"Well, this otta be fun." Harry leaned back, still without pants because Katie still hadn't given him his answer.
Katie had to know. "Fun for you in what way?" She asked as she turned her gaze from the monitors.
"Fun like it is for small time towns back in the days of yore. If you had a wedding, it was considered a major event, everyone in town more or less showed. The whole predator phobia is keeping that from happening here of course, but you gotta admit there's something interesting about all of it."
"I'd have gone crazy if there wasn't." Katie said.
"Hey Katie, tell me," Said Harry knowing Katie's opinion on the subject, "Which do you say? Speed deliver mail order some flowers for our does to wear, or order a customized wedding dress?"
"Eh?" Okay, maybe not.
"I know it's the love that makes it all worth while, but a wedding without any trappings just feels cheap. So what do you think would work out better? What's the ladies' opinion? Just some weaved flowers for some of them to wear like bracelets, etc, or a customized dress or two for the outside wedding?"
"You're actually giving an option that doesn't involve staring at someone's maternal tissue?" Katie asked, duly impressed.
"I have a soft spot for wedding, and besides: if I asked Naomi, she'd say how the bride should be wearing pants. And if I asked the twins, they'd jump on the flower option without even considering the dress option."
"Why not just ask the does themselves?" Katie asked the common sense question.
"I want it to be a -surprise-, my own little wedding gift. So what DO you think? A dress to set this apart from everything that's happened in the park so far... or do we obey the company motif on the whole 'one with nature' thing?"
Normally Katie would have said dress at the drop of a hat, but.... Harry was asking for her honest, unbias, and fair opinion. Again, she was duly impressed. She could appreciate Harry's idea of a surprise, but Katie herself couldn't help but think it was best to think what the deer themselves would want. On the one hand, she heard how a couple of foxes had asked to keep their anthro forms after they left the park. And Katie knew being in human society meant obeying human law (including the anti-public nudity laws). On the other hand, she knew how many, -many- park goers quickly did dive into the 'one with nature' motif the park tried so hard to enforce. This felt a lot like Harry's offer to go around in pants (thus setting himself up as a target) if Katie went around with her dress.
What was the right choice?
++++++
"The meeting of the brides' maids of Lord Jeremy and Madam Leticia's wedding, formerly the five muses, formally the four muses, formally the Saltlick Symposium, shall now come to order." Su Yin somehow managed to say totally with a straight face.
"You gals are never going to let that go are you?" Lateisha asked remembering when she had used that last term for the first time.
"Nope!" Jenny laughed. Okay, check, maybe Jenny hadn't suffered a brain transplant by Martians like Monty and his Motley Crew had suggesting. Truth be told, Lateisha had been very close to accept that theory.
"You know," Lateisha lamented, "The only wedding I thought I'd ever I'd go naked to was a Star Trek fan's Beta-Zed wedding."
The other two does just looked at her, "Never mind." Lateisha dismissed. "So Jenny, Spike is, on his best behavior right?" While Lateisha knew it was mostly a paranoid fantasy now, she couldn't shake the image of Spike still being a monster behind that innocent face.
"Oh, he's not perfect," Jenny said completely missing or ignoring Lateisha's apprehension. "He wanders off, he tried to eat things he shouldn't, but I wouldn't trade him for the world! And Robbie is proving fairly good at keeping out of trouble when I can't take Spike with me."
"That's good I guess." Lateisha replied. With Leticia gone from the group, and Hannah now focusing totally on her unofficial job as a Anthro TG Consoler, it honestly felt a bit more lonely. And it felt like somehow, Lateisha was only going to have Su Yin to talk to soon. Not that Su Yin was bad company, but Lateisha knew variety was the spice of life. It was times like this Lateisha almost regretted she wasn't lesbian, then she wouldn't be wondering what the bucks were up to.
++++++
Given that the only other buck Jeremy knew in particular was Drake, John shouldn't have been that surprised when he found himself saddled with best man. Apparently Jeremy had heard of John through Boss-Lady Leticia, though Jenny, though Robbie, ugh. John could understand Jeremy not wanting to give Drake the responsibility of setting up all affairs and events related to the wedding.
"John Deer?" Where HAD the whole species last name stupidity come from? Oh yeah, Monty, and it had spread like a bad disease! The pun was still agony to John's ears.
"That's me Boss-Man." John bowed ever so slightly.
"You're now my best man for this wedding, my friends have spoken well of you, and I'm sure you'll be able to organize a fantastic wedding."
And Jeremy had said it, and thus it was so.
John felt a heavy weight upon his entire body, but somehow found the courage not to beg Boss-Man Jeremy to pick someone else. John had also managed to bump only into one tree after being given the job. In spite of everything John had thought about Drake before the tournament, he came to the humbled (for now) businessman for advice. Drake knew leaps and bounds about organization more than John did, and John was going to need every bit of help he could get. He had to ask the news hounds when they thought the weather would be good. Pick out the best place for the ceremony! Coordinator with the Father to see how long the proceedings were going to be! Agh! He also realized he needed to organize deer to forage for the reception!
John felt his head spin slightly, this wasn't going to be easy.
Meanwhile Jeremy was told by the child half of the lynx newshounds, "Hey kiddo," The girl lynx who biologically appeared the same age as Spike was now. It made her head swim how the urge to address adults as 'Mr. and Miss' had crept into her brain. She honestly wondered if there was something in the bioengineering that made people act like their new forms wether they liked it or not.
"Yes, er, Miss?" Jeremy asked, the lynx being small enough not to set off his predator fear-sense.
"I thought you'd just want to know, your mommy, I mean mother hasn't given up on you."
"She left the park and is trying to get a lawyer?" Jeremy asked predicting his mother's next move.
