FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

For once, Tyler had arrived first. He patiently waited outside the venue, as the superb buff structure lit up with spotlights, and the highest echelons of society went past. He spent a little time chatting with his previous boss, a deer from the American division, who was accompanied by a gorgeous panther, in a dress that made it impossible to tell what was fur and what was silk. She was nice enough, smiling warmly at him, but he only realized later that she didn't say a single word in his presence. After a few courteous words, the two of them moved onto the red carpet that led up the great steps to the entrance hall, surrounded by the topmost employees of LIRA. Tyler watched them go, standing by the taxi rank. Above the doors of the building, the seal of the agency was temporarily hung, lit by two spotlights. The whole thing gave off a very '60s vibe.

At taxi pulled up to the red carpet, and Tyler recognized the plate from the text message Cassandra had sent him half an hour ago. He swiftly stepped forwards, and opened the door to let out the dragoness, a flash of emerald colours.

'Pay the cabbie, will you Tyler? I have to catch Emiliah before she disappears.' She garbled, shooting past him. Tyler peered through the driver's window. The grey mastiff gawked at the people gathered chatting before the building, most of them dressed in the kind of robes you read about in magazines.

'Combien?' Tyler asked in a thick accent, tapping on the door to get the guy's attention.

'Vingt-se't et quatre-vingt-deux centimes.' The driver rumbled back at him. Tyler handed him a twenty and a ten, and nodded, telling him to keep the change. Turning around, he searched for the dragoness. Look for something green, flashy, and hopefully tasteful. He found her on the red carpet, nodding to what a small mink clutching a camera and sporting a press jacket was saying. Cassandra's dress was neck-high and long-sleeved, shimmering between green and turquoise. The ensemble was kept together by a silver corset engraved with traditional dragon motifs, with a small necklace of pearls circling her neck. At the end of her sleeves, small silver flame pins glittered in the light.

'Tyler? Are you done gawking, dear?' Cassandra asked. Emiliah snapped a picture of her, and then scurried off. The dragoness had a low, husky voice that felt like campfire smoke. She took his arm, and they turned to the entrance.

'I like your dress.' Tyler remarked as they walked under the seal into the first hall, which was packed full of people. She ignored the compliment, scanning the crowd rapidly for faces she might recognize. A golden labrador waiter was offering champagne, and Cassandra reached out to take a glass, passing a few greeting words to a zebra they had met a while back at a similar gathering in New Orleans. The zebra quickly nodded and muttered something back, and Cassandra moved on. After a couple of steps, she leaned her head over to Tyler, looking sour.

'There's Benson fighting for his promotion in a corner with the Boss.' She pointed her glass in the direction of the deer from earlier on, cornered in the back of the entrance hall by a grizzly, Benson. The boss looked thoroughly bored, as the bear was going on in a seemingly unending tirade.

'He doesn't seemed very convinced, whatever Benson's arguments are.' Tyler muttered to her. God I hate grizzlies.

'I'm more concerned that Benson is going to get him sheerly by being a terrible bore. He can be terribly persistent. Knowing him, he'll chase the boss around all evening.'

'I wouldn't worry about that too much.' Tyler remarked with a smile. He had just spotted the panther slinking her way through the crowd, having fetched two glasses of champagne for her companion. A sudden rush of people entering the building pushed Tyler and Cassandra aside, a Siberian Tiger and her entourage, talking loudly in Russian. When they had passed and the view across the hall was no longer obstructed, they saw the panther cosied up to the boss, and Benson retreating as though someone had threatened to gouge his eyes out.

'Where did that _come from?' Cassandra said, surprised. 'Who _is she?'

'No idea, but I thoroughly approve of her.' Tyler had another go at guessing exactly where the dress started and the fur ended on that lady. 'In every respect.'

'Eyes off her, darling, may I remind you that you are already accompanying someone else this evening?'

They walked forwards through the crowd, nodding to a few more acquaintances. Cassandra had calculated her arrival time carefully, letting a crowd of followers and well-wishers gather at the end of the hall. As she came through they fawned over her, showering the dragoness with complements and best wishes for her promotion. It was well known in the American department that Cassandra was poised to become the Boss of the Pacific Coast area. It was a significant promotion. Politics were involved. Tyler's attention wandered as the circle sucked up to her. He looked around the gallery distractedly, noticing the new paintings they had put up. The more precious exhibits were always taken off the walls when there was a reception, and instead work by the fine-art students was hung up. A lot of the stuff in this area was cityscapes. His eyes locked on an oil painting of the Manhattan skyline. He could name every building there, but of greater interest to him were the two stallions standing by it, looking directly at Tyler with grins on their faces, waiting to be noticed.

