So there's a bit of a story associated with this one.
About a week ago, FS was discussing his latest commission in chat, which involves a vixen as always (don't want to say anything more, since he hasn't posted it here yet). I
might have ribbed him a little bit for always choosing his trusty foxes over other species (
) and I asked him what some of his picks for his second favorite were. He told me, and I decided to write a story with a similar plot to his commission but starring one of his other choices, to see how he likes it.
So, I hope you in particular like this, FS, since it's for you (don't worry, there's a fox in there too, just in case
), and that the rest of you find it enjoyable. Comments are encouraged as always, I live off of them.
With a smile on her face and a spring in her step, the perky otter girl crosses the beach. It’s a beautiful, warm sunny day outside, perfect for relaxing on the sand or going for a swim. She plans to do both, as the two towels slung over her shoulder attest: one to lay on, one to dry herself.
The otter is fully enjoying herself, and it shows. Her shapely figure and ample bosom are held in a deep blue string bikini, the color matching that of her welcoming eyes. The dark hue also matches her fur well—it’s deeper than most otters’, a rich chocolate brown.
She isn’t the only one planning on visiting the beach today—as she gets closer, she notices it’s fairly crowded. But not so much so that she couldn’t find a semi-private place out there if she wanted to. Her smile widens. She feels confident in herself and excited about the day before her. Still with a bit of a spring in her step, she prances out onto the sand.
Before too long she finds a place to spread out her larger towel. The smaller one gets folded and set to the side for later; for now, the ocean beckons. She walks the short distance to the edge of the sea and, with a gleeful shout, she launches herself into the waves.
The water feels wonderful in her short, soft fur, giving her an almost sensual pleasure. In no time at all she’s cutting to and fro, sometimes aiming for speed, sometimes agility, and sometimes just to frolic in the shallow water. She has a natural advantage here over most species, and she cuts through the ocean like a furry torpedo, moving far quicker than one would expect from someone with her curvy frame. The otter tries to be considerate and avoid hitting anybody else in the water, but occasionally she just has to shoot by another swimmer by a narrow margin, just to prove that she can.
After about half an hour, the otter is starting to feel a little tired. She still has plenty of swimming left in her, but it wouldn’t hurt to rest for a little while before going back for some more. Smoothly she shifts from her swimming pose to a standing position, the water lapping just below her shoulders, and starts walking to shore.
The otter has surfaced near another swimmer, a red vixen with a slim figure and moderate bust wearing a bikini that’s similar to hers, except for its yellow color. She offers a quick wave, which the vixen returns with a warm smile. An instant later the vixen’s eyes track behind the otter and widen, and an instant after that a rather larger wave than the ones that have been coming in all day strikes the otter in the back of the head and the unfortunate vixen in the face.
It’s surprising and a little disorienting, but not to bothersome for the otter, except for a bit of saltwater getting forced up her nose. After a few seconds of floating, she’s able to regain her footing and bring her head fully out of the water again. She shakes her head to dry it a little at the same time the vixen breaks the surface of the water. Still blinking a bit in surprise, the otter turns towards her, trying to make small talk. “Quite a wave, wasn’t that?” she asks, every bit as friendly as her species’ stereotype.
It takes her a second to realize that the vixen isn’t particularly paying attention to her, but rather is crossing her eyes to examine the small black nose capping her delicate muzzle. Or at least, it should be black. Currently it’s more of a purple color, with a touch of pink running around each of her twitching nostrils. The vixen’s mouth hangs partway open, her eyes hang slightly closed, and her ears lazily begin to flatten as she slowly raises a hand toward her face. It’s about halfway there, just out of the water, when her eyes slam shut, her ears flip firmly down, and her head lurches forwards.
“Hik’tchiew!”
The slender fox lets out a high-pitched squeak of a sneeze. Her muzzle completely misses the hand that was trying to catch the blast, sending a light mist out over the water instead, and her sensitive nose ends up sticking directly into the seawater. The vixen reels back with a sudden gasp, her nose now definitely pinker. She opens her mouth to speak, but doesn’t get any farther than, “Oh, no . . . I’m gonnehhh . . . Ehk’tchiew! Hik’tchiew! Hak’TCHIEW!” Luckily for her, these sneezes are all caught in her cupped hands.
“Bless you. Are you okay?” the otter asks, a definite note of concern in her voice.
The vixen sniffles, rubbing her temperamental canine nose with a finger. “Yeah, I just got a little bit of water up my—Hit’chiew!—up my nose,” she replies, a sudden sneeze overtaking her in the middle of her sentence. “What about you?”
It’s now the otter’s turn to sniffle a bit, her large, oval nose giving a good twitch as she does so. “Me too, I think, but I’ll be fine.”
