FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Onwards ever onwards.

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"Hello?" I answered the phone, grumpy with sleep. Who the fuck was calling this late...or early...or whatever.

"Alex? Its your mother." Fantastic.

"Mom, is this because I didn't call for Christmas? I was busy."

"No, I don't care about that. Your father died this morning." The shock of what she just said raced through me.

"I...what?"

"Your father. He got hit by a car this morning. He died on impact. The funeral is in two weeks. He would of wanted you there." With that she hung up. Fucking bitch. I dropped the phone and slumped to the floor. I hated my Mom, but my dad was a great guy. I couldn't believe he was gone so suddenly. I started quietly sobbing.

After a few minutes Nari walked into the kitchen.

"Alex? What's wrong? What's going on?" She ran across the kitchen and kneeled by my side. I wanted to tell her what happened, but I couldn't find words. "Who called?" I was finally able to speak.

"It was my Mom." I looked up at her, tears pouring down my face and grabbed her. I pulled her into a hug, grasping at the one thing I had left. She was startled, but returned my hug after a second.

"Alex, what's going on?" She was concerned, I could understand why. I struggled to speak through my grief.

"My Dad died."

"Oh, Alex." Nari held me tighter. "I'm so sorry." I didn't respond, instead I just refused to let her go. She stayed quiet and held onto me as I grieved.

It took a long time for me to pull myself together. I finally gained control of my emotions and took a deep breath.

"Thanks." I quietly thanked Nari, I didn't explain why, but she seemed to understand. I stood up and stumbled to the bedroom. Nari hesitated, but slowly followed me. When we made it to my room she stopped in the doorway.

"Alex...do you want me to sleep with you still?" I didn't answer, I just turned and around and scooped her up. I collapsed onto the bed with her in my arms. She threw the blanket over us and rolled over to face me. "Are you ok?" I shook my head, afraid that if I spoke I would lose it again. Nari didn't say anything else, instead she held onto me. At some point as dawn crept through my blinds I fell asleep in her arms.

When I woke up Nari was no longer in my bed. I panicked for a second. I can't lose her too. I jumped out of bed and raced out the room. I found her in the kitchen, making food.

"Afternoon." She turned towards me and froze as she saw me standing in the doorway. "Alex? What's wrong?"

"I...I thought that you had...left me." My voice was barely a whisper as I told her my ridiculous thought. Surprisingly she didn't seem mad. Instead she walked over to me and made a come here gesture with her finger. I bent over to receive my slap, but was surprised when she gave me a kiss instead.

"Never." Was the only thing she said as she turned back to making food. "Living room. Sit." I dutifully obeyed. Not too long afterwards she brought me food. I guess it wasn't too late in the day as she had made breakfast. Eggs, bacon, toast and a muffin. I ate my breakfast and thanked Nari, giving her a kiss on the head as I went to put my dishes in the sink. "Alex...are you ok?"

"No...but I will be."

"Do you wanna talk about it?" I thought about it as I stood in the kitchen doorway, facing the couch. Nari hadn't turned around when she asked, she wasn't trying to push the issue. I should tell her, she just wants to help. I sat down next to her on the couch.

"My Mom didn't want kids. When she had me she wasn't very thrilled at the idea of having to deal with me. To her credit she did try to be a mom...for a while at least. When I was around nine years old she stopped caring. She never wanted to be a mom anyway and I guess she felt like she had wasted enough of her time on me. I loved Dad though. He was great, he had always wanted kids and was stoked when he learned that mom was pregnant. We got along swimmingly. He's the reason I try to be such a gentleman."

"So...why'd you have to leave?"

"Mom likes to control everything. She dominated over the house, me and dad did everything she said. Like I said when I was around nine she got tired of me. She wanted to get rid of me then, but Dad said no. It was the only battle I think he ever won against her. So I got to stick around for a few more years. Me and Dad tried to bond more, but Mom did her damndest to stop us from getting closer. Eventually she got her way. I had to leave. So, Mom sent me here to live with her sister."

"But then...did you not keep contact with your Dad?"

"I did for a while, but all that stuff happened with Bethany and we stopped talking as much. The last time I talked to him was like...shit almost a year. I loved him though. I wish I would of kept in contact."

"I'm sorry." By this time Nari had slid closer to me on the couch and was now wrapping her arms around me.

"Thanks Nari...it'll be ok." Putting on a brave face I ruffled her hair, stood up, and stretched. "I guess we have some traveling to do"

"How are we gonna get there?"

"I've always wanted to travel...by walking I mean."

"But your leg."

"I don't think it'll be that bad. Besides half the trip is by boat." Nari sat and thought about it for a while.

"Ok...like an adventure?"

"Something like that." I smiled down at Nari, burying my grief. I still had her.

