FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Tik Tik looks over every item in her newly re-acquired traveler's pack. Everything is where it should be--everything except for her book. The kobold snarls, her arms shaking as she digs her claws into her backpack, her eyes turning into feral slits as she imagines the gnome that had her book last--Gimmegee, the Flower of the Lily Nymph she had lost track of when the Flowers were attacked by some foul monsters.

Her focus on her fury disappears when her current companion, Kera, steps out from the foliage, dressed in a once-white habit, her feline ears poking out and her body smelling of wet fur. In her hands. It takes Tik TIk a moment to even believe that this is the same person as the catfolk that had so exposed herself only a few hours ago.

Kera holds a mask that shows a smiling feline face, painted by a master's hand and looking very much like a happier version of her own.

"Something bothering Kera?" Tik Tik asks. "You got stuff back. Missing something like Tik Tik?"

The former Flower takes a deep breath and then throws the mask down to the ground at Tik Tik's feet. "Like you, I suppose I'm missing the most important thing about myself," she says. "But unlike you, I can never get it back. "There's no way the convent will ever accept me now that I've so... dirtied myself with the taint of the Love-" She freezes, shuddering. "Oh, great Klaudus... I have betrayed you for... for that monster!" She falls to her knees, covering her white face with her paws, shuddering in her lament.

"Tik Tik doesn't understand," the kobold says, hopping off from her seat and slinging her backpack over her shoulder.

"There's no way you ever could!" Kera snaps, pulling her hands from her face. The red around her eyes shows that her tears have been coming for some time now. "You're a debauched soul--one who doesn't care at all about fidelity. I could tell you weren't engaged to that... that gnoll. I could tell you were nothing but a peddler of smut!"

Tik Tik places her hand upon the crying feline's head and says. "H-hey, Tik Tik doesn't understand how Kera feel. Tik Tik feel bad too, though. Knows how that feels. Can't have your missing thing back, but knows life isn't over."

Kera snarls and swipes away at the kobold. "Don't you get it!? My life is! I'm a shell of what I used to be! No longer Kera the bride of Klaudus, no longer slave to the Lily Nymph. What in the burning Inferno can I possibly be?"

"Can be friends with Tik Tik," the kobold says. "Tik Tik and friend did great things. Save Flowers."

The former Flower closes her eyes. "Do you think I'm some charity case, Tik Tik? Do you think I'm deserving of your pity?"

The kobold stands at eye level to the lamenting catfolk, her hand reaching up and patting the woman's shoulder. "Tik Tik think Kera beautiful. She is not bad for what she did. Tik Tik like your show. Wanted see more while not being held captive."

Kera hisses and pulls her shoulder back. "So, you're wanting to help me for selfish reasons, then? I should have known. Why would anyone out here seek to help me just for my benefit?"

"And is that what Kera do?" Tik Tik says, hands on her hips. "Not helping Tik Tik other than just help. Not expecting reward, is Kera?"

Kera looks away at that and covers her face with one hand. "No, it's... I'm... I don't know what I want, anymore."

"Perhaps, Tik Tik can help," she says, stepping closer to her.

"No, that would... that wouldn't work." Kera says, slinking away and standing back up. "I can't harm myself, not like that again. Tik Tik, let us just make our way to our old camp. There, we can figure out our next move. She then steps beyond Tik Tik, saying, "We must make haste. There is no telling what happened to any of the other former Flowers after those monsters attacked."

Tik Tik shudders, remembering the beasts. Large, muscled creatures with skeletal heads, yet female. If they weren't so terrifying, Tik Tik might want to find out more about them. They were on a mission for something or someone. "What were those monsters?" Tik Tik asks.

Kera looks over her shoulder a moment, regarding Tik Tik, and shrugs. "I'm not sure. I knew that the Lily Nymph was in a sort of dispute with some other power from beyond the forest, something that wanted to take over with its fell beasts."

"That worries Tik Tik. What if finds book?"

"Yeah, 'what if,' indeed? That's why we must make haste and find it before it gets into the wrong hands."

"Do you think Tik Tik's hands are right, then?"

Kera shakes her head. "No, but you're a weaker being, certainly not a threat to anyone. You aren't the right hands, you're the lesser of two evils."

"What makes Tik Tik evil?" Tik Tik asks, following the feline as she's led through the forest.

"Well, for starters, your race tends to skew in that direction, all things considered.

Tik Tik blinks at that, tilting her head. "Whole race be evil? Strange for Tik Tik to hear. Evil for Tik Tik's people is outsiders come to attack home, steal eggs, hurt dragon."

Kera rolls her eyes, "Of course, a generally evil race would have a backwards way of looking at the wheel of morality. Let's see here... think of it this way: Your people set up traps to capture and kill anyone who comes into your presence, correct?"

"Yes."

"Now, do you ever try just warning people away from your lands?"

Tik Tik frowns at that. "But how will we get treasure?"

"Do you really wish to just loot treasures from people--to steal things that don't belong to you?"

"They do belong to us when we take," Tik Tik asks.

Kera swirls around and leans in, her lips quivering in her frustration. "Has it never come to your consideration that someone taking something that isn't yours is an evil thing? What about what happened to me? Was it good that the Lily Nymph took away my purity? When she stole my chances of being a good, chaste wife?"