Horizon

Chapter 15

I could tell that Thomas was doing his best to regain my favor. It must have meant that he was serious about getting me to trust him more. He went out of his way to provide for me within the few hours that I was getting rest.

When I woke up, I noticed that the right side of the room looked considerably different. The first thing that I had noticed was that there toiletries near my sink. I could see an elongated toothbrush, a small bottle of mouthwash, and a large bottle of three-in-one body wash.

On the nightstand next to me, there were a few sets of clothes for me. I grabbed at the top of the stack of clothes, and held a pair of shorts in front of me. It looked like the shorts were skin-tight, and had a small hole in the rear for my tail. The shorts felt pretty tough, as well. I couldn't tell how tough, but they felt like they could withstand the normal wear and tear of compression shorts.

"Ah, he's awake," said Thomas, who had been sitting forward on his bed. Thomas was situating more knives into the different sheaths that were still placed around his body.

"So whose idea was it to go with the skinny collection," I said, pointing at the stack of clothes next to me.

"Mine," Thomas said with a snicker.

I rolled off my bed and slipped on the pair of shorts, making sure to slip my tail into the correct opening. After making sure that they were my size, I automatically went to grab a shirt. I didn't find one, however. The whole stack was of shorts. I decided not to ask about that, guessing that shirts weren't very convenient for anthros anyway.

"Hungry?" Thomas asked, as I kept testing out my new shorts.

"Always," I replied. "Let me guess...raw meat...but this time, on a hamburger bun?"

Thomas fell back onto his bed and laughed heavily. "That's pretty much the only thing on the menu! You won't get used to it, though, if you keep going back to regular burgers from restaurants."

"Let's get to it, then," I grumbled jokingly.

Thomas got up and joined me by the door. When he did that, I had barely noticed that he was wearing the same clothes that I had. I also noticed that there was also a faded triangle on the small of his back. It was weird to me that I hadn't noticed it before...probably because I wasn't prone to staring at Thomas's rear end.

As Thomas and I exited our room, I nudged Thomas's shoulder playfully. "So what's this formal welcome you mentioned?"

Thomas shook his head. "You're going to be introduced to the rest of the anthros. That's all I can say about it. Now, let's get some food in us before I give you the rest of the tour, okay?"

I let out a sigh, and continued to follow Thomas to the cafeteria. Once we got back into the cafeteria, Thomas led me through the food lines until I had a gourmet-looking piece of meat on a plate. That meat came with rice, and plenty of different sauces. I was surprised to see that Thomas wasn't serious about having to eat raw burgers.

"So you're one of Talon's personal assistants too?" I asked, while shoving a mouthful of meat and rice into my maw.

Thomas nodded, and answered, "Yep. I can't say it's an easy job, though. You'll be spending a lot of your time either counseling with the rest of us, or making sure that the property is safe. Sometimes people catch wind of what's going on down here, or sneak a picture of an anthro, and it's our job to make sure that doesn't happen."

"How long do you think it will take to get me trained?" I asked excitedly.

"Don't know," Thomas said with a mouthful of food. "It depends on how well you're able to adapt to new situations, defend yourself, and make critical decisions."