FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Amazing cover art is by Frosted_Fur - go give him thanks at Hinrich

Hello, folks!

This is the first part of a four-part miniseries! *chuckle* I had a marathon writing session yesterday, and as a result I'm proud to present the first chapter of this story, now finished and just waiting to be published for your reading pleasure in four tantalizing segments!

This story has a three-part purpose - it is an original work by me, written because it's been too long since I wrote something like this, and it is also both a commission and a gift to Baikal, who not only deserved a treat from me after he commissioned some surprise art of me, but he also wanted to commission me to write something about his fursona, and...well, here you go! Thanks to him, I was inspired to write something quite unusual, I think! :P And not only that, he also did some proof-reading, for which I am very grateful!

Hope you enjoy the read, and I am looking forward to your feedback! I'm doing something rare and actually using the "Humor" tag with this one, something I rarely dare to do.

*

Verdammt.

Hinrich might've loved his work under Professor Glaube, but there was just so much phylogenetics he could take without coffee. Rubbing his eyes beneath the specs resting over his muzzle, he crunched his eyes shut and opened them again, trying to will the text on the screen not to be quite so blurry. Another glance to the empty Jurassic Mug on the table told him that he'd run out of Petrol for the moment. The red panda's tail bristled and whacked against the wheeled swivel chair he was seated upon, hunched over his desk in his cupboard sized GeoCampus office that lacked even such basic necessities as a window. He'd heard rumors that there might be one, hidden behind the filing cabinets that filled the only wall where there could be a potential view into the courtyard between campus blocks. He'd just never been bored enough to try to move them, let alone would trust his arms to do it.

Bah.

"Verdammt," the red panda took some pleasure in cursing again, listening to its sound on his tongue and then stretching his arms. The clock on the corner of the computer screen told him that it was only 2:30 yet, certainly not time to leave, even if he'd wanted to, being Friday and all. Nobody would probably give a fuck, but he knew that it'd make a good impression on Professor Glaube if he could tell that he'd gone through the material he'd been assigned to, for Monday. He sure as hell didn't want to spend his weekend reading the shit.

More coffee it was then, Hinrich decided with a shrug and got onto his wobbly legs. The slim, fuzzy red panda picked up his mug and ventured into the corridor that smelled of fossilized university lecturers and...cocoa? Hinrich sniffed the air, even holding up his black nosepad which had been called cute enough times by various female co-students that he'd almost started to believe it. Maybe it wasn't so bad in combo with his pointy white-dipped ears and the big bushy orange tail that followed him wherever he went no matter how many times he told it to stay at home.

He shuffled through the dank corridor, passing closed doors that told him that most of the staff had already gone home. Being the new postgraduate student at the Earth Sciences department surely didn't attribute such a freedom to him. No, being the runt was whom Hinrich was now, even if he didn't much appreciate the sentiment. The jump from being the boss of his practice digs to being the ass-slave of all the senior staff at the new department wasn't too fun for the red panda, but he was gonna make do the best out of it. Even if he'd have to brew his own coffee...he had a hunch that the coffeemaker had been turned off by the fur who thinking they were the last one going...bowing out before dashing to the Unter der Linden...

Hinrich had gotten about half of the way through the seemingly endless corridor when a loud banging noise roused his ears and his attention in general. He continued walking, ears bobbing like radar antennae as they tracked the source of the noise. It was repeated again, and accompanied by a bunch of mutterings he couldn't quite make out of. He kept on walking and just as he was passing the intersection, he heard the noises repeated...shuffling, growling, banging and excessively aggressive mutterings.

Well, you never heard something like that here, he thought, the place was more quiet than a school for the deaf children, the red panda thought with a pleasantly sarcastic smirk upon his muzzle. He peered into the small corridor that led into the administrative section of the Department, and, upon a brief consideration during which his tail painted a circle on the floor, he decided to investigate, mug still at hand.

The door to the copying and paper storage room was open, he noticed right away, and it seemed like the logical source of the noise as well. Hinrich floated down the corridor and peered into the open room, curious to see just whom of his new colleagues had gotten into a tiff with the temperamental Xerox.

Well...a tiger, he mused, upon the first peek. Tall, say...like two meters tall, he noticed, broad shoulders, and surely a strong body, even if it was prudishly covered by a white collared shirt that bunched up around his waist, being just a tad too large even for someone of such proportions. Black pants and leather shoes and a really, really pissed off expression as he tore a paper out of one of the machine's numerous slots, took a cursory glance at it and then practically tore it apart with his big mancrusher paws while snarling to himself. Big, flashing green eyes, a resolute muzzle, a whip-like tail that almost toppled over a blue recyclable paper bin. His breathing rattled in the small room that smelled of printer ink.

"Haz you ein Problem vid ze Maschine?" Hinrich asked the stranger.

The tiger's ears hopped up as he heard the red panda speak on the doorway, and the scowl he sent on Hinrich's way would've been enough to topple men of lesser constitution. It did make Hinrich's tail bristle, though the twinge in his belly wasn't unpleasant at all. The big, pissed off tiger wasn't unattractive at all, the red panda allowed himself to think for a couple of seconds, while contemplating the sight of a huffing and puffing tiger with torn A4 clinging to his claws.

The tiger shook his head.

"Zorry, English only," the tiger spoke, rumbling.

Hmmm...Hinrich thought, someone new then...someone from abroad...he thought he'd met all of their foreign staff members already...guess the department was bigger than he'd thought.

"No prrroblem," Hinrich let his tongue slip into the patterns on that Anglo-Saxon cousin language, "do you have a prrroblem with the machine?"

"It's a piece of shit," the tiger balled the paper in his paws and tossed it into a messy cardboard box on the floor filled with similar bunched up results of the machine's temperamental nature. "I was trying to print something out from my workstation and it all came through wrong."

