FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Cinnamon lazed on her side along the couch, one hand holding Hazel's copy of_The War of the Worlds_ in a comfortable reading position, other idly combing the fur of one breast. The cottage was peaceful, the only sounds the faint humming of the fridge-freezer, the subtle murmur of rain on the windows, and the regular ruffling of pages.

Her ears flicked at something out-of-place; a scurry, perhaps. Sitting up, she scanned the room carefully, but nothing stirred. Sighing, Cinna settled back down, scratching an itchy nipple and turning a page. Two paragraphs later she thought she caught a glimpse of something small flashing across the floor. Another survey came up blank, so she didn't move, but when a louder rustle came from the kitchenette she sprang to her feet, book thumping to the sofa in her wake, and rushed over.

She found nothing, except a bag of soft rolls that might have shifted a little. She leaned in to examine it, and a scent hit her nostrils that had her eyes dilating, her legs stiffening and her tail twitching. Whiskers in ceaseless motion she tracked it along the counter, down a towel hung on a plastic hook at the end, and over to a crack in the skirting. Beady little eyes gleamed in the darkness beyond.

A mouse.

All of the cat's senses zeroed in on it, hearing the minute shuffles of its paws, tasting the nervousness in its scent, watching it retreat, those pinpoints of light fading. A feline finger felt all around the crack, then probed into it. Quickly realising she'd have no chance of prying it out, Cin decided to withdraw, prowling back to the sofa and resuming her position, albeit stiffly, more upright, eyes locked on what she could see of the floor between the wall and the counter.

Minute after minute ticked by, until finally a small brown-grey shape crept into view. Cin tensed, lips parting, claws pricking the cushion of the sofa, but didn't move. Barely blinking, she watched as the mouse stole up to the towel, then started to climb it. Still the cat stayed put, though her haunches shifted restlessly.

The moment the little rodent reached the counter-top Cin exploded from the sofa, surging across the room. One hand hit the formica with a scrape of claws, missing the fleeing mouse by a whisker; the other smacked the towel away a second after the mouse slipped down it. A flurry of strikes and shining teeth chased it along the wall, but it darted safely into the crack, her nose smacking the wall above a fraction later.

Cinna grabbed her bruised muzzle, hissing imprecations. "Oh, you're in for it now, Jerry."

She stalked stiffly over to the TV table and settled on hands and knees behind it, peeking out just enough to see the crack. A full ten minutes eked past before a whiskery little nose sniffed into view. It withdrew several times before its owner risked taking a few steps out. Cin's ears perked forward and her haunches rolled slightly, but she forced herself not to budge an inch.

Along the skirting the mouse tentatively scurried, until it was sniffing around the crumpled towel. Now the cat moved, creeping noiselessly to the crack, slow and silky smooth. She set herself between it and the mouse, which turned, saw her and froze in place, and allowed herself a malicious grin.

"Gotcha."

Cin sprang, and so did the mouse. Her hand clipped its tail as it tore for the nearest good cover, the TV table. She twisted round, using the counter to shove off after it, but her next lunge carried her too far and she clouted the corner of the table, rocking the TV and tumbling round to hit the floor in a jumble.

In the scant seconds she was dazed the mouse bounded up and over her body, leaving a little gift on her flank. She glared incredulously at it, then hissed in fury and scrambled back into pursuit. Her anger left her careless, though, and she bumped and bashed guitar and table and sofa as she failed to stop the rodent reaching the safety of a larger gap in the skirting near the front door, under a window.

Cin crouched low by it, spitting, eyes flaring. Prying a chunk from the aged, broken board half-covering the hole she shoved a hand in as far as she could, flailing around wildly, but finding nothing furry. She did, however, find something solid, something with little bits of metal on it that she recognised a horrible second before a snap sent searing pain racing along her arm.

Yowling, she wrenched her hand out, pried the dusty, rusty snap trap off her fingers and threw it away, then stuffed her abused digits in her mouth, sucking them fiercely. "Rotten pissing luck..." She glared at the discarded trap. "Must have been put in there by the last owner, the last time a mouse invaded."

Not willing to stick her hand back into the hole Cin went in search of a torch. She found one in Ian's room, checked it worked, then returned downstairs. Grabbing a broom she lay it and herself flat in front of the hole; casting the torch's beam into it the cat found a much larger space than she'd expected, with another gap on the far side, to the outside world. Of the mouse there was no trace, not even when she used the broom handle to probe around.

She turned the torch off and sat up, rubbing a hand over her face. A moment later a tug on her tail tip by sharp little teeth startled her into dropping the torch, which landed square on her toes, which made her jolt up with a yelp, which meant she hit her head upon the windowsill, which made her drop heavily to all fours and start backing unsteadily away, which led to her putting a hand on the head of the broom, which thumped the handle up between her legs and against her vulva.

Toes smarting, head throbbing, lower lips burning with exquisite pain, Cinna curled up in a foetal position, teeth gritted, hot tears stinging her eyes. "All right, Jerry," she wheezed, faintly. "You win. I quit."

Something tickled her cheek. She cracked her lids to find the mouse nosing her; one of its tiny paws rested on her nose, and it looked at her with no trace of fear. In fact...

"If I didn't know better," the cat laughed, faintly, "I'd think you were worried about me..."

The mouse nuzzled her again.

Cinna laughed louder. "You know, you're actually kinda cute." Gently, she scooped the mouse into a hand than rolled to a sitting position. It sat calmly on her palm. The cat shook her head with a wry grin. "Ian's never gonna believe this..."

When the man came home twenty minutes later, to find his cat lying on the sofa, reading a book with a mouse resting on her breast, he did indeed have a lot of trouble believing it.