FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The sun hangs low on the horizon, the tropical beach bathed in warm orange light and ocean reflecting a clear open sky. Next to the shoreline, sitting on her butt and with a simple homemade fishing pole in her paws, is a young horned bear. She sighs contentedly as Henry rubs her antler with a polish slathered hand, fingers gliding over smooth bone. Gothetta lays next to them on her back, staring into the sky deep in thought.

“I think it's starting to grow back." Henry says, breaking the silence.

“Huh?"

“Your other antler's starting to grow back. There's definitely more to it compared to a few months ago."

“Oh, that's good. It's only a matter of time until she's rejoined her sister antler in height."

“Right."

Urmine waves her fishing pole around the water, feels no bites, and finally turns to Henry.

“Sorry husband-slave, I know this isn't much of a honeymoon." She says, voice tinged with embarrassment.

Henry looks around and shrugs.

“I don't think it's so bad. We're on a tropical island, are we not?"

“True, but we aren't exactly here of our own volition."

“Of all the places to be on house arrest an island like this one is definitely one of the better options. Besides, when the inquisition finally gets their ducks in a row and frees you and Gothetta we can all take a big vacation to wherever we want. Until then we should just appreciate that Murdy gave us free reign of her little island paradise while she's still testifying at the capital."

Urmine looks to the ground and shakes her head.

“You have no idea how close we were to being put in the deepest, darkest, dankest dungeon the inquisition has, Henry. If it weren't for Murdy's testimony and Father Bloom's good word they would have locked us up and thrown away the key. Just think about how guilty we looked! One witch hunter lying dead on the ground, an entire town recovering from an extended state of mind control, Malvina's body nowhere to be found, the chain and medallion gone with her, and no witches but me and Gothetta in sight! If I were them I probably would have casted first and asked questions later!"

“Well thankfully you aren't an inquisitor. Until the cabin gets rebuilt and the inquisition finishes their investigation I say we should just take it easy and enjoy the beach. Besides, laying low right now is exactly what we should be doing. We don't want to make waves and open ourselves up to retribution from one of Malvina's friends."

“I just wish those damned inquisitorial bureaucrats would hurry up. They've been dragging their feet for months, and I'm growing tired of constantly having to brush sand out of my fur!" She complains.

Henry rubs antler polish into the last of her tips and cleans his hand with a rag. Noticing the doe still laying silently beside them, he pokes her shoulder.

“You're being awfully quiet."

“Sorry, been thinking about something."

“Like what?"

She looks off to the side guiltily.

“…nothing important."

“Fine then, keep your secrets." Henry stands up with a groan and stretches his arms. “Well ladies, I think I'll be having some shaved ice to finish off the day. Want anything?"

“A bowl of tiger blood would be nice." Answers the bear.

“Daisy and sweet grass, pretty please?" Adds the doe.

“Tiger blood for one wife, daisy and sweetgrass for the other, and I think their dutiful husband will have coconut cream. Or maybe mango and pined apple, hmm…"

Henry marches off to Murdy's hut and leaves the sisters by the beach. Just a short moment later Gothetta gets up and begins walking towards the jungle.

“Hey! Where are you going?" Urmine yells towards her.

“I've finally made up my mind. I won't be gone for long. And don't worry, I'll acquire another in due time."

“Acquire another what? Gothetta? Gothetta!"

Urmine watches the doe march towards their temporary home, Gothetta apparently too focused on the task at hand to respond. Urmine turns back to the water with a grumble. Not a single tug on the line all day.

Placed at the edge of the beach, where the sand kissed the moist jungle floor, their home away from home was only slightly larger than Murdy's hut. Composed of mismatched wooden boards, flotsam, and wide palm leaves, the structure was clearly made in a hurry out of whatever materials just so happened to be laying around. Not that the three of them worried about the amenities too much, this was only a temporary shelter designed to see them through until their cabin's proper construction could be completed.