Hinrich stepped into the room tentatively, not really sure whether the tiger would start bunching up red pandas, too, should he be given the opportunity, but he decided to risk it. It was kinda amusing to watch the tiger seethe like this, being the hissy cat he was...though he rather rumbled than hissed, which fit the red panda just fine. He liked that kind of noises, though preferred to feel them against his back...from a chest...while ass up on a bed...well, he didn't want his mind to go there.

The tiger chewed the air and showed off some impressive teeth, still obviously very much in hate with the softly buzzing and humming machine. Hinrich tried not to feel too intimidated by that, but instead simply walked in and approached the copy machine.

"It does that sometimes, yes," he said, "can I check something?"

The tiger waved one of his massive paws and grunted.

"You seem to know more about this than I do!" the tiger growled.

"I've only been here for a few weeks, but yeah," Hinrich replied as he stepped up to the machine and tap-tap-tapped its touch sensitive control panel for a few moment, "well...it doesn't seem to have any paper blockages or ink problems..."

"It's not the fucking ink, it was covered in weird symbols, not the text I was trying to print!" the tiger complained.

Hinrich nodded, his tail softly coiling itself around his leg as he contemplated both the vision of the tiger hovering over him well in height as well as the possible problem at paw.

"Sounds like a software problem," the red panda mused.

The tiger stroked one massive paw through his head furs and hissed again, his tail molesting the recycling bin again.

"Why do stupid machines have to be so fucking stupid?" the tiger groaned.

"Let me reset it," Hinrich said quickly, "That usually works when it goes crazy."

"If it won't, I'll toss it into the river," the tiger grumbled, and with those arms, Hinrich thought while he pushed the big power button down, he might as well do.

"Heheh," the red panda chuckled, listening to the machine hum and whirl and power down.

The tiger did some more biting motions with his muzzle, something that looked almost like a tic to Hinrich, he decided, but it seemed to pass quite quickly, which was fine with him, it was starting to get a bit...intimidating, considering he was in such a small space with such a bad-tempered cat, and there were still a few steps to the exit...let alone for eventual escape from the building, should the tiger decide that it'd be nice to vent his frustrations by chasing a whelp of a guy through the semi-deserted university building.

"Is it always bad like this?" the tiger asked.

Hinrich shrugged.

"It does this about twice a week, at least so far since I've been here," he said, "this usually helps."

"It's a piece of shit," the tiger grunted. "Why isn't it replaced?"

"I don't know," Hinrich replied, "have not heard anyone even suggest there's money for it."

"Fuck money," the tiger grunted.

Well, with these postgrad assistant wages, Hinrich thought...he'd gladly have some money...and of course, some fucking wouldn't be too bad, either...

The machine let out a final beep and died, its screen going blank. Hinrich waited five seconds and hit the power button again to bring it back to life.

"Bah," the tiger stroked his muzzle now. "Sorry."

"This stuff happens," Hinrich smiled a little, amused seeing the tiger's ears droop now that he seemed to be regretting his earlier outburst. Maybe the guy was starting to feel self-conscious about yelling to a complete stranger.

"Warrick," the tiger extended a paw, "but don't call me Rick or I'll throw you into the river too."

Hinrich's tail bristled a little, but he put his dainty black paw into the big striped one, and allowed his to be squeezed. The tiger's grip was firm but thankfully not enough to break any of his bones. He needed them for hammering rocks, after all.

"I heard the Spree is quite nice at this time of the year, if there aren't any copy machines floating in it," the red panda replied the tiger's quip in kind, "I'm Hinrich, Hinrich Baikal. Hallo."

"What do you do here?" the tiger questioned once their paw contact was abruptly removed.

"I'm Professor Glaube's postgrad," the red panda explained, "I'm trying to start up a thesis for him."

The tiger let out a deep chuckle, the first laugh Hinrich had heard from him, loud and rumbling and kinda scary, though he didn't mind.

"Ahhh, a baby paleontologist..." he smiled," do they give you the small pick and brush when you go on expeditions?"

Hinrich pouted a little but didn't want to complain too much - he still had no idea what the tiger did on the department, and if he slipped his tongue now, he might get into trouble. The tiger was definitely older than he was, and that meant he could probably influence Professor Glaube in some way that'd made the red panda's tail to be even more freely available to everyone to pound as much as they wanted.

Still not enough, though, Hinrich thought ruefully.

"Only if I don't behave," he said, finally, "can I ask what you do here? I really am new."

"I'm staying here for the year, doing research with your department," the tiger said, "I'm from Philly."

"Excuse me?" Hinrich drew a blank.

"Philadelphia, United States of America?" the tiger scowled as he folded his thick arms over his chest. "You know, the land of the furs who kicked that little known guy called Hitler out of this joint? Coca Cola? Elvis Presley?"

"We don't talk about him," the red panda replied curtly, "it doesn't look good on tourist brochures."

"Ha!" the tiger sounded genuinely amused, much to Hinrich's surprised.

"Beep-beep-beep!" the machine made a sound, almost causing Hinrich to jump. His ears sure did. He quickly turned the face the machine and did some more tapping on the nifty touch screen.

"I think it's ready now," he said, "it looks okay to me and ready to print...uh...I think so."

"So what do I do now?" the tiger grunted.

"Well, you go and print it again, of course," Hinrich said, "just go to your computer and -"

"Alright, alright," the tiger grumbled, and much to the red panda's surprise, simply stormed out of the copying room, leaving him standing there alone with a kind of a stupid look on his muzzle, clutching a Jurassic Mug in one paw.

"Vat a verdammt strange Kat," Hinrich shook his head, muttering under his breath.

*

Thank you for reading, everyone! I hope you had a fun time, and I look forward for your feedback!