FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Oulders's eyes twitched, his head twisting towards his shoulders with them. His mouth hovered over unspoken words, lips flapping like a caught fish; his eyes were bulging too, which didn't help with the comparison. To Valon, Oulders was an open book. He could read the concern over being found not doing his job, and the combined worry of losing it and of being invited to go off with someone with all of the advantages. Those weren't the only pages, however; there was a curiosity that most people - young people, at least - had towards magic, and a yearning to please to make sure the promised cure came as soon as possible.

"I'd like to, but, uh," Oulders finally managed to get out, "only if it d-doesn't take long. I think Ed would understand, but, you know, the papers..." His face turned more normal as he started to blush. "They're taking me forever to get through."

"I understand." Valon turned his attention from Oulders to the wall: he eyed the runes, checking each and clearing and retracing the ones that had faded or smeared over time. "This shouldn't take long to complete; I just need to check it goes where it should. No sense in using it if it opens up in the bottom of a lake, or up in the clouds, or in the middle of a mountain." His body wanted to shudder: as much as he cherished the idea of there being one less annoying student at the college, he'd have rather not been there to witness it happening.

Oulders squirmed in his chair. "Can that actually happen?"

"If you're careless with magic, anything can happen," Valon replied, his eyes tracing and retracing the runes he had fixed. "Everything looks ready. Now I just have to activate it, and that'll let us see what's on the other side." He turned his hand around and formed a loose fist; he concentrated, preparing for the worst, then gave the wall two firm raps with his curled, slightly-askew index finger.

A crackle of dark blue lightning snaked across the wall, which slowly seemed to disappear. Replacing it was a room: it was dark, dusty and filled with cobwebs and debris. Valon smiled tiredly. "I'm guessing that's home sweet home," he mumbled. Spotting some rat droppings, he added finding a nearby rat-catcher to his list of priorities. He looked around the room; spotting an old, rusted coin, he picked it up and lobbed it through the portal. They saw it bounce across the wooden floor, kicking up plumes of dust and rat droppings until it settled. "It's not a trap, then," he noted with relief.

Oulders's eyes bulged out of his skull as he looked into the portal. After a moment where it seemed his mind had departed, it started to function again. "Why did you do that?"

Valon explained, "Just checking for traps; it could have been a painting, but no, all that filth is real. You ready to go and see if it's the tower?" Oulders nodded, and Valon returned it. "You might want to hold your breath," he warned. "You won't be able to smell it from here, but that place could stink worse than an outhouse." Then, inhaling and grabbing his nose, he stepped through the portal.

Once the standard portal-user's experience of feeling a crackling tingle over their skin and getting a whiff of ozone, the full stench of the room hit: something, perhaps somethings, had probably died somewhere hidden in here. His eyes scanned the rest of the room quickly, crossing over to the shuttered, barred window. Flinging open the shutters, he stuck his head out, gasping for air. Catching his breath, he searched the area for a good target; spotting the forest, he fixed a spot of it in his eyeline. Spreading his hands out wide, he started moving them around in rings.

"Room-BAH!"

Air blasted in visible circles as two small whirlwinds moved about across the floor, scooping up dust, droppings and small bits of debris. The mess that caught up in them disappeared; Valon hoped that it was heading out into some remote spot in that forest and not the King's hunting lodge.

Quickly crossing the room for the door, Valon squeezed the key in one hand. If the lock had rusted over too much, he was prepared to blow the door off its hinges. Dodging the worn, broken and dusty benches, tables and magical apparatus, he nearly smacked right into the door from walking so fast. Squeezing his lips together as lungs burned, he pushed the key into the lock, magically polishing the inner mechanism. Surprisingly, the key managed to turn.

Throwing all his weight at the door, Valon fell through as it swung open, creaking loudly on its hinges. Panting, he looked around, frowning at the state of the fenced-off land around the base of what was obviously his tower. He wasn't expecting much if there hadn't been a wizard in residence for a while, but his acreage seemed woeful anyway: he wasn't expecting livestock, but the garden had been consumed by worthless grasses and weeds, and the small barn's roof had caved in, the insides filled with fungus. "Maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all."

Valon turned at the sound of muffled retching. Oulders had wheeled himself through the portal, and was currently being accosted by the stench. Returning to the doorway, he coaxed him outside, warning, "Watch out for the whirlwind, I don't want it damaging your chair."

"That was the worst thing I've ever smelled!" Oulders exclaimed once he was outside. Then he became aware of his surroundings, and his surprise returned. "Whoa! We're at the tower?"

"Where else would it go?"

"It's just that it's so far from the village," Oulders explained. "When I was a boy, me and some of the others came out here one day to have a look. We were on foot, but even by horse I'd say it would probably be an hour."

"It's going to take months of work to get this place into shape," Valon evaluated. "Once it's all been cleaned out, I'll have to see what I can salvage, and move my stuff from storage at the college. Luckily it looks like there's plenty of room for another portal." Peeking in through the open doorway, he watched as the whirlwind vanished another pile of rat droppings.

"I brought your pack," Oulders announced, pulling apart his robes to reveal it. "I wasn't sure you wanted it, but you seemed distracted."

"Good work, but just hold on to it for a little while longer." Valon's eyes had spotted a twinkle of something that he didn't want the whirlwind to take; probably the only valuable thing still left in the whole building. Bracing himself for another trip inside, he quickly danced across the floor to fish the corked bottle off of where it had rolled underneath some shelves. Returning quickly, he held out the bottle. "How's about a drink to celebrate? Sorry, it doesn't seem like we have any mugs."