“Lucky you,” says the vixen, who’s traded off rubbing her nose for pinching it between her thumb and forefinger. “If I get any of this up my muzzle I start to sneeze. Happens at the pool, too. But I like swimming, so I have to manage.”
“That can’t be pleasant when you have such a *sniff* sensitive nose,” coos the otter. The sniffle that interrupts her sentence is followed by several harsher sniffles after its completion.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” asks the vixen. “You sound a little congested.”
“I’ll be fine,” the otter insists politely. A second later, her nose betrays her with another violent twitch, making the otter’s breath catch. She brings herself back under control quickly, only to find the vixen giving her a knowing look.
“You could really use a good sneeze, dear,” she insists. “Hek’kttch! . . . just like I could, heh.”
The otter gives an experimental sniff. The tingling sensation in her muzzle becomes a low-level burning itch as air rushes through her nasal passages. It hurts, it makes her eyes water, and it’s definitely not enough of a tickle to make her sneeze. She’s confused—she usually doesn’t have trouble sneezing. Either her nose feels fine or it tickles and makes her blast out one of her typical powerful explosions. This teasing burn is entirely new to her.
“I think it’s stuhh . . . stuck,” she gasps, a tear running down each of her cheeks.
“Let me help,” the vixen offers. “I know a theh-hih!-thing or two about dealing with muzzles that just don’t want to sneeze. Like mine.”
The otter leads her over to her rolled-out towel, and the two girls sit down together, lounging back a bit, their tails sticking out between their legs. The vixen, still alternately pinching or rubbing at her nose, smiles.
“If you need a little bit of help getting over the edge, I find that looking at the sun is just the trick.” She turns toward the sun slowly as she speaks, raising her cupped hands into the perfect position to catch the sneezes when they come. Once she’s fully facing the hot sun, she carefully brings her head up, but by bit. Every slight tilt makes her eyes slide just a little more shut, her mouth crack open a little wider, and her ears flatten just a touch more. The otter finds herself somewhat mesmerized; she knows what’s coming, but she doesn’t know exactly when it will happen. The anticipation builds until finally the vixen lurches forward with another squeaky sneezing fit.
“Ihk’tchiew! Hek’tchiew! Nit’tchiew! AHK’SHIEEW!” The final sneeze is forceful enough to bring the vixen into a sitting position. She rests her forearms on her knees, and gives her sensitive nose a quick pull before letting out a sigh of relief.
“Ahh, much better.” The vixen basks in the feeling of a clean muzzle for a moment before seeming to remember the sniffly, gaspy otter sitting next to her. “Oh, right. Why don’t you give it a shot? Just don’t be too fast, you need to ease yourself into it.”
The otter tries the same slow movements that she just saw the vixen perform, turning her face to the sun and then slowly lifting her chin to bring her eyes more into the light. The tingling in her nose grows more intense and tears flow from her eyes as the bright light makes her squint, but it isn’t enough to make her sneeze. After about thirty seconds of this, the otter lowers her head, dejected. “Dod edough,” she mumbles with a sniffle, becoming more congested by the second.
The vixen frowns for a moment in thought before her amber eyes light up. “Don’t worry, I have an idea!” Suddenly she glances around furtively and lowers her voice. “There’s nobody watching us too closely, is there?”
The otter really isn’t the one to ask that question, half-blinded with tears as she is, but she pans the immediate area anyway. “I dode thig so. Why?”
In fact, a few of the other beachgoers had glanced over at the vixen’s sudden sneezing fit, but now that the moment is passed they have turned their attention to other matters. Confident that they aren’t drawing too much attention, the vixen turns back to the otter. “My idea is just . . . a little weird. Stay there for a second, would you?” She props herself up on one elbow, dropping her other hand to examine her tail. The sun works fast—it’s almost completely dry, only a tiny bit still damp. Perfect.
“I think I’ll try tickling your nose with my tail.”
The sniffling otter cocked an eyebrow curiously but said nothing.
“It’s another good option for a troublesome muzzle. When I have a stuck sneeze and I can’t sleep, I find a few swipes over my nose is enough to set me straight. What do you think?”
“Worth a shod,” says the congested otter, her twitchy nose now a definite shade of purple-pink.
The vixen shifts her weight a bit and twists, angling her tail off of the towel. She swishes it back and forth a few times in the same way that foxes do to indicate a happy mood, making sure that it runs through an area of loose, fine sand. The tiny grains cling to her damp fur, giving her tail a definite tan tinge when she finishes.
“For good measure,” explains the vixen. She shifts her weight to the opposite side and flips her tail around, letting it hang near the otter’s face. “Ready?”