Gothetta pushes open the wooden plank that served as a door and enters the interior. In one corner sits a pile of burnt books, soot covered bones, and various other trinkets and odds and ends that were recovered from the cabin after the fire. Most were of a purely sentimental value to the sisters, though an old jewelry box half-filled with gold coins and their ever-reliable cauldron proved practical additions to their island abode. Gothetta moves to one of their ramshackle bookshelves and plucks a healing potion bottle from it. She then moves outside and into the darkening jungle.

A symphony of croaking frogs, singing birds, and chirping insects sound off as she moves past moss-covered trees and jumps over boggy streams. Finding a suitable spot to sit down, she sits on a rock and raises the bottle to her face. Inside she sees the blobby silhouette of a frog in the dull red liquid. Gothetta rips off the bottle's cork and empties its contents onto the ground, catching Edmund's body in the air. She then lays him belly up on her thigh and puts a finger to his chest, rhythmically compressing his lungs to put new air into them. The frog eventually comes to life once more, his limbs spasming before jumping right side up. Yet just before he jumps off her leg Gothetta puts both hands around him covering him up entirely. She parts her hands slightly to speak to him.

“Hello Edmund, our ever-reliable sacrificial amphibian."

*Ribbit!* He curses, attempting to shove his froggy face in between two of her fingers.

“Settle down now, I've not come out here to slice your throat or add you to a stew. In fact, what I'm about to do is to your liking, I think."

He stops his assault against her fingers.

*Ribbit?*

“Edmund, you've been nothing but good to me and Urmine. Well, aside from that time you bit her finger, but I think the stress was getting to all of us that day. For almost a year now you've served as a useful sacrifice for me and Urmine's spells, rituals, and other assorted arcane practices. Countless deaths, countless revivals, and through it all you never had any say in the matter. So you know what? I think that you've served your purpose well enough, it's time to let you go free."

*Ribbit-ribbit-ribbit!* He vehemently agrees.

“Yes, that's right, you'll get to inhabit this island without fear of death from the slash of a knife and the end of another stint of life. I think you'll have lots of friends to make when you get free, oh yes, maybe even acquire a froggy girlfriend or three." She looks around, ears taking in the cacophony of croaking frogs. “So when I free you, you'll have plenty of companions to meet, flies to eat, swampy bogs to rest in, and a whole new life to begin! So Edmund, my little emerald companion, jump out of my lap and into retirement!"

Gothetta removes her hands from around Edmund. Finally, he's free to hop to wherever he pleases! He looks to the left, then the right, then slowly turns around in Gothetta's lap as if overwhelmed with decision. Eventually he looks up to the doe and blinks, a bittersweet mood in the air.

“Aww, my little Edmund." She coos, stroking his head with a finger. “You're free to hop to wherever you please. There's no need for my permiss-Ah!" Gothetta cries, Edmund biting down on her finger.

Revenge fulfilled, the frog jumps off her lap and happily hops into the surrounding jungle. Gothetta stands up in a tiff and waves an angry fist in the air.

“Fine then! And don't come back! Guess that's what I get for trying to do something nice for once!" She yells, slowly lowering her arm. The doe crosses her arms with a sigh. “Slippery little rascal, I hope he likes his new home because we will not be relocating him any time soon. Now, might as well put this back in the hut."

She picks the empty potion bottle from the ground and makes the short trek back to the home away from home. While placing it back on the bookcase she hears movement come from the bed. Curious, she moves closer and throws the blanket open.

***********************************************************

Back at the shore Urmine continues to try and coax a fish to her hook, reeling her line back and tossing it once more into the sea. She waits for a few fruitless seconds until finally feeling a tug on the line. A smile appears on her muzzle and she reels it in with an excited fervor, soon seeing a sizable fish with shimmering orange scales emerge out of the water. She reels it upwards so it was level with her face and licks her lips.

“I've been waiting for a juicy fish like you for weeks! Just look at that, there's enough meat on your bones for an entire cauldron's worth of fish stew. You'll make a fine dinner, after you've been descaled and properly portioned of course. Now to get this hook out of your mouth…"

She fiddles with the hook until a loud screeching voice nearly causes her to drop the fish.