"That's fine," Oulders replied. Valon uncorked the bottle, and took a swig; it was wine - mostly vinegar, really - but it was palatable for a desperate man. Swapping the bottle for his pack, he gently plopped it on the ground near Oulders and sat down, grunting with relief. He watched as Oulders took a swig, and tried not to splutter too much from the sour hit the bad wine gave his taste buds. Handing the bottle back over, he smiled. "I suppose I never officially welcomed you to the village."

"Well, I didn't officially welcome you to my tower of rat droppings and bad wine," Valon responded, "so I think it balances out."

They sat and drained the bottle together. It didn't take long: Valon was thirsty, and Oulders, Valon guessed, felt pressured. The summoned whirlwind was making good progress with dealing with the debris on the ground floor, although it was only small. They chatted briefly about wizardry and the college, while Valon's sharp mind kept working.

"Oulders," Valon asked, "I don't suppose you know what a familiar is, do you?"

"No, sir," Oulders answered helpfully; the wine wasn't too strong, and Valon noted with approval that Oulders could manage his drink. "What is it?"

"No need for 'sir', Valon's perfectly fine. I was just thinking about a few problems that we have." Resting his elbow on his knee, Valon raised a hand up to help enumerate. "First is obvious: you broke your back, and we need a way to repair it. Second, this place is going to need a lot of work, so I'm going to need some assistance from a strong guy much like yourself." He noticed Oulders's small smile fading, but pressed on. "Third, from what you've said, I've got a whole list of village problems to deal with, and since I'm not very well equipped at the moment to harness magical energy, I need something that I can extract it from. Especially if I'm going to be doing a big job of making you a new body. Fourth, I don't know anyone in the village aside from meeting the patrol briefly, and you, of course."

"That's a lot of problems," Oulders agreed.

"I've been thinking while we've been sitting here, drinking and enjoying each other's company, and I think I might have a solution that solves all of these problems: you get to walk again, and I have someone I like a lot to hang out with and help me sort things out. Hells, if you wanted you could ditch your job sorting papers too." He stared at Oulders, grinning and imagining him naked again. "How'd you like to be my assistant?"

Oulders frowned. "Don't I need to be a wizard or something to do that? I'm not very magical."

"No, but you know how to read even a little bit, which is enough for what I want," Valon explained. "At least for now, I want someone around who can help me talk to the villagers, who can move heavy objects and can help me bring this mess of a garden into shape."

Some of the worry disappeared from Oulders's face. "Oh, I could do that, sure!"

Valon paused, thinking of the best way to proceed. "There would be other things too, and that's why I was thinking of familiars. Do you know what a witch is?"

Oulders laughed. "We're not so backwards out here that I don't know what a witch is. They're women who make deals with demons to be able to do magic."

Waving his hand in the air dismissively, Valon corrected. "That's the kind of nonsense you get from going to church. There'll be some witches who do that, sure, but not all. They're just like wizards, only they didn't go to the college. Most of them are pretty limited to what they can do, even with a familiar. According to the church, a familiar is a demon-sent animal that the witch uses as a source of magic. Only the last part is really true.

"See, you hear about the women witches most because the most powerful ones tend to be women, and that is because they've usually got male familiars. 'Familiar' in this case comes from the same sense that a man might 'know' a woman or vice versa: they're fucking."

"They're having sex with animals?!" Oulders asked incredulously.

"Well, no, not exactly." Valon was surprised someone from a small place like this hadn't been exposed to the idea of bestiality. "Familiars only have the body of an animal. They're actually men whose bodies have been transformed into animals. There's some Hierarchy of Complexity stuff that's fairly boring, but just quickly if you turn someone even partially into an animal or something else lower down in the hierarchy, you release a bunch of magical power that you can use or store. When a male shoots his seed, that also a release of energy that you can tap into. If you combine them, then they combine together and you get even more magic out. What tends to happen is the witch fucks her familiar when he's a human, he then turns into an animal and gradually turns back into a human over the next few days or weeks - it's a bit vague here - by eating certain plants or animal parts that have small amounts of magic in them. Then they fuck again, and the process repeats. That's generally why women make stronger witches, because they usually want to fuck men and because of the differences between the sexes works when it comes to fucking."

"So, uh," Oulders mumbled, his brain still processing all that he'd just heard but still having a vague idea of where the conversation was heading, "you want me to be your familiar?"

"It's an idea, that's all," Valon explained. "While you're an animal, you'll be able to walk, which I think is what you want." Before the obvious objection came, he quickly added. "Plus, I'll be able to get, uh, magic out of you, and I can use some of that to create a glamour for you. It gets a bit complicated, but you'll be you in an animal's body, but you'll look and move and interact like you're in a human body. Obviously that uses up a lot of magic if you're doing it all the time, but if it's maybe a day or so every week, I think we'd still have plenty of magic left over for other things, including coming up with a more permanent fix to your problem."

"So, this would just be temporary?" Oulders asked. His hands fidgeted together.

"You seem nice enough," Valon explained, smiling. "I wouldn't want to keep you around as a slave." When he spoke, he left out what he thought next, which was "Unless you wanted to, of course." Instead, he added, "There'd be a bit of sorting out to get things started, but I could probably have you walking again tonight if that's what you want. Otherwise, I'll probably find someone else who might be more open to the idea." Bending forwards to hide his growing erection, Valon asked. "Well, what do you think?"