We set out on our adventure two days later. We got supplies from the Mart. Food, tent flint & steel, just the camping necessities. I was almost kind of excited, I had always wanted to do this. Even with the sad end our road led to, I was looking forward to the journey. I had the big backpack with all our supplies on my back and Nari trudging along beside me.

"So we have twelve days to make it there?" I started as Nari's voice entered my mind. She had been unusually quiet and solemn the last few days. At first I thought it was because of what I was going through, but I eventually realized it was something else. I did my best to bury my grief down deep the last few days, I didn't want her to worry about me too much. I planned on asking her what was wrong when we stopped to camp tonight.

"Correct."

"Can we make it? That doesn't seem that long to travel so far."

"Nah we'll be fine." She shrugged and continued to trudge on. We walked for a long time and she never slowed down. It was odd, normally I would of had to pick her up and carry her way before now. Something must have been bothering her. "Nari...are you ok?" She didn't answer for a while and I was starting to get really concerned.

"No...we'll talk about it later."

"O...ok?" I was stunned by her response. What the hell did that mean? I guess I had to wait. We were coming up on the entrance to the forest. The same forest where we had met. I had an idea, we could camp in our clearing. It was starting to get late in the afternoon anyways. "Follow me." We entered the forest and I started to head to our clearing. Nari trudged along behind me. We arrived at the clearing within an hour, the sun was starting to go down. I sat the backpack down and unpacked the tent. I had it ready to go within a few minutes and set about making a fire. Nari plopped down next to me and slumped against my side. I started rubbing my leg, it had started hurting when we got into the forest. Maybe walking was a bad idea. I looked up to see Nari staring at me. I smiled down at her. "Hey." I expected a smile in return, but got none. She didn't even look up. "Nari? What's wrong?"

"You've had such a sad life." I relaxed every so slightly at her voice entered my mind. It had been quite a while since the last time she had said anything.

"I guess so, but I think everyone does in some way or another. I don't think I'm special in that regard." I shrugged.

"Why are you so cheery?!" Her yell shocked me. She turned towards me and her eyes flashed red. "After all this shit! After life fucking you over at every fucking turn. How? How are you so fucking cheery! Especially right now of all times. How are you holding yourself together?" Her chest heaved up and down, even though she didn't physically shout her body reacted like she did.

"You think I'm not sad? Do you not remember all that shit I told you a few days ago? My dad just died. Of course I'm sad Nari, I'm fucking torn up inside." I almost yelled, but I kept myself under control. "I'm dieing inside Nari. My Dad was just about the only person who cared for me and its destroying me inside. I can't stop thinking about how I never called him. But it's not just that. I'm terrified that you're going to leave. I'm terrified that you're gonna realize how broken I am and I'll lose the one thing I have left. The last important thing in my life. What would I do then?" I looked away from Nari, staring into the trees.

"I'm broken." Her voice was quiet, almost nonexistent in my mind.

"What?" I looked back down at her, but she was no longer looking at me. "What are you talking about?"

"I...I think I'm broken too." She seemed hesitant to continue.

"Nari...you can tell me anything, but only if you want to. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."

"I want to though. I have for a long time now, I just...I dunno."

I didn't say anything to her. I didn't know what to say, I just waited. Nari remained quiet for some time, but eventually her voice entered my mind.