“They're hatching! Urmine! Henry! Come quickly! You're going to miss it!" Gothetta yells from the door of their hut.

“Holy shit!" Yells Henry, stumbling out of Murdy's hut before sprinting towards the sound of her voice.

Urmine looks to the fish, then the jungle, then back to the fish. She frantically tries to get the hook out of its mouth but a combination of the fish's defensive flopping, butterfingers, and the slipperiness of the hook makes it far more difficult than it ought to be.

“Urmine come on! You're going to miss it!" Henry shouts, waving at her.

“I-I know!" She stammers back. Feeling that time was running out, Urmine cuts the line on the hook and points a finger at the fish. “You got lucky this time, but I'll be catching you again and adding you to my stew before you know it!"

She then chucks the fish back into the water and runs to the hut. She opens its door, panting.

“I thought we would have more time! Did I miss anything?"

“Shh!" Gothetta shushes her, a finger held up to her lips. “Come close, they're about to crack." She whispers.

Urmine quietly walks to the foot of the bed and peers over the two eggs with Henry and Gothetta, watching with bated breath as the eggs shake in the center of the bed.

“I wonder which one's going to crack open first." Ponders Henry.

“Whichever one does is no doubt mine. I emerged from the shell before Gothetta, my child can surely do the same." Replies Urmine.

“You were only able to do that because you had your antler nubs to help you, there's no telling what the babies inside our eggs will be equipped with. Don't be so fast to assume our horns or lack thereof will be passed down, bear." Gothetta chides her.

Urmine rolls her eyes.

“Whatever. Look! The orange and green one is about to poke through!"

They lean in closer to see a portion of its shell rise up and down, the hatchling inside trying to break through.

“Come on little guy, you can do it." Urges Henry.

“I think I see horns." Urmine excitedly remarks.

Gradually the spot on its shell begins to rise a little higher each time the hatchling inside pushes against it. Soon the shell itself begins to splinter, pieces of it cracking and falling onto the bed as two bone white horns push into the light. They repeat the process a few more times, making a sizable hole in the egg. Yet the hatchling inside hesitates to go any further, sitting still for several moments.

“I wonder why they stopped, with those horns it should be easy to-“ Urmine stops herself as something strange emerges from the egg.

Long and covered in mottled gray skin, an elephantine trunk emerges from the hole, lazily moving around and sniffing the ground.

“A squid? Even for a chimera that's strange." Gothetta says.

Henry has to stop himself from laughing.

“No Gothetta, that's the trunk of an elephant. Do you know what an elephant is?"

“…no. Are they supposed to have tentacles like that?" She asks.

“That's their nose, it's on a long trunk like appendage on the front of their faces. It'll make more sense when you see their full body, for right now they seem content to test the outside from the safety of their shell. And Urmine, those weren't horns you saw, they're tusks."

“Tusks, horns, one bony protrusion is as good as any other." Urmine replies.

The elephantine trunk moves around the ground, then glides across the outside of the shell until finally retreating back within it. Apparently satisfied with external conditions, the hatchling inside uses their short tusks to crack the rest of the egg apart and hesitantly crawls out. Covered in a layer of short white fur, the baby chimera appeared to be mostly elephant with a few traces of polar bear, the most obvious being their bone white fur and large paws.

“Aww, such a cute little hatchling." Urmine coos. “The trunk, head, and tusks of an elephant, the paws and fur of an ice bear, and I bet when they grow up they'll have the claws to go with those paws too! I wonder if my antler polish would agree with their tusks…"

The baby looks around at their smiling parents, trunk lazily flopping around them.

*Proo!*

The elephant suddenly toots their trunk, causing them to fall over in surprise at the loud sound. The parents laugh, then Gothetta looks to the black and purple egg.

“The other hatchling seems to be having some trouble escaping their shell. It's only a matter of time until they suffocate, think we should step in?"