The sniffling, weary otter nods weakly, and the vixen begins to swish her tail again. Back and forth, back and forth, the fluffy tip brushing against the otter’s wide nose with each motion. Fox hairs drag across her flared nostrils over and over, each tickly swipe depositing a few grains of fine sand that either stick to the moist surface of her nose or get sniffled up into her nostrils. The otter can feel the itch grow slowly. She can’t be sure, but she thinks that this will finally do the trick.
All of a sudden, her breaking point is reached; the fur and sand pushes the otter over the point of no return. An irresistible tickle blossoms in the depths of her muzzle, and she knows that she wouldn’t be able to stop the sneeze now even if she wanted to. On some level, she even finds the tickle comforting; this is the sort of sneeze that she’s familiar with. The otter’s eyes squeeze shut, she takes in a lungful of air, and . . .
“Aaaaahhhhh . . . AAAAHHHHHH . . . YAAAHHTCCHHHOOOOOOO!!”
Now it’s the otter’s turn to sneeze herself into a sitting-up position; she has to plant her hands on her thighs for fear of doing a full forward roll. Unfortunately, this means she doesn’t even try to cover her massive sneeze. Her bleary eyes open to show her a faceful of red-orange tail, dusted with tiny tan specks. The part of the vixen’s tail that got sneezed on is now a sticky mess; most of the last third is at least somewhat wet. The otter groans a bit and sniffles, then her eyes pop open and she reels back as the sniffle sucks sand and fur back up into her nostrils. A thin line of mucous trails from each of her nostrils to the tail as she gears up for another mighty sneeze. She tries to stand, but has barely started when . . .
“YAAAAHHHH . . . HHHAAAAAAAHHHHH . . . WAAAAAAHHHHTCCHHHOOOOOOOO!!”
The otter opens her eyes this time to find herself on her hands and knees, breasts hanging beneath her, and a thick, splattery mess over a large part of her towel. For a second it looks like she’s finished, then the residual fur, sand, and maybe a hint of leftover seawater still irritating her nose sets her on the path for another sneeze.
“HHHHHHAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH . . .”
The otter is in a tickly, sneezy haze. Some part of her is convinced that standing up will help her get the tickle out of her nose, maybe a sort of half-baked plan by her brain to try to walk back to the ocean and snort out the irritation underwater, forgetting how this whole mess started. Regardless, as she hitches and gasps and gears up for another explosion, she tries to get to her feet. Her knees lock at the exact same instant her eyes close completely, and after holding her pre-sneeze expression for one precious moment, the explosion building up in her nasal passages is finally released.
“
HIYYAAAAHHHHHTTCCCHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
The otter doubles over completely with a titanic, uncovered sneeze, spraying out a huge cloud of mist that hangs in the air. All eyes are on her now after her two previous explosions, and those behind her, including the vixen, are treated to a wonderfully framed view of her shapely rear as her thick, heavy tail whips up towards the sky. Those in front of her get an even better show as the strings of her bikini top, not meant to withstand such energetic reactions, break, freeing the otter girl’s ample breasts to independently bounce up and down and to the sides as they follow the motion of their owner’s body.
All is silent as the dark-furred otter straightens up except for the sound of a single long, thick sniffle. She brings a finger up to rub at her large, pink nose, and pauses as she sees everyone staring at her. A moment later the feeling of the breeze on her chest alerts her to her toplessness, and she quickly uses her other arm to collect her jiggly assets. The second one takes two tries for her hand to catch it, but she manages. The usually confident otter girl feels herself blushing slightly, and tries to ease the tension with the first thing that comes to mind.
“Umm . . . *sniffle* . . . excuse me?” she offers, her voice soft but not quavering.
That breaks the spell, triggering a long round of bless yous and gesundheits from the other beachgoers. From somewhere in the crowd comes a shout of “Yeah! Bless ya, hot stuff!” that the otter tries to ignore, although she feels her blush deepen.
It takes quite a while for things to settle down, much longer than it did after the vixen’s sneezes, but after a while most everybody has moved on, except for a few guys that are still leering at her. The otter gathers up her bikini top and presses it over her chest, tying the broken strings into a knot over the back of her neck that should hopefully hold long enough for her to get home. Still sniffling irregularly, she begins to fold up her towels. She’s had enough fun for the day.
“I’m sorry about your tail,” she offers as she gathers her belongings.
The vixen dismisses her concern with a wave. “Don’t be. It’s seen worse. Besides, I was going to have to wash the sand out of it anyway. I feel like I should apologize to you, if I’d known you were that . . . energetic, I would have left out the sand.”
The otter finds enough good humor in the situation to chuckle. “I’ve always had a big sneeze, but never anything quite like that, heh.”
The vixen smiles back. “Well, that makes me feel better, thanks.”
They say their goodbyes and the otter heads for home, wanting a shower and a change of clothes. Despite everything, she finds herself smiling. Sure, she’s lost some dignity, but she’s gained a friend, and that seems like a pretty good trade.