"My species has an incredible memory. We can remember almost every single thing that happens to us since the moment we are born. Which can be a curse as well as a gift. I remember being a baby, freshly born, held in my mothers arms. Its a happy memory...one of the few I have. When I was around half a year old we were attacked. I remember my parents hiding me in a tree...I had a great view of what happened from there. A man walked into the clearing area we called home. He was with a small group of people. They tried to capture my parents, but my parents fought back. My parents wouldn't give in, but the people grew tired of them. They stopped caring about capturing them and started caring about beating them. My parents were strong, but they couldn't last forever. The leader of the group circled around them until he was in a position to attack them from behind. He snuck up behind my Mom and stabbed her in the back of her neck. Right here." she pointed to the base of her neck. "My dad gave up after that. He had no more fight left in him. They didn't want him anymore. I watched as those men beat my father to death. Their leader just stood by and watched. He was the man I saw on your TV when you first brought me home. Giovanni you called him. That's why I wanted to kill him." I heard Nari start to sob and pulled her to me. She wrapped her arms around me in return, but continued to look away. " I was on my own after that. I managed to raise myself for a while, but eventually I was found. By a trainer, probably a little younger than you are now. He seemed nice and I was tired of being alone, so I let him catch me. He turned out to be not nice. He always kept me in my Pokeball, except to fight, but I wasn't good a fighting. Whenever I lost, which was every time, he would beat me. Try to get it through my head to be stronger and win. He always called me little bitch. I had no name to him, I was just a thing he used for his amusement and gain." I squeezed Nari tighter, trying to contain my rage at this news. I wanted to say something reassuring, but I couldn't interrupt her. "Eventually the beatings turned into something more. After he beat me he would try and...touch me. Places I had never been touched and didn't want to be touched. I always said no and fought back, he never got to do it, but he tried and when he failed he beat me harder. Eventually he got tired of me. One day he let me out of my Pokeball and snapped it in half. Told me to fuck off. Then he left and I was all alone. That was not too far from this clearing, about three years ago I'd guess. I was on my own again. A lot of trainers passed by me and a lot tried to capture me. Some even tried to talk me into going with them, but I refused. I couldn't trust people anymore. I loathed and feared humans. It got to the point where if one walked anywhere near me I would cower and hide. I was depressed. My parents had been killed in front of me and the only person who had ever wanted me turned out to be a violent psycho. I couldn't be happy about anything. Then one day I snapped. All that pent up depression turned into pure rage. Right at that moment someone ran by where I was hiding. I attacked them. Chased them through the forest and nearly killed them." Nari finally looked up at me, I could see where the fur around her eyes had been matted down with tears. They continued to pour out of her eyes as she stared at me. Her eyes were no longer red, turning back to their usual gold with red combo that I found so beautiful. I lifted my hand and wiped the tears away from her eyes, smiling sadly at her as I did so. She resumed her story after a few moments. "That was you. Then you saved me and took me home. I didn't know how to feel. I thought it was some sort of trick like before. I thought at any moment you were going to snap at me. Or worse I thought you were going to beat me and try to rape me. It didn't take me long to figure out that it would never happen. You were nice to me and it wasn't a lie. I was confused. It didn't make sense to me, could you really be so different? I decided to test it with a kiss. I liked you, or thought I did, the worst you would do was throw me out, but you didn't. You eventually returned my feelings. I'm still really confused about all this. About how to react to you and how you treat me. It still doesn't make sense to me. I think that's why I'm broken. You're such a good person, but I can't get over my distrust. I can't move past what happened to me in the past and I'm afraid it's going to ruin everything I have with you." Her story came to and end and she buried her face in my chest. "I'm sorry Alex. You deserve better."

"No, I don't deserve anything." It was the first time I had made any noise since Nari started talking. "But I know what I want. I want you, and I want you to be happy. That's why I tried to not seem so down about this, I wanted you to be ok. I tried to bury my grief because I didn't want you to worry about me. I wanted to keep you happy because you're all I have left." I leaned over and kissed Nari, slowly and deeply. It was a romantic kiss, one that she returned in full. I pulled back and looked down at the tiny frame I had come to feel so passionately for. I smiled at her and I finally got a smile back. "Yay!" I stood up and tossed Nari into the air, catching her as she fell down. As soon as she landed in my arms she clasped onto me in a death grip.

"What the Fuck!?"

"Sorry, I finally got a smile. Figured it deserved a celebration." Nari gave me a look that clearly meant she thought I was crazy before bursting out into laughter.

"Your insane."

"Its a possibility." She giggled at me and I smiled. Everything was back to normal. "Shall we retire for the night milady?" I bowed deeply at her and held my hand out.

"I suppose so." She played along and took my hand. I led her to the tent where it didn't take long for us to fall asleep.

I awoke to the sounds of the forest. Wind blowing through trees, pokemon playing and scampering about. I ducked out of the tent and stretched seeing Nari sitting outside by the dead fire.

"Well hello, you're up early." I talked to her as I started cleaning up the campsite and packing everything away.

"Yup, you slept late sleepyhead."

"Shit, we need to hurry if we're gonna make it to the boat."

"Oh yeah, I meant to ask what boat?"

"There's this old guy on the other side of the forest who lives by the ocean. He's been known to take people as far as Slateport City. From there my hometown of Mauville isn't that far." I finished taking down the camp and slung the backpack on my back. "Shall we?" Nari hopped up and followed me as we set back off on our adventure.

"I fucking hate the forest." We had been traveling for a few hours and I was beginning to suspect we might be lost. On top of that we kept getting accosted by bug pokemon every few feet. It was infuriating. "How the hell did you live in here?" I talked to Nari who was trudging on beside me like a champ.

"I guess I'm just stronger than you are." I detected more than a light sense of sarcasm in her voice.

"Haha, aren't you hilarious." We fought on, praying to Arceus that we found an exit soon. "Shouldn't you know your way around this place?" Nari shrugged at me and I stopped dead in my tracks. A thought had come to my mind. "You know exactly where we are don't you?" She smiled up at me mischievously. "You little jerk." She started laughing at me.

"I've known where we are the whole time."

"Why the hell didn't you say something?"

"I was having fun watching you struggle to find your way around. Plus I wanted to see how long it took you to figure out that I knew."