He rapidly slipped through the press of people towards them, hardly noticed by Cassandra or her worshippers. A grin spread across his face. He awkwardly stopped in front of them, unsure whether to shake hands, hug, or put his hands in his pockets.

'Darryl, Chris.' He nodded at them, and they nodded back. They stood still for a second, grinning stupidly at each other.

'Oh fuck it, man.' Chris burst out, pulling him into a bear hug. Tyler laughed, and punched him in the side, pulling away to hug Darryl in turn. 'Haven't seen you in a long while, Tyler.'

'Yeah, well, change of department, all that. How are you guys holding up?' He pointed at the painting. 'Still in New York?'

Chris spotted a waiter carrying whiskey tumblers, and went out to meet him, while Darryl re-arranged his tousled mane and answered.

'No, I mean yeah, Chris is still in New York, he inherited your job. Jackson got fired three years ago, just as you'd predicted.' Tyler nodded knowingly. He had been responsible for the security of the entire Manhattan area, four years ago, Chris had been his deputy, and Darryl had been Jackson's deputy. Jackson was in charge of the Bronx. He had been very shit at his job, and Tyler had always suspected he was involved in shady shit. Tyler had despised practically all the other borough wardens of NYC. None of them could be arsed to handle the endemic infractions taking place all over the city, and he had practically had to pull everyone's weight until his last year there.

'Have you told him where you ended up?' Chris asked as he came back, carrying three glasses of straight whiskey, handing them out. 'Tyler, this guy - this guy right here, right? This lucky Darryl dude? Passed over for promotion when Jackson got fired. Some asshole from San Francisco got the wardenship, and is still sitting there at the head of the Bronx right now. So Darryl tells me he's tired of it all, he's going to look for a better job somewhere else, or quit the whole agency if he can't. He disappears - completely disappears, no news for two whole years, and then out of nowhere, I get this letter, and it's signed Mr Darryl T.Evans, warden of Capitol Hill, DC!'

Tyler gaped at Darryl. 'Warden of Capitol Hill? Are you serious?' Darryl nodded, slightly embarassed at outranking Tyler, who had taken him in and shown him the ropes of the job when he was lost and alone in the Bronx. 'Good god, congratulations man, how's the job?'

Darryl had to quickly lower his glass as he almost choked on the whiskey. He shook his head, laughing, and passing his hair through his gel-held mane. 'Oh man, it is a shit show. You have no idea. Every week we get a call about some staff person found half-done for in the bathroom of a gaybar with a heroin needle in their private parts and a belt strapped around their neck, or some other shit. It is just constant, unending, mental insanity. I mean, all in all we're talking about a tiny proportion of people there, but with some of them, oh man, the power, the stuff they hear, something goes to their head. They have no grip, no grip whatsover on reality. It's insane.' Darryl muttered on for a while, shaking his head, and knocked back some of the whiskey. 'But how about you? We haven't got much news.'

'Well you could have asked Cassandra, she'd have told you.'

The two stallions shrugged, making a face. 'You know how it is, Tyler.' Chris said. 'West Coast and East Coast, stallions and the rest. Stuff like that.'

'Hey Cassandra is cool with that. She puts up a tough exterior, but you guys are in the good book. You know that right?' The two guys nodded, probably willing to move on in the conversation. 'Anyways, I'm working in the west-european despatch group, so quite a lot of adventure here, a bit of drama too.'

'Despatch! Nice!' The two of them explained. It was obvious that there was a slight note of regret in their voices. Despatch agents weren't paid half as well as a lowly deputy, and the chance for promotion was absolutely null. It was not a shit job, it was the shit job.

As their chat progressed, remembering their time in New York, and inquiring after all the people they knew, Tyler's eye once more wandered on the gathering around them. There was the American boss, still with his jet-black lady, talking to the Siberian tiger. Tyler took a moment to recognize the tiger from a picture he had seen in an internal memo once. Head of the Russian department. Aggressive. He heard that she personally dealt with employees who went over the Red Line. His current boss, Lord Hastings, an elderly lynx who could probably smooth-talk solid rock into doing his bidding, was surrounded by a few junior staff members, distributing advice in a low aristocratic purr. Cassandra was talking to an elaborately dressed rabbit, wearing a jewel-encrusted gold mask and multi-coloured robe. Tyler immediately recognized the Venetian Lady, and he shrank away. The Venetian Lady was in charge of assessing exactly how much pain you could withstand before spilling the beans, and she was good at that. As the conversation lapsed away from Cassandra for a second, the dragoness looked over to Tyler. Her eyes flickered over his two friends, and she smiled gently, before plunging back into her chat with one of the most feared and powerful administrators in the whole of Europe.

