keep it so cold in here?” Tom growled, already missing his fur coat. “Oh… and I was hoping you’d join me on the call. I wanted her to meet you.”
Lars’ breath caught in his throat at that. His mate was really introducing him to his mother? It seemed like such a big step, but maybe these things weren’t quite such a big deal for humans? Lars squirmed a bit in his seat, wondering what he should say, then he quickly changed into his own human form with a quick shimmer before nodding silently.
“Don’t worry, she’ll love you,” Tom said, giving a quick kiss to his handsome boyfriend, who cuddled up with him and nervously wondered what Tom was going to tell his mother.
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After a few technical hiccups, the video call finally went through and Tom’s mother showed up on the screen with crystal clarity. As soon as the hellos were out of the way, she immediately began asking about Tom’s new hair color, how Eric was doing, what the hell had taken him so long to call. The usual parent questions. Then, she fired off the real bombshell.
“So, who’s that adorable young man trying his best to hide from the camera?”
Lars let out a yelp and nearly ran off, but Tom held on tight and pulled him back into frame. “Mom, this is Lars. He’s not usually this quiet, but I guess you’re intimidating him somehow,” Tom joked. “And he’s my boy-….”
Tom stopped himself. He wasn’t going to lie to his mother.
“He’s my fiancé. We’ve been dating on and off for about seven years, and we decided it’s finally time to settle down.”
He didn’t mention that the ‘off’ in that ‘on and off’ had been a rather long time, but the essence of what he was saying was the truth.
“Oh, Tom… I’m so happy for you both!” his mother replied with a huge smile on her face, but she immediately turned serious a moment later. “But this is why I want you to call more often! Every time you call, I get overloaded with all this big news! Next, I’m sure you’ll be telling me that you’re planning on staying up there like Eric is!”
“Well…”
“Tom, I swear!” she sighed with exasperation. “Well, as long as you all are happy, I suppose I don’t mind. Just, make sure to come visit me soon. And I’ll be visiting you as soon as I can get a flight!”
“I think I might be able to get you a good deal on air travel…” Tom said. As long as you don’t mind a sleigh ride, he thought to himself.
“Well, fine. That’s settled. You know, it’s actually pretty fitting that you two would end up in Scandinavia… My family actually has a long history with the area, not that I’ve really looked too much into it,” Tom’s mother said. Tom just smiled at that, since he was well aware of how far back their ancestry went, thanks to Lars’ research. “Now, I’m getting a bit tired of talking to you, Tom. Let me get to know my future son-in-law, eh? Lars, sweetie, you’ve barely said a word!”
Lars felt a blush forming on his face as Tom’s mother set her sights on him next. It took all he had not to accidentally let off a bit of his aurora, and with his tail flicking nervously just out of sight of the webcam he hoped he wouldn’t accidentally give away the big secret Tom and Eric had been keeping…