“No, not yet." Says Urmine. “Let's see if this one shares in my instincts…" Urmine waves a finger in front of the unshelled hatchling. “Hey there, see my finger? Now look over here…" She moves her finger in front of the shaking egg where the hatchling's gaze stays.

After a brief period of decision, the elephantine hatchling begins crawling towards the egg. Urmine claps her hands together proudly.

“Yes! Keep going little one, free your sibling just as I did!"

When the hatchling reaches the egg they immediately begin bashing it with their tusks, producing several large cracks in the exterior that their sibling exploits, a fur clad paw kicking away a large chunk of shell. The new hatchling then tumbles out before sitting upright. Gothetta gasps.

“A tiger?"

Urmine shakes her head.

“No, they're a leopard. They've got rosettes, see?"

“But their rosettes are arranged in stripes! Leopards don't have that kind of pattern."

“Some other cat then? Perhaps a hybrid of two little known species?"

Gothetta shrugs.

“I'm not sure. Henry, what do you think? Do they remind you of anything back on your ball?"

Henry leans in, eyes running up and down the hatchling.

“It's odd, their base coat is orange around the back and cream around the belly. With stripes of dark brown rosettes going across their back. Hmm…" He puts a hand to his chin and leans up. “The face is definitely feline in shape. Ya know, it kind of reminds me of something I saw in a museum once…" Henry reaches down and pulls up on the lip of the hatchling, exposing an unusually long fang hanging from their upper jaw. He gasps. “No way, that's a saber-toothed tiger cub!"

Gothetta elbows Urmine in the side with a smug smile.

“Told you it was a tiger."

“Not just any tiger." Adds Henry. “This species is long extinct back on Earth, I have no idea if they even existed at all on your world!"

Gothetta shrugs apathetically.

“Chimerism works in strange ways. Extinct species, incompatible species, species foreign to this plane of existence, the magical ether has a way of mixing them up and making sure they come out functional, though always with varying degrees of strangeness. Me and Urmine are definitely more on the 'functional' end of the spectrum." She turns back to the saber-toothed hatchling. “So, if you're mostly a saber-toothed tiger, then what else is in your blood? I don't see-whoa!"

Two wings, dove-like in shape and colored bright white, emerge from behind the hatchling's back. The feline looks at their wings, just as surprised at their appearance as their parents. Gothetta continues.

“The body of a fearsome saber-toothed tiger and the angelic wings of a dove! What an interesting melding of fang and feather, and so beautiful when put together." Gothetta giggles and pats the hatching on the head. “But unlike me, you're actually supposed to have those lengthy teeth hanging from your mouth."

“We'll have to let James know they hatched. He'll want to see them in person before long." Says Henry.

“Agreed. Perhaps another group trip back to your world is in order. A trip born from much better circumstances than last time." Replies Urmine.

“Definitely." He agrees.

“And we should save some of their egg fragments, same as mother did to ours." Says Gothetta.

“True, they'll be valuable keepsakes."

They watch as the hatchlings play on the bed, the elephant holding their trunk in the air as the saber-toothed tiger attempts to swat at it with claws that have yet to come in. Some instinct kicking in, the tiger begins to bat their wings in the air in an attempt to reach their sibling's trunk.

“Oh, come here you, stop teasing your nestmate. It's rude to hold something out of reach of a beast folk with unmatured wings." Lectures Urmine, picking up the elephantine hatchling and holding them against her chest.

“Up ya go, ya long toothed witchling." Says Gothetta, picking up the saber-toothed cub. “Until your wings mature the only airtime you'll be getting is when I pick you up."

Henry sits on the bed.

“Looks like they're no worse for wear considering what their eggs went through. We'll have one hell of a story to tell them about what we went through to keep them safe when they grow up." He says.

“I don't know what you're talking about. These hatchlings had a perfectly safe and healthy maturation inside their shells. I didn't slide this one across an icy expanse to save them from a power tripping malevolent moose, no I didn't, not one bit. You were perfectly safe, always." Urmine coos, rubbing her muzzle against the elephant's face.

Gothetta giggles.

“Still, perhaps when they're a little older, and the events are not so fresh in our memories, we should tell them about everything that lead up to their hatching. They may find it significant, or if not significant, at the very least entertaining."

“Can we leave out the part where I got smacked with a pan and the one where I had to cut off my own antler? Not exactly the moments I want them to remember me by."

Gothetta rolls her eyes.

“I guess. But if we're going to rewrite history then-“ Gothetta cuts herself off, hearing something coming from the hatchling in her arms. “What was that?"

“F-f-fuh" The hatchling sounds.

Gothetta taps the ground with her hooves, filled with excitement at her hatchling's first word.

“Guys! Guys! They're going to say their first word! Come listen!"

The two of them crowd around Gothetta, staring intensely at the saber-toothed cub.

“F-f-fuhuh"

“I think they're trying to say father. Can you say that? Can you say Fa-ther?" Says Henry.

“Maybe they're trying to say fang since they're seeing yours, Gothetta. Did you ever talk about your fangs around the eggs?" Urmine asks.

“I-I don't remember. Now quiet down everyone, I think they're getting close."

The cub looks around at the faces around them, still struggling to get the word out.

“Fuh-fuh-fuh…fuck!" The cub smiles, arms thrown in air triumphantly.

Gothetta's ears fall flat against her head as the room goes deathly silent, the smiling cub thankfully unable to read the room.

“Alright, which one of you cussed around the eggs?" Gothetta asks in a low growl, eyes squinted in a vicious stare.

“Wasn't me." Urmine declares, holding her hatchling tightly. “I know better than to curse around eggs, part of my natural maternal instincts."

Gothetta's gaze falls to Henry.

“Was it you?"

He looks to the ground.

“I, uhhh, don't recall ever saying that word around them."

Her stare narrows.

“Are you sure?"

Henry laughs nervously and rubs his neck.

“Well, uhh, now that I think about it I may have said it once or twice when I was being resummoned by Malvina. B-but the eggs were in the backpack so there was no way they could have heard me! And I mean come on could you really blame me? It was a time of extreme duress!"

Gothetta pulls her lips back exposing her fangs.

“And now my hatchling has a potty mouth!"

Henry puts his hands up in surrender and begins moving to the door of the hut.

“Tell you what, would you feel better if I got you your shaved ice? What did you want, daisy and sweetgrass?" He asks, a disarming smile on his face.

“Don't think you'll get out of this so easily Henry. Our family life has barely even started and already you've altered one of our hatchlings for the worse! What are you going to teach them next? How to start forest fires? How to pickpocket? Cow tipping? Tax evasion?"

“I'll put extra daisy extract on yours, I'll even add some mango. What about bananas? You like bananas? I think Murdy even has some strawberry syrup in her hut, you want some of that?" He asks, slipping out the door followed by the ranting doe.

Urmine walks out the door and watches them scramble across the sand with an amused smile. She looks down at her hatchling, staring into their dark eyes.

“I can already tell you're going to be much more well behaved than my sister's rowdy cub. No foul language or tantrums from you, oh no, you'll be the very model of a well-mannered witchling. I can't wait to teach you how to read, and write, and ride a broom, and make hag's bone-“

*Achoo!*

The hatchling sneezes and vomits at the same time, coating both Urmine's face and themselves in sick. She purses her lips and takes a deep breath, wiping her muzzle clean.

“But before I teach you any of that, it seems I'll have to give myself a lesson in cleaning up hatchlings." Urmine looks to the home away from home, then over to Murdy's hut. “I don't believe we have any clean towels, but Murdy shouldn't mind us borrowing one of hers. I have to get you two acquainted sometime, you and her have a thing or two in common."

Urmine tickles the hatchling's fuzzy white tummy and begins walking towards Murdy's hut, the noise of Gothetta and Henry's far off bickering quickly overshadowed by the baby chimera's happy giggles.