"Just get us out of here dummy."

"Fair enough. This way." She took my hand and led me down a path to the left. For around an hour she led me down twisting paths in the forest, I hoped she knew were she was going.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" I was becoming doubtful of her skills. She didn't answer me, just kept dragging me through the forest.

Eventually she did lead me to the way out.

"See. Non-believer."

"Shut up." I scooped her up and put her on my shoulders. "Come on let's go." We started off down the road the the old sailor's house, Nari humming happily on my shoulders. "You seem to be in quite a good mood today."

"I like it up here."

"Why's that?"

"I feel like a giant. Its cool." I laughed at her reasoning. She swung her feet against my shoulders, ignoring me. "You make a good throne."

"Well I'm just glad to be of any assistance." She rubbed my hair.

It didn't take long to get to the old sailors house, but my leg was starting to kill me by the time we got there. I saw his boat docked in the water, I hoped that meant he was home. I knocked and waited for an answer. After a long pause the door inched its way open.

"Yes? Can I help you?" The old sailor spoke in a rickety voice. One heavy with age.

"Hi my name is Alex and this is Nari." I motioned to Nari sitting on my shoulders and she smiled and waved at him.

"Nice to meet you two. How can I help you?"

"We were hoping to charter your boat, for a ride to Slateport."

"Well I do suppose that's possible. Why don't you come inside." He stepped back and let us enter. He set us down at a small table in his den. He made us tea and brought out a plate of biscuits then joined us at the table. "So why do you two need to go all the way to Slateport?"

"Funeral." I decided to tell the old man the truth, no reason not to.

"Oh, well I'm very sad to hear that." He didn't ask whose funeral it was, but I didn't argue with his decision not to. "Well under those circumstances I suppose I have no choice but to take you."

"Awesome, thank you so much. How much do you need?" I made to reach for my wallet, but the old man lifted his hand to stop me.

"That won't be necessary, all I ask you pay for is gas for the boat and a meal upon arrival."

"I can do that." I stuck out my hand and the old sailor shook it, his grip was surprisingly firm.

"I'm afraid we can't leave today, its far too late." He motioned out the window at the setting sun. "We can leave first thing tomorrow, the trip should only take a few days. We'll have to stop at Dewford for gas. We can stop there for the night and then continue to Slateport the next day. Sound alright with you?" I nodded my head. "Alright, well unfortunately I do not have a spare place for you two to sleep."

"That's perfectly ok. We have camping gear, we can rough it for the night."

"Alrighty then sonny. I'll see you two at the crack of dawn. Also here you can have these." He handed us the plate of biscuits. We bade him good night and headed outside were I went to work setting up our campsite.

"You could help you know." Nari was sitting on a log a few feet away watching me work while munching on a biscuit.

"Looks like you're doing a great job from here. Plus look at my big sexy boy doing work." She winked at me and took a bite out of her biscuit. I shook my head and finished putting up the tent.

"You're ridiculous." I stood up and stretched. My leg hurt pretty bad so I limped over and took a seat in front of Nari, stretching out my leg.

"How's the leg?"

"Hurts like a motherfuck."

"I told you it wasn't a good idea to walk." I shrugged, not really having a comeback. She sighed and hopped down from the log, taking a seat next to my leg. She started gently massaging the area around my scar.

"Ah, that feels great." She rubbed her head against my knee and kept massaging. "You're the best."

"I do try." I smiled down at Nari and leaned back against the log. Staring at the sky I started thinking about all the shit that had happened in the few months I had met Nari. A lot of bad stuff had happened, but I still had her. That was something. I was asleep before I knew it.

I woke up in the middle of the night. Nari had moved me into the tent and was now clasped to my chest, deep in sleep. I wondered to myself if I could trust her. I certainly wanted to, but trust was a tricky area for me. I was trying my damndest that's for sure. It wasn't easy going, but I think its going to be worth it. I looked down at her small frame curled against mine. She was so adorable, I just had to smile. I almost never smiled before Nari came to live with me. My life had improved significantly since she came into it. I smiled and laughed now. I actually had fun a lot of the time. It was strange how something so small could have such a big impact. I liked her a lot. I might...love her? I wasn't sure yet. All the feelings that I had were confusing. The last time I felt this way was with Bethany, which ended up destroying me. It scares me, but I think I should trust her. It seems like the right thing to do. I rested my hand on her head and scratched behind her horns. She smiled in her sleep and nuzzled deeper into my chest. Her fur scratched my chest and I felt her warmth spread through my upper body. I almost didn't need the blanket. I smiled at her sleeping frame and laid my head back down. Better get some more sleep, no doubt that old sailor would have us up at dawn. So far I was enjoying my adventure with Nari.

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Not much to say here. As always I hope you enjoyed, feel free to leave comments or feedback. Stay tuned.