"Nope!" The child lynx shook her head, happy she had a secret, but knew she had to share. "She's staying right here in the park until you leave with her."
Jeremy was surprised by that news, he was sure his mother wouldn't want to be a 'freak' any longer than needed to drag him out by his horns though the Transformation Chamber. "What exactly are the terms of her stay?"
"I just told ya!" The child lynx said, "She's not leavin' until you do." The child lynx shook her head, dang these childish manners and thought, she had to watch herself more carefully.
Jeremy was stunned, "How'd -that- happen?"
"Either a filing error, or someone thought this was the less troubling way to bother with her. And the huskies told me that as long as she doesn't break any fundamental rules of the park, she's free to stay as long as you are."
"Honey?" Leticia asked worried, "Is she going to be a problem?"
"No," Jeremy said calmly, "I won't let her."
"Just be watching yerself," The child lynx said, "Da only scarier thing than a grizzly bear or a mother looking out for her kids is a mama bear!"
"Duly noted." Jeremy replied. "Thank you."
"Yer welcome." The lynx happily bounced away. Ugh, a lynx bouncing, something about that felt weird!
++++++++++
Hannah of course, remained the only one with the slightest clue about Marth in his first few hours in the park. Hannah remembered all of her talks with her fellow muses, er, does. And talked about the 'nasty surprise Leticia's 'old girlfriend' would have waiting for her' in good humor. She hadn't been real. She was an idea, a technicality.
They had joked about it. They had laughed about it. They hadn't thought of it as significant or real. Or maybe Larry's old girlfriend was someone who wouldn't care, or was some controlling Hell Cat who Larry would be glade to be free of. After all, Leticia had found Jeremy after the tournament. There was no way that Maria could be a good person, that would mean that Jeremy and Leticia's happiness would hurt someone who didn't deserve it, and that wasn't something that they could seriously consider.
"Ashes, ashes, all fall down." Hannah said to herself, she wanted to stay near Marth. No telling how he was going to get himself damage (by all definition), when he met up with Jeremy and Leticia. Whatever happened, Hannah knew it wasn't going to be pleasant, nor pretty.
As for Marth, all the plans he had about checking out the possible sights in the park were pushed aside. Leticia, Larry, was going to get a visit from him weather an army of bucks liked it or not.
Marth wasn't going out of his way to be stealthy, Hannah felt like she was trailing behind a marching band. Or maybe it was just the larger ears she had worn for over half a year. She tried her best to enjoy the rear view, but knowing the dark times ahead threw off her enjoying the show.
"Hello sir, are you the new buck in the park?" Of course with all the noise he was making, he'd attract attention. The muscular and impressively tall Grizzy woman spoke as soon as she was visible, "My name is Maggie, and I have some news you might be interested in."
Hannah had no way to know this was Jeremy's mother. "You new? I don't remember seeing you at the gate."
"I came at an unofficial time." Maggie said to the doe, if not for the fact they were all genetically altered in here, Maggie would swear there was no way those two things on the doe could possibly be real.
'That's weird,' Hannah thought. The way the bear was carrying herself, "Are you a transgendered?"
"NO!" Hannah nearly leapt out of her skin at that one word.
"Okay! I didn't mean anything by it!" Hannah put on the most apologetic face she could muster. With Jasmine, this made number three she had been mistaken on the subject in the last six months of the countless TGs who had gone through the gene splicer. She felt the strange urge to get down on her knees and beg. There was something about this woman, something her instincts were telling her that didn't have to do with her species.
"Forgiven." The powerful anthro said politely. She then ignored Hannah and focused on the buck, "And you would be Mr.."
"Up until a few hours ago it was Maria, but Hannah, that's her, says my name is Marth now."
'Oh great, a fake buck.' Maggie thought, 'Oh well, just makes him better for a fake doe.'
"I'm told you're new to the park, are you doing anything at the moment?" Maggie asked Marth like the White Witch had asked James if he wanted Turkish Delight in 'The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe.'
"As a matter of fact I am." Marth said politely.
'Gather information, never act without information.' Maggie thought. "What would that be?"
"If what Hannah has told me is true. I'm off to rescue the damsel in distress." Larry wasn't a total jerk. He wouldn't just discard her without a second thought.
Maggie struggled not to frown, this threw a wrench in her plans, 'information.'
"What's yours girlfriend's name?" Were they lesbian lovers on the outside?
"His name last time I checked was Larry, but I'm told," He looked right at Hannah. "She's answering to 'Leticia' now."
Maggie nearly gasped, instead she merely staggered.
+++++
Unlike many, many others people in the park, and those few who knew on the outside. Father Tyminski still considered himself completely human. Not half-human, not hyper evolved animals. Not non-human. But human.
After all, what was human, if not soul? Was a corpse considered a human being with all the rights of one? Or was it treated with decency out of respect for the soul that had once resided in it? Father Tyminski would have considered himself and the other park goers still human if that had ended up on four legs and speaking in animal noises. For if one assumed human had to do with two arms, two legs, no tail, no fur except on the head, what did that make the under developed unborn? Raw genetic material to be harvested? Intellect? What did that make the mentally retarded? Defective products to be dismissed? What of human beings who had gained replacement plastic or metal body parts? Half-human? Father Tyminski as a rule rejected these conclusions.
Father Tyminski knew this body had different instincts, and different dietary habits, as his increased interest in fish proved, but in the end, how much did those things really matter?
"After all," He had said during one of his weekly sermons, "if we had evolved -naturally- from any one of these species, or if God had chosen plants to sculpt us in his image, chances are we'd have still chosen 'wise man' as our species name. Thus, human, is in the end, a state of soul."