There were no other horses in the entire gathering, which had to comprise around two thousand people. Off the top of his head, Tyler could quote three others he had heard of in the agency. One had retired. Two had been framed by ambitious colleagues and sent to rot in some post in the arse-end of nowhere. You didn't tend to go far up the ranks as a horse, especially a stallion. Most joined the army, became athletes or wrestlers, or did porn. If they didn't do any of that, there was a subtantial probability that they were involved in criminal activities, and were generally the types the agency was hunting.

'Yo! Chris, Darryl!' A towering lion made his way over to them, weaving through the crowd. Connor, who had been in charge of New York City since the year before Tyler left, came over to them, dressed in a smart black tuxedo, his hair groomed and fashioned into sleek ridges, each of them highlighted with some golden gel. 'Tyler! Good to see you again man, we've missed you the last few gatherings.' Tyler smiled and shook the lion's hand. They were both genuinely pleased to see each other: Connor had been the first boss of NYC who had tried to do something about the deplorable state of the place, and Tyler had been the only borough chief willing to support him.

'Hey, Connor. How is New York?'

'We're doing good. The panic is basically over. People can walk around at night on most streets without thinking some anthro is going to snatch them up, take them to a den and end them.'

'Awesome, so...calmer days now?'

The lion laughed and shook his head. 'No, it's still a lot of work. Most of the old gangs still try to make their way into NYC. There's a lot of people, a lot of customers still asking for opportunities, a lot of careless people. How about you? Busy?'

'I've been busy, yeah.' Tyler suddenly noticed that Cassandra had disappeared from view, and probably moved to the next gallery. 'Erm, Connor, I have got to catch up with you later, talk at dinner, okay?'

'Of course, no problem man, it's a crowd.' Connor nodded. He had seen Cassandra, and knew the two of them generally stuck together.

Cassandra was standing alone in a corner, one arm folded over her stomach, the other raising her glass besides her cheek. She was obviously deep in thought, but she snapped out of it as soon as Tyler approached her. Her mouth was pursed in a very odd smile.

'So. How was your day yesterday?'

'Um...fine, why?'

Cassandra raised an eyebrow, taking a sip from her champagne. 'Nothing more than fine? Meet anyone special?'

Tyler hesitated for a second. 'Care to explain what you mean?' He asked.

Cassandra turned around to look at the wall. 'Could I perhaps attract your attention this simply gorgeous sketch?' She said, pointing with triumphant amusement in her voice. Tyler leaned forwards over her shoulder to see what she was pointing at. 'I'm sure you will agree...' she whispered in Tyler's ear, '... that it looks gorgeous.'

Tyler's eyes widened. His own naked self stared back from the wall, carefully sketched onto a white canvas. The detail was absolutely superb, and it was practically photographically realistic. He was turned sideways, one leg brought forwards to obscure a certain thing from view, while his tail curved around his ankle. His hands were on his neck, passing through his mane. What was most remarkable was the incredibly gaze in his eyes. The muscles and size of the depiction sent out an image of towering, raw power, but the eyes tempered it with a kind of domineering confidence, combining with a little twitch, a tiny upturn of the lips at both ends of the mouth. A cursory inspection of the drawing showed you a powerful male staring straight at you, but if you took the time to look into the eyes, and soak in the intent of the drawing, meaning flowed into the charcoal lines.

'That...that's pretty impressive.'

Cassandra drained the rest of her glass. 'And hot.' She added. 'It is very, very, very hot. Did you pose for this?'

Tyler shook his head disbelievingly. 'No, definitely not. He must have made it from memory.'

'My god, did you literally fuck his eyes out and that's the last image that is printed in his brain?'

'I hope not, he might feel vindictive.' He had a rapid mental image of Jack staggering towards him, a rapier raised. My name is Jacko montoya, he gasped. You fucked my eyes out, prepare to die.

'So...who was he?' Cassandra turned towards him, genuine curiosity in her voice.

'Bystander. I was doing a commission at a pool in the suburbs. He walks in as I'm getting some lip service, gives me some aftercare cleaning. I went to grab my stuff for a shower, and when I passed back in front of the changing room, he was gone.'

Cassandra looked genuinly surprised.

'Woah, woah, you let him go?' She glanced at the sketch again. 'Although, on the other hand, I think I prefer him running around sketching you like that. You think there's a large print version?'

'No idea, gotta ask the curator.' Tyler took another sip of his whiskey, staring at the drawing, picturing again the little kit. 'Does my butt really took like that?'

She snorted, holding back her laughter. 'Oh yeah, honey. Gimme a strapon, and you're not going to be sitting down for a week.' She shook her head. 'I kinda want to find out who